EPISODE SUMMARY
Guest: Dr. Gordon Elder
Dr. Elder is a California native. He grew up fairly healthy and saw an upper cervical chiropractor, starting at about the age of 10, for sinus infections that were probably a long-term effect of a car accident that he and his mom had when he was four. His mom had gone to a chiropractor for some time and then was referred to an upper cervical chiropractor, Dr. Muncy (a neck specialist), by a friend. She found that she actually seemed to be starting to get better. It wasn't just relief. It wasn't instant. It wasn't quick. Slowly things were improving.
Dr. Elder didn't want to be a chiropractor. He had no interest in healthcare at all until he met his wife, Ruth while doing mission work in Norway, and she needed this healthcare. Ruth was not healthy, it took her an extra two years to finish high school. She was having a rough patch with a lot of pain and obstacles. During her whole childhood and teenage years, she just had one thing after another. There was never a time she was well. She had infections, pain, and weird symptoms. Her vision went on for a period of time, she had tendonitis and back pain since she was six years old. At age 11, she had a really acute situation where her whole upper back and neck were locked up, and she couldn't move it. From that time on, she always had a headache. It lasted more than 20 years.
Getting Married changed everything. After getting married and moving to Lancaster, CA, Dr. Elder’s hometown, he took Ruth to see Dr. Muncy. He ran some tests and pointed to the spot where she had been feeling nerve pressure in her neck, but other doctors had told her that it wasn’t possible. Dr. Muncy said, "You have a bone out of alignment, and it's putting pressure on your nerves right here". He pointed to it, and Ruth’s eyes welled up with tears. She thought, "Finally, for the first time in my life, somebody found something wrong." She slowly started to see improvements.
Ruth got a job with Dr. R. Weldon Muncy, a Blair Upper Cervical Chiropractor. She would come home and tell Dr. Elder stories of patients' healing. Dr. Elder was in college, planning to get a master's in international business. They decided that he should become an Upper Cervical Chiropractor because he was good with his hands. Also, Ruth would need this kind of care for the rest of her life, and if he was able to take care of her himself, they could live anywhere in the world they wanted!
Dr. Muncy asked them to stay in California and eventually take over his practice. While still in chiropractic college, Gordon followed Dr. Muncy in his practice as often as he could to learn from him. Dr. Harkins, who had been trained by Dr. Blair himself and Dr. David Toppping, also became his mentors. Eventually, Dr . Elder became more interested in what Dr. Blair had done in case management. This led to a friendship with Dr. E.A. Addington, whom Dr. Blair had recruited to take over his practice in Lubbock, TX.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Welcome, welcome, welcome to What Pain in the Neck: The Podcast. I'm super happy with my guest today. He's a very special person to me. Dr. Gordon, Elder, why don't you say a little bit about yourself?
Well, I can say I'm pretty excited to be interviewed by this cute lady across from me because that's my wife. I'm a California native. Don't hold that against me or for me particularly. I grew up fairly healthy and saw an upper cervical chiropractor, starting at about the age 10 for sinus headaches that were probably a long-term effect of a car accident that my mom and I had when I was four. I didn't grow up wanting to be a chiropractor. I had no interest in healthcare at all until I met my wife, you, and you needed this healthcare. We'll tell that story, but that's where it all started and where I'm coming from.
We met quite a while ago now. It was in the summer of 1990. It wasn't in California, and it wasn't it Texas, where we are now.
No.
Do you want to get started on telling that story?
Oh, she was so cute. We were both involved with a non-denominational Christian missions organization, mostly for youth, short-term missions anywhere from a month to a couple of years.
It was called OM-
Operation Mobilization, OM.
-or Operation Marriage..
Sometimes because you get a bunch of young people together, they tend to find mates. It was June, I think, 20th or 21st maybe?
23rd.
23rd. June 23rd of 1990, I saw Ruth for the first time, thought she was pretty cute. I was going to be spending a couple of months in Norway, and she happened to be on the team as the assistant team leader and the translator. She was just finishing up a year, her year of commitment with Operation Mobilization despite the fact that she was still in high school. She had taken a break, a year off, and that's part of our story.
We spent a month on the same team. Then she went home. I stayed another month in Norway, and then went on to Vienna, and then Poland. We corresponded by letter, back when that was a thing because e-mail was not a thing.
Doesn't it?
Yes. And we still have all those letters. The letters started getting a little bit longer and a little bit more frequent, and here we are.
Here we are, indeed. Who knew? You mentioned that I was there for a break from high school.
Yes.
Back then, even though Gordon thinks I was cute, I really was not healthy and couldn't do normal things. It took me two extra years, actually, to finish high school. I had a break in the middle. I joined the missions organization because they were willing to work with my health if I needed to do as little or as much as I was able to do. Actually, summers tended to be slightly better for me, so I functioned better the two months that our paths first crossed than what my norm was.
We wrote letters, and it started to get serious. At some point, you asked me to marry you, and I said yes. We were still long-distance dating. I was going through a rough patch with a lot of pain and a lot of obstacles. My whole life, my whole childhood, teenage years, I just had one thing after another. There was never a time I was well. I had infections. I had pain. I had weird symptoms happening. My vision went for a period of time. I had tendonitis. I had back pains since I was six years old. At age 11, I had a really acute situation where my whole upper back and my neck locked up. I couldn't move it.
From that time on, there was never a time my head didn't hurt. I always had headache. I had a headache that lasted for more than 20 years that just ebbed and flowed. I was just a mess. I could never count on doing normal things. I was super weak. I could hardly eat. Just a bunch of really weird disparate things that just imploded my life. A happy turn was this handsome American fell in love with me and liked me. I had this dark period of time, and I said, "You know, do you really want to marry me because things sometimes will be really rough with me?" You still went ahead with it.
Yes. Glad I did.
When we did get married, the plan was for me to go to nursing school, which thinking back on it, what was I thinking?
That was a crazy thought.
Yes, with health like that.
Your dream was to be a midwife, and in Norway, that was a master's level?
Yes.
You had to become a nurse and then you could study more to become a midwife. That was your dream at the time, but yes, the amount of work, you wouldn't have been able to finish school with the quality of health you had. Then, we decided, well, instead of focusing on your career, let's focus on mine. It would be a bit more stable, and we could take care of your health on an as-needed basis.
Yes. That's what brought us to the United States instead of settling in Norway like we had originally planned. We went back to California, to Lancaster, your hometown, and you said, "I know this upper cervical chiropractor," and you told your story of how he had helped you. Your mom was telling me-- Well, actually, do you want to tell the story of your mom?
Well, my mom had-- I don't always get this story real correct, so you might have to correct me, or she may correct me later after she listens to this. She had migraines since junior high. I believe she got hit in the head with a basketball, junior high, maybe high school, but she started getting migraines, so at a fairly young age, as a young girl. They were a constant fact of life. Then, that accident, that I mentioned earlier, when I was four, I don't remember how old she was, maybe 28? She had me when she was 24. We were in the mid-west during the winter. My father was going to seminary in Chicago.
She and I were in the car and stopped at a four-way stop if I remember correctly. It was icy, got rear-ended, pushed out into the intersection, and got t-boned, so two impacts. She smacked her head up really hard up against the driver's side window. They took us to the hospital, checked me over. I had a bump on the head, so they didn't worry about me. They ran some CAT scans and things on Mom. I'm not sure that they found anything particularly, released her. She started getting migraines.
You talked about a 20-year headache that came and went for you. Not came and went but ebbed and flowed. She had a migraine that was 24/7. I suspect there was better times than worse, but what's a good migraine? There isn't one.
Yes. Seriously.
That really affected her life. About six years later, I was approximately 10, a friend of hers suggested that she try chiropractic. I don't remember any of this, but she did. It was regular chiropractic where they look for joints that don't seem to be moving properly and loosening them up usually with a pop and a twist, carefully done, well done. She got some relief, but it didn't seem to help anything, it just seemed to be some relief, and it was temporary, like taking pain medication but without the side effects of the pain medication. She was content to do that. That was better than some of the alternatives that she had tried and the heavy drugs.
Then, the same friend switched to a different chiropractor who was a specialist, an upper cervical chiropractor, an upper cervical doctor, and she convinced my mom to do the same. When my mom started with this doctor, this was Dr. Muncy, in Lancaster, California, long since passed now. He was a specialist in the upper neck. She found that she actually seemed to be starting to get better. It wasn't just relief. It wasn't instant. It wasn't quick.
Slowly, things seemed to be improving. She was probably, I found out later, one of his toughest cases, one of his toughest patients. There were standing orders at the desk that if Beth Elder calls, let her in. She was not wasting his time. She needed it. She was probably out of alignment and needed an adjustment, which is not a normal thing for upper cervical chiropractic patients. Usually, we adjust, and the goal is not to adjust, and we adjust very little and only when absolutely necessary. Well, my mom absolutely necessarily needed it a lot and a lot more than the typical upper cervical patient and more than the typical patient of Dr. Muncy.
Despite that, she got better, and she actually got rid of the migraines.
She eventually did, yes. It took a few years, I think, but it was a few years of improving, as opposed to a few years of always getting worse.
Yes, he did say it will take three years and she said it took three years. When we got married, this was obviously a few years later, I had heard that same story and that's the reason I had you tell her story. It's because that's what it took to convince me to go and see Dr. Muncy because I had gone to a chiropractor before. He did take X-rays, but he did a twist in my neck, and I was the worst pain I have ever been for two weeks. I was non-functioning. I couldn't get out of bed. I passed out multiple times due to how bad I was after that. Most people are not that sensitive.
I'm just saying that was my story. I had said, "I will never see a chiropractor ever again." However, you told me this guy is different. I trusted you. I trusted your mom. You said, "Well, let's go. He'll run tests first". He had this policy where he would never ask any questions. He would just run the tests first because he wanted to be completely objective. I told you I was a mess. I was, practically speaking, an invalid. Every year was worse than the year before, but a common denominator was, I had this distinct feeling like there's pressure on the nerves in my upper neck or the bottom of my skull.
I would point to it and I would feel there's nerve pressure right here. I was feeling like that was affecting so many of the symptoms that I was having. For years, I'd been telling doctors I feel like there's pressure on the nerves in my neck. Every single doctor I had been to, and there was a lot of them, they always had said, "No, that can't happen," but when I saw Dr. Muncy, he ran the tests, he pointed to the spot where I knew there was a problem, and he said, "You have a bone out of alignment and it's putting pressure on your nerves right here". He pointed to it, and my eyes welled up with tears. I thought, "Finally, for the first time in my life, somebody found something wrong."
I knew there was something wrong, but no doctors could ever make sense of it until this point. He adjusted me. Well, he did some X-rays and a full exam. The first appointment in an upper cervical clinic is actually a process. It's a matter of doing enough to get the job done and to be precise. I don't know if in a minute or so you, as a doctor now, want to describe the first step in the process is so important of all that testing and why it's so time-consuming, the first two appointments.
Obviously, you want to find the root cause of the problem. We're not saying that the upper neck is the root cause of everyone's problem, but if there is a problem in the top of the neck, it is going to affect every other part of your body, or very likely to. There might be a reason that you have a problem somewhere else, but if the neck is also out, then other services, other things that you may do, other therapies are not going to work as well, most likely. We want to spend as much time in the beginning really analyzing the problem.
Where is the problem in the neck? How is the patient made? Nobody's made the same as anyone else. In fact, the right side of your body is not made the same as the left. Nature does not build symmetrically. It builds asymmetrically, and not the same on the left and the right. W e can't just use our fingers and feel things and assume that because something feels like it's moving different on one side than the other, that that's abnormal for that particular person. We spent quite a bit of time looking at some very specialized X-rays or in the case today, cone beam CT scans to analyze how is this person made?
How are they put together right now? How are they supposed to be put together? Then how are we going to get that back to where it's supposed to be in the least amount possible? We spend a lot of time upfront so that later on we don't need to spend as much time.
Yes. You look at the pictures. You do some specialized tests. You put it all together. With all that information, you can do a really precise adjustment. No popping, twisting, or jerking. It's so light that you don't feel it happen. I knew something had happened, but I didn't feel it. It didn't hurt, and I was uber sensitive. Everything hurt, but the adjustment didn't hurt. It's that analytical methodical process that makes that possible. That happened to me, and for the first time in my life that night, I slept through the night, and I gradually started healing. That was exciting.
It wasn't a miracle in that I wasn't immediately all well, but the miracle was that for my whole life, every year was worse than the year before. New things went wrong all the time. Now I was going the other direction and I was starting to heal. This was right after we had moved to the United States. I'd spent a couple of months just getting the immigration process in order. We got started with Dr. Muncy pretty quick. As I was starting to heal and starting to build a life here in the United States, I was feeling that maybe it was time to get a job.
Because he was my doctor and I trusted him and I wanted advice for the healing process, maybe me getting a job will affect my healing, I decided to talk to him about it and said, "I think I might be ready to start looking for a job. I've progressed enough. What do you think?" He said, "Well, what kind of job are you looking for?" I said, "I don't know yet. I'm just starting the process and I don't know what I could get. Maybe some childcare". He said, "Well, that's pretty physically demanding. I have a need for a part-time job right now and if you want, you can apply".
You see where this story is going. I got the job and it was super exciting to me because I was starting to heal myself, but every single day I saw people who were healing from serious debilitating things that I had no idea had anything to do with chiropractic. I heard people say, "Oh, I'm lowering my insulin. I've gone off my blood pressure medicine." There was a pastor that had been in a car accident. He laid on the floor to fill out the paperwork because he couldn't sit or hold himself up. The second visit, he came in and he said, "Look what I can do." He was jogging in place with high knees.
Lots of serious migraine people. There was one guy that was 6′5″ and we were all afraid of him because he was so grumpy and mean. Then after a couple of weeks, he was the most helpful, cheerful guy ever. He'd bring us treats and work on our computers for free because that was his field. He could fix computers and that was a big deal in 1994. Just on and on and on and on every day were stories like that. I would come home to my young husband and tell all these stories, "You wouldn't believe what happened today." In the meantime, you were a good student, but you were pretty bored with studying economics.
Yes. I was planning to get a master's in international business which, of course, first you have to get a bachelor's degree. Economics was interesting. It's psychology. It's the psychology of money and spending on a large scale. I found it interesting but not fascinating. I was getting good grades and I would do my homework last minute and study last minute.
You stressed me out because you would procrastinate. [chuckles]
Yes.
With all these stories I was sharing, you decided, "Well, I do care about people. I'm good with my hands. I think I would like to work independently," and together we just decided that it was our purpose to help people the way we had been helped.
Also, there weren't that many Blair chiropractors out there. That was the technique that Dr. Muncy used and helped develop was the Blair Chiropractic technique. We knew that the amount of damage that Ruth had had to her neck, Dr. Muncy told us that she was probably going to need lifetime care. There weren't a lot of Blair chiropractors out there, so I thought, "Well, if I am one, we can live anywhere in the world we want."
Yes. It's actually interesting that you bring that up because you were talking about how your mother was one of the most complicated patients Dr. Muncy had ever seen. Well, how do you know, I replaced her for the top spot in the most complicated category. I remember making a joke to Dr. Muncy one time and you were in chiropractic school. I said, flippantly, "If Gordon can learn to figure me out, he'll be a pretty good chiropractor." He looked at me dead serious and he said, "You know, that's no joke. That's the truth." [laughs] That's how he talked. About halfway through school, you and I got a pretty interesting breakfast invitation on a Saturday morning to the Desert Inn Coffee Shop.
Yes. That was one of Dr. Muncy's favorites.
Do you want to share that story?
Well, I'm not sure I remember it entirely, but basically, Dr. Muncy and his wife, Millie, I think mostly at Millie's behest, invited us out and offered to train us and sell us the Muncy Chiropractic Clinic.
It was actually a tiny bit more than offer. They pretty much recruited us.
Yes. I guess that's probably it. Our plan had been for me to go to chiropractic college and then to move and be missionaries, possibly, somewhere else in the world. Not really thinking too much about how much money I was accruing in student loans at the time and how I would pay that back, but that was what we were thinking at the time.
Yes, or ultimately moved back to Norway. What I remember is I was sitting waffle with strawberries, and sitting across the table from Millie. She was looking us intently in the eye and said, "You know, we have built a really special practice here, and what we have is really special and unique and very precise. We don't want to just turn it over to anybody and we feel like we haven't found the right person, but we are thinking you are the right people. Would you consider making the promise to not move and to stay here and be trained and groomed to take over our practice and our life work?"
Yes. That was jaw-dropping.
We did not seek it out. We felt like this kind of opportunity doesn't happen to young students, but it happened to us, so we changed our course. We decided that this was a calling for us and went on that trajectory. I was still working in the clinic. Gordon was invited in any time he wasn't in school to observe and to be tutored and groomed, essentially, to take over for a short period of time because tragically Millie Muncy had a stroke and died shortly after. Dr. Muncy was, through the grieving, had to have some help, and Gordon was still in school. There was another young chiropractor, who was done with school, who came and helped him.
What we didn't realize at the time was that Dr. Muncy had Alzheimer's disease, and the grieving and the loss of his wife just progressed that by leaps and bounds suddenly and very quickly. Somewhere along the way, he forgot about our arrangement, I think. Although, he still let you come. We were still progressing as if we were going to continue and take over. After graduation, you worked there with Dr. Muncy as an associate for a year. Our kids started coming fast and furious. I was the baby machine for a little while there. In order for us to make a living, it became necessary that you started your own practice.
Yes. It wasn't easy. That was a pretty difficult time. I was very grateful for the year I was there because I could watch Dr. Muncy. I could watch him analyze the X-rays, which was not an easy thing to do. The analysis is complex. Watch him take the X-rays, do the adjustments. He wasn't always really great at explaining things. He was for a while.
What he was good at was telling you straight, "No, that's not how you do it," or, "Yes, that is good."
I had him observing me. I would take the X-rays. I'd analyze them. I'd have him look at them. I would show him when I practiced adjusting. The adjusting in the Blair world is like playing golf or tennis. There's a setup, there's the action, and there's the follow-through. All of those have to be done just right based on the patient's particular measurements. I'd have him watch when I was practicing and analyzing. For that, it was a year I would never give up, but--
It was a ruthless process, but you sucked up your pride and did it. You're better for it. I'm really proud of that.
It fit the mold of always looking for mentors, always looking for the people who'd been in practice longer or who'd been doing whatever I wanted to learn longer and getting them talking and getting them involved in my training. I've continued to do that. I still, to some extent, do that today and it's been 23 years since we started.
We've been talking for a little while, so we'll wrap up shortly here, but why don't you take that thread of working with mentors, what that's done for you. Then we'll end with how that process of seeking out mentors to always improve led you to come and visit Lubbock. Then we'll make another episode sometime about the Blair Chiropractic Clinic here in Lubbock.
Dr. Muncy was, of course, my first mentor. He was Dr. Blair's best friend and co-developer of the Blair Technique and was the only one teaching it for many years. Being able to study underneath him was just an opportunity that most people just couldn't have. I was very happy for that. Also, in the same town was Dr. Harkins. Dr. Harkins had worked with Dr. Muncy in the same office for a while. He'd been trained by Dr. Blair himself. Dr. Muncy wasn't always good at explaining things, but he was very good at doing things and so observing and him commenting on me was great, but if I wanted some explanation, I would go to Dr. Harkins, and he would be able to explain things better.
Then there was Dr. Topping who took over from Dr.Muncy for a few years for the teaching. He was down in Southern California a little bit further away. I often thought that we would make a great team, but he was down in Yorba Linda. He is still down in Yorba Linda. I was up in Lancaster. That would have been difficult. It just goes on. As far as running a practice, there was a Dr. Lenarz who was up in Sedro-Woolley, Washington. Then, at a certain point, I was getting more and more interested in what Dr. Blair had done in case management. In other words, the patient comes in, how often do you see them, and how long?
I'm just going to interrupt real quick and just say that at this point, you're fast-forwarding about 15 years in practice.
Right.
Maybe 14. 14, 15.
Somewhere in there. I contacted Dr. Addington, who Dr. Blair had recruited to take over the Blair Chiropractic Clinic in Lubbock, Texas. I had heard a couple of things. Well, one thing was he was the director of the Blair Clinic, so I wanted to see the clinic, hear about Dr. Blair from his perspective but also, I heard that Dr. Addington had developed some techniques that would help patients hold their adjustment longer, that was dealing with problems they might have in other parts of the body. I had patients I knew could use that and so again, I wanted to learn.
Not to mention, you took over both of Dr. Muncy's most complicated patients of all time. [laughs]
Right. My mom and my wife.
Actually, we continued to improve under your care and so Dr. Muncy was right. You learned to help us and it's made you a better chiropractor. One thing that I admire about you is no matter how much you learned and how much you improved, you're always going after that next level. There's, how can I help more? How can I help more people to a larger extent? Maybe if you get someone 80% better, what about the last 20%? How do we get them all the way?
You've always, I've seen that day in and day out, you have this drive in you to always say, "Okay, we need to do better. We need to do better." Part of it is your perfectionistic nature, but you just said you just saw people that you felt could benefit and feel better and do better. As a doctor, when people feel better, they have a better life. I feel like that's what I see drives you.
Yes. It's not just necessarily something that I do. I want to do as much as possible. I think the biggest bang for the buck, so to speak, is the Blair upper cervical chiropractic technique. Upper cervical chiropractic in general but the Blair Technique seems to me to be the epitome for most patients, the best that they can get. Then there's other things that I can do within my license that will help that hold better, but then it's creating a network of other specialists that I can send people to.
It's like, "Okay. We've got your neck in alignment. We got the nerves working right. Now, I want you to go see so and so, who's going to help with these particular muscles," or, "This person is going to help with these nerves," or gut issues or whatever. I want to work together with other people who know what they're doing, not just general practitioners. As good as general practitioners are but people who are specialists that have a high degree of knowledge and confidence in helping people overcome their health challenges.
Yes. That is why we're here in Lubbock. It's actually also the purpose of this podcast and I feel like that might be a perfect way to end this episode. It's What Pain in the Neck interviews with friends and experts, and you just set it up perfectly. That's why we want to go in-depth. You're going in-depth into patient care and with this podcast, we're going in-depth in the messaging that there is hope for health and continued improvement. No matter how complicated and what else you've tried, there's always the hope and the possibility and the encouragement to move forward in health. There's always the next thing that can help you improve.
Right.