EPISODE SUMMARY
Guest: John Hilpisch, DC
Dr. Hilpsch provides Blair Upper Cervical Care to families in the Minneapolis area. He has been a chiropractor for 36 years. In this episode, he talks about what made him decide to become a chiropractor, and why and how he transitioned from traditional full spine chiropractic to Upper Cervical. As a father of six and grandfather of 16, Dr. Hilpisch is especially passionate about serving whole families.
Healthcare classes
The five factors of good health.
Performance, function, and prevention.
Be careful, you might get really, smart and healthy. Because it helps with mental health too.
The Upper neck is responsible for whether or not the brain and the body communicate the way it’s supposed to.
An Upper Cervical correction procedure is so precise and the pressure that we use is infinitesimal. It's very small.
How to tell if you need an Upper Cervical Doctor.
What is innate intelligence?
What does my neck got to do with me being fertile?
When you think you’ll never not be in pain.
To contact Dr. Hilpisch:
https://hilpischchiro.com/
(651) 748-5731
info@hilpischchiro.com
https://www.facebook.com/hilpischchiro
https://www.instagram.com/hilpischchiro/
To find a Blair Upper Cervical Chiropractor near you:
blairchiroprblactic.com
To contact Ruth, go to https://www.blairclinic.com
https://www.facebook.com/rutelin
Transcript
Welcome, welcome, welcome to What Pain in the Neck? I am Ruth Elder, your host, and in this podcast episode, I am so honored and pleased to be sitting across and talking to a very experienced, excellent Blair Upper Cervical doctor named Dr. John Hilpisch. Dr. Hilpisch, welcome.
Well thank you. This is my honor and I appreciate you giving me the opportunity.
Yeah, so on your website, it says you have been practicing chiropractic for over 35 years, in the same town, and you figured out what works and what doesn't work. And you're a very interesting fun guy to hang around. So I'm really pleased that you took time to be with me today.
Well, all that's true. I've been in chiropractic for about 36 years now. Just ages me a bit.
So why don't you talk about how you got into it and some of the things that you've seen along the way.
I always knew I was going to be helping people in the healthcare field somewhere along the line. Chiropractic wasn't something I was exposed to as a kid. I didn't know much about chiropractic.
But even as a kid you kind of wanted to be a doctor?
Yeah, I did, I did. But I'll be honest with you, I was looking for something that I didn't have to go to 10 years of school for. So, I was like, at the time, the shortest route was going to be a physical therapist. It was only a four year program.
So, interestingly enough, I think God broke my arm really badly. I was playing football. I went to college undergrad to play football. And my arm got broken real bad, and I needed therapy on my arm. And my grades weren't very good because I was experiencing the college experience, which meant a lot of beer at the time.
A lot of beer?
A lot of beer.
And you just said that school was not your favorite thing?
Well, the PT program was very competitive. So a lot of feeder schools, undergrad schools fed into just two schools. Point being is my grades weren't too good. I'm sitting across from this therapist. So it's just he and I for hours on end, trying to get my arm back in shape. And he inspired me to say, “just buckle down. I think you can do it.” My grades weren't that good. So I kind of got a new energy. And then I had a call from a kid that I used to work in high school at grocery store and talked to him in a couple of years. “What are you doing?I haven’t seen you in a while,” and he was in chiropractic college and I thought, “wow, I've got two years of undergrad and I looked at the prereqs and it's like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to be a chiropractor.” If I would have had my choice and if I would have been clear, I probably would have been a chiropractor before a PT. But I didn't have any practical experience with either one of them.
Okay. So what was it that convinced you to switch from physical therapy to chiropractic?
I think it was a godsend. Quite honestly, it wasn't like the clouds parted, but it just seemed more fun to me. I did get some general chiropractic when I was in high school. And if you've been to a chiropractor, a general chiropractor, there is a difference between the whole spine approach. And then what I'm doing now, which is very specific, dealing with the top two bones of the spine. It's called Upper Cervical care, in particular, the Blair technique. So yeah, I mean, my brother and I, we used to crack each other's backs when we were kids. I thought, “what if I get paid for this? This would be fun.”
So it was more, it was more physical and I thought, hands on, that'd be fun.
But now you don't do any cracking, twisting or popping.
None! But I was really good at that. I mean, I could get all the bones to move and clicking and clunking. So that's where you started. That's how I started. So, my wife and I had gone out for a few years and we knew we were going to get married and school was impending. So we got married on a Friday, Ruth, and we started chiropractic college on the next Tuesday morning. It was right after Labor Day.
Happy honeymoon.
Yeah, happy honeymoon is right. So then we started having kids right away. And I might've been maybe one of a handful of kids that was actually married in chiropractic college. And we started having kids right away.
So you had how many kids?
We have six now.
You have six now and maybe some grandkids?
We have 16 grandkids as we speak right now. If I listen to this years up the road, I go, “huh, I only had 16 back then,” you know.
Keeps on going, yeah. And actually that's, that's one of the reasons I wanted to, to have you on. You have this really unique way with families. So a lot of times we see people and maybe mom has a migraine or maybe the daughter is suffering with an autoimmune disease or one son had a concussion and we see one person, but you're a family man obviously with six kids and a bunch of grandkids and your practice is that way too.
It is. My kids grew up with Upper Cervical care their whole life there. They've never known anything different. We would go to mass on Sunday, we'd go to the office and clean and they'd get checked every single Sunday of their life so that they grew up with it. So they know the importance of a properly functioning nervous system, which most people think of chiropractic as bones and spine and back pain,
Aches and pains and muscles and things right?
and if that's all we did, that would be awesome, right? I mean, so yeah, people's quality of life is better, but the nervous system holds the key to all health potential, you know, mentally and physically along with it. So to get a kid in the right alignment means that their health potential are at a hundred percent their whole life. So now we're not saying that they'll never get sick, but my kids know that if they're not feeling well, the first thing they're going to do is say, “dad, can I get checked now?” They may not be out of alignment. But if they are, we want to make sure that their immune system is supported by a properly functioning nervous system. And so my practice is full of families. So one of the things I learned years ago from one of my mentors, Tony Palermo was to eliminate discretion.
And so every time I have a new patient, we'll take x-rays, we'll do the history, the consultation, and find out whether they are good candidates for Blair Upper Cervical, most people are. but I will go over their X-rays after I give them their first adjustment. That's the third visit and I will offer them a free first-day visit for all their family members.
So it cuts down the financial barriers, but as you mentioned, if it's good for the wife, why wouldn't it be good for the husband? And if the husband needs it, why wouldn't the kids need it? So I give a healthcare class. I've been doing my class for 36-37 years, and I still get energy giving it and it helps potential…
So who's the class for?
It's twofold. It's potential patients that may be looking at chiropractic like, “I want to see what this is all about,” but it's for my existing patients as well. So I can't force people to come to that class, but I do find if they come to the class, the light bulb goes off. They understand the bigger picture and that's where - it's like, “well, heck, I, yeah, of course, I'm going to get my wife in and get checked. And yes, I'm going to bring my kid or two kids or three.” We have a very big family practice sometimes, you know, 8, 10, 15 kids in a family. So, I mean, it's very satisfying.
And once the patients and the parents understand it. We don't have to be technical. We don't have to talk health every time. They just understand that it's just as important as good diet and good sleep and managing their stress and exercise and a properly functioning nervous system. So those to me are the five big factors of health. So if I can get my patients to understand that right off the bat, then yeah, that turns it into a family practice. So why would you leave your wife at home if she's suffering or even if she's not suffering? So.
Yeah. So I think it's important to note that chiropractic is for people who are suffering and want some relief or and some help and get their health back.But it's also for people who don't want to find themselves in that pickle.
Yeah. I can't change the motivation for that patient. They might want relief. All right. They might want performance. It's like, “I'm functioning pretty good, but I want to function better”, or you're going to get prevention as well. So if your body is functioning at a hundred percent or near a hundred percent, your chance of getting sick or future breakdowns decreases. But the cool thing is Ruth, you get all three. So you get all of that by becoming a patient. So whatever your motivation is, I can't change that, but I can enlighten you that there's going to be other benefits that go along. So if you get a medication or you watch a TV commercial about a medication, 75 percent of that commercial is adverse reactions. Whereas chiropractic, the side effects are all good. It's everything, every system.
Unexpected benefits may occur.
Yes, exactly. Yeah, be careful, you might get really, really, you know, smart and healthy. Because it helps with mental health too.
Yeah, that's great. Hey, do you have some stories for us about some of your favorite things that you've seen throughout the years?
It is so interesting. You should ask that. I have always looked at my view as a chiropractor, we don't treat anything. So in other words, I don't base my patient's improvements on symptoms. My job as a chiropractor and Dr. Blair taught this along with all the other grades is that, that our job is to find the interference in the nervous system. If obviously it's going to be from the spine being out of alignment, particularly the top two bones, analyze it.
When you say interference of the nervous system, basically there's an obstruction in the signals between the brain and the rest of the body.
Yeah. So our Achilles heels as humans is the top two bones of the spine. The first cervical, we refer to that as the Atlas bone and C2 is the axis bone. Those joints are formed different than any of the other joints of the spine. So we have this tremendous mobility in the upper neck because those joints are built differently. They move differently, but it leaves that area more vulnerable to misalignment. So stresses in life. So physical stresses, emotional stresses, usually something physical, will force the upper neck out of position. The C1 and C2 bone, they protect the most important part of our nervous system. It's called the brain stem or the medulla oblongata. And the medulla controls all of our involuntary functions. So, your heart and your lung and your livers and your skin reproduction. So, it's a really bad spot to have misalignment.
So, if we can identify that there is a misalignment, that's where the interference comes in. So the brain and body do not communicate the way they should. We can live that way. And most all humans live that way, but you're not living at a hundred percent. So all we have to do is be specific in our approach to unlocking that chain. It's a very light procedure. I think a lot of people may be intimidated listening to this, like, “ooh, the upper neck, that sounds scary,” but the procedure is so precise and the pressure that we use is infinitesimal. It's very small.
It just feels like a little tap. And even before that. You take x-rays or CT scan and you take a really good look so you know, exactly…
We know everything about that person's neck before we even adjust it. So we have to try to help our patients relax and understand that. But once they get the adjustment,you’re righ, I think, the most common response that my patients, and it's almost universal, they say, “is that it?” You know, cause it doesn't feel like much when we adjust them. And I said, “well, just wait and see.” Cause they will feel the difference.
My point is, yes, I can give you thousands and thousands, but I don't remember them like a lot of docs because my job is always the same and it is just to make sure. So they may be feeling a hundred percent better. I have patients that have been coming to me for 30 plus years. I don't remember why they started and they'll say, “don't you remember when I started, I had these lifelong migraines.” So we can talk about kids.
Yeah, so how, how old do you have to be to start?
Well, I have adjusted newborns in the hospital for mothers. I checked my grandkids in the hospital. If a pregnant mother is under my care, I have nine months to help her understand the importance of care for newborns. The birth process, as natural as it can be sometimes, is a kind of an invasive procedure. And the baby's getting pulled and they're pulling the head. Well, the head is connected to that atlas axis articulation, the joint in that upper neck. So many of the first misalignments happened during the birth process.
And then, and then what about the mothers during pregnancy?
Oh boy, I'll tell you. I mean, I can't promise no pain, but the labor delivery, two things happen. Number one, the placenta, the baby is in the mother and it's attached in two spots. One is on the front half of the tailbone. It's called the sacrum. And on the backside of the pelvic bone. So there's a little hammock there for the baby.
So when the upper neck is out of alignment. It causes a postural distortion in the mother, the shoulders and the hips get out of the line. So if the mother's hips…
Since we don't have video, you're making emotion with your hands. So it's essentially one hip and one shoulder is higher than the other. So it's uneven weight.
I tell you what, pause, go to a mirror, full-length mirror, and just look at yourself. You will notice that one shoulder is lower and one hip is higher.
Unless you’re driving, don’t do that.
Yeah, wait til you get home for this one. So, the mother’s ability to have a normal natural delivery is so much better if the hips are level. So my mothers will come to me, and if these mothers generally come to me every 3 weeks, every 3 months, as we get closer to the due date, we’re checking those mothers weekly at the very end, to make sure.
So follow up question here, you just said that you focus on the neck and now you're talking about the hips.
Yeah. Ain't that something.
Yeah. Can you explain that?
Sure. So I was a full spine chiropractor. I adjusted pelvic bones and the lower back, which is called the lumbar spine. And people kept coming back needing that same adjustment over and over. They would feel a little better because we'd stimulate endorphins in their joints. It's like, “yeah, doc, I feel great.” And then they come back and doc, it's right there again. It's right there again. So when the upper neck goes out of position, Ruth, it has a compensatory effect on the entire spine. So one of the first things we do as Upper Cervical chiropractors, we talk about the neck and we have them lay down on a table and we look at their feet because what'll happen is because the neck is connected to the skull with muscles and ligaments. When the misalignment occurs, it will tilt the head to one side or it'll tilt your head to the other side. But there's a reflex in your middle ear that always tries to keep your eyes straight with the horizon, kind of like a compass. So your head tilts, your brain says, “no, no, no, your eyes have to be straight.” So it pushes you the shoulder down on one side and pulls the hip up on the same side to keep your head over your pelvis.
So now with one little bone in your neck being out of alignment, your entire spine is distorted. And so this goes on until it gets corrected. So that mother may have been out of adjustment since she was a little kid.
Yeah. So you said you used to adjust the whole spine. So what made you change and what was that change like? Did you just go from one day you said, “okay, we're going to do it different now?”
Pretty much.
And what caused that change for you?
Lack of results. So I was frustrated and, and I honestly, Ruth, at one point before I learned about Upper Cervical, I would be sitting talking to you as a new patient and, and you'd have your symptoms checked off there. And I'm looking and shaking my head, Like, Oh yes, yes, yes. And inside I'm going, “I don't think I can help you because it doesn't work.” So now where does that leave me as the doctor? You're coming to see me. And I have no confidence in the skills that I learned going through chiropractic college. So I didn't know about Upper Cervical going through chiropractic college.
So how did you find out about it?
A friend of mine, we were partners in crime, so to speak. We were mastermind partners. We went to chiropractic college together. We graduated together. We went to the same practice management group and we listened to tapes and got into self help and we just had all kinds of energy and we both were frustrated in practice. He went down to a seminar given by a chiropractic college in Atlanta. It's called Life University. And there was a doctor that talked nothing but about the upper neck and the technique to correct the upper neck. And he went and his eyes got open. He said, “John, we got to go do this. You've got to listen to this guy. This is the missing link. This is what we both need.” And so sure enough, I went down and listened to this guy. His name was Michael Kale. He was doing a BJ Palmer, it was the developer of chiropractic, taught the upper neck. That was, that was the only thing chiropractors were taught for many, many years. And then like lots of things, “oh, we can do it better.” So they kind of pushed Upper Cervical aside for decades. And so by the time I got to chiropractic college, all they taught was full spine approach. so, Upper Cervical, it was like eye opening for me. A young man that I had inspired to be a chiropractor went to a school in Spartanburg, South Carolina. It's called Sherman College.
I've had lots of people from Sherman on this program.
So I didn't go to Sherman. I went to Northwestern and I didn't know the difference. And so this kid that I had inspired to be a chiropractor, I was down to learning about. It was called the knee chest HIL. That was what Dr. Kale was teaching and that happened to be in the same town as this chiropractic college. So I was learning not at the college, but at a doctor's office and he was giving a seminar and after the first day or maybe the second day of learning about the upper neck. My friend, who was in chiropractic said “Dr. Hilpesch, I see you're in the Upper Cervical now, but we're learning about the technique, it's called the Blair technique, and they had it as an elective at Sherman.” And he said, “I think you might really appreciate this approach.”
So you learned from Dr. Perry Rush.
Dr. Perry Rush. So Dr. Perry Rush was one of my very, very earliest influencers, but I didn't get to take Perry's classes cause I wasn't a student, but Perry, he is responsible probably for I think Blair still surviving today. Because what was happening is there was just a few docs that were doing the Blair work and they're so successful that they didn't have time to teach. So we didn't have any instructors.
Yeah. And he, Dr. Perry Rush was just awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award last night at this conference.
Yeah, I got goosebumps. Well deserved.
Well deserved.
Oh, for sure. If I remember, it was like a 7 AM class. So if you wanted to do Blair, you had to really, really want to do Blair because it was like you wanted that extra hour of sleep. But he was responsible for teaching Blair to some of the great Blair chiropractors and then they taught it to more and more. So his family tree is extensive, so to speak.
So then you went back to your patients and said, “hey, I've been doing this all wrong, we're doing something different.” I mean, some iteration of that.
It's pretty close to that. So I'm learning behind the scenes and this is early 90s. So this is before the internet. So it wasn't like when's the next Blair seminar? No one was teaching. And so Dr. Ciro Rustici was down in Kansas City. He just passed away this week. He was another man that was highly involved in my success journey. And went to see him a couple down in Kansas city, Dr. Weldon Muncy spoke at Sherman a couple of times.
Yeah. And he's the doctor that I started with.
Yeah. So, but I'd go home and my head would be full of Blair and it was just about ready to burst. That's all I can learn right now.
It's a lot to learn. It's a lot.
It's a lot. And I'm on an Island by myself going back to my clinic. So I'm still doing full spine Ruth and I'm learning Blair behind the scenes. And so finally, I got my stereo shift arm on my x-ray machine. I got my roller chair.
You need to take not normal x-rays.
These are completely different types of x-rays. So it's a different x ray bucky that holds the film at the time. Now it's digital and now we have CTs. Andso finally it was June 6th, 1996. Every new patient that came into Hillbush Chiropractic started getting Blair, and so I started converting. So the patients that I had misled, not willingly or knowingly, I said, “listen, I have this new technique, and I think you would be a great candidate.” So I would do seminars in my office, and actually my neighbor who ran a bakery had a real big area, so I would take 30, 40, 50 of my existing patients and teach them this new, exciting form of healthcare, which was Upper Cervical, which happened to be Blair. I wasn't very good in the beginning. I'll be honest with you. I was just learning and, but even giving them specific Upper Cervical care and maybe not being the greatest technician at the time because I was new at it, I was still clearing people out. Meaning we'd give them an adjustment and the bone would actually unlock, the joint would unlock, and it would stay there.
And so, and we had metrics by which to measure that. We had the person that came in with one hip that was an inch higher, two inches higher. Once we got them under care and corrected their upper neck, that leg was even. So adjusting their neck got their lower back to clear out.
So even as a brand new Upper Cervical doctor, you got way better results than you were as a more experienced full spine doctor.
Yes, isn't that something?
That is something.
It really is. And it was like wildfire and I took a leap of faith Ruth because I had no idea it was going to work. Cause I didn't get my Atlas adjusted by somebody and say, you know, my health is so much better. It just made so much darn sense to me that I was willing to risk my chiropractic career on it.
And your family, you were supporting your family, right?
My wife, my dear wife, my wife's name is Liz and she supported every epiphany that came to me. So I learned the philosophy after I got out of chiropractic college that my job as a chiropractor is not to treat your neck pain or your migraines or your infertility. But to find what we call a subluxation, which is the misalignment, analyze it, figure it out, adjust it, monitor it and let the body take care of itself. God left a little piece of himself inside of us. It's called innate intelligence. So we don't have to think about growing new skin cells or developing a new stomach lining, that is automatic. But that process, every process is enhanced with a good nerve supply. So if we can keep the upper neck in position our jobs as chiropractors. It's always the same. It doesn't matter if your foot hurts or you have no pain at all if you are in the right position your body always functions better. And that's our that's kind of our our motto in our office is that the human body performs at a higher level when the upper neck is in alignment.
And you just said something, you said “you don't treat symptoms”, but yet you're throwing some of them out. And one of the things you said was infertility.
Yes.
So talk to us about that.
What does my neck got to do with me being fertile?
Yeah. And I know that as a parent yourself and I've listened to some lectures with you through the years. I know that you've helped a lot of couples in this area.
It's amazing. So the mother's womb, if you will, has to be the perfect environment to conceive and then to hold the baby for the full pregnancy and deliver a healthy baby. So there's chemistry there. So the uterus and the ovaries produce reproductive hormones every month. If you don't conceive, you have a menstrual cycle. In order for the mother's body to conceive. Her chemicals have to be balanced. And what controls that is what we go back to earlier in our talk. And that's the brainstem. So if the woman's upper neck is in good alignment, it just naturally she's gonna conceive.
I think all Upper Cervical doctors have stories like that. I think it's the minority of people who come for that reason. Yeah, we have a lady right now who's actually pregnant as we speak. She was injured as a baby. Actually, it's really heartbreaking. She was shaken as a baby and as her whole life has just been miserable like literally her whole life thinking about that started as a baby And now she's in her thirties and she came to our clinic. A little while later she came and she was in tears and said, “I didn't think I'd ever not be in pain.” And then she got better enough that she got a job in the career that she likes. And then now she's pregnant with her own babies.
Yes, life altering.
So, going back to just a couple of the fertility cases that can just come to my mind. So I give that class every month I talk about the nervous system controlling the organs, the organs produce the chemicals. I explain that very, very simply. And there was a young lady in the front row, and she was shaking her head, nodding in approval of things that I was saying during the class. So I was connecting with her. The concept was sinking in, and she got up after the class very excitedly and said, “Dr. Hilbusch, do you think this would have anything to do with fertility?” And I said, “well, again, we don't treat infertility, but yes, if the nervous system is encountering interference.” And so she said, “great, I'll tell you about my story on Monday. I have a new patient appointment.” So she signed up as a new patient because of the class. So she came in and here was her story.
She had two normal, she was married. She had two beautiful young daughters, normal conception, normal pregnancies. And then she started having miscarriages. She had like four miscarriages after her first two. And then she became just infertile. It's called secondary infertility. So she had already proven that she was fertile with the first two kids. I don't remember her mechanism of injury, Ruth, but we checked her. She had all the signs that we look for indicating that her neck was out of alignment. So we took the x-rays and started her under care and adjusted her one time. In the beginning we check our patients a little more often because the likelihood of them coming out of alignment is greater because they've been stuck in this wrong alignment for how many years? Yes, it's like I said your patient was 30 years?
It's used to being out of alignment.
Yes, and it wants to go that way. There's muscle memory and the ligaments have kind of adapted to that. So at the three month point we re-evaluated all of our patients. We call it a progress exam. We want to see if they're making progress and that patient came in and her name is Liz as well. And she's smiling. She's got a cute little smile, and she said, “Dr. Hilpisch, I'm pregnant.” And so that was three months after, literally three months after, she conceived. And so that was only step one cause she had miscarriage history as well. So, we accomplished one of her goals and that was to get pregnant and we checked her throughout her pregnancy. She might've received maybe two, maybe three adjustments in the first nine months and she delivered a healthy baby boy. And we look back, it was literally nine months and two weeks after her first Atlas correction and she got pregnant. And so now listen to this. Now she has six more kids.
Oh, wow. Wow, wow.
Opened the floodgate. So you talk about life changing, right? All we did is - and I kiddingly say, you know, Dr. Blair was the man that put all the thought into this and the theory into this and turned it into reality. And I just followed directions really well.
And there was another gal that came in. Kim was 37 years old and she come in, I think for her shoulder was bothering her. She worked on keyboard all day long and they couldn't get pregnant. And she made a note that she was infertile and I said, “well, Kim, I just want to let you know it's possible if we start you under care, you might get pregnant.” And she laughed and said, “sure, Dr. Hilpisch, that would be great.” Well, sure enough, you know, after, you know, I don't know, maybe this one took maybe a few more cycles. I think she probably had two or three cycles and then they got pregnant. I'm not trying to brag on this at all and I hope it doesn't come off as such, but I'm thinking probably between 60 and 70 families have babies because of Upper Cervical care just in our office. So you can expand that to all the different offices throughout the nation and the world now. We're adding to the population.
Yeah, that is exciting. Thank you for sharing that.
You're welcome.
Yes. You said when you changed from your full spine practice to Upper Cervical, you gave some lectures and now you give lectures all the time. So, you've been doing this consistently for a lot of years?
Yeah. I'm trying to think how much, I used to give that class of mine twice a month, I think even once a week back when I was earlier on, I don't know, figure that out, probably done that class maybe 6, 7, 800 times, right? I’ve tweaked it through the years of course.
Yeah. So these classes, do you have any of them online or that people have to come in person to see it?
That's a great - technology you would think we're using it right now that I could probably just - but I feel honestly, that when a patient is sitting in front of me, there's a different connection than just listening to a podcast possibly.
So I actually, one of the reason that I have chosen to record these videos face to face. I don't do any zoom. So we're sitting in the same room together right no
Because human nature is that relationship and the connection.
Okay, so they need to come to your office in…
Minnesota. Lake Elmo, Minnesota. You know where that is.
Um, no.
It's sort of the twin cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul we're on the east side of St. Paul, east suburb, almost to Wisconsin.
So all right, we would like to have someone like you in every community and it's partly what this conference is about, it's partly what this podcast is about. You can only choose what you know about. You didn't know this existed, even though it's kind of what you wanted to do with your life.
So I hope if somebody's listening today, I mean, maybe it inspires you to look into care for yourself. Blair is a network that was very small. It's expanding now. So now if you click onto the Blair Upper Cervical society website.
It's Blairchiropractic.com
There you go. So locate a doctor. And unfortunately we still have big gaps in the map where there's no chiropractors that do Blair, but that is condensing. When I was first in the society, we maybe had maybe two dozen Blair chiropractors, I think we're over 200 now, aren't we?
At this conference. But there's also a lot more that are not, for one reason or another, able to attend so it is growing so that is really good.
So Dr Hilpisch, what's your youngest patient right now? And what's your oldest?
Oh, that's a good one. I just checked a baby that was two weeks old last week. Sometimes the moms will bring them right in from the hospital, won't even go home. They'll stop at the office to get the babies checked. And then the oldest, 103, I think right now. Still going strong.
Excellent.
It's for everyone. It helps everyone.
So this has been fantastic. Is there something that you wish I had asked you that you wish everybody would understand?
Well, I think if you're taking the time to listen to this. I think you need to take the next step, whatever that is.
Maybe you're a student thinking about what specialty I want to give my patients as a chiropractor. Maybe you're a doctor like myself that is maybe at a crossroads in your technique. Maybe if you're listening to this, it's like, you're looking. And so now all of a sudden, you know, the universe is speaking back to you. So by all means, it is so easy. As either a student or a doctor, a field doctor that someone's been practicing, to find a Blair technique seminar almost any weekend of the year, you can find one, which is just exciting. So once you get there, just like we're talking about face to face on this podcast. You get the concept in your brain of, of how the joints move in the upper neck. You'll be fascinated and it's hard. It is hard. And I'm not going to mislead anyone. If you want to be good at this, it's going to take a lot of energy and a lot of time, but the reward is- And if you're a person that's not a chiropractor and you're struggling with your health, this helps so many people mentally. It helps with your moods. It helps you sleep. It helps with your patience. And so many of my patients have anxiety and the technology that we have now shows that when the upper neck is out of alignment, it affects circulation to the brain. So the brain is affected as well. So I just would hope that if you've taken the time to listen to Ruth and I today, that it inspires you to look into Blair Upper Cervical Chiropractic for you.
Yeah. Take the time to call a doctor near you or call me and find one. And also I would add to that, I like that call to action, maybe you're not sure about yourself, but maybe you're thinking about a loved one that would benefit from this information. Go ahead and share this episode.
Absolutely. Perfect.
Yeah. Thank you so much for your time.
My pleasure. My pleasure.