EPISODE SUMMARY
Guest: Kyle Forster
Kyle Forster was born and raised in Lubbock, Texas. He graduated from Coronado High School back in the early '90s, then went to Texas Tech. His father started Forester Construction back in '85, and he had gotten sick right before Kyle graduated college. Kyle was about to go to law school but instead helped out at Forster Construction, which he owns today.
In this episode he will tell us about:
He had low back pain. His back would pop out, and he tore a muscle across his back at 18 years old. He has had a lot of pain on an ongoing basis since then.
2 years before meeting Ruth, Kyle started having jaw pain that moved to his eyes, which he thought was from previously being hit in the jaw by a golf ball. He went to a chiropractor and got popped. The pain got worse so he started going to a bunch of different doctors.
Kyle was diagnosed with Trigeminal Neuralgia. It was pure hell. There's no other word for it. It's pure hell. Three hours of sleep at night.
doctors that there are very few options. You can solder the nerves in your face where your face will droop, and that'll help ease the pain. Or you can do Botox for temporary relief." Then the other was heavy medication. None of those options seemed acceptable to Kyle.
Kyle and Ruth met at a Referral Networking group called Referral Hub in Lubbock, TX.. Kyle had been praying the night before to show me a sign. Ruth shared with the group that Blair Chiropractic Clinic helps people who suffer from Trigeminal Neuralgia and headaches. Kyle decided to talk to her, and he put it across that he wanted to try this. He was desperate and was willing to try anything at this point.
At his first appointment with Dr Elder, he got an adjustment that didn’t feel like anything had happened. 4 days later, he slept through the night for the first time in 2 ½ years. Pain decreased over the next couple of months. Not only did the Trigeminal Neuralgia get better, but his low back pain and sciatica, with the pain and numbness going down the leg, also improved.
Because of the great results, Kyle has referred lots of family members and friends for Upper Cervical Care at the Blair Chiropractic Clinic in Lubbock.
Kyle Forster and his brother-in-law own Forster Construction. It's been around since 1985. They do residential and commercial roofing. They’re not a jack of all trades. They concentrate on just roofing and take good care of their clients. They offer the best warranties on the residential side and on the commercial side. They have superintendents on both. It's not just some crew coming out, throwing on some shingles, or throwing on a flat product. They take good care of our people. There's a reason they have had an 87% retention rate since 1985. They take good care of our people. Kyle says: “Well, it's West Texas. All you have is your name, and everything in West Texas is about respect, and that's why it should stay.”
Contact information for Forster Construction: https://forsterconstruction.com/contact-2/
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Ruth: Welcome, welcome, welcome to the podcast. What Pain in the Neck? I am so honored to introduce my guest today. He is one of the first few people we met in Lubbock, and one of the first few people that came to us as a new patient at the Blair Chiropractic Clinic when we moved to Lubbock. I am so pleased to introduce a local star in the Lubbock business world, roofer, Kyle Forster, and super nice guy, Kyle Forster.
Kyle Forster: Well, that was very nice of--
Ruth: Well, you're about the nicest person I know. You're always so nice to everybody.
Kyle: Well, thank you. I do try to be the person I want everybody else around me to be, so yes.
Ruth: That's obvious. You're quite good at that. Why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself to start with.
Kyle: Me, I was born and raised in Lubbock, Texas. I graduated Coronado High School back in the early '90s. I went to Texas Tech. I graduated. My father started Forester Construction back in '85, and he had gotten sick right before I graduated college. I worked three jobs doing my whole college thing. I was about to go to law school.
When he got sick, I changed different directions because I had tried in the military when I was 18, they told me I had a problem in my lower back and so my back would pop out and I would literally fall to the ground where I was at. It was pretty good pain. When I was 19, I tore the muscle all the way across my lower back.
Ruth: Oh my goodness. Ouch.
Kyle: It was a different life to be that young and wanting to exercise and be in good shape and your body not always wanting to give in with you.
Ruth: That is truth. That's what we're going to explore in today's episode, what it's like to live with that kind of pain. Despite all that, you have fought to have a successful business and help other people. Then along the way you've found some solutions to make it better.
Kyle: Yes.
Ruth: I would like to tell the story of when I first met you, if that's all right.
Kyle: That's fine.
Ruth: My husband and I came to Lubbock almost five years ago now. We were recruited to come to Lubbock, Texas from Dr. Art Addington. We had to hit the ground running and networking on the ground was really an effective way to do it. Our mutual friend Steve [unintelligible 00:02:54] was a friend of Dr. Addington who invited us here and Dr. Addington said, "You have to meet Steve. He has this referral group. You have to get plugged in there."
He invited us to this referral network called Referral Hub. The way that works is there's one person per category of professional. In other words, Kyle's the roofer, no one else can be the roofer, no one else can be the chiropractor but Blair Chiropractic Steve [unintelligible 00:03:25] sells insurance. He is the insurance guy, and so forth.
One of our first few meetings, I don't even remember what I said, but you came and after the meeting and said, "Oh, can I talk to you?" You described some pretty debilitating situations that you were going through at that time. I want to ask you if you can describe what you remember about that, what it was that you discussed with me. Then secondly, what was it that made you take the leap of talking to the newbie and being willing to share. Then even further than that, being willing to take the step to come in.
Kyle: Well, I had gone through a lot. About two years before I met you, I had started receiving pain in my jaw that was going up into my eyes. That was like the worst kind of --it felt like a toothache and I had been hit by a golf ball in the jaw.
Ruth: Oh, no.
Kyle: I thought that was the thing. I went and got x-rays and CAT scans and everything's fine. I went to a chiropractor who didn't do any x-rays and started to pop me, as you would call it. They popped my jaw and the pain just increased to the point where I couldn't even see straight. I was like, well, she had done something. I started going to all these doctors trying to figure out what was going on. I didn't want to blame her or blame anybody. I just wanted the pain to go away. I went to a point of ear, nose and throat doctors and doing all these other doctors they finally said, I had trigeminal.
Ruth: Trigeminal neuralgia?
Kyle: Yes and he calls it suicide disease. I was like, "Okay. I'm a fixer. What do I do to fix this?" He goes, "Well, there's very few options. You can solder the nerves in your face where your face will droop and that'll help. Or you can do Botox for temporary relief." I was like, "No, I'm not going Joan Rivers." I was like, "Appreciate your offering." Then the other was heavy medication and I was like, "Oh, yeah. That's what I need."
None of those options-- I've seen what drugs, my family's in medical and I've seen what long-term drug addiction can do to a body and I've seen the soldering and other things. I just said, "No," and I left. This went on for almost two years of pain.
Ruth: I can't imagine that. Why don't you unpack a little bit? What is it like to have that kind of pain for two years?
Kyle: Oh, it's pure hell. There's no other word for it. It's pure hell. Three hours of sleep at night. I would sit there and I remember one time my wife had fallen asleep and I acted like I was going to sleep so she would, because she worries so much about me. I could not stop. I came sitting up in the bed and just started rocking back and forth, tears pouring on my eyes, just pouring on my eyes.
I couldn't get the pain to stop. This has already been over a year of this happening. Work was miserable. My life with my kids. I was having to take breaks and just get out of the light and lay around for about two hours just trying to get the pain to stop. I would close to overdose on aspirin, just trying to mediate some of it.
What helped me through was God. I put a lot of prayer and I'm just like, "God, I know you're going to take care of me. I know this is happening for a reason, and I know you're building me to be a better man and I will learn. Please take this pain away. I've gotten, I can't live like this. This is killing me." You were asking long story short. Sorry. Vice versa. You came to the group and you asked for anybody who's having headaches and trigeminal pain. I'll never say it right.
Ruth: Trigeminal neuralgia.
Kyle: I know. It's a West Texan in me.
Ruth: Yes. That's okay.
Kyle: You said you could help. I've been praying the night before to show me a sign. When you said that, I was like, all right. When I started talking to you and I put it across that I want to try this, I was desperate. I was willing to try anything at this point, and I wondered, and something just kept leading me to you so that's how I ended up your direction.
Ruth: Wow. That is an amazing story. Thank you for sharing. I do believe that there's going to be somebody listening who's in a similar situation. What I am so impressed with is, despite the agony that you had, you hung on to a glimmer of hope and I think maybe that's what drove you maybe towards being willing to accept help at some point. Do you agree with that?
Kyle: I do agree.
Ruth: Yes. That's what I seem to hear. You came to us and at that time we were in-- Let us just say the old building was not in the best shape and we very kindly call it the museum. You came into this old building, there was a smell in there, it was dark and dusty. After, so there was some tests on there, and then you had to go to a dentist office to get the CT scan, because we didn't have our own machine yet. Describe a little bit what all that process was, and did you want to-- Honestly, did you think what the did I get myself into?
Kyle: I thought I was walking into a quacks office. I was like, "Oh my God." They had a machine in there, it looked like they were sitting you up and trying to make you into Frankenstein. I was like, it looked like electrodes and all these things on it. It freaked me out for a minute there. Yes, it did.
Ruth: Did anything hurt that you went through?
Kyle: No.
Ruth: Other than it being unusual equipment?
Kyle: No. When I met your husband, Dr. Elda. One of the nicest men I've ever met. I felt comfortable with him automatically, and I let him go through the test and told me what I needed to do, and I was like, "Okay, let's do it." He puts me on the table and he says, it's time to get me adjusted. I was like, "Okay, are you not going to twist my neck and this is what they do?" He goes, "No, I'm not going to twister." He goes, "We're going to use the Blair technique." I said, "Okay, well, let's go for it."
I lay on this table and he explained what he was going to do and it happened. I'm laying there for like 20 minutes after. I was honestly going, "When is he going to do anything," because I'm just laying there and I'm like, okay, I don't feel like he's done anything. I'm just laying here. All right, cool. Well, I go home and wife goes, "How is it?" I'm like, "I don't know. I didn't feel a thing. I don't know yet." She's like, "Okay, well, you tried." Well, as I said, I hadn't slept through the night in two and a half years, four days later I slept through the night for the first time in two years.
Ruth: That is amazing.
Kyle: That was the beginning of the change for me.
Ruth: That actually is similar to my own story. I never slept through the night, except in my case, it wasn't two years. It was the first 22 years of my life. I never slept through the night.
Kyle: Oh, wow.
Ruth: Then when I got adjusted, I started sleeping. Sleeping is so important for healing. That many times is the first step of the healing.
Kyle: Oh, I agree.
Ruth: What was the process of Healing? After that the first thing you noticed was you started sleeping and then describe how it went. Did you have to come back a lot? Did you have to be adjusted a lot? What was it? Did you gradually get better? Was it like a crazy rollercoaster, better or worse or did it get worse before you got better? What was it like?
Kyle: I had a little bit of pain right after, and Dr. Elda described it. He said, it's like a knife. You get stabbed by a knife, it's going to hurt, when that knife comes out, it's going to hurt, but it's got to come out so it can heal. That's pretty much what this was like. I had a little achy and pain in my neck and my jaw for a little while, but that fourth day sleeping through the night and it was like, "Okay, this is amazing."
Then the pain just kept decreasing over time. Within a couple months I was barely feeling any pain at all anywhere, and including my lower back that would pop out when I was young. I was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa," because it would happen to me about every three months my back would pop out and I would literally just fall where I was at. It's like my legs came paralyzed for like 10 or 15 seconds.
Ruth: Wow.
Kyle: He told me that once you get the neck in place that the rest of the back will follow. Well, I've always been told I had a little slight S in my back and when I was in gym when I was a kid, they would pull me to the side and say, "We got to do this scoliosis test." I was like, "Okay." Then they would look at it and they'd say, "Oh, you're fine," but it was just nothing detrimental, but just enough of a S in the spine that we call it the curve ass is what my son and I call it, because where it's that lower back that curves in a little bit and that's what would start popping out.
Then the sciatic nerve and having that pain down the leg and your leg feels like it's numb and unless you've had it, you'll never understand because people always think you're crazy when you start saying, "Yes, my whole left leg is numb, it just bothering me."
Ruth: Yes. Other people can't see it.
Kyle: No. It's not a physical attribute. People think it's in your mind.
Ruth: Yes. There's actually a couple of things I want to unpack that I feel like is important about what you said. You at the end there talked about there were adults in your life when you were a kid that noticed that maybe something is going on with the spine. That is something that I'm really passionate about. I definitely had something wrong with my spine as a child. I would like to encourage all parents to get their kids checked regularly as part of the well child checkups throughout childhood.
Dentists recommend that every person go and get their teeth checked every six months. Not necessarily because you have cavities or there's something wrong, but just if we catch it early, we can prevent worse damage. That is exactly the same with the spine. Go and find a good upper cervical doctor and get it checked every six months whether you need it or not, because you only have one spine. If you have a nerve pinch in your spine, as we're hearing from Kyle, it can actually cause a lot of debilitating pain. If that had been something that your parents knew about Dr. Blair and Dr. Addington were right here in Lubbock, maybe you could have avoided all that pain all those years.
Kyle: Oh yes.
Ruth: The good news is it's never too late, but the earlier we catch it, the better it is. I just wanted to pull that out of what you said because that is something I am truly passionate about as a mother and as somebody who day in and day out see people with stories like yourself that have suffered for years. Well, what if we don't have to suffer for years? Wouldn't that be better?
Kyle: Oh, It'd be amazing.
Ruth: You have a compelling story, but the heartbreaking part of that story is that you had to go through all that pain. I would rather you not have a story to tell because you didn't have any pain. You would have a different story of just, I don't know what? You can't go down two roads at once, but my brain goes like, what if you had it fixed, I don't know, 20 years before?
Kyle: I'm doing that with my son because my son in high school played football and he played lineman and he was starting to have hip problems and other things, so he was having a lot of the same things. We can delve in that another time. Yes, I'm trying to do the same thing with my own son.
Ruth: Yes. I actually wanted to ask you a little bit about that because you've actually sent in quite a few patients and recommended friends and family. What is it that motivates you to do that? We have a lot of people that have great results and they're just, "Great. Now I'm better," and are happy with that, but you've turned around and recommended a lot of other people. What is it that's motivated you to do that, including the people that you love the most?
Kyle: This is the best thing since sliced bread. If I believe in something, I will tell others and what y'all have done for me, I will scream from the highest mountains.
Ruth: Thank you. Yes, so I'm like you. I have a story like you and that's what this podcast is about. What Pain in the Neck? We're saying what pain in the neck. It's not there anymore, because if you're living with chronic pain, it's real pain in the neck to do life.
Kyle: Yes.
Ruth: Before we go, why don't you describe what life is like for you now and how you operate your business and you had a successful roofing business while you were dealing with all this pain, but how is running your business different now that you're feeling better?
Kyle: Oh, I'm able to wear many hats. I can deal with the marketing. I can climb 20 to 25 roofs a day. I can go and help build a gazebo if I need to. I take good care of my people, but it's helped me because it gave me my life back. That's what it did. There's no other way to say it.
Ruth: One thing I forgot to ask you about is what's the process like now? One of the things I often hear is, "Oh, I don't want to start going to a chiropractor, because then I always have to keep going." We do see you from time to time and it's been almost probably about four years now. Can you describe what the process is now four years later?
Kyle: It's a very rare process where I have to come in. Usually it's my own fault flying or trips or in a car or the pillow, the way I slept. I'll have a little bit of a headache and I come in and there might be a little adjustment, but I've had that, how long has it been since I've been coming to you all?
Ruth: Well, I should have looked it up exactly, but I think it's at least four and a half years.
Kyle: Since we finished the initial, I've had to be adjusted twice.
Ruth: Wow. That's amazing.
Kyle: All this time, usually I'll come in because I work out now and I do some other things and he'll be like, "Oh no, that's just muscle right there. That's not your back." If I ever do get out as you would call it, he helps me adjust.
Ruth: It's just a little maintenance.
Kyle: A little maintenance-
[crosstalk]
Ruth: You come in maybe four times a year or so now.
Kyle: Yes. Not much. My wife, my son, my brother-in-law and a slew of others I do know that come in same results.
Ruth: That's great. Well, Kyle, I really thank you for your time, but before you go, what advice would you give to someone else who's struggling with trigeminal neuralgia that's being stopped in their tracks that may have tears coming down their face. They've been told there's not a lot of hope, or maybe even they have been to a bunch of doctors tried a lot of stuff. I've talked to people that have this condition, that have traveled all over the place and spent thousands of dollars going to doctors. What would you say to those people?
Kyle: If I had found this in the beginning, I would've saved a lot of money. I tell you, you have to get out and you have to try. You can't just live a life in a hole. I promise you, if you make this a part of your life, your life will be wide open from here on out.
Ruth: This reminds me actually of a quote that is often quoted in chiropractic, said by BJ Palmer. He was the developer of chiropractic and he said, "As long as there is life, there is hope."
Kyle: Amen.
Ruth: Hey, Kyle, do you have a favorite quote or life verse that you would like to share?
Kyle: I always live by this, "Wake up every day like you did it on purpose." That's what I usually go by and that's usually helps me through a lot of things.
Ruth: Yes. That's an amazing way to start today.
Kyle: Yes.
Ruth: Before I let you go. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. Also I want to put a little plug for you and your business because you truly are a nice guy. I know roofing business I've discovered since coming to West Texas is, my name is Ruth, but the roofing business is pretty ruthless. [laughs] Personally, we had a hailstorm that damaged our roof and it's stressful and it was chaos. Why don't you describe a little bit about your business and then also include if people want to get ahold of you, how do they do that?
Kyle: Well, thank you for that. My brother-in-law and I own Forster Construction. It's been around since 1985. We do residential commercial roofing. We're not a jack of all trades. We concentrate on just roofing and we try to take good care of our clients. We have the best warranties on the residential side and on the commercial side. We have superintendents on both. It's not just some crew coming out, throwing on some shingles or throwing on a flat product. We take good care of our people.
All I can say is there is a lot of people out there that don't always follow the law. I always will protect my homeowners and there's a reason we have an 87% retention rate since 1985. We take good care of our people.
Ruth: Yes. You live in Lubbock, planning to stay in Lubbock. You have to see people in the eye that you've done roofing for the next day. As we've already established, you are Mr. Nice guy.
Kyle: Well, it's West Texas. All you have is your name and everything in West Texas is about respect and that's why it should stay.
[00:26:16] [END OF AUDIO]