Dr Joseph Barron providing health care in which all aspects of the body are examined and treated

Jeff Williams:
Welcome to Community Voices, a production of NPR Illinois. I'm your co-host, Jeff Williams. In the studio with me today, Dr. Joseph Barron. How's it going?
Dr. Joseph Barron:
It's going all right, Jeff. Thanks so much for having me.
Jeff Williams:
I know your mom. That's how got that introduction. She's like, I thought, yeah, she does. She does know a lot of people. There's no doubt about that. Mary Ryan. Let's talk a little bit about you're with the Capitol Chiropractic and Disc Center here in Springfield, correct?
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Absolutely.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah. So, yeah, could you tell us a little bit about, first off, just like what you do?
Dr. Joseph Barron:
So primarily I'm a doctor of chiropractic medicine, so I do a lot of chiropractic for sure. I also have a certification in acupuncture, so I do quite a bit of that as well. We're into applied kinesiology and our kind of latest and coolest, most exciting dip into therapy is non-surgical spinal decompression for pinched nerves in the neck and the low back.
Jeff Williams:
Right, So yeah, tell us a little bit about that. I'm not really too familiar with it.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
A lot of people aren't. It's kind of a new sort of cutting edge technology. It's been refined over the past maybe like 20 years from mechanical traction sort of where it started. And they've sort of added little bits here and there and kind of tweaked things.
Jeff Williams:
I'm sorry, when you say mechanical traction, like what?
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Yeah, so we've had mechanical traction for a long time and it's kind of where you just apply a weight to somebody's lower body and just kind of pull on them to to provide this sort of traction force. And they found historically that some people got better from it, some people didn't. For a while they were using it with spinal fractures to try and at least take some compressive force off of that. But it was never really effective therapeutically, like for pinched nerves per se.
Jeff Williams:
Okay. And so now this is, as it's gone along and I guess you'd say developed more or yeah.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Dr. Alan Dyers up in Canada developed the first VAXD decompression table. And it had some good initial success, but then they found that if they switched the patient position and work on sort of adjusting the position of the spine a little bit better, adding some refinements to the sort of computerization of the process, that we're able to really see some cool results. At this point, they're looking at an 85 to 92% efficacy rate for getting patients better who have sciatica, pinched nerve in their low back, or pinched nerve in their neck, which is pretty astounding.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah, no, that does sound really good, because it is as you talk to people sometimes, sometimes they talk about, they're like, oh yeah, it worked well for me, and it's like, oh, it did it for a while, but it didn't seem to continue to work for me. So that seems like it's a good success rate. Yeah, for sure.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Especially when you kind of compare like the current rates of surgery, which are around 45 to 60% effective. I hate hearing a story about somebody who went ahead and had like a spinal surgery and then it just didn't work for them. They didn't see the results they were looking for.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah, then I've heard that quite a bit like through I've been involved in like cycling quite a bit over the years and well some other athletic things but especially it seems like that when I've heard people yeah not the best success yeah so that can be a tough thing when you're going in hoping to hoping to be better you know you want to get to a ride exactly and then it's like a lower success rate for that so that this thing sounds like it's a good a better Alternative for that, definitely. So, you're located here in Springfield?
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Yeah, we're actually inside the Big Fit Club building there on South 6th Street.
Jeff Williams:
Oh, South 6th, yeah, So if.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
You go in the front doors, we're the first door on the right to the right of the reception desk there.
Jeff Williams:
Are you just in Springfield then? Your office is… correct?
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Yeah, we just have one office currently. We're looking to kind of expand and get more decompression tables as we kind of get the word out and get things busier. And that's kind of why I wanted to come here today is to kind of help get the word out.
Jeff Williams:
Sure, yeah, absolutely. And so then could you tell the people the name of the practice again?
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Yeah, it's Capital Chiropractic and Disc Center Springfield. You can find us online at www..capitolchiropractic.net. That's capital with a T-O-L. And then we also have the Disc Center Springfield website that's a little bit more geared towards just decompression.
Jeff Williams:
Right on. Cool. Do you have like any social media presence like Facebook?
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Yeah, we've got a Facebook under Capital Chiropractic, and I think we're currently running some promotions on there for like a limited time discount on that first examination, which is very exciting. I'm posting some little videos here and there on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok just to kind of educate people about things that most people don't know about chiropractic and acupuncture and decompression. So, we're kind of a little dipping our toes into a couple different parts there.
Jeff Williams:
Well, that's good. I mean, just to spread the word so people know because it's like, especially now it's like TV ads, radio ads? I mean, you know what I mean? It's hard to see, where exactly to go with things like that. So if you're able to get your word out there in different ways too is. Definitely helpful. coming in here, it's a good way to kind of get things out too.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
We've done some TV, we've done some radio, but we know.
Jeff Williams:
There's still a lot of people there. It's you got a lot of people, right.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Exactly. So, you kind of got it.
Jeff Williams:
Hit everybody, exactly. So how did you, like personally, how did your like journey come into, you know, getting into this?
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Yeah, sure. I mean, like initially Starting out with chiropractic, I started following around the current owner of the practice, Dr. Kevin W. Imhoff, who's been practicing for decades now and is actually set to retire soon. But yeah, when I first saw him practicing chiropractic when I was 18, I was thinking about physical therapy at the time. My mother had a good experience. with chiropractic care following a pretty serious auto accident that she had. She said, you've got to follow this guy around for an afternoon. See what he does?
Jeff Williams:
Oh, he worked with her.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Yes.
Jeff Williams:
Gotcha. Okay. Gotcha.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
And yeah, the stuff that I saw him do in the office between acupuncture and the applied kinesiology and chiropractic, he was just finding a diagnosis for people that had been to see several doctors before and they just couldn't figure out what was going on and kind of just like some or sort of revolutionary treatments that you wouldn't normally think of. This one patient with lupus, he was treating with acupuncture, and I could just like see the difference from when she started to when she finished. It was amazing.
Jeff Williams:
Right, And so let's talk a little bit about that with, I mean a lot of people are familiar with acupuncture, but yeah, go into that somewhere how that can really be beneficial, helpful for people.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Yeah, so acupuncture has kind of a wide range of applications. There's a a lot of different things that we can use it for. It's really good at kind of interacting with the central nervous system. It's kind of how I think of it in Western scientific terms. Right, And the central nervous system controls everything in our body. So depending on how much sort of central nervous system involvement there is, kind of how much acupuncture can help with any given thing. But a lot of the things that we use it for is I help people quit smoking with it.
Jeff Williams:
Oh, wow, okay.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
We've done it to return sense of smell and taste post-COVID, insomnia, peripheral neuropathy from diabetes. It can really help with pain management for pinched nerves that we just can't fix with anything else. We can sort of try and turn down the signal of pain. from that area. Yeah, it really just has a very broad application. Obviously, in traditional Chinese medicine, they use it for just about everything from their sort of framework, working with the energy that they call chi through the meridians in the body.
Jeff Williams:
Right, and that's an ancient practice, really, right? It's been around for a very long time.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
It's been around for thousands of years and actually China was where it was kind of most developed and where we have our first kind of written records of it. But they believe that it traveled there from India and Tibet, and they have evidence that it was being utilized in ancient Persia and ancient Egypt even before that.
Jeff Williams:
That is pretty crazy to think about how far that has gone back. And in a way, and correct me if I'm wrong, it was kind of almost like a taboo in Western for like a while. It was not really accepted, at least. It seems like, that's what I remember hearing way, way back. And then as time went on, it's like, wait, this is something that can, it's a helpful thing. It's not something to be scoffed at or something like that.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
I think we just really didn't have a lot of experience with acupuncture and sort of Western culture until I believe it was Richard Nixon took a trip to China and he had to have a procedure done while he was there, and then they used acupuncture to do the anesthetic.
Jeff Williams:
I didn't, I didn't know that.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Yeah, that was kind of like a big breakthrough moment of, Hey, our president...
Jeff Williams:
Yeah, it's crazy how that can change, you know, that can be the tipping point all of a sudden that changes, you know. Right, yeah, very, very cool.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Speaking of icebreakers and talking about how kind of like widespread it was, they found the remains of of a prehistoric man, I think he was 5,000, several 1000 years old, in the Alps, in between Austria and Italy, they named the guy Otzi, and he had acupuncture points that actually tattooed on various points of his body. So even in Europe, a couple thousand years ago, there were people that knew about and seemed to be practicing acupuncture.
Jeff Williams:
Well, not only practicing, I mean, if you're getting a tattoo, you know what I mean?
Dr. Joseph Barron:
It was like something that he used consistently and didn't want to forget about.
Jeff Williams:
Right, and it's crazy to think about because it's like, you'd have to discover more about it. Was it a solely utilitarian thing or was it also like a social status sort of a thing? You know what I mean? It could have been where something where it was like that's like a person could be of whatever means let's say it's like man this is where I get my acupuncture at you know it's hard to say I'm speculating on that but one way or the other that's kind of That's pretty significant, if you're getting tattoos, especially back then, the older methods of tattooing like that, to very interesting. Wow, that's.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
I always find archaeology like that fascinating because it's such kind of like a two-dimensional or like a snapshot of history where we see these objects and we see, burial remains and stuff, but Right, Where did he get these tattoos done? Did he travel from ancient Egypt or somewhere? How widespread was this practice that we don't even know about?
Jeff Williams:
Right. Yeah. I had no idea that it was like that. But when you are able to get that, like you said, just that snapshot, it does bring out a lot of, you've got a lot more questions with it, but it connects a little bit more of We've got.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Evidence from it in this locale at this time and this locale at this time and this locale at this time. We can kind of trace, you know, it's evolution or distribution.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah, wow. Very cool on that. So, do you have like training wise, like you go through like clinics or seminars or new things coming to the forefront?
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Yeah, that's very true. Chiropractors can practice acupuncture underneath their license. just kind of as is. If you have a license to practice chiropractic medicine, you can also practice acupuncture. But I sought out a specific sort of extra education, 100-hour certification in acupuncture to kind of learn a little bit more about it. Kind of it's sort of a brief dip into the tenets of traditional Chinese medicine. I'm certainly not an expert. But it's cool. Some of the folks that have done a master's in actual oriental medicine. It's definitely fascinating and something that I knew right off the bat that I wanted to learn more about.
Jeff Williams:
Right.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
When I was 18, I saw doc treating patients with lupus with it. I was like, this is magical. Yeah, I need to know more about this.
Jeff Williams:
The more like the history of it that you learn, to me, it kind of just shows that you love it, like learning as much as you can about it.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Absolutely.
Jeff Williams:
So that's very cool.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Absolutely. Something I'm passionate about.
Jeff Williams:
Right. Yeah. So, you. work with people one-on-one, right? It's not like really group sort of things, right? Something like that.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
There's a doctor-patient relationship and there's HIPAA concerns about privacy.
Jeff Williams:
Sure, yeah.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
I'm pretty much strictly working with individuals. I figured I just case by case.
Jeff Williams:
I just thought I'd ask just, you know, so just questions, you know.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Although I do occasionally do like public lectures and stuff just to kind of Sure, No, that definitely makes sense.
Jeff Williams:
Do you have anything like the outlines coming up right now or anything?
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Not currently. I just did a lecture on kind of balance and fall prevention at the fit club recently. And I've kind of got a couple things in the works, but nothing scheduled.
Jeff Williams:
It's not scheduled right now. Well, once again, we're in the studio with Dr. Joseph Barron. Capitol Chiropractic and Disc Center here in Springfield, Illinois, just in the studio, kind of filling us in on some of the things that he does at his practice. Man, thanks a lot for coming into the studio. Is there any other things you want to add?
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Thanks again so much for having me, Jeff. It’s an awesome opportunity to just again try and get the word out.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah, get the word out a little.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
That there's help for the problems that they're having and maybe in some places that they didn't expect or didn't know was possible.
Jeff Williams:
And let people know your location again.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Yeah, so we're at 3631 South 6th Street, Suite B. So that's inside the big fit club there on the frontage Rd. on South 6th Street. And we're the first door to the right, to the right of the reception desk.
Jeff Williams:
And then those websites again.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
There's www..capitolchiropractic.net. Remember capital T-O-L. and then disccenterspringfield.com.
Jeff Williams:
All right, Joseph, thanks a lot for coming in.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Thanks again, Jeff.
Jeff Williams:
All right, we'll see you.
Dr. Joseph Barron:
Awesome.
Jeff Williams:
Cool. You cover cover everything you think you got? Yeah, Right on. Cool. I like it. Nice seeing you. Yeah, No, that's good for sure. So. Community Voices is events that you might have missed and conversations with neighbors, artists, and area businesspeople. Suggest a guest or comment at communityvoices@nprillinois.org. Get to know your neighbors with Community Voices at noon and 10 p.m. and on demand at nprillinois.org. NPR Illinois 91.9 And thank you for your support. Community Voices is a production of NPR Illinois.