Ep. 75: Using the Neubie with Osteopathic Medicine, and How the Combination Helped One Quadriplegic

In this week’s episode, we welcome Dylan Steele, an Osteopath from New South Wales, Australia, and his patient Barney Miller, a quadriplegic who has seen remarkable recovery progress with the Neubie device. Barney’s wife, Kada, also joins to share her insights on their journey.

We focus on:

• – The synergy between Osteopathic Medicine and the Neubie.
• – How Dylan’s use of techniques like DNS and Muscle Energy enhances patient outcomes.
• – Barney’s 25-year journey of recovery, highlighting recent advancements made possible by the Neubie.
• – Introducing our Australian partners and Dylan’s leadership role.

Tune in now to gain insights on enhancing your recovery process through the Neubie and Osteopathic Medicine, inspired by Barney’s progress!

You can find Dylan and his work at www.neuhorizonosteopathy.com.au and our Australian team at www.neufit.com.au

Read the transcript:

Garrett Salpeter (00:01.838)
Welcome back to the New Fit Undercurrent podcast. And today I have some new friends joining us from Australia. So we have Dylan Steele, an osteopathic physician in New South Wales. And I’m excited to have him on because I’ve always been interested in osteopathic medicine. For people who aren’t as familiar with it, it’s a type of manual medicine that actually is the parent of chiropractic. So some people are more familiar with chiropractic, some…

more with osteopathic, but it’s either way, a form of physical medicine with physical manual manipulation. And we’ll get to learn more from Dylan about what it is and how he’s using it and how of course it complements and combines with the newbie. And Dylan has also become the lead instructor for our partners who are promoting the newbie in Australia and New Zealand. So you may have seen him on our social media recently.

and we’ll certainly enjoy getting to know him better here on this podcast. And then we also have joining us one of his finest patients, Barney Miller and his wife Kata. And Barney has a fascinating story. So 25 years ago, he broke his neck in a car accident. And he’s recently begun working with Dylan and our colleagues down in Australia. And he’s on here. I won’t spoil any of the story, but he’s here to share.

some of the updates on his journey. So welcome all of you.

Dylan Steele (01:31.176)
Thanks Garrett. How are you?

Barney & Kada Miller (01:31.399)
Hello. Hey, Garrett.

Garrett Salpeter (01:34.346)
Yes, yes. I’m really excited for this one here. Dylan, let’s start with you. And can you please begin by giving us a background on osteopathic? We haven’t talked about yet on this podcast. Haven’t talked about specifically osteopathic medicine, that type of physical medicine, what it is. So can you give us a little bit of a background, please, on what osteopathic medicine is?

and where in your experience you’ve seen it really thrive and really be able to help patients.

Dylan Steele (02:08.284)
Yeah, great question. So osteopathy, like you mentioned, it’s not too dissimilar into the field of chiropractic medicine as well, where we treat the body as a whole, look for the relationship between the structure of the body and the function of the body. And we utilize, traditionally, we utilize some different techniques that what chiropractors wouldn’t use to use. With chiropractic medicine, most people are used to that spinal manipulation or…

high velocity, low amplitude thrust techniques. As osteopaths, we’re taught an array of other techniques to help the body recover from injury and restore the function of that area of the body. And they’re a lot more subtler than some of those direct techniques that you might’ve had with the chiropractor or osteopath. We both taught those type of techniques, but we kind of use them more sparingly for the most part as osteopaths and try to.

make a change with a lower level grade technique to bring and restore function back to the area. On top of that, you know, we have a lot of background education and nutrition and other holistic models of care and we’ll integrate them into our clinical practices as osteopaths and just to try to help with our clients restore and get back to where they…

want to be or where they once were. So yeah, it’s a great modality and I’m super proud to be an osteopath, particularly here in Australia because there’s not too many of us. Physiotherapy seems to be the larger cohort of allied health practitioners here. So yeah, it’s a great space to be working and operating in.

Garrett Salpeter (03:53.178)
Awesome. And what types of patients then in your osteopathic practice, you know, are you working, are you doing more physical medicine space? I realize obviously now you are with a newbie. Have you always been doing that or have you been doing more chronic disease, biochemistry and both? What’s sort of the mix of patients you’ve been seeing historically?

Dylan Steele (04:12.929)
Yeah, historically for me, I’ve always done movement based therapies, like just traditional rehab on top of hands on manual therapy within my clinical practice. And that’s been a mix of just strength and conditioning, Pilates, done some training through the dynamic neuromuscular stabilization systems.

and integrating all those type of practices together to try to help my clients manage their presentations. And then since adopting the new fit method with interclinical practice and the newbie, um, it’s just added that extra layer of, um, potential of healing for most people when they walk through the door. Um, it’s been quite an easy transition really from what I was doing to now applying the, um, protocols that are offered through.

the new fit method. So it’s been really as a clinician, it’s been quite easy, but at the other end of the spectrum, it’s been quite a lot more rewarding seeing these clients move through certain presentations, which you might predict to be a usual timeframe, but that timeframe has just been a little bit shortened due to the newbie and the microcurrent and the direct current through that device that we use.

Garrett Salpeter (05:36.906)
Awesome. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts in terms of whether it be, you know, philosophically or logically or whatever it might be in terms of how you feel like the manual therapy techniques and the newbie work well together, like.

I’ve talked in the past with different clinicians about how sometimes, for example, people will do manual therapy. And I think we know now that…

Most of the time we’re not really breaking up scar tissue, but if there’s, even with manual therapy, if there’s functional changes, it’s usually neurological in nature as sort of the underlying mechanism as a change in the nervous system. And so we’ve seen, for example, where there seems to be a nice compliment of you can do manual therapy techniques to open up new range of motion. And then for example, use the newbie to help activate and help really own that range of motion or close the…

active and passive gap. So I’m curious, you know, in terms of how you’re looking at treatment, what ways that you see osteopathic manual medicine and the newbie complementing each other, overlapping, you know, similarities, differences, kind of anything in that domain.

Dylan Steele (06:59.088)
Yeah, that’s a great question. One of the best things I’ve found with the two. So traditionally as an osteopath, with some of the techniques we’ll use, we’ll use a technique called muscle energy technique, where we’ll take a tissue, let’s say the bicep, we’ll push against the wrist, let go, and try and lengthen that bicep out over time. But with the introduction of the newbie, we’re able to use the…

say the scanning protocol that’s offered through the device, locate certain sensitivity areas in the body, and then adopt those traditional osteopathic techniques such as muscle energy technique and try to restore that function of the joint. So we take the example of say the hip and we’re trying to bring more hip flexion into the body. We can place the newbie pads through the hamstrings where the hamstring might be reducing the amount of flexion you’re getting in the hip and get

the client to push against you and let go, push and let go and lengthen that hamstring out, but also allowing the current from the machine to reinforce the nervous system to want to feel comfortable and safe to explore those ranges of motion where it might not have been previously. And for me as a clinician from comparing not using the newbie versus using the newbie in those type of circumstances.

I’ve just found most clients will report like, oh, I’m usually pretty fearful to move through that range of motion, but with the device on, I feel comfortable doing that. And it’s kind of starting to break down that kinesophobia or those fear patterns that might be holding within that client. And that’s one of the, I think one of the greatest benefits of using the device so far for me, just in clinical practice as an osteopath.

Garrett Salpeter (08:52.97)
That’s beautifully said. I appreciate that perspective very much. And I think that makes a lot of sense. It’s certainly in line with how we look at things and yeah, very good. I really, really like that perspective. I definitely want to dive in and talk about some more specific experiences you’ve had with patients. And let’s also use that as a segue to introduce Barney and Kada here. So.

Barney and Kate, I will say hello to you. And can you please tell, can you tell a little bit of your story, Barney, so we can get to know your history?

Dylan Steele (09:21.928)
Yeah.

Barney & Kada Miller (09:32.05)
Yeah, for sure. So yeah, back in 99, I actually was involved in a passenger in a car accident. Um, back then I was, yeah, compare a young competitive surfer. Um, just outdoor guy, what would a rafting river guy, just one of those, um, yeah, fully active humans. And yeah, on our way up to the river, we, um,

Yeah, the driver lost control and oh, I am he got ejected and the car rolled and, and I ended up copying the brunt force of a tree when we slammed into it. So I was trapped in the car and actually broke my C6 vertebrae burst fracture. So with the pressure of the, the tree and the car crushing above my head, it actually pushed my.

head into my lap, which broke my neck that forward. And yeah, so rushed to hospital, got told I would, I was on a ventilator, I got told I’d be on a ventilator for the rest of my life. I got told I’d never move my right arm again. And I got told that there’s definitely no chance of ever standing or gaining any movement below the injury. And

Yeah, I guess, yeah, that was pretty hard to take as a young active.

Garrett Salpeter (11:05.45)
Well, so then let’s… So then let’s…

Barney & Kada Miller (11:15.201)
Yeah.

Garrett Salpeter (11:15.522)
So let’s take it from there then, because if people are watching you, they can obviously see that you have some movement here. So then let’s go through that.

Barney & Kada Miller (11:24.174)
Oh yeah, okay. So yeah, well I can’t move my right arm, which is awesome. Ha ha ha.

Garrett Salpeter (11:29.886)
So let’s go through chronologically. So there was a period of time here where there was no mood. Well, can you just kind of walk us through, chronologically how things evolved during those last 24 years?

Barney & Kada Miller (11:40.483)
Yeah!

Barney & Kada Miller (11:44.518)
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Far out. Um, this podcast could go for like a couple of days if you wanted to. We, yeah, so originally, yeah, so the first thing I had to do, um, being on a ventilator and had a tracheotomy, I had to, I got, once I got told that I’d have that for the rest of my life, that was, that was the first thing I had to try and overcome. So, uh, yeah, it was

trying to learn how to breathe again. So originally I asked them, but they were very reluctant about capping off the air because of what had happened. So I was just like, can I, I really want to try and like breathe by myself. So they go, okay. So they originally just capped it off. And that was, yeah, that was probably one of the, that was a really scary moment when it first happened because…

It was almost like I was suffocating because I couldn’t breathe by myself. So they ended up having to put the machine back straight back in again. And, um, yeah, so that was. That was the beginning, I guess, lasted for a couple of seconds. And then we had to wait 24 hours to do the next time. And the next time it went for 40 seconds, I could hold my breath for 40 seconds. And, and then I’d have to cap it off. And then it went to two minutes and then it went to from two minutes. It went to five days actually.

And so they, and then so I was breathing and, and everything was going okay. And then they said, if you can last seven days, um, we’ll take the machine off and, and we’ll let you breathe by yourself. So those last two days were probably one of the most scariest moments. Um, ever because if I had to get through these two days, but, um, if I didn’t get through these two days, I’d have to go back on the machine and they wouldn’t really try it again. So yeah.

So it got to seven days, took the machine out. That was the first thing that was, yeah, one of the first obstacles I got to overcome. And then, yeah, so that, and then it led to trying to work out what was next in my thing. So trying to get movement in my right arm was, yeah, I just, I was lucky I constantly had family and friends around that were always pushing and encouraging me to like just,

Barney & Kada Miller (14:08.278)
just try moving it, even if they lifted my arm and tried to move it for me. Yeah, oh man, it’s, yeah, so that was, and then I ended up getting into the rehab and just started working on that, but as sort of things went on, it sort of, I got little bits of movement, and then it just sort of, everything sort of plateaued pretty much for, it was probably.

Yeah, 10 years, like everything sort of plateaued was actually nine years. When did I meet you? Oh, I met Kate eight years after my accident. So that was almost an incredible. Yeah. Fire under me because obviously I wanted to make my life better, but I wanted to make our life better together. So I, yeah, we, we just.

Kate went on a research rabbit hole and yeah, just trying to work out where to go from there. And we ended up finding a place in California called Project Walk, which is now shut, unfortunately. But yeah, it’s a kinesiology-based repetitive exercise program. And that was kind of where, that was sort of the start of…

something pretty incredible for, for not only my journey, but for our journey together, we, um, yeah, feel free to jump in whenever you want. Like, um, yeah, I guess. Well, when I first met Barney, um, he was eight years post injury and he could barely lift his arms up without getting lopsided. He was, um, pretty, he was very confident in like emotionally.

but not confident physically at that stage. And we had this conversation about him having these goals to walk again. And he had it with, that was the one thing that he held in his, like his whole being from the moment of his accident, I guess. And that was one of the things that made me fall in love with him from day one was that conversation of seeing someone who believed.

Barney & Kada Miller (16:32.51)
in something that externally to the world, to science, to everything else seemed so impossible. But for him, he held that so dearly. And that was something that was a journey I wanted to be part of. And so yeah, went down the rabbit hole of finding different things. Yeah, where it originally started. So, so it was another conversation I had with a good friend of

Um, he, Mick Fanning, he’s a professional surfer and we were just talking one day and, uh, and he goes, he just sort of wanted to talk about what my goals were and stuff and, and he goes, what do you want to do? And I said, well, I want to walk again when he got in and he was like, okay, well, I’ve been working with this trainer. Her name was Jan Cart and she’s a, a check, um, for a check trainer on the goal coast. And so I started working with her and

that sort of introduced both of us to the kinesiology journey, actually. And yeah, so she sort of, yeah, got like, sort of just like, open our world up to that. And, and it just happened to be that I was getting some, a piece of workout equipment and the person at the, at the store said, Oh, a guy in a wheelchair came in here just the other day and said,

He just got back from America and there’s this incredible program, kinesiology based program. So that was when we first started to look into, to like, I hadn’t really been, I’d been overseas, but this was going to be a journey to California where we’d have to almost move to California for three months to start. And then, um, yeah. So we ended up, yeah. Packing up our life, jumping on a plane and going, everyone did think we were crazy.

There was a lot of people that thought like, yeah, that we were delusional. That like, just, yeah, like the outside world, when you take that step to, yeah, to thinking outside the box, it definitely scares the, and it’s very shocking for the outside world, that’s for sure. So yeah, we went to California and yeah, that was.

Barney & Kada Miller (18:58.294)
where my body first started waking up and… I remember his first day too that like he was pretty nervous and he had his first assessment and they’re like, okay, like 10 years post, what are your goals? And he’s like, well, I wanna walk. And they’re like, okay, like how about we set some like smaller goals first? And he was like, okay. And then they’re like, can you do this, this and this? And he was like, he actually had never tried to do those things before. So he was like, yeah, I guess I could do that.

Dylan Steele (19:18.696)
Yeah.

Barney & Kada Miller (19:28.174)
And he kind of went through this like fake it till you make it kind of process of one by one. He started to kick these goals and it was I literally witnessed his body just coming back online. It was like this dormant volcano that had just been waiting for the right trigger and the right the right forces in order to be able to erupt and it was like yeah I just witnessed him just

turn all the lights back on. And yeah, like the moment I think, which was the most incredible moment was when he first locked out his legs for the first time. They were practicing standing with all these props. And for some reason, his body doesn’t like too many props around him. It’s like his body needs to be in that little bit of uncertainty in order for it to really kick in to do the work itself.

And so then one day they were like, okay, we’re just going to try it. We’re just going to see what happens. We’re just going to try and stand you up. We’ll have people standing around just in case. And when he locked out his legs, that was the most incredible moment. And he was looking at himself in the mirror going like, yeah, like mind games. It was almost like a, it was, it was, it was messing. It was like, it was an emotional rollercoaster, obviously to look at yourself standing.

and seeing yourself lock your legs out for the first time was, which is something that you got told you’d never do. And so that was a, that was a journey, a mind journey in itself, just realizing, like, you know, you can, you know, you can achieve so many things inside, but to see it for the first time was definitely a, yeah, it was, it was an incredible thing, but also a very

Yeah, strange thing to see, I guess, as well. Yeah. And so that was 2010. So that was the year after the first year that we started going over there. And then from there, it literally became leaps and bounds. Like the more we realized the more that he was moving and the more he was getting put into these different positions and having the support around him to, um, yeah, tell his body it was okay to.

Barney & Kada Miller (21:53.198)
to be in these positions, the more feedback he was getting and the more connection that he was rebuilding. And yeah, that continued for, yeah, the next 10 years until 2019, well, the end of 2018, he ended up having kidney failure. And that was from a surgery that…

didn’t go to plan and yeah, which then led to a further 12 surgeries in 2019 and then him being in a hospital bed for 18 months. That was pretty low in both of our lives. But then again, after being in a bed for 20, for 18 months, we were worried that he wasn’t going to be able to bounce back like he had before.

Garrett Salpeter (22:36.318)
Wow.

Barney & Kada Miller (22:51.782)
again, bit by bit, just taking it an hour at a time, like just trying different things. And it was a journey. That was a that was a journey where I had nothing. I couldn’t do anything. I just lay in bed. Like I couldn’t even really sit up or anything like that for the 18 months. And yeah, I had to go on a real journey inside like I

That’s where I really started picking up like the breathing, the Wim Hof breathing, the meditation, like a lot of Joe Dispenza meditation. And just, yeah, I had to go deep because yeah, it was, it was, yeah, it was hard to take, not being able to move at all. So. And that was when I heard the, no, actually, I reached out to Ben Greenfields actually.

on Instagram. I had no idea if he was going to reply or anything. I was just in that moment like watching him just kind of waste away in the hospital bed. I was like, there has to be something out there that can be beneficial for him. And so in that time, I reached out to him saying like, this is the situation. Have you come across anything in

your interviews or just in your own research and straight away he put me onto you guys to he said there he’s like the newbie um machine is incredible that’s the first place that I would start um and they’re getting really good results right now with all sorts of different injuries so um and even spinal injuries so that was the very beginning of me going okay what is this machine

And I then went, listened to the podcasts. And I think we’ve listened to every single podcast that you’ve been on. And then we then got distracted by life as he started to get better and start living again. We ended up buying a camper van and traveling Australia. And we kind of just put everything.

Barney & Kada Miller (25:11.91)
on hold for a bit just to live because we realized that our whole lives, our whole relationship actually for 13 years at that stage had been all around just goal-orientated things which is, which was amazing and it was the most incredible life but we realized it wasn’t sustainable for us to keep living like that so we had to yeah just find the joy back in life again and

find the things that find out why again and yeah 2021 that was when we traveled Australia and we yeah just yeah but the but just living like that the body we realized the body still adapts and I was still going leaps and bounds in my in my journey just by just doing everyday life like in the camper van um

Yeah, I was, I had to stand to get anywhere in the van. So I had to stand to get in the driver’s seat. I had to stand to get in the chair to go to the bed. I had to stand from the chair to the bed, stand from the bed to the bathroom. Like it’s yeah. So he had a whole new mindset about what his journey could look like. Um, and it not having to be like slaving away.

day after that day missing out on life and… And nature. Yeah. Nature was a big thing, I think, that my body needed, and everyone needs it, obviously. And yeah, so being in nature, the body just picks up the energy from what I’ve immersed myself in and it was incredible to sort of see the…

not pushing and trying yourself, trying so hard, you can still go in leaps and bounds. Yeah. And then when we got home, that’s kind of when things started to fall apart again for Barney physically. His, just all the scar tissue damage from all of the surgeries that he had all on his right side had kind of like…

Barney & Kada Miller (27:36.43)
frozen his body into a certain pattern that then was putting strain on every other aspect of his life. And… Yeah, it was just like, it was like twisting my body. So it was twisting my pelvis. It was like moving my ribs in a weird way, twisting my rib cage, really messing with my like urinary tract system and all my right side like, and then…

Yeah, and then that was the moment where I was like, okay, it’s time to go deep again. And I bought your book. And we I remember we were on a camping trip and I just started reading it and then I was like, I have to read this out loud. Like, and so I it was before the audio book came out. So I read the entire book to Barney as he was driving and

I remember reading Amy’s story and I just burst into tears and he’s like, are you okay? And I was like, I have to read you this part. I have to read it. And I, that was the moment for me that I was like, I like, we need one of these machines. I don’t know how we’re getting it. Like just, I’m going to like.

Garrett Salpeter (28:39.594)
Mm-hmm.

Barney & Kada Miller (29:02.894)
keep writing, like reaching out writing to them until someone, like I had no idea how it was gonna work, but I just knew that this machine was going to be a massive part of the next chapter for us. And yeah, fast forward to getting in contact with the team in Sydney with Sam and Adam. And it, that first week that we were with them.

we like Barney was in a pretty bad place at that stage physically like he, he was just in so much pain that he wasn’t able to be even up in his chair for long periods of time without just being in extreme chronic pain, which is, which was a totally new thing for him because he was one of the lucky ones that didn’t experience neurological pain prior to.

any of that. So it was a totally different ball game that we were entering. And I remember him getting put on the machine. Um, it was just the abs It was just the abs Yeah. The first thing that they put the machine on just to kind of, they did the mapping and then they were like, okay, well we knew that part was very sensitive. Put them on the abs and literally within 30 seconds.

he started connecting with his feet and his feet started moving like inwards and outwards, like not involuntary, it was him actually. He’s like, and he was looking down at his feet and he’s like, are you seeing this? And we’re like, yes. And then again, the tears started and that was the moment.

that I will never forget of, because in 24 years, he’d never been able to connect with his feet like that. He’d been able to stand, but just not that, that flexion he’d never been able to access. And then that continued. And then, yeah, it was, and then my own experience, I…

Barney & Kada Miller (31:20.17)
the end of that session he’s like okay I’m gonna just put you on the master reset to bunny’s like would you like to try the mastery set I’m like okay and I had no idea what to expect and I kind of just went in there going oh I’m just doing a mastery set I’m literally just gonna zen out and might have a little nap and my foot just started going crazy like it was my right foot was like

Barney & Kada Miller (31:50.658)
And I told them, I was like, oh, my foot’s like, that’s where I’m feeling it the most. It’s going like this. And they’re like, Oh, have you had an injury there? And I was like, yeah, actually 16 years ago, I had a injury where it had, I tripped up the stairs. It looked like I had a cricket ball on top of my foot, but every scan that I had showed that there was nothing wrong with it. But.

clearly there was and from that day, I wasn’t able to do a proper lunge on that foot. And by the end of the 15 minutes, I stood up and I was like, my foot feels so different, like feels super loose. I’m like, I’m just gonna try something. And I did a full lunge. And it was funny because I was like, I witnessed what happened to Barney and I witnessed his body doing all these amazing things. But that was my first experience for myself.

Dylan Steele (32:34.974)
Thank you.

Barney & Kada Miller (32:45.646)
having something within myself that I just assumed that I would be living with forever. Even though that’s not my mindset, but I just, yeah, I kind of just forgot about it. And that was just how I lived my life and it changed my whole gait pattern. But yeah, so since, and then within 24 hours, the scar tissue in my foot was like almost gone. And that was, yeah.

So that’s my incredible story of the movie. And yeah, and so that’s a story that I tell all my friends now of, yeah, it’s just been the most incredible gift. And then same thing with Barney, the scar tissue has been just breaking down and the connection that he’s been making has been absolutely mind blowing. As of last week.

Garrett Salpeter (33:19.134)
This is fabulous, yeah.

Barney & Kada Miller (33:44.95)
he now can squeeze his abs on and off. Yeah, which is really bizarre. Yeah. He’s getting a six pack. Yeah, it’s been crazy. Like being out, I’ve never been able to contract my abs before like, but now I can like, huh, and then like contract them. And yeah, which is totally new, but it’s, yeah, after 24 years, it’s, yeah, it’s incredible.

Garrett Salpeter (34:15.122)
Wow, amazing, amazing progress. Thank you so much for sharing that. To give a thank you to.

Barney & Kada Miller (34:19.586)
Sorry. And that’s the end of the podcast. So.

Dylan Steele (34:22.895)
What?

Garrett Salpeter (34:23.57)
I’ll give a thank you to Ben Greenfield too for making the introduction. I didn’t realize that was how he learned about us in the first place. But yeah, he’s been a good friend and supporter over the years. So that’s great.

Barney & Kada Miller (34:26.58)
Yeah.

Barney & Kada Miller (34:30.676)
Yeah.

Barney & Kada Miller (34:36.266)
Yeah, and I know I’m like, I’m sure he gets so many messages all the time. So I was just so grateful that I was one of the lucky ones that he replied to.

Garrett Salpeter (34:47.018)
Yeah, yes. Big thank you to Ben here. So I do want to turn it back over to Dylan for a moment here to get your perspective. So we heard this experience where Barney is working with our colleagues there at the event when they first met. And then has this experience which is illuminating and we get some movement of his feet, these cool kind of instantaneous breakthroughs. And then…

Obviously we have to transition into, okay, what are we gonna be doing day to day to kind of move this process along? So it’s a unique opportunity here where we have your, you know, have your therapist on so we can talk to both, both patient and clinician at the same time. So can you share Dylan from your perspective with Barney’s permission, of course? Can you share sort of your thinking in terms of where, obviously Barney’s had these.

Barney & Kada Miller (35:35.916)
Yeah.

Garrett Salpeter (35:41.082)
ups and downs, sort of your functional assessment of where he is, what the priorities are, and then how you’ve been guiding him in this ongoing use of the newbie to try to maintain that positive trajectory and continue to make progress.

Dylan Steele (35:56.147)
Yeah, and thanks Barney and Kata for sharing your story. That’s such an amazing story. I guess for me, the one thing that struck me was Barney’s strong determination to walk. I think his primary focus had been just around the gait mechanics and learning how to stand.

So when he came and saw me, I was just attempting him to reduce his kind of goal to something a little bit more simple around working on that abdominal control more and trying to stimulate that midline structures to get strong from the cranial base down to the sacrum and then move outwardly from there to them wanting to support himself in different positions from prone, supine, side lying, seated.

and then come up into a standing position. So try to transition him through all of these different developmental kinesiological stages that we are trained with under the DNS protocols. So the one thing that I found most sensitivity for him was just around that cervical thoracic junction and just trying to get him to engage in the prone position and improve that head control was my first kind of introduction.

of using the device with him to that therapeutic level to try to advance him to where he wants to be with his goal. And then having him explore similar, um, movement patterns with the neck, but in different positions. So then the head can start to lead where the body wants to go. Um, you know, and then using the newbie device coupled with those traditional rehab strategies that I’ve taught, um,

you can just see that the muscles start to get stronger and the movement becomes a lot more fluid. And then when we start to move into that final endpoint of wanting to stage, he can feel relaxed on his feet. He can breathe comfortably. He feels relaxed in that stage. So

Dylan Steele (38:05.655)
That has been, that had been my rehab strategy. Last time I saw Barney and Kader, they came up with a couple of their trainers from their local area. And we did an educational day for them two guys and trying to implement, um, I guess my knowledge base with, um, theirs, uh, fortunately for Kader and Barney, one of their, one of their amazing trainers, Regan, he had some background in similar training as I had with the DNS stuff. So we took pretty.

Uh, extensively around that and trying to utilize those types of protocols with the newbie. So, yeah, I think it’s been, um, an amazing, amazing journey so far. And seeing him decrease this time, uh, like the side bent right, rotated right kind of position from having that.

multiple surgeries in the abdominal region to wanting to open up through there with some traditional just osteopathic intervention and the newbie glove that we can use. So we can put a glove on and it can conduct the current through there and we can do some of these facial works with it. So utilizing that type of technique around that place of trauma I will use for that loose word but trying to just encourage the body to want to feel comfortable and open up.

into this space where it was once before after all the surgery insult. So yeah, it’s been, it’s been an exciting journey. You know, Barney Barney’s case one, but there’s so many individuals like Barney that walks through my door that have heard down the podcast chain, Ben Greenfield, again, that was one of my early, um, you know, connections with the newbie and the new fit method was through Ben Greenfield’s podcast with you and Dave Asprey’s one with you as well. So

There’s so many and Dr. Terry Walsh, well, so all these, all these people that are living with these certain, um, you know, limitations within their life, they catching on to the potential of the device and, uh, they walk through my door like Barney with a really unique story, with a lot of background and, um, you know, within a short consecutive time we can see just leaps and bounds with their.

Barney & Kada Miller (39:54.636)
Okay.

Dylan Steele (40:19.779)
presentations and it’s been as a therapist and an osteopath, it’s been, it’s bought a new level of, I guess, fun to my clinical practice, some, some things that I would have, would have thought is, you know, not possible. I walk away at the end of the day and I go, well, I just, we just made it, you know, that body just made a really big change in a short period of time. And the implications of that change have been beyond what anyone could

ever do for them with traditional rehabilitation strategies. And for me as a therapist, it’s just so exciting to be a part of that. And I’m super proud to be, you know, doing that for people and allowing them to explore these spaces that they once thought they might not be able to explore again. So yeah, it’s been great.

Garrett Salpeter (41:07.738)
Wow, I’m just honored and delighted and so happy to hear that. I mean, these types of responses are what make it all worthwhile to hear that. So I appreciate that. I also, I’m gonna go back a few minutes when you’re talking about the progression, going through some of the developmental progressions, talking about midline stabilization. You mentioned DNS a few times and…

DNS is this wonderful program that came out of the Yonda and Prague school, these Czech therapists and researchers. And it’s something that I don’t think.

I’m trying to think I don’t believe we’ve covered on this podcast yet. So can you Just give a little bit of an overview I do want to come back and get a status update on where Barney is now too And you know since we follow this story up until the first meeting first initial uses of the newbie So we want to fill in that but since it’s come up a couple times Can you just give us please a DNS 101, you know sort of high-level overview on what it is to just so everyone understands?

Dylan Steele (42:20.243)
Yeah, I’ll try to explain it in a basic language that anyone could understand. So as, as infants, you know, we go through these developmental milestones and at these different milestones, we’ll see the nervous system, uh, wire in certain movement patterns and that might be the ability to roll onto our sides and onto our front, um, push our head.

neck off and chest off the ground and learn to rotate so we can look around within space, learn to reach from that position, learn to come up into a seated position, learn to reach in that seated position, learn to come into a crawling position, up into a high kneeling and then a squatting and hopefully you know gait walking. So

Under the DNS protocols, we’re taught how to identify kind of weaknesses within those chains within certain populations and let the nervous system try to re-explore where those weaknesses might be with certain positions with the emphasis on breathing and learning how to increase your intra-abdominal pressure and forming the movement from around that improved intra-abdominal pressure.

It takes a lot of awareness and skill to execute them quite well. But for someone like Barney, where we can see that the limitations are all midline, if we can bring that back to that midline and structure everything from there and work outwardly, then the end goal of say learning how to stand can be executed a little bit more easier.

It has its roots tied within the Czech Republic physiotherapy and it has had a long history of changes with their influences throughout the year. And currently as it stands, it’s being taught by Dr. Pavlov-Kolaj and there are numerous therapists around the world that will utilize their principles and utilize them well.

Garrett Salpeter (44:46.142)
Awesome, that was DNS in two minutes, you nailed it.

Barney & Kada Miller (44:50.611)
So good. Yeah, I reckon.

Garrett Salpeter (44:53.018)
Yes. Well…

Dylan Steele (44:53.291)
I try, it can go a lot deeper than that, but I think the language can go over a lot of people’s heads. So I’ll keep it simple for now. But if you look, if you’d like to learn a little bit more, their website is fantastic. And they also got a great book for therapists, other therapists like myself, if they wanted to grab a hold of that. But yeah, the language for a lot of people that don’t have a background in movement education, it can, it can really go over your head and get lost.

Yeah.

Garrett Salpeter (45:24.714)
Yeah, I will say that.

Dylan Steele (45:25.624)
Yeah.

Garrett Salpeter (45:28.822)
The courses are excellent resources for people who are interested in continuing education for clinicians. And a lot of the DNS movements, just like Dillam said, our experience is exactly the same where when we have the new beyond, we’re trying to enhance input so that we can get more out of more neuromuscular reeducation effect or benefit from whatever movements we’d be doing. And it’s almost always active rather than passive. So we’re doing movements. And the movements from DNS pair.

exceptionally well with the newbie. So that is another combination there that is very valuable. So I appreciate you Dylan sharing some of that. And let’s go back to Barney and Kata here for a moment. So we had progress for this 10 year period. We were going to California and seeing this facility and training at this facility consistently for these months at a time. We had regression with.

a series of surgeries and other health challenges and kidney failure. Then we had a period of driving around in the RV in the camper and experiencing nature and seeing little glimpses of some of the old function coming back. We had this breakthrough in that first experience with the newbie where we had some glimpses of hope and then how’s it been going in the months since then? What’s our current status?

Barney & Kada Miller (46:51.974)
It’s been, it’s been incredible. So I’ll circle back a tiny bit because I want to really give a shout out to Laura from, from who works with you guys. She was one of the first people I spoke with as a trainer and she had a lot of experience in spinal injury and, and other injuries. So yeah, she, she wrote up a program for us. So right now we’re sort of trying to stick to that program and, and mixing in some of the stuff that.

Dylan’s taught us and yeah, just, but yeah. So like where it stands right now, excuse the pun, is yeah, my body, yeah, being able to contract my abs, I now have the machine on when I’m standing or whatever active stuff I’m doing now, I put the machine on and yeah, whether it’s doing all core work.

or standing in parallel bars. And it’s actually- He loves the bicep thing that he learnt from Dave Asprey. The bicep tricep. Ha ha. You know, that’s one of my favorites. But like it’s so funny like, but yeah, like I’ve been getting like flickers in my, like flickers in my triceps and my whole tricep like strength is-

Garrett Salpeter (48:08.958)
Awesome, awesome, very good.

Barney & Kada Miller (48:21.154)
is yeah, has come in leaps and bounds as well as I’m starting to. Um, yeah, but I’m also working on something that Dylan taught us as well, where we’ve got a, we put a pad on the lower, um, vertebrae where the, um, where the nerve endings are to like either the quad or the hammy and stuff like that. And, um, so I have a pad on the hammy and a pad. Oh, correct me if I’m wrong. Is it like.

S1 or something or around that. Dylan taught us, yeah, so in that area, just to, which is so, I never even thought about that, but to get the way the newbie works with connecting from that nerve ending to the muscle has been incredible. So yeah, just standing, just spending as much time standing with either Kate or in my parallel bars with my trainer and

Yeah, just, and, and really like still breaking down. Well, yeah, I don’t have much of the scar tissue in my stomach, in my right hand side of my stomach anymore, which is life changing, life changing, like the pain that I was going through. And, and the, the machine has just relieved me on is yeah. As, as Kate has said before, it was, I’ve never experienced sort of neurological pain through my whole.

like my whole journey on this with my accident and with my injury, but man, pain is debilitating more than anything I think I’ve ever been through. And this machine just literally diminishes it. And that’s, if that, yeah, if that alone was the only thing it did, which it’s not, because it’s doing so much more, but

Someone who’s looking in that direction to get rid of pain is, it’ll change your life.

Garrett Salpeter (50:22.546)
Wow, that’s fabulous. Thank you for sharing that. I think we’ve kind of hinted at the answer to this question, but I’m just curious to hear from you, so I’ll ask specifically. You were doing this other wonderful exercise-based rehab program and making progress. Now you’re doing similar consistent exercises with the newbie. How would you describe the trajectory or the rate of change and progress with the newbie?

Barney & Kada Miller (50:51.71)
Yeah, I think what I’ve found is that there’s a much better connection. Like with all the other program and that I was just doing it and it was happening in my body and, and I obviously had a lot of sensation with that. But this is just stepped up the whole mind body connection and being able to zone in on things and zone in on muscles and

Um, has been where, and just, it’s just ignited my body in a different way. Like my body, it’s funny. Hey, my body just feels different. Like it’s, and it’s not fatiguing. Yeah. Either. So whereas before traditional, um, movement, his body, like he would finish a session and just not even be able to talk really. Cause it was both emotionally and physically draining, but

now like he’s still pretty wiped after it but you bounce back so much faster. Yeah. And then we also just do the master reset as well and that kind of just brings him back into balance to then be able to go again and to try different things and it’s so like it’s just so exciting because we’re still really just scratching the surface on what this machine can do. We actually did a because

his right side was so significantly like needed more work than the left side. We started splitting the channels of right and left. And then even, I saw a thing, it was a trial that they were doing in America for bladder control for people with spinal injuries. And they were using a type of stimulation for that.

And I just kind of zoomed in on the pictures that I could see people doing it. And I was like, I’m just going to try it and see what happens with the newbie. And yeah, like you found that like doing that setting with, um, it’s literally just putting them like, kind of like, I mean, around the flat area. Yeah. Around the sort of the oblique area. Yeah. And then on the abs and we literally have all the pads like is eight pads. Yeah.

Barney & Kada Miller (53:14.086)
And it literally, yeah, it’s if it, if they do, cause sometimes, yeah, like if, if I do get sort of a bit of a, what do you call it? Um, like an irritated, like you’re in retract or something, some sort of thing that’s making me want to pay a lot more. I, um, I, yeah, put them on and I do that. Like I just do it more often now. It just relaxes everything, which has been so good. My, yeah. And connect.

It’s like relaxing and connecting. Yeah. Same time. Yeah. It’s been so fun.

Garrett Salpeter (53:47.678)
Awesome, I’m so glad to hear it’s been helping. Obviously I knew some of this story, but I’m hearing some new details, and I’m so glad to hear it’s helping you in all these ways. And I trust that I know that everyone listening to this.

you know, is going to draw inspiration from the patient perspective listening to you, Barney and Kata, and from a clinician perspective, they’re going to draw inspiration from you, Dylan, in terms of how you’re taking this wonderful skill set that you have and then adding to it with the newbies. So you can get, you know, you’re getting great results and then you can get great results plus, you know, and then some and make it happen even faster, even more significantly. So I think there’s a lot of wonderful content here.

I’m grateful to all three of you for joining us here. As we wrap up, a few notes here. So for people who are interested in connecting with our team in Australia and New Zealand, there’s a newfit.com.au for the Australian domain. And then Dylan’s, sorry, you can go there to that URL. And then Dylan’s clinic is called New Horizon Osteopathy, new spelled N-E-U.

Which I love there like neurological like new fit new horizon osteopathy calm dot au and Let’s see. Where else? Want to make sure to mention those two URLs where else? Can people Dylan find you first? I know you’re on social media. What were the best places to interact?

Dylan Steele (55:23.283)
Yeah, Instagram, Facebook, and if they need to reach out, just hit the email there, the website link. If anyone has any inquiries around the newbie and the New Fit method, please be in contact with New Fit Australasia or Garrett, and they can forward you on to us and we can be in connection and have those conversations if they need to happen.

Garrett Salpeter (55:50.162)
And are you are you running? formal trainings yet in you know doing on-site trainings for people in Australia or where

Dylan Steele (55:59.347)
Yeah, we’ve already started to do some workshops for other allied health practitioners that have shown interest within utilizing the device within their clinical practice. And again, if you want any more information on that, you can be in contact through socials or via email, and we can link you into the next workshop space that’s happening.

At the moment we’ve got the NDIS conference happening in May down in Sydney where we’ll be showcasing the device for anyone looking to experience that. So if you would like to join us, please come on down and myself and Sam will be there.

Garrett Salpeter (56:39.934)
Fabulous. And I think actually one of my colleagues from America is gonna be down there also.

Dylan Steele (56:47.207)
Yeah, I’ve had conversations with Sarah, so I’m really looking forward to connecting with her. She seems like she’s got a wealth of knowledge around some topics that we would like to cover. So yeah, can’t wait to connect with Sarah. That’s going to be great.

Garrett Salpeter (56:59.782)
Yeah, she’s wonderful and gosh, I want to get down there at some point. It’ll happen. It’ll happen at some point.

Barney & Kada Miller (57:04.903)
Yeah, let’s do it.

Dylan Steele (57:05.603)
Yeah.

We’d love to have you.

Barney & Kada Miller (57:09.122)
We’ll have to do a newbie tour.

Garrett Salpeter (57:13.67)
That’s right, yes. Barney and Kata, then same question, do you work in people, you know, follow you on social media, where you, I know obviously I see you both on Instagram, but where are the best places to follow along on your journey?

Barney & Kada Miller (57:26.282)
Yeah probably Instagram like Barneys is Barney underscore Miller, mine is Kater Miller and our website is youa and that’s kind of got our whole life journey on there. We have a film, a documentary about our life journey and

the early stages of Barney’s recovery. And yeah, we’ll have to do part two now. Yeah, yeah. And then we’ve also got a book as well that you can check out. And yeah.

Barney & Kada Miller (58:06.861)
Oh, you muted. Muted.

Dylan Steele (58:07.907)
I think you’re muted, Garrett.

Barney & Kada Miller (58:11.404)
I’m not happy yet.

Dylan Steele (58:12.087)
Yes.

Garrett Salpeter (58:14.488)
Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. So it’s literally spelled out y-o- So for people to go to that website and there’s a link to find your book on there too, right?

Barney & Kada Miller (58:20.977)
Yeah.

Barney & Kada Miller (58:26.484)
Yes, you’ll be able to find everything on there.

Garrett Salpeter (58:28.926)
Fabulous, fabulous. Well, thank you. I really appreciate the three of you coming on here. I really, I wanna do this again actually, to get the perspective of the patient and then the clinician talk about, you know, get the subjective experience from the patient and hear the clinical reasoning behind it. It’s actually turned into a fun possibly new format that we’ll wanna use again in the future. But Dylan.

Barney & Kada Miller (58:37.067)
Yeah.

Barney & Kada Miller (58:52.355)
Yeah, this is just a beginning, wait to see what, stay tuned everyone, there’s gonna be some big things going down. Yeah, thank you so much, Garrett. Thanks so much for all your work and bringing this incredible advice into our world. And making it, yeah. Yes.

Garrett Salpeter (58:58.982)
That’s right, that’s right, yes.

Dylan Steele (59:08.108)
Yeah.

Garrett Salpeter (59:08.17)
Well, gosh, you’re welcome and thank you for being the reason to do it. And, you know, one of our core values is success through the success of others. And to see the impact that it’s making, you know, through Dylan’s work that it’s making in your lives, Barney and Kada, I’m just immensely grateful and really excited to continue on this journey here. So I thank you, Dylan. I really appreciate the work that you’re doing there. I love this, this combination.

Barney and Kata, you are an inspiration and keep going. Keep sharing your story. You’re inspiring a lot of people along the way. And everyone else who listened to this, thank you so much. And we will see you on the next episode of the Undercurrent Podcast. Bye bye.

Barney & Kada Miller (59:56.034)
Thank you.

Dylan Steele (59:57.143)
Thank you.