Empowering Health: Eileen Kopsaftis on Pain and Aging Myths

In this episode of Taking Healthcare by Storm, Quality Insights Medical Director Dr. Jean Storm speaks with Eileen Kopsaftis, a physical therapist, chronic pain consultant, educator, and author.

Eileen explains how personal loss shaped her focus on preventing chronic disease through movement, nutrition, and self-care, and urges people to rely on proven experts rather than AI or wellness marketing. She challenges myths of inevitable decline with aging and outlines key drivers of chronic pain, including unresolved movement dysfunction, compensation patterns, and food-driven inflammation, while calling for nutrition to be required in medical education.

If you have any topics or guests you'd like to see on future episodes, reach out to us on our website.

The views and opinions expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views, positions, or policies of Quality Insights. Publication number QI-081426-GK

Transcript

Welcome to "Taking Healthcare by Storm: Industry Insights," the podcast that delves into the captivating intersection of innovation, science, compassion, and care. 

In each episode, Quality Insights’ Medical Director Dr. Jean Storm will have the privilege of engaging with leading experts across diverse fields, including dieticians, pharmacists, and brave patients navigating their own healthcare journeys. 

Our mission is to bring you the best healthcare insights, drawing from the expertise of professionals across West Virginia, Pennsylvania and the nation.

Subscribe now, and together, we can take healthcare by storm.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Taking Healthcare by Storm. I am Dr. Jean Storm, the medical director here at Quality Insights. Today's guest is Eileen Kopsaftis, a physical therapist, chronic pain consultant, educator, and author who has spent decades helping people understand the root causes of pain, movement dysfunction, and chronic disease. These are big things that we're all thinking about these days. After losing two brothers in their 40s, one to cancer and the other to heart disease, Eileen became deeply committed to helping others avoid the same fate through education, movement, nutrition, and self-care. Over the course of her career, she evolved from relying primarily on manual therapy techniques to empowering people to better understand and fix themselves through what she describes as science-based approaches to movement, nutrition, and healthy aging, something we're all looking for. She is trained in applied functional science, is a certified Melt instructor, and Melt, M-E-L-T, stands for Myofascial Energetic Length Technique, and has worked with people around the world seeking alternatives to chronic pain, medications, and surgery. Eileen is the author of two thought-provoking books, Pain Culprits and Aging Culprits. In them, she challenges many conventional assumptions about pain, aging, mobility, and what it really means to stay healthy and independent as we grow older Today we're going to be exploring why chronic pain has become so widespread. We're gonna be talking about some of the biggest myths surrounding aging, whether our society has become obsessed with youth, and the promises and pitfalls of the wellness industry, and how technologies like AI may shape the future of healthcare and prevention. Eileen, I am so excited for this conversation. Thank you so much for joining me today. Yes, thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here and hope that this information helps a lot of people. Yes. You have said that even as a child you were always searching for truth, and I'm just gonna say I align with that, that resonates with me, and that losing two brothers in their 40s profoundly shaped your mission. How did these personal experiences lead you to the work that you're doing today? Well, you know, when, when events happen in our lives, it does kinda change the trajectory, sometimes a little bit, sometimes a lot. And I was relatively nutritionally health conscious at the time that they both passed, and they would always tease me because I ate healthy. And I'm still here, and I'm 67, and they're not. So I think there's something to be said for nutrition. Now of course, things can happen to us that are outside our control, but for the most part, I just looked at the differences. I mean, their lifestyle, their food intake, their... Everything was not what would promote a healthy body. And I'm not saying that everyone who gets, you know, disease deserves it or they brought it on themselves, so I don't want people to hear what I'm not saying. But what I am saying is there's, there's a lot of confusion out there about what actually brings health, and they actually did a poll, and they found that most Americans think that it's easier to do their taxes than it is to know how to eat healthy. Now, that says something about mainstream knowledge, mainstream understanding. We're inundated now with AI all over the place. I'm not here to bash AI, but I will tell you it's the worst source of healthcare information or medical information. You do not wanna go there, and I could go into an hour on why, but I'll just leave it at that. And what I found is there's a really important question for people to ask. When someone recommends something All you need to do is say, "Okay, how long have you been doing what you're doing, and how many people have you helped?" That's the bottom line. It doesn't really matter how many letters are after your name or, you know, what kind of degrees you have or, a lot of people are just shooting from the hip. They're sharing something they learned from a neighbor or they read from some best-selling book, which a lot of the times, those bestsellers are very inaccurate in their reporting on the data. So, the bottom line is, how long has someone been doing what they're doing and how many people have they helped? And when I earned my nutrition educator diploma, which was a 900-hour program, and taught by the Wellness Forum Institute, which is not industry funded, so there's no bias. It was pure data. And the, the experts that I studied under, the doctors and the, the other health experts, they've been helping people improve their health, eliminate the need for medications, and get their life back, and they've been doing it for 30, 40, or more years. So I think that track record speaks for itself. Now, we can go online and we can search all kinds of stuff, and most people are unaware of this, but when you, when you click a link, AI is gonna give you more of that information. So it thinks, "Oh, you only wanna know about this w- side." So you're not gonna get a balanced reporting of the information out there. So I guess I should stop there, or I could keep going. I mean, it's very interesting, and I don't think- Mm ... a lot of people realize this, and I try to tell, um, individuals in my life the same way. But I think we'll explore it more in the, as, as we go. I wanted to start with your book, Aging Culprits and as you were talking about assumptions, this book challenges a lot of assumptions people have about getting older. Yes. So tell us... Yes. So what are some of the biggest myths around aging that you think people have just accepted as normal when- Oh ... they really shouldn't? Yeah, well, chapter one, uh, y- is probably the most important one, and it's because we've been fed a certain narrative our entire life, that we're supposed to decline, we're supposed to end up on a shoebox of medications, we're supposed to need disposable underwear, we're supposed to end up losing our independence at some point, depending on how long we last on the planet, and life is supposed to lose quality. As we get older, we're not supposed to be able to do the things that we love to do, especially if it requires physical exertion. We're supposed to decline. That is probably the worst, most offending factor in why people age poorly. Because the fact is, on a cellular level, the human body is not designed to decline. Now, there's tons of theories out there on aging, and I've studied them all. I mean, I could make your eyes glaze over and talk about cellular senescence and all this other stuff, but nobody's been able to prove why the human body declines. And I can tell you right now, I've worked with people who were over 100 years old, still independent, driving, shopping, cooking, cleaning, doing their own finances, living life large. I've worked with people in their 60s who were needing a wheelchair to cross the kitchen, and I've seen the difference in their lives. So it's really what we believe is gonna happen to us. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I believe I'm supposed to decline, I'm right. If I believe I can prevent that or do a lot to reduce my risk of that, I'm right. So it depends on what your belief is, and it's gonna shape and color every decision you make in your lifestyle, your choices, your decisions. So it really matters what you believe, and we need to reject the narrative. I mean, I have an online academy, it's called Have Lifelong Wellbeing Academy, and my students, I call them that, they're, um, they're mostly 60 plus, some in their 70s and 80s, and they've decided to reject the narrative. They wanna age well. They wanna be able to get on the ground and play with their grandkids. They wanna be able to climb stairs or pick up a bag of garden mulch or take a hike in the woods without falling because of balance deficits. and they're doing it. the human body is so resilient and so amazing. When you do the right things the right way, you see progress. Doesn't matter how old you are. Yes. Consistency is key. Yes. Doing the right consistently. Yes. We live in a culture that's terrified of aging, and we're clearly obsessed with youth. Do you think we've become an age-obsessed society? And how does that mindset affect people physically and emotionally? Well, sadly, I think a lot of it is more vanity. It's like, how do we look? I mean, you know, the, the beauty industry is a massive industry. I, I don't even know how many billions of dollars it's worth. But we wanna buy every cream, every lotion, every whatever we can buy, supplements. We wanna load our body with as many supplements as possible that's going to prevent aging. You know, we're doing a lot of these things that aren't necessarily the things that will do it. It's actually very simple. Nourish your body properly, hydrate your body properly, move your body properly, and be in a community where you're supported by people who reject the narrative so that you've got support. And of course, if you don't know what to do, find an expert to guide you. But all of the things that people are seeking, most of the time it's smoke and mirrors. It's not gonna make a difference. What really makes a difference is the simple things People do not like the simple things sometimes. I know. I know. It's like they think it's not gonna work. They want, like, some kind of magic, um- Mm-hmm ... hocus pocus thing that, you know- Yeah, yeah ... it was found in a cave in Madagascar, you know, 5,000 years ago or something. Right, they want some magic elixir some, some, you know, magic pill. And when you look at media, there's always some new thing that's out. I think right now creatine is the big buzzword, and it's so funny. You know, I've had so many people email, "What do you think of creatine? Is it..." So, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, here we go again," it's craziness. And so the simple thing is fruits and vegetables have so many antioxidants in them, they can literally protect your cells and radically reduce the aging process of free radicals because... And I- and I'll give just a tiny little science lesson here, if I may. Yeah. For people who might remember when they took science in school a cell has an outer shell, and the outer shell has electrons, and those electrons like to be in pairs. They don't like to be alone. And so what happens is a free radical has a single electron that doesn't have a partner, and it doesn't wanna go to the dance alone. So that cell goes about the body looking where it can steal an electron, and that's what causes harm to whatever cell it steals it from. But here's the kicker. If you are consuming lots of plant foods... Now, I'm not saying people have to be vegan, okay? It's a good choice, but I'm not saying it's required, 'cause the data doesn't really show that. There is a, an amount that you wanna reduce animal intake to radically lower your risks. But to get back to the fruits and vegetables, the more you consume they, the antioxidants in them, the outer shell is so packed with electrons that it's giving them away like, you know, somebody throwing money off the top of a building, and those free radicals get eliminated. They get annihilated. they get what they need, they stop searching, and they stop doing damage. So we wanna get as many plants in our body as we can, bottom line. Yeah, and I don't know if people really, truly understand it, but it, it is. That's a miracle cure, is fruits and vegetables. I mean- Yes ... It's funny because I think if we're in a different space and we weren't doing fruits and vegetables, maybe fruits and vegetables would be thought of as the miracle cure, like, in our day and age. But it's just- Yes ... they're so present that it's, like, it's very odd to me. We could switch a little bit to chronic pain. I've seen many people dealing with chronic pain because I was a, a nursing home doctor. I still am in, in some respects, for a long time. So I've seen individuals who are in the nursing home, and many of the, these individuals have chronic pain. And obviously, they have chronic pain, and they can't live alone and take care of themselves, and they have chronic disease. It affects millions of people. But a lot of treatments are... only provide temporary relief. We know that pain medication carries a lot of side effects. We know opioids really are not good. We've known that for a long time. Why do you think so many people are suffering from chronic pain today? Mm-hmm. And what do you feel that conventional medicine is missing? Well that's a big answer, but I'll do my best to kinda condense it. So the primary causes of chronic pain, obviously somebody could have an injury and it didn't heal properly, and by that I mean they didn't rehab it properly. So it never restored in full range of motion or function, and they didn't know that because the pain might have stopped. So now that body part's not working properly, but there's no notice of it, but because of that, it creates this compensatory action in the body to work around it, and other body parts start to complain because they're doing jobs in a way they aren't designed to do them. So now you'll end up with pain someplace else, and you can't resolve it because you're only treating the area of pain. So if someone's shoulder hurts, everybody's gonna ice it, heat it, stretch it, exercise it, inject it, surgically alter it. But if the reason that shoulder has pain is because the hip below or even an ankle below is not functioning properly, the shoulder will never get better. And so now it becomes chronic pain, and it will snowball and hit all areas of the body because there's areas of the body that are not working right. And so to me, that's, that's a very important cause of chronic pain. There's another cause of chronic pain, which is chronic inflammation which is mostly food-driven. And everybody's familiar, there's, there's all kinds of stuff out there on the internet about anti-inflammatory diets, so this isn't new news to anybody. But there are certain foods that promote inflammation. They're loaded with something called arachidonic acid, and What happens is when you consume that, our body needs it, it's required for life, but our body will make what we need from plant foods. The linoleic acids and things, our body will convert to arachidonic acid and we won't get more than we need. But there are certain foods that are loaded with that, and so we get more than we need, and it promotes the inflammatory process of the body. It promotes these inflammatory chemicals to be released. And so that is a big driver of that. And the Stanford University School of Medicine did a study years ago to determine the actual cause of joint damage, and they determined with their research it is not compression, it is not wear and tear, it is not old age, it is chronic inflammation So if we can influence that with our food choices, we can have a huge impact on how our joints feel. And it's never too late. I, I had a couple come to one of my nutrition classes, I was teaching in the, the medical boardroom in the building I was working at, and, uh, she said she had no joint pain when she followed what she called my regimen. I think she was from Finland. But it's never too late to do the right things the right way because you don't know. There's no potential harm and only potential benefit. So understanding that. Also, certain foods will reduce blood supply. Uh, Dr. Lena Kapila has done extensive research, she's prolifically published in research studies, on lumbar artery disease. Now, that's her term, and I'm not wanting to get everybody worried, "Oh my gosh, there's another disease I gotta be scared of." What I want to explain is what she found with her research is that you have arteries that provide blood supply to the lumbar spine, specifically the discs and, and the muscles and the areas around it. And what she found with her research, that whenever that blood supply was impaired by the clinical studies, people had back pain, degenerative disc disease, sciatic pain, deep hip pain with exercise. She literally was able to notice and observe which specific arter- was impaired and which specific symptoms people would have. Now, I found this when I work with people, typically when you want to improve low back pain, it's almost always the hips below or the trunk above. But I've also worked with people who, they have the standard American diet, so it's impairing circulation and promoting inflammation, and I chase my tail trying to get them better, and I realize they probably have impaired circulation to the lumbar spine and that's why they're not better. And I'll never forget, I worked with a retired pediatrician, and he did not wanna change his diet. He was retired and he felt like it was overwhelm. Well, we did everything we could do between, you know... I even did manual work 'cause I met him at a conference, and then of course the movement work, the melt work. Nothing helped. As a matter of fact, the more he did, the worse he felt, which is a sign of impaired circulation. And so I think he contacted me maybe three or four months later, maybe it was a little longer than that, and he said he and his wife had finally decided to change their diet and he had no more pain So there are different reasons that chronic pain is not addressed. And then I believe the number one reason that the medical profession fails miserably at resolving chronic pain, because we know there's way too many pain clinics in this country, there's way too many pain management offices, and who wants their pain managed? I don't know about you, but if I've got pain, I don't, I don't want it. I wanna get rid of it. I don't wanna manage it. And so I find that one of the biggest reasons that, that they fail is because they're looking at the person as a body part As I said, you know if it's the low back, it's probably not the low back that's mechanically off. It's probably the hips not performing correctly or the trunk not performing correctly, and I can go into detail of why that happens maybe at a later question. But I wanna make sure I answer this one. If the knees now has problems, they're only gonna see you as a knee. Yeah. They're not gonna look above or below. So they're gonna fail in their attempt to help you. And I tell people, "When you go to seek help for pain, if the person doesn't see you as a whole body and understand the connection, they're gonna be limited in how much they can help you." Right. Because it's almost never the body part that's hurting that's causing the problem. Right. You've gotta find the culprit. I agree. I agree. We could talk a lot. You and I probably could talk a lot about this, but I wanna just d- the, I wanna talk about this, you know, looking at the whole person. There is... I've heard several people say that pain is all in the, the brain or- influenced by the nervous system. How do you view that idea? And y- you me- yeah, I think you alluded to this. Do you think people misunderstand the relationship between body, brain, and pain? Well, I think there is something to that. Dr. John Sarno actually worked with people who had chronic issues that didn't resolve, and he wrote several books, and he was pretty successful at helping a lot of people. He actually had a facility people could go to, and he called it tension myositis syndrome, TMS, and it was related to unresolved emotional issues. Now, I'm not saying this is the same with everybody, 'cause I've helped way too many people in, you know, several sessions, and I didn't counsel them. I didn't walk them through any emotional trauma from their past, and we got them better. So this is not everyone. But he found that there was a good p- portion of the population that... And, and I'll explain how he explained it. It was very, very easy to understand. Say someone has really deep grief because a spouse passed, and they're angry at the spouse for dying. Now, they can't tell people that because that wouldn't be socially acceptable. So now they just kind of suppress that, and it becomes a physical symptom in the body because that's acceptable to society. "Oh, I have this, this pain that won't go away." Well, nobody's gonna look at you badly because of that, but if you say you're mad at your spouse for dying, that's a different s- subject. So anyhow, a lot of people were able to work through stuff just by reading his book and figuring out, "Oh my gosh, yeah, I got this thing from my past that I never resolved." And, and they work through it and they resolve their issues. So there is something to be said for that connection. Now, there's also the fact that nerves can fire abnormally. I mean, there's something called allodynia, which means the, the pain nerve cell is reporting abnormally, which means somebody could just have a fan blowing air on a body part, and their brain perceives it as extreme pain. Mm-hmm. So that's a nerve reporting abnormally, and there are things that can be done to help with that. But there are some times when nerves overreact they're not performing properly and things need to be done to calm that down. But again that's not the person thinking they have pain and, like, making it up or whatever. That is something going on in the body anatomically that's, you know, physiologically not functioning properly. So I think there's a lot more to that than people think, and I think it's very dangerous to start to just suppose that someone's pain is just because they believe it is, but it's not. I think that's dangerous. Yeah. Yes. I agree. This is a very, um, nuanced topic, I've found. Yes. Maybe we can talk about it again sometime. Yes, yes. I always need to bring AI, uh, into the conversation, especially if we're talking about healthcare, anything in health. Do you think AI could meaningfully help chronic disease prevention or movement analysis or personalized health, or do you think there's limits to what AI can do in this space of chronic pain and chronic disease? Yeah, well, I'll preface my answer By saying it's called artificial intelligence, but that's a mistitle because intelligence means the ability to think. It doesn't have the ability to think. What it has is the ability to retrieve information So it's only based on the information it's been fed. And then it has to know what information to provide based on the question or the query, and it has to decide, "Well, should I give this information or should I give that information?" And it doesn't really have the ability to do that accurately. And there is data out there where they did a s- they did studies, and it's quite scary. Uh, they fed AI symptoms of an aneurysm, and one answer was, "Go to the ER," which is accurate, right? You're, 'cause you're gonna die if you don't. The other answer was, "Go lie down in a dark room." Now, that would kill someone. And when I'm, when I'm assessing someone, when I'm doing a consult, I'm asking them questions because I understand, based on my 30-plus years of experience and knowledge, how the body functions as a whole, and I know the connections. AI's never gonna know that. It's never gonna ask somebody the right questions. When they go on there asking about shoulder pain, it's never gonna ask them, "Do you have a, a history of an ankle sprain? Do you have..." I- it's never gonna ask them that. It's only gonna spit out all the information it has on shoulders, which is not really all that helpful in the bottom line. I mean, before AI, you could just do an internet search and get the same answers. So I don't really see how it can potentially become what people think it can become. I don't think it's capable of that. Yeah. There's definitely limits and, you know, y- you ask somebody, "Do you want an AI nurse?" And I think I know what everyone would say. So, you know, there's limits, definitely. Yes. Yes. I'm very interested in the wellness industry, and it's exploded over the past decade. It can feel very overwhelming. It's full of conflicting advice. You know, we, we were talking about, you know, creatine is the big thing now, which i- is odd, 'cause creatine has been around f- forever, right? But it's like the new big thing now. Mm-hmm. Has the wellness industry gone off the rails in some way? I mean, I think I saw somebody, like, injecting their own urine at at one point. Like, it's just very odd. Mm. It gone off the rails, I think. And how can people tell the difference between evidence-based guidance and just marketing hype? Yeah. I think that comes down to your source. Whoever you're seeking the information from, like I said that statement earlier, how long have they been doing what they're doing and how many people have they helped? It's very important that you're communicating with a human being. And if they've been doing it a long time, they're gonna be well-versed in the data. They're gonna have research because they have a passion for what they do 'cause they're really good at what they do, and they wouldn't be if they didn't have that knowledge. So it's really important to seek out a human being that has a good track record Yes. That is very important to find somebody who has a good track record. Yes. And I love that. It's, it seems very simple, but I think that is a good, that is definitely a good way to, to gauge things. Yes. So this last question may be a big one, but I ask a iteration of this to all of my guests, and I'm very interested to hear what you say about this. If you were suddenly put in charge of healthcare in the United States, say tomorrow, what is the very first thing that you would do? Oh my goodness. That is such a massive question. I think because it's so broken. I mean, Our healthcare system is so broken. There are so many tests that are advised that are not necessary. People end up in what I call the medical mill. They just end up, "Oh my gosh, I need this test and I need that test," and you get enough tests and something's gonna be found, and then you're gonna get treatment for it, and then there's gonna be side effects, and then... And I'm not telling people not to go to the doctor, so please don't hear what I'm not saying. But there are a lot of tests recommended that are not necessary, and there's a lot that goes on in healthcare that is really a big bag of wrong. And I know this 'cause I've worked in it for all these decades. I worked in hospital settings. I've worked in nursing home settings, and home care settings, and clinic, outpatient clinic settings, and I've seen it. It's a mess. And insurance reimbursement and all of that is, is another big issue. Medicare. And here's a, here's an issue, and I won't get sidetracked, but this is important for people to know. If you have Medicare and you seek somebody to help you, they can't charge you for the treatment. So if they happen to be private pay, and they're really good at what they do, but that particular treatment is available through a clinic that will bill Medicare they can't treat you. And it's the government trying to protect people from being taken advantage of. The problem is it ties their hands at finding experts who don't take insurance who could truly help them. So, so there's a lot wrong in the healthcare industry and I wouldn't even... I'll be honest, I wouldn't even know where to begin, but I'll name a few things. I believe that all medical schools should be required to teach nutrition There is it's like, I think 10% of the medical schools even offer a nutrition class, and it's an elective. So medical people graduate with no understanding of how food impacts the human body. So that is one of the first things that I guess I would wanna do, but there's a lot of others, yes. Yes and yeah. It, there's a lot to be done, and hopefully I keep trying to be, I think being positive is important, right? Yes. And, you know, we're part of the solution. The more people understand the truth, which is why I wrote my books. So the people who read the books, the people who watch my content, I've got YouTube channel. I, I've done 39 free online events since 2020. I've got a lot of content out there and a lot of information because I want people to know this stuff. It should be mainstream knowledge. And so the point is, the more people know and understand, the more truth they know, and the more they understand something's a myth or it's just an outright lie, they will seek the right things, and they will reject The things that should be rejected. And so, you know, it's kind of like a grassroots thing. The more the people are educated, the better choices they make, and they have improved outcomes. Yeah. It's very exciting. I just keep thinking, you know, every, any time I get a little bit down in the dumps, I, I just think look at the people who are making change. That's- Yes. Yeah. And you're part of the solution, Jean. Yeah, and so are you, obviously. Yes, yes. We both are. So if people wanna learn more about you or your books and all of this innovative, exciting stuff you're doing, how can they do that? Yes. Well, I have so much content, and I have literally eight websites, so people get a little overwhelmed on where to go when they have questions, so, or they're seeking an answer to something. So what I did was, on my main website, which is havelifelongwellbeing.com. I know it's a long handle, but I want people to have lifelong wellbeing. And so if they go to that website, there's a very simple quiz. It's just five questions, takes less than two minutes to answer, and what will pop up is a page that will share any content I have on that topic or that concern, whether it's free on my YouTube channel or in my books or on a course that you might need to purchase. But it's all there. Whatever I've taught about urinary incontinence, which you can resolve with movement, by the way. We are not designed to need disposable underwear before we go below ground. There's a lot that can be done. But urinary incontinence, balance issues, weakness issues you know, joint pain, those kind of things. So whatever their main concern is it will aim them to the content that will help them. I would highly recommend taking a look at Eileen's site. It's so much useful information needed. And agree, I mean, urinary incontinence is everywhere and, and people need to know that it is, it's not normal. It's not normal. Yeah, and if Kegels worked, we wouldn't have all those aisles of disposable underwear in the markets. Yes, agree. I love this conversation. Eileen Kap ustas, thank you so much for joining me today. Maybe we can have you on again. Yes, I'd love it. Thank you very much, Jean.

Thank you for tuning in to Taking Healthcare by Storm: Industry Insights with Quality Insights Medical Director Dr. Jean Storm. We hope that you enjoyed this episode. If you found value in what you heard, please consider subscribing to our podcast on your favorite platform.

If you have any topics or guests you'd like to see on future episodes, you can reach out to us on our website. We would love to hear from you.

So, until next time, stay curious, stay compassionate, and keep taking healthcare by storm.