Welcome to my Blog!
Hello!
My name is Ian, and whatever brought you to this page, I want you to know that I am happy you are here.
I hope that you find the content on this blog to be useful as well as entertaining.
In a moment, I will briefly summarize the topics that I will discuss.
But first, a little back-story…
Over the past several years, my life has taken many twists, turns, and bumps in the road.
10 years ago, if you would have told me that I would be blogging and building websites I probably would have told you that you were crazy.
I had little interest in anything at that time except being a Firefighter. I was good at what I did, and I would rather be on the end of a hose line than sitting behind a computer. This passion of mine began to flourish and grow over the years, and I eventually became a Paramedic and spent a ridiculous amount of time throwing myself into the job in any way possible.
I enjoyed the Fire/EMS lifestyle like nothing else that I had ever done, and everything else in life took a back seat to my passion.
That is, until the day my world stopped turning.
On April 28th of 2015 I sprained my shoulder while on duty. At first I didn’t really know what to think. There was an instant rush of pain and my arm went limp. I managed to free myself from the space I was stuck in and started to take off my gear. The problem was, I couldn’t use my right arm.
What followed was a barrage of paperwork and doctor visits as I began to tumble down the Worker’s Comp Rabbit Hole.
Over the next few months, my pain began to increase and strange symptoms began to manifest. My hand began to swell and turn strange colors, and despite looking and feeling like the Mad Hatter got in a fight with a Paint by Numbers game, I tried to remain upbeat.
By August of that year, I had received a diagnosis of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, formerly known as Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. It didn’t mean a whole lot to me at the time, I just wanted it to go away so that I could get back to my life. Little did I know, that shoulder sprain was going to change everything.
CRPS/RSD is a rare and progressive disease of the Central Nervous System that is categorized by an initial injury prior to onset, followed by swelling, dysfunction, and pain. Extreme, torturous, unrelenting pain.
Pictured above: (my hand on a heat pack)
I was diagnosed with “Cold CRPS”. This means that the affected limb would drop in temperature asymmetrically to the rest of my body (sometimes 10-12 degrees). To me, it felt like acid being poured out on my skin.
My career as a Firefighter and a Paramedic was effectively over.
Due to the nature of my diagnosis, I began a tremendously bumpy transition out of the Fire Department and desperately sought any way possible to stay off of total disability. Day after day, doctor after doctor, all I knew was that if I accepted defeat now, my life would be over.
CRPS is categorized as the most intense form of chronic pain in existence. There is actually a pain scale that ranks everything from a basic sprain (15) to amputation of a digit (40), and it puts CRPS at a whopping 46/50!
I was literally trapped in a living hell!
And if the life-altering pain and dysfunction wasn’t enough, I had to deal with the fact that the bills continued to show up in the mailbox.
CRPS is a tricky diagnosis, doctors are all too happy to dish out barbaric treatments (including amputation) and throw a debilitating amount of meds at you, only to later make you abruptly come off the meds because they are under pressure from regulatory agencies for “over-prescribing”. And despite the severity of the condition, it is widely misunderstood, so disability is a tough nut to crack.
If a picture could describe how I felt, it would probably look like this.
I needed a viable option that didn’t include letting someone hack off my dominant arm.
Being a researcher at heart, I was able to gain access to a technology that was being used by athletes and I began to conduct Neuro-muscular Electrotherapy Sessions on myself in an attempt to rehabilitate my zombie arm and haggard nervous system.
It didn’t feel great, but it was forward progress, and it didn’t involve needles in my throat or amputation, so I went all-in and became a human lightbulb with the (now rudimentary) neuro-biological stimulation that they used to rehab professional athletes from sports injuries. The technology has come a long way since I started, but needless to say, my wife and I would put on sadistic Russian accents just to make the whole process bearable.
It Worked!
After the first few sessions, I was able to do more than I had since my injury and the pain was dramatically reduced. I was even able to eventually function to the point of continuing my education and I became a Neuro-Therapist working with individuals who had suffered similar situations as mine.
5 years later, I have my own facility and I train people all over the world how to use this type of technology to work with complicated neurological conditions. There have been many advancements in the field and the overall process is much more pleasant now.
During my extensive hiatus from the world of the living, I began to study affiliate marketing. Partly because I was looking for legitimate opportunities to allow me to work from home, and also because I began to meet a lot of people along the way who were in a similar situation as me, and not having much luck finding gainful employment.
My focus shifted to finding legitimate products that people could represent when they had developed a testimony of how the product had helped them. This proved to be a difficult task, but fruitful in the long run.
I am happy to say that I am now in the best shape of my life.
I realized over my journey back to health that I took a lot for granted.
Even as I sit here typing this blog, several years ago this would have been next to impossible!
So, what should you expect to get out of this website?
My situation taught me that True Health is more than what we normally think about when we get a check-up.
True Health is all-encompassing, and has many aspects.
The three main components of True Health that we are able to focus on in an attempt to improve the quality of life for the individual are: Physical, Spiritual/Mental, and Financial. Improving these categories ultimately improves the quality of life for the individual.
So that is what we will focus on…
The information on this blog will hopefully be more than a loosely compiled collection of ramblings, and whether you are seeking information to improve your physical performance inside or outside of the gym, increase your ability to manage stress, or diversify your lifestyle with some of our incredible products and opportunities, I hope that you find value in the content.
Yours in health,
-Ian
Ian Rude is the Founder of Pure Neurology Consulting and NEUCLEAR Health & Fitness. Ian is a well renowned Neuro Therapist, specializing in Functional Neuro-Muscular Stimulation for rehabilitation and performance enhancement. In 2015 Ian suffered a shoulder injury while on duty as a Firefighter and was later diagnosed with a condition called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome / Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. With over 12 years in healthcare, Ian began working with individuals suffering from conditions such as CRPS, Fibromyalgia, and many more. He quickly made a name for himself in the chronic pain community as someone who thinks outside the box. Ian’s research focuses around Medical Cannabis, Functional Neurology, and Human Movement Science.
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