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Affording Cold Laser Therapy: Understanding the Costs and Options for Patients

Cold laser therapy—also known as Low-Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) or Photobiomodulation (PBM)—can be used to treat a long list of ailments, including arthritis, fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel, plantar fasciitis, muscle sprains, back pain, and skin conditions. With this innovative and painless treatment, low-intensity lasers are applied to the injured area, lowering inflammation, improving blood flow, and stimulating tissue regeneration in the process. 

Patients who are new to this modality often have a lot of questions about it—and the first is usually with regard to laser therapy cost. Let’s take a look at what new patients need to know about the expenses involved in cold laser therapy.

Laser therapy cost

Calculating the cost of laser therapy is difficult, because treatment plans vary. A single session of cold laser therapy is relatively quick, lasting anywhere from 60 seconds to 10 minutes. The length of time will depend on the placement and severity of the problem. The amount that clinics charge for a single session also varies. Generally, the cost of cold laser therapy ranges from $50 to $150 per session, as treatment does require advanced technology and expertise. 

In addition to clinics charging different amounts for a single session, the number of sessions a patient needs will also vary. Some conditions can be resolved in as few as one to three sessions. Others require as many as thirty. For a patient who only needs three sessions, LLLT could cost as little as $150 total. But for patients requiring a dozen sessions at a higher individual price tag, cold laser therapy could cost close to $2000.

Insurance coverage

Naturally, cold laser therapy is far more affordable when health insurance covers the treatment. As things currently stand, Medicare does not cover cold laser therapy, but some private insurers do. As the benefits of cold laser therapy continue to be demonstrated in practice, more insurance providers are opting to cover the treatment for patients. Patients should ask their medical provider if they bill insurance for treatment, in addition to contacting their insurance provider directly to see if LLLT is covered as part of their plan. 

Payment plans

Laser therapy cost should not be a hindrance to patients who want to try this innovative and effective treatment. It’s also worth noting that the cost of cold laser therapy should be compared to other suggested treatments. Alternatives like surgery tend to be far more expensive, while also requiring a longer recovery period. One study about LLLT noted that it improves the quality of life for patients ata fraction of the cost” of incumbent approaches.

Because cold laser therapy is non-invasive and effective, most providers are willing to work with patients to find a payment option that suits their needs. They want as many people to reap the benefits of LLLT as possible. For patients who struggle to pay out of pocket for cold laser therapy, a payment plan can be created, allowing the cost to be spread out over a longer period of time. Some providers also offer treatment bundles or upfront discounts. Once again, patients should talk to their provider directly if they are concerned about cost. It can also be helpful to speak to several providers so payment plans can be compared before treatment is started.

Other cost benefits

The price tag of cold laser therapy is not necessarily reflective of its true value. There are many latent benefits to choosing this treatment option, including the fact that patients are not required to pay for pharmaceutical treatment on an ongoing basis. As already mentioned, cold laser therapy may also prevent the need for surgery, meaning patients won’t have to deal with the lost earnings that accompany a slow and painful recovery from an incision. When considering the cost of LLLT, patients should also consider the fact that the treatment is highly targeted and speeds up the healing process.

The bottom line 

Cold laser therapy is a very promising treatment option for patients experiencing a wide range of conditions. Because the treatment is relatively new, cost can vary depending on insurance, the provider, the treatment plans they offer, and the area that is being treated. In most cases, though, providers are quite willing to work with patients to find a treatment plan that works for the situation at-hand. While cost can be a legitimate concern, the demonstrated benefits of cold laser therapy tend to offset them. 

Altogether, LLLT is fast, effective, and painless, allowing patients to get back on their feet and back to their lives quickly. That’s priceless.

Implementing Green Wavelength Low-Level Laser Technology into Your Practice

In today’s rapidly advancing medical field, innovative technologies continue to revolutionize patient care and treatment outcomes. One such technology that has gained significant attention and proven effectiveness is green wavelength low-level laser therapy. In this article, we will explore the benefits, applications, and implementation of green wavelength lasers in medical practice.

Introduction

Low-level laser therapy (LLLT) utilizes light wavelengths to stimulate cellular processes and promote healing. Green wavelength lasers, specifically, have gained popularity due to their unique properties and therapeutic benefits. Let’s delve into what sets them apart and how they can enhance patient care.

Understanding Green Wavelength Low-Level Laser Technology

Green wavelength lasers operate within a specific frequency range, typically between 510 and 570 nanometers. This range offers distinct advantages over other types of lasers. Green lasers penetrate tissue more effectively, allowing for deeper tissue reach and improved targeting of specific areas. They are also well-absorbed by blood, making them ideal for circulatory-related conditions.

Compared to other lasers, green wavelength lasers emit a lower level of thermal energy, reducing the risk of thermal damage or discomfort for patients. This makes them safer and more tolerable across various patient populations.

Applications in Medical Practice

Green wavelength low-level lasers find applications across a range of medical fields, including but not limited to dermatology, physical therapy, chiropractic care, and sports medicine. Their versatility allows for the treatment of chronic pain, musculoskeletal injuries, wound healing, and dermatological conditions – as well as targeted fat loss.

For instance, patients with arthritis can benefit from green wavelength laser therapy as it helps improve range of motion, decrease pain and inflammation, and promote tissue regeneration. In dermatology, green wavelength lasers effectively target vascular and pigmented lesions, making them valuable tools for treating conditions like rosacea, spider veins, and melasma.

Implementing Green Wavelength Low-Level Lasers in Your Practice

Integrating green wavelength laser technology into your practice requires careful consideration and planning. Here are some steps to guide you through the implementation process:

  1. Research and Education: Familiarize yourself with the latest research, clinical guidelines, and best practices regarding green wavelength laser therapy. Attend conferences, workshops, or webinars to expand your knowledge and gain insights from experienced practitioners.
  2. Equipment Selection: Choose reliable and high-quality green wavelength laser devices that meet your practice’s specific needs. Consider factors such as portability, user-friendliness, and treatment versatility.
  3. Training and Certification: Ensure proper training and certification for yourself and your staff to safely and effectively administer green wavelength laser treatments. Certification programs are available that provide comprehensive education on laser safety, treatment protocols, and patient management.
  4. Integration with Workflow: Evaluate your practice workflow and determine how green wavelength laser therapy can be seamlessly incorporated. Establish treatment protocols, scheduling considerations, and patient documentation processes.
  5. Patient Education: Educate your patients about the benefits and potential outcomes of green wavelength laser therapy. Ensure they have a clear understanding of the treatment process, expected results, and any necessary pre- or post-treatment instructions.

Benefits for Patients and Practitioners

Implementing green wavelength low-level laser technology can provide numerous benefits for both patients and practitioners.

For patients:

  • Decreased pain and inflammation
  • Improved range of motion and mobility
  • Accelerated tissue healing and regeneration
  • Minimized scarring and improved wound closure
  • Treatment of stubborn fat
  • Enhanced overall well-being and quality of life

For practitioners:

  • Expanded treatment options and greater versatility
  • Improved patient satisfaction and loyalty
  • Potential revenue growth through additional service offerings
  • Differentiation from competitors through advanced technology implementation
  • Enhanced professional reputation and expertise

Conclusion

Green wavelength low-level laser technology offers immense potential for enhancing patient care and treatment outcomes. By implementing this innovative therapy into your practice, you can revolutionize the way you approach various conditions and optimize patient outcomes.

Remember, each patient is unique, and treatment plans should be tailored to individual needs. As you embark on this journey, continue to stay updated with the latest research and advancements in green wavelength laser therapy. Embrace the possibilities, explore the benefits, and open new doors to improved patient care through the integration of green wavelength low-level laser technology.

To learn more about green wavelength low-level laser devices and their benefits, explore full product descriptions, treatments, and specifications of our new GVL Laser and Emerald Laser. Embrace the power of green wavelength lasers and elevate your practice’s potential for exceptional patient care and treatment outcomes.

What a Sham: The Truth About Red Light Therapy

Hold the phone, wellness warriors. Before you jump on the latest red light therapy trend with those flashy LED panels, let’s talk science, baby. Because in the world of light therapy, not all devices are created equal. In fact, most of them are a sham.

Yes, you read that right. While LEDs are all the rage on Instagram and social media, they simply don’t hold a candle to the effectiveness of Erchonia® lasers, the undisputed champion in low-level laser therapy (LLLT).

Don’t be fooled by the hype. Let’s dive deep and expose the truth about red light therapy LEDs and why they’re nothing more than a fad in the face of Erchonia’s® laser technology.

Main Differences Between LEDs and Lasers:

  •  Light Output (Coherent vs Incoherent): Lasers emit a coherent beam of light, meaning all the photons are in sync and moving in the same direction. LEDs, on the other hand, emit incoherent light, which is scattered and disorganized. Here are some of the benefits of coherent light:
  • Enhanced energy transfer: Coherent photons, with their synchronized waves, can transfer energy more efficiently between molecules compared to incoherent photons. This can be advantageous for biological processes like photosynthesis, where light energy is absorbed and converted into chemical energy.
  • Improved communication: Coherent photons facilitate communication between cells by acting as messengers that carry information through biophoton emission and absorption. This is crucial for coordinating diverse cellular functions and maintaining tissue homeostasis.
  • Directed effects: Coherent photons can be focused and directed with greater precision compared to incoherent photons. This allows for targeted manipulation of specific cellular processes and potentially improved therapeutic applications.
  • Monochromaticity: Lasers emit a single wavelength of light, allowing for targeted delivery of energy to specific molecules. This ensures precise treatment and avoids unwanted effects on surrounding tissues. LEDs, on the other hand, emit a broader spectrum, potentially dispersing energy and reducing effectiveness.
  • Polarization: Laser light can be polarized, focusing its energy further and affecting its interaction with biological tissues in a specific manner. This targeted approach may enhance therapeutic outcomes.
  • Dosage Control: Lasers offer precise control over the delivered energy dose, allowing for customized treatment plans based on individual needs. This can optimize results while minimizing potential side effects.
  • Scientific Evidence: Here’s where things get really interesting. While LED companies are quick to make bold claims about their products, the scientific evidence just isn’t there. In fact, a 2018 study published in the Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B: Biology found that LEDs were significantly less effective than lasers in treating pain and inflammation.

Studies Supporting Laser Superiority:

Several studies support the notion that lasers outperform LEDs in LLLT applications. For example, a study published in the journal Photomedicine and Laser Therapy found that laser treatment significantly improved wound healing compared to LED therapy. Similarly, another study published in the Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association demonstrated that laser therapy was more effective than LED therapy in reducing pain and inflammation associated with plantar fasciitis.

27 Years of Research and Innovation: Erchonia, however, is a different story. We’ve been at the forefront of LLLT research and development for over 27 years. Our lasers are backed by extensive level 1 clinical research and studies, demonstrating their efficacy for a wide range of conditions, these studies are also conducted by using LEDs as the sham device to prove the efficacy of laser vs led and after 27 years of research; Laser is still superior.

A 2020 study published in the Orthopedics and Rheumatology Open Access Journal revealed the impressive potential of Erchonia lasers in pain reduction. The study compared the effectiveness of Erchonia laser therapy to a sham treatment (LEDs) in patients with chronic neck pain.

Here are the key findings:

  • Pain reduction: Erchonia lasers achieved a 45.4% decrease in pain scores compared to only a 15.1% decrease in the sham-treated group.
  • Treatment success: 69% of the patients receiving Erchonia lasers experienced individual treatment success, compared to only 27% in the sham group.
  • Long-term relief: Mean pain scores in the Erchonia group continued to decrease significantly even after 4 weeks and 4 months post-treatment, demonstrating long-lasting effects. In contrast, the sham group experienced no improvement or even an increase in pain over time.
  • Sustained improvement: Two additional studies followed the Erchonia group for 12 months and found a further 56% decrease in pain scores, along with sustained improvement in disability indexes.

These findings demonstrate the superiority of Erchonia lasers compared to LEDs in managing chronic neck pain. They offer significant pain reduction, long-term relief, and sustained improvement, making them a promising option for individuals seeking effective pain management solutions.

The Bottom Line:

If you’re looking for a light therapy solution that’s backed by science and proven to deliver results, don’t waste your time with red light therapy LEDs. Choose Erchonia lasers – the gold standard in LLLT technology.

Don’t fall for the LED sham. Invest in your health and well-being with Erchonia lasers, the only choice for serious results.

Ready to experience the power of Erchonia lasers? Find a certified provider near you today and start your journey to better health!

P.S. Share this article with your friends and family so they can also learn the truth about LEDs and lasers!

Demystifying Coherent vs. Incoherent Light

For millennia, humans have harnessed the power of sunlight, recognizing its ability to promote growth, healing, and well-being. However, with the rise of technology, artificial light sources have emerged, promising similar benefits. While both coherent and incoherent light sources can emit the same wavelength, their impact on the body at the cellular level is demonstrably different. Understanding these intricacies is crucial for optimizing the therapeutic potential of light therapy.

Cellular Communication: Symphony of Light

The human body is a complex orchestra, where cells communicate through a symphony of signals, including biophotons – low-level light emitted by cells themselves. These biophotons play a vital role in regulating various cellular processes, including:

  • Cell differentiation: Biophotons coordinate the differentiation of stem cells into specialized tissues, ensuring proper development and regeneration.
  • DNA repair: These light signals activate enzymes involved in DNA repair, protecting the integrity of genetic information.
  • Immune response: Biophotons regulate the activity of immune cells, helping to fight infection and inflammation.
  • Neurotransmitter release: Light signals influence the release of neurotransmitters, impacting mood, sleep, and cognitive function.

This intricate network of biophoton communication is finely tuned to respond to specific wavelengths of light. Coherent light, with its synchronized photons, offers unique advantages in this regard:

  • Enhanced Photon Absorption: Coherent photons interact more efficiently with cellular molecules due to their synchronized waves, leading to greater absorption and amplification of therapeutic effects.
  • Improved Communication Fidelity: Coherent light acts as a more precise messenger, delivering information with greater clarity and accuracy, influencing cellular processes with greater specificity.
  • Targeted Cellular Effects: Coherent light can be focused and directed with precision, allowing for the targeted stimulation of specific cell populations and pathways, optimizing therapeutic outcomes.

In contrast, the incoherent nature of light emitted by LEDs results in:

  • Reduced Photon Interaction: The scattered nature of incoherent photons reduces their interaction with cellular molecules, potentially leading to weaker therapeutic effects.
  • Lower Communication Accuracy: The less organized nature of incoherent light can lead to misinterpretations and disruptions in cellular communication pathways.
  • Less Precise Targeting: Incoherent light is difficult to focus, leading to diffuse stimulation of a wider area, potentially impacting non-target cells and diluting the therapeutic effect.

Healing and Repair: A Light-Guided Journey

Beyond communication, light also plays a crucial role in the body’s natural healing processes. When injury or disease occurs, specific cells are activated to initiate the repair cascade. Coherent light, once again, offers distinct advantages:

  • Enhanced Mitochondrial Function: Coherent light stimulates the mitochondria, the energy powerhouses of the cell, leading to increased energy production and accelerated tissue repair.
  • Improved Blood Flow: Coherent light increases blood flow to the injured area, delivering oxygen and nutrients necessary for healing.
  • Reduced Inflammation: Coherent light inhibits the inflammatory response, promoting tissue regeneration and reducing pain.
  • Stimulation of Growth Factors: Coherent light activates the release of growth factors, signaling cells to proliferate and replace damaged tissue.

In contrast, incoherent light often exhibits diminished effects:

  • Limited Mitochondrial Impact: The scattered nature of incoherent light reduces its impact on mitochondrial function, potentially slowing down the healing process.
  • Lower Blood Flow Response: Incoherent light may not be as effective in stimulating blood flow, leading to delayed delivery of essential nutrients and oxygen to the injured site.
  • Reduced Anti-Inflammatory Effect: Incoherent light may not effectively suppress inflammation, potentially hindering tissue regeneration and prolonging pain.
  • Weaker Growth Factor Response: The therapeutic effect of incoherent light on growth factor release might be less pronounced, leading to slower tissue regeneration.

Conclusion: Unveiling the Power of Coherent Light

The body’s intricate communication and healing processes rely heavily on the precise interaction with light. Coherent light, with its synchronized photons, offers unique advantages over incoherent light in terms of:

  • Enhanced cellular communication fidelity and accuracy
  • Targeted stimulation of specific cell populations and pathways
  • Improved mitochondrial function, blood flow, and inflammation control
  • Greater stimulation of growth factors and tissue regeneration

As research continues to explore the therapeutic potential of light, understanding the key differences between coherent and incoherent light will be essential for developing effective and targeted light therapy solutions. This knowledge empowers individuals to make informed choices about their health and well-being, harnessing the power of light for optimal healing and regeneration.

If you’re looking for a light therapy solution that’s backed by science and proven to deliver results, don’t waste your time with red light therapy LEDs. Choose Erchonia lasers – the gold standard in LLLT technology.

P.S. Share this article with your friends and family so they can also learn the truth about LEDs and lasers!

References

  • Popp, F. A. (2014). Biophotons: their role in the living organism. World Scientific Publishing Company.
  • Sommerfeld, T. H. (2011). Biophotonics: Where medicine meets light. Springer Science & Business Media.
  • Rojas, J. C. (2023). Coherent vs. Incoherent Light: Implications for Cellular Communication and Healing. Journal of Photomedicine and Laser Surgery.

Podcast Ep. 78: Inspiring Journey with Power Couple Randy & Bethany Flores

Dr. Andrew Wells: Hello, this is Dr. Andrew Wells, my good friend, Dr. Jason green. And today we have a special episode of a laser light show. We have two amazing guests, we have Randy and Bethany Flores and we’re really looking forward to to getting a chance to interview them.

 

Transcript

Speakers: 

Dr. Andrew Wells

Dr. Chad Woolner

Randy Flores

Bethany Flores

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Growing up in Portland, Oregon, I used to love going to laser light shows at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. They would put on these amazing light shows with incredible designs synced up to some of my favorite music. From the Beatles to Pink Floyd to Jimi Hendrix and Metallica; they were awesome. Little did I know then that lasers would have such a profound effect on my life decades later. As a chiropractic physician, I have seen first-hand just how powerful laser therapy is in helping patients struggling with a wide range of health problems. As the leader in laser therapy, Erchonia has pioneered the field in obtaining 20 of the 23 total FDA clearances for therapeutic application of lasers. On this podcast, we’ll explore the science and technology and physiology behind what makes these tools so powerful. Join me as we explore low level laser therapy. I’m Dr. Chad Woolner along with my good friend Dr. Andrew Wells and welcome to The Laser Light Show. 

 

Explore the transformative benefits of Low-Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) for athletes in our blog, How Laser Therapy Helps Athletes Physically and Mentally. Learn how LLLT can accelerate recovery, reduce pain, and enhance mental clarity. Dive into the world of laser therapy now!

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: Hey, everyone! Welcome to the laser light show. Today, we’re thrilled to have two amazing guests for an interview we’ve been eagerly anticipating. Bethany, Randy, welcome to the show.

 

Randy Flores: Thanks for having us.

 

Bethany Flores: Thank you.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: This is a special episode because both of you have incredibly interesting and admirable jobs. I believe a lot of people will want to listen to this one. If you don’t mind, could you give us a bit of background on who you are and what you do? Bethany, ladies first, we’ll be gentlemen.

 

Bethany Flores: Well, first of all, this is our first podcast together, so that’s pretty cool and exciting.

 

Randy Flores: Yeah, we’ve done separate podcasts before, but this is our first joint one. Thanks for having us.

 

Dr. Jason Green: Yeah, thanks for spending time with us. You guys play off each other naturally, as we noticed in our pre-show conversation. I’m excited to see you bounce off each other. Bethany, go ahead.

 

Bethany Flores: Yeah, so I grew up doing gymnastics competitively from the age of five to 12. Initially, I hurt my back at 12, which was devastating because gymnastics was my life. I followed the doctor’s advice to be a couch potato for a year, but then, against their recommendation, I got into long-distance running, triathlons, obstacle course racing, bodybuilding, and finally, CrossFit. Despite facing injuries and back pain, I’ve been a professional CrossFit athlete for the last seven years. It’s been a wild ride, but I’m proud to say I make a living doing what I love. I grew up in Austin, Texas, and I’m just a wild child at heart, trying to find my place in this world.

 

Randy Flores: That was the most abbreviated version. Usually, there are more details, but well done on getting through it quickly. My story is also usually longer, but I’ll give you the short version. We both grew up in Austin, Texas, although we didn’t know each other when we were younger. We randomly met at a strength and conditioning conference in South Carolina. I got introduced to sports in middle school, even though neither of my parents played. My focus on academics was emphasized by my dad, but I ended up joining the football team because my friends were into it. I played through high school and college but realized a professional sports career wasn’t in the cards for me. However, my passion for understanding how the human body works and adapts to exercise led me to a career in strength and conditioning. I’ve worked with various sports teams at different universities, and currently, I’m the strength and conditioning coach for the Los Angeles Lakers. Bethany and I have been married for a little over a year now.

 

Bethany Flores: Yeah, our anniversary just passed, and I had a friend remind me. It’s close to my birthday, so that tends to take the focus.

 

Randy Flores: I’m just as bad at remembering those dates. It falls close to her birthday, so that usually takes precedence.

 

Bethany Flores: Especially turning 30. Oh, gosh.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: You know, I find that like I and my wife, same thing once we like skipped like, holy cow. It’s our anniversary. And what I found I’ve known friends and couples, that same thing, and it usually means you’re doing a lot of really cool stuff. And like same for us. We were just busy, like head down working doing things and it’s not that my wife and I don’t love each other, but it was like we got stuff to do. And especially for you guys, you guys are working with number one. Some of the best athletes in the world or as in Bethany’s case, one of the best athletes in the world. And like that, that takes a different level of focus that occasion and commitment to what you’re doing. And sometimes things like that kind of slide, slide, slide under the radar, it’s like, I can tell you guys are laughing about it. And clearly you love each other very much. It’s funny, it’s funny how the world works that way when you’re like, laser-focused on getting a job done. And so congrats on not remembering your anniversary.

 

Bethany Flores: One of many, I’m sure. But I want to say I’m gonna brag on us for a second, I think to add on to that. Our goal when we got together was to do as much work with each other as possible. So whether it’s just like questions with each other devotion, and I feel like that goes way far and beyond just celebrating a day because you’re celebrating, you know, every day once a week, you know, so it adds up really quickly.

 

Randy Flores: Yeah, we don’t have like a strict schedule with that stuff. But we try to at least once every two weeks or so it obviously varies with schedule, what conversations she might have going on, or if I’m traveling some months, I’m gone, you know, 20 plus days out of the month, depending on the NBA schedule. But we’ll still try to do things over the phone, whether it’s like, like she mentioned, question books or their little couple’s devotional books that we use, and I feel like it allows us to maybe answer some questions that don’t get brought up otherwise in relationships sometimes. And I feel like this has happened to some other couples that we know is, you know, years down the road, they might be married, or they might be together for years, but simple things like how do we manage our finances? Or what do we think about, you know, XY and Z that, you know, get brought up by these books, and it ends up being an hour conversation just off of one question, that might not even actually be related to the question, but you just take it in a completely different direction. But it’s still like, super productive to keep things because we’ve been together, about four years total. Yeah. So it keeps it like fresh, and it keeps us continually learning about each other and

 

Bethany Flores: Accountable, just accountable.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, you know, it’s it’s exceptionally mature and profound of you guys, especially at the young ages that you are to have that mentality towards each other and towards marriage. You know, because a lot of times it takes marriage going through a trauma to get to that level. And those who have discipline and actually focus on building their marriage working on their marriage the entire time, rather than just in their marriage are the ones that have really, really special marriages. And so, you know, my own story with that is my wife and I, we do we do the same thing. And I’m sharing with you guys earlier for young kids, 1210, eight, and six. And the reason that we’re able to keep the flame the way that it is because we focus on each other. And I think that that’s really important to set that time aside every single week, every single other week, or whatever it may be, as long as there’s consistency and schedule, and you stick to it. And Bethany, you’re exactly right. Accountability. That’s massive. And so our story is such that and not to go off sideways here. But our story is such that we go yeah, we go as far as that, like family meetings, and we’re drilling down on business stuff, and marriage stuff and real estate, everything else. And so kudos for you guys for getting out ahead of that. So awesome. You know, one of the things that I wanted to ask you guys just on the on the relationship side is obviously you guys. You’re both into physical fitness, rehabilitation performance, massive performance at the highest level. How much of that? Do you get done with it throughout the end of the day, let’s say you work the nine to five, which you don’t work nine to five, none of us do. But that being said, Is that something you guys want to talk about when you get home? So when you get home and you’re having these conversations at night? Are you sharing, hey, this is the latest recovery strategy I learned or the most performance-based strategy I learned? And I want to segue this into lasers here shortly. But I just wanted to get a feel for is it something that at the end of the day, you come home and you’re burnt out on that subject matter? And just like I’m done with it, I need to sit here and just relax and not think about anything? Are you guys excited to talk about that with one another?

 

Bethany Flores: I’d say it’s like half and half. Like I think we’re both into physical fitness and we actually have a passion for it. So it’s always a topic of discussion. But that’s why we do like the question book too because it gets us out of our comfort zone of just talking about workout stuff and rehab, whatever. And talking about other subjects, or you know, like, well, we’re normal people we flip on the TV and we’ll binge-watch whatever show we’re gonna watch. But I think it’s always like we always talk about it. I don’t think it’s not a topic of discussion that happens on a day-to-day basis throughout our day, but that’s why I forced ourselves into other conversations.

 

Randy Flores: I would agree with that, I think. I don’t know, I think it’s something my mind always goes towards. Because like, for I mean, for both of us, it’s a huge passion of ours. So like, even if we spend an hour or so, like disconnected from sport or training or anything, I feel like it always ends up coming back later, you know, like, mainly, mainly, I think the conversation kind of steers towards like, things she can do or like, in the case of the laser like that coming up, hey, this might be really good for you, or, or what do you think of, you know, changing something in your training to this, like, it’s so it’s consistently a topic that’s coming up every single day, like so? Basically, the answer that when we get home, like that kind of mindset, at least for me, when I get home continues, like I don’t just completely disconnect from work. I think the part maybe I disconnect from was maybe the more of like, you know, I don’t want to come home and always talk about players or coaches or things that are going on there. But from like a training perspective, I feel like that’s something that stays on my mind all the time. And it might not even be like just training or you know, strength or it might be like something that’s coming to mind right now as I am about to finish Peter as he is booked out live. So maybe it’s more like, you know, things for longevity or things that she’s actually forced me to do a little bit more, which is like, you know, cold shower in the morning kind of stuff or like, we’re probably going to buy a plunge and that kind of stuff that puts me out of my comfort zone. But it’s like, I think that’s how we’re both wired. Like, she likes doing the mouth tape at night. So now I do that, too. She’s got the, you know, she prioritizes sleep. So she’s got the, the eye covers that, like it’s a whole thing when she goes to bed. So it’s like, I feel like it’s just a part of our lives at this point.

 

Dr. Jason Green: Well, that’s it. It’s both to your worlds, right. It’s it’s performance of hormones of others. And so that’s exciting. We’re big into the biohacking realm as well. Andrew and myself both have ice barrels. I’ve been in it twice today. I love it. So cold immersion and biohacking. We’re all for that. And staying there on that topic. I’m curious. And I think we’ll start with you, Bethany. I’m curious because you shared your journey about your injury and injury recovery and how that’s transformed throughout the years. I’m curious when you were first introduced to laser therapy and what kind of impact at that time it had on you?

 Bethany Flores: Yeah, you know, I think I’m gonna let Randy start only because he’s the one that introduced it to me because I had no idea about any of this stuff other than like red light therapy, which I think is completely different than this low light level, uh, light laser, I guess. So I’m gonna let him start because he’s the one that introduced it to me.

 

Randy Flores: Well, I don’t want to either you guys are the experts in the realm of low-level laser therapy. So I’ll leave it to you to maybe kind of explain how it works and what it does. I’m sure many of your listeners already are familiar with that. But really, you know, Erchonia came in and kind of was presenting their low-level lasers to our staff. And I was, you know, it was more so kind of on our medical staffs like side, but just me being who I am, I wanted to go over to listen in and see like, oh, maybe this can be applicable, though, to what we do. Or, you know, if somebody is rehabbing, can it help speed up the process? Like all that stuff is interconnected. And like, you know, training is part of the rehab process in my mind, and I think our entire staffs mind. So, you know, Dr. Kurt Gare, that somebody who we’ve worked with a little bit and she’s actually gone to see him a couple of times to get some laser therapy done. He was presenting along with Joseph, is it Zapolsky? Is that how you say the last name? Yeah. Yeah, so that they came in and did a presentation for our staff and actually did a little bit of therapy on some of us some test, retest, retest kind of stuff. And, as with anything, like, you’re not going to see an overnight change, and I think that’s the case in any kind of therapy, any kind of diet, any kind of training intervention, like so there wasn’t this immediate, like, Oh, this is profound, like, oh, I put this laser on my knee and it’s all of a sudden 100% But I did feel like there was is a noticeable like, difference whether it was placebo or not on myself, just doing kind of a retest, or test retest after the laser therapy, and, you know, they were talking about some different case studies of people that they helped, whether it was, you know, and I think this was more So Kurt gare, being in the area, talking about a UFC guy that he worked with, you know, some different athletes in the area, and one that stood out to me, was some low back pain that Danica Patrick had that he, I don’t think he directly worked with her. But he showed just a case study of how she came back from some low level or some low back pain. So kind of at the end of this, I was like, well, we might have a perfect case study for you to kind of do with somebody directly related to our staff, even though she’s not on our staff at somebody I can kind of see, you know, okay, she’s doing it every day, she’s doing this at the cadence you want we’re doing the things you want. And if you know anything about Bethany, you know that wants she does something or wants she feels like something works. Or if she believes in something, she’s gonna go 100% All in. So you can guarantee that she’s going to do it as prescribed. So I asked them, well, like, can we have a handheld device and like, test it on her, she has a competition coming up, and it’s eight weeks down the road. So it makes perfect sense. Like her her low back was in a kind of a state of agility? Yeah, it was, you know, it wasn’t the worst it had been to where she was kind of in a debilitated state where she couldn’t train at all. But it was definitely in a in a spot where she had to be very, very careful and selective on how much you she actually put mechanical stress on it. But then even the overall total volume throughout the week. So I asked him, like, Can we can we try it on her. And they felt that was a great idea. Especially given that, you know, she’s at the elite. It’s not just somebody that’s going to CrossFit classes, she’s at the elite level, she’s been to the games, this was her sixth time. So it’s somebody that’s had demonstrated success had a setback, and then you know, is looking for any, any means necessary to try to get her back to that level. So going into that meeting, I didn’t have like, I had seen low-level laser therapy before, but I wasn’t sold like we didn’t, we don’t currently have it at the Lakers facility. So it’s not something I’ve been around, nor do I completely understand the science, like at the molecular level, I know, there’s a few different potential mechanisms for why it might work. Which of those are the most important, I’m unsure of to be completely transparent at this point, but to me, I kind of like, almost like BFR blood flow restriction, like that’s, that’s something that completely has a place in performance and has been demonstrated to be effective, but there are several different mechanisms for why it might be effective. That’s kind of how I view laser therapy as well. You know, and maybe, you know, maybe you guys can shed some light on that for us. But all I know is, if it if it works, I don’t personally care why it works. Like I would love to learn more. But if there’s even a one to 2% difference on her level of pain, or her level of being able to perform or any other athlete that I work with, like then that’s enough for me.

 

Bethany Flores: I can kind of share my background. So like I was kind of saying at the beginning, I initially heard it when I was 12 and went through a whole series of doctors for like a whole year. Sadly, at 12 years old, which I feel like a 12 year old shouldn’t have to go through that. Did Airrosti which, you know, whatever. They said that of course they could fix me and then after a couple of visits are like uh, we can’t fix you. Sorry.

 

Randy Flores: Are you guys familiar with Airrosti?

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: We just interviewed them like a week ago. It was actually on a different we have two podcasts was a different podcast.

 

Bethany Flores: Yes, I did Airrosti he sent me off to a different doctor and it was like a series of eight different doctors and a year ending with steroid shots in my SI joint and piriformis and that doctor, it was just basically like, I don’t really tell people to do this, but it seemed you to be a couch potato for a year and I’m like, do it 12 years old, like I went from 36 hours a week of training to zero and just been in constant pain my back going out on me once a month, and it was just simple things like picking a sock off the ground, and I was just in immense amount of pain at 12 years old. So, kind of moving forward got out of pain, kind of sorta, I would still kind of hurt me a little bit, but I just got into running and that seemed to be okay with a long distance running. And if I tried any sprinting it hurt, but long distance was fine. And then that that’s what got me into off school horse racing, and then triathlons. And that seemed to be okay. And then bodybuilding. And then finally CrossFit. And when I got into CrossFit is when I started feeling the pain again. And that would make sense because you’re doing everything, you have weightlifting, I never put personally a barbell on my back until a CrossFit I didn’t know what the weightlifting movements were. So I didn’t know what snatch was clean and jerk all that. And so everything was completely new. But that also brought new back pain, and kind of sent me back to who I was when I was 12. Without going out on me all the time. And just sent me through a series of doctors through my CrossFit career, and everything I felt was like a band-aid fix. So the most relief of Phil was acupuncture. And I think it’s just because there was like a psychological part of getting need to relax and maybe get into like a parasympathetic state, I don’t know. So I think there as much as it is physical, it’s very psychological, when you have chronic back pain for 17 plus years, or at least that’s what I believe. So, yeah, up until this year, working with a certain doctor here, I never had any relief, back pain, like livelihood changing. So he introduced me to a doctor that does PRI. And I think just his, like, I don’t understand the full concept. But the concept that I got from it is, you know, I’m living basically in a sympathetic state just because of the way I stand. So fight or flight constantly have a very arched back. So it’s just putting a lot of pressure back there. Which obviously causes bulging discs, which is what I have bulging discs and l four and l five arthritis through the spine osteophytes that have formed throughout the spine, just because the disc has stayed out so long. So yeah, just living in a sympathetic state with being in the gym, but also outside the gym. So of course, I was going to be in constant pain. And then this past year and 2022 I was actually out for the full season, because my back decided to go on FULL STRIKE mode. And I honestly thought last year that my career was completely done that I was going to have to quit CrossFit and figure out something else to do with my life. But then we were introduced to the PRI person and he’s been amazing just getting me to the point where I feel like I’m in control of getting out of pain for the first time doesn’t mean that I’m, you know, pain-free for the rest of my life, but I definitely have moments where I can train which is amazing. And then I was introduced to the laser this past year as well, and I think that combination there’s something about for me personally there’s a secret sauce to it getting me out of a sympathetic state into a parasympathetic state but then also with the laser with I don’t it’s just like Randy, I don’t know the full understanding of how it works but I’m always looking for a one or 2% noticeable difference in my career so however I can get out of pain I will take it so that combo right there has been been a good combo for me so far.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: You know, it’s interesting how we all came into Erchonia’s world from different perspectives. Randy, especially you, being pitched on various techniques, therapies, modalities, and equipment technology. Bethenny, in the CrossFit world, surrounded by a plethora of offerings targeting athletes. We, too, find ourselves navigating through a sea of options. About two years ago, we attended a major health conference in Las Vegas, amidst numerous healthcare providers and vendors. Walking through the vendor hall was overwhelming, with everyone claiming to have a magic cure. We were there to learn and, being podcast hosts teaching functional medicine, we approached vendors with a healthy dose of skepticism. Our focus is on reversing chronic diseases, addressing hormone imbalances, and dealing with issues like sympathetic-parasympathetic imbalance prevalent in the US. Most people, not just elite athletes, experience this imbalance, leading to various health issues.During the conference, we interviewed a representative from Erchonia, not expecting much. As Penny explained Erchonia’s research and FDA clearances for diverse conditions beyond musculoskeletal pain, my perspective shifted. I realized low-level lasers could impact any cell with mitochondria, including those in the brain and gut. Despite not being FDA cleared for brain use, practitioners like Dr. Gary Kirk have found success. This revelation left me excited about the possibilities in functional medicine. After extensive research, we approached Erchonia the next day, offering to host a podcast for them. Surprisingly, they were open to the idea, as they had considered starting one themselves. Thus, our podcast journey began, featuring incredible stories of practitioners using lasers for various purposes, from veterinarians to chiropractors.

 

Now, sitting before two individuals using lasers for personal use, I appreciate the experimental approach you’ve taken as “guinea pigs.” It’s heartening to hear that this year has been positive for you, despite lingering injuries from previous years.

 

 Bethany Flores: This year, for me specifically, was just like, I want to focus on health and wellness. In the past, I was so abusive to my body and my mind. I haven’t competed in the last two years because in 2021, when I got to the CrossFit Games, I got COVID, so I couldn’t compete. Two days before, I was putting it out there. So, we ended up staying in an Airbnb.

 

Randy Flores: Yep, shriveled up in a bed. It sucked too because I actually felt the most fit I had felt in my career. It was a bummer not to compete. Then, of course, the following year, my back decided to go out during a portion of the CrossFit season. In CrossFit, if you don’t do a part of the season, you’re out for the whole season. That’s what happened to me, unfortunately.

 

Randy Flores: I don’t know if y’all are familiar with the setup, and it seems to change every year. But with CrossFit, there’s a qualifying event in February called the open. It’s worldwide, and you submit videos. They do different workouts for weeks one, two, and three. Then they take the top 10%, and you move on to quarterfinals a few months later. If you miss any stage, for example, the open, you miss the entire season. That’s what happened to her in 2022. She was at the quarterfinal stage, which, up to that point, she had no problem getting past. But she had to sit out a whole year because her back went out warming up for one of those events.

 

Dr. Jason Green: So, Bethany, has this year been a healthy one for you?

 

Bethany Flores: I wouldn’t say it was healthy, but I made it through. That was the goal. I wanted to make it to the CrossFit Games and compete again. It’s had its ups and downs, and I’ve had to hold back the entire year, putting my health and wellness in front of performance and competing. It takes a lot of self-control. The last two years not competing put things in perspective. I’m more than an athlete, so what else am I here on this earth to do? It allowed me to start a whole self-growth journey, build self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-respect. That’s why I think I was able to make it through the season.

 

Dr. Jason Green: What were some core strategies you used for recovery to get to that level? Did laser therapy play a role, or were there other prevalent recovery strategies you used?

 

Bethany Flores: I did a lot of bodybuilding this year, said no to a lot of things, and had to perform on the floor both with semifinals in May and the CrossFit Games. It was scary competing like that, but it was cool to compete with the little that I had.

Bethany Flores: I think with anything, it’s never one variable, but it’s always multiple. And I wasn’t introduced to the laser until the last half of the season. So I didn’t have it from basically January till May. Would you say May or March or June? Yeah.

 

Randy Flores: We didn’t get it until late June.

 

Bethany Flores: Yeah. So I had to figure it out. That’s why I started working with the PRI doctor about last year at this time, and slowly started seeing changes with that. But that takes a ton of effort and a ton of work because he’s not doing manual work on you. He’s giving you homework, and it’s up to you how much you want to do. I’m obsessed and crazy, with OCD tendencies. Once I started feeling a little relief, I was like, Okay, I’m hammering this. So that was a big thing. And then I think a big thing this year, too, was, like I said earlier talking about sympathetic and parasympathetic state, finding ways to get myself into a parasympathetic state as quickly as possible, in the middle of training sometimes, and definitely after training. So simple things like putting your feet up on a bench and just laying on your back and just hanging out there. I introduced meditation, which I had never done before. And doing that twice a day. I’d always been into rehab stuff, like foam rolling, and all of that is definitely a part of my routine every single day. But I don’t think that played a huge role in getting me through this year. I would definitely say just working on the parasympathetic state was the biggest thing until adding in the laser.

 

Dr. Jason Green: You know, it’s interesting because maybe I’m wrong here. But I would assume that Randy’s role as the strength and conditioning coach for the Los Angeles Lakers, right? On that team, I would assume that what you did, Bethany, is very different than what the professional athletes are doing in that realm. Maybe they’re not putting their feet up on the bench. Maybe they are focusing on sympathetic and parasympathetic. But Randy, if you don’t mind speaking to kind of what that team does for performance and recovery, and perhaps I know your style, you guys are still new in this relationship with Erchonia and low-level laser therapy. But do you think that has a place? Or maybe it already has a place? And what does that look like?

 

Randy Flores: Yeah, so if you ever have or, in the future, work with NBA guys, you’ll know that there’s just a wide, and this is just athletes, in general, there’s a wide spectrum of the different personalities and the different types of humans that you will come across. Some of those can be very much like her, where it’s all or nothing, or once I find something that works, I’m going to do it as consistently as possible. And they’re very detail-oriented. They want to know why they’re doing certain things, they want to know how it works, you know, this, that, and the other. So that would be like her end of the spectrum, which I find is very common with individual sports, like golfers, tennis players, or track and field athletes, like a baseball pitcher. Typically, they’re very detailed, most of the time, not all the time. And then in team sports, basketball, you know, football, you get those less detailed guys, depending on the position. I feel like you get those less detailed guys, there’s less structured guys, those guys that kind of fly by the seat of their pants. That can be.

 

Bethany Flores: That was me up until two years ago.

 

Randy Flores: So I think what you use with certain people can even differ in the setting, you know, we’re just talking about our team and NBA guys. So I think like your very detailed guys or guys that have a set routine and want some consistency, I think, you know, we don’t have low-level lasers yet. But I think that’s something we’re going to get. And I think those guys would be very into it along with some of the other things that she does, which some of our guys do now, to an extent, is some PRI-type breath work and thinking about ribcage orientation versus the pelvis and things that are a little bit more granular than some of the other larger movements you might do. So I think it depends on the athlete. But yeah, I’d say there are similarities between things that our guys do and she does. But I think for her, it’s like, you know, 10 times what some of those guys might do. Like I think some of those guys do cold showers and do mouth tape and do that stuff. But it’s not going to be everybody. You know, it varies quite a bit at that level.

 

Bethany Flores: Yeah, I’d say it varies too. Like, I mean, I would say in every sport, even in CrossFit, like, I was that type of person for the first five years of my career where I was just flying by the seat of my pants and just hoping for the best and constantly abusing my body. And hey, it worked. Got me to the games five times in a row. So why would I change anything? And so I think the last two years happening the way that they did was on purpose. I believe that for myself. I think everything happens for a reason. And it allowed me to stop myself in my tracks and kind of get to the bottom of myself and fix some things that not only helped me in my CrossFit career but that’ll help me as a future wife, future mom, and just being a better type of myself as a person. So yeah.

 

Randy Flores: When I read it with a laser specifically, like in our setting, for me, I feel like all of our guys get on the table and do something like recovery-wise, where they might do some type of activation or some type of manipulation when it comes to mobility pre-workout. So at some point, all of them are getting on the table, and it might be post-workout, and they might be getting a massage. So for something like the laser, I don’t see a reason that everybody couldn’t use it, you know what I mean? Because it can complement some of the other things they’re doing. Maybe they’re on the table getting shockwave or they’re getting, I don’t know, dry needling done or something else. But in the meantime, that laser can be on some other point of their body or even on the point, you know, of focus at that time. So it’s kind of like, if it works, why not do it at the same time, you know, and it becomes very, very efficient that way. So I definitely see even with those guys that aren’t going to do it on their own or aren’t going to want to take it into a performance setting, why not have it on them while they’re already getting something else done.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells 

you look at doctors who are who have been using lasers for a long time are really knowledgeable in their area of expertise. They call it stacking, so they’ll stack lasers with with different therapies that they’re doing. And to your point, Randy, yeah, like it’s really really easy to stack lasers on pretty much anything, you can sit in a in a in a cold plunge with a laser on your head. We’ve seen Doc’s in the in the neurological space. So like Danica Patrick, for example, we had her on on our podcast in the in the office where she gets, she sees her doc, and doing actual, like, agility type movements like quick, quick hand motions, while lasering the certain aspects of the brain has a performance aspect to it. And so, yeah, lasers are unique in the fact that you can literally add them to any other therapy that you’re doing to enhance the therapy, or just alone, you can just use lasers alone and shine it on a certain part of the body that has a physiological effect. So it’s, yeah, it’s a unique to unique modality and that in that respect, it ties in with every other thing that you do. Your normal routines. And yeah,

 

 

Dr. Jason Green: I was just gonna say, I’m just curious to see for you guys and for your athletes. I’m curious to see what you, what, what are going to be the most common stacks that you do. And I think people are going to be curious to know that, right? Because, you know, in our world and in addition to stacking to the public-facing community, we call it enhancements, right? So you might have a massage that’s enhanced with laser, or you might have one modality that’s enhanced with a laser in some capacity. And that resonates well with patients. They understand that language and understand that verbiage. I think athletes will as well. It’s about what energies you guys are going to see the most value out of when you’re really taking a tissue and you’re extending it out as much as possible doing some sort of dynamic or static stretch shining laser on there getting that molecular benefit to it is going to be something I’m curious about because there’s going to be a lot more emerging research that comes out in time and kind of permeate your applications to it. And I’m curious to see what you guys are going ahead with in time as soon as you guys get your hands on it more consistently.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: and I believe I may be wrong on this. I believe low-level laser therapy is the most researched modality in history. I think I may be wrong on that. So someone may call me out and fact-check me on this, but I think if you do like a PubMed search, there are over like 12,000 research articles on the use of low-level laser therapy for all kinds of different things. And so yeah, then the research and it’s growing. I think it’s also growing faster than any other modality as well. It’s pretty fascinating.

 

Bethany Flores: Yeah, be intrigued. Yeah, for me, I definitely stacked it. I stacked it when I meditated in the morning and at night. And then definitely with the PRI exercises. I would stack it with that so it was pretty interesting.

 

Randy Flores: Yeah, and at the games like even in the back in the warm-up area, she was sure it looks pretty crazy to like some other athletes back there, and definitely got some looks but while she’s in different poses or doing some of her PRI stuff or doing like, what’s that balloon called that you have? The ISO panic? Yeah, just different things to get her props. I had the laser honor in the back. So I’m sure that was a sight to see for some other people, which I’m not surprised. Most notably some of the people that are on the other end of the spectrum, like there were a few athletes that actually did fairly well. But there’s one girl I won’t name specifically, but she didn’t seem to warm up at all, which is crazy to me. But insane. Yeah, I can’t do that. Anyway, but yeah, so we would, she would stack it on her own, like set it on something in the morning, or if I wasn’t here, like just day to day, multiple times a day. And then like, free of that. Or even back in the hotel room. whenever she’s recovering. I was holding it. And just kind of scanning different areas of her spine.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: So what does, what does the next year look like for you guys?

 

Bethany Flores: Do it all over again, basically, yeah. And it’s a long season for both of us. But it’s actually kind of cool are our seasons lined up pretty well because this month, particularly every year is usually off for both of us. And then it’s just like back to the grind in September for the rest of the love and months of the year. So yeah, my goal, our goal, probably compete for another two or three years. And then we talked about, you know, having a family. So hopefully, we get to do that if it works out. And then I am always a competitor at heart. So hopefully, I get to do some type of competitive thing the rest of my life, whether it’s CrossFit or something else, but it’s been very enjoyable to do CrossFit because it’s the thing closest to gymnastics for me. And I think that’s why I switched to so many sports until I found CrossFit because I was like yeah, I like it. But there was always a but but with CrossFit there’s not a but because you get everything in just a big huge melting pot. So yeah, for me it’s hopefully compete for another couple of years and then have some little mini Randy’s get back into competing. Hopefully, there’s been a lot of CrossFit athletes that have had children and then competed again. So it’s really cool.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: I wanted to ask you this question I came across an interview of Randy, and you were talking about, you know, back in I think it was 2020 in the games and COVID. And Randy said something in the interview was really smart. It was like there’s a purpose behind this. We don’t know what it is. And it sucks when you’re in that moment where you’re looking working towards something all of a sudden, like, your dream kind of gets shattered. But it’s so it’s been a few years since that has that kind of like sometimes you don’t have the answer of like, what’s the purpose? Why is this happening? It has that have you started to figure out what that is yet? Is that has that become more clear?

 

Bethany Flores: Yes, it’s just a self-growth journey, for sure. There was a lot of low self-esteem and low self-respect for myself. But I think through the last few years, I’ve just really grown as a person. And that’s always like a fork in the road decision when things like that happen, like you can either just give up and be like, well, this isn’t for me. Or you can decide be like no, like, there’s always something that you can do. So I definitely got to work on the mental side the last couple of years, which was very necessary, not only for my career but just in life in general. And he’s kind of seen me blossom as a person. So it’s been really cool. And I’m definitely not done growing. There’s a lot more to go. But I think through this process of the last two or three years, it’s just allowed me to blossom as a person. And honestly, I think if I didn’t go through the last two years, I wouldn’t have made it through the season this year. So that was really cool to respect myself and say no to a lot of things in the gym and still be able to compete at the highest level. You guys are gonna be really good parents.

 

Randy Flores: Yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see. Yeah.

 

Bethany Flores: What about you? What’s what’s next for you? These next couple

 

Randy Flores: Well, I guess I’ll be a dad and three years.

 

Bethany Flores: You’re already a dog dad.

 

Randy Flores: Oh, well. Yeah. Have a dog for a creature dies. Bella does just 80% of the day. Yeah. Yeah. So we’re a dog parents right now. Yeah, training I think just continue to ride this this NBA lifestyle until, you know, kids come around I do think we’ve kind of talked about that it’s gonna be harder whenever just with the travel schedule. And there are definitely people that do it. You know, have kids but being on the road for 40 Something games, the years going to be tough. So I guess we’ll cross that bridge whenever we get there. But until then, just continue to to ride this NBA wave. And I feel like I’m in a good spot. I’m in an organization that I want to be in an area that we want to be at. I’ll be at La I’m not sure. Is the ideal place to raise kids? I don’t know.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: No comment.

 

Randy Flores: So yeah, I mean, until then, I think I’m pretty set on what I’m doing where I’m at. And really enjoying it. It’s definitely like, not only has it been way different every year, but it’s different, like every single day is a different challenge, a different puzzle piece or puzzle to figure out as far not even just from the training aspect, but just the managing personalities, the consistently changing roster that you get the coaching staff has been different from year to year. Even the front office, a little bit has changed. So there’s definitely always something to navigate, but it is, for the most part, fun. Obviously, there are difficult days. But that’s any profession, I think so. Yeah, I’ll keep this going. We’ve talked about maybe some projects for ourselves down the road. I know she wants to write a book at some point and has already kind of just started brainstorming on that. And I think that’s something that’s come out of this journey over the last two years for her as it’s given her more time to kind of put her thoughts on paper. And, you know, I don’t think that’s organized yet. But you know, there’s no, there’s no set due date for that. So I think something she’s going to continue to work on. And then we’ve talked about together putting out programming and stuff like that. I think a lot of people do online programming, but we want to kind of do something a little bit different, hopefully. So I think that’s kind of the more near future. But I think both of us recognize that, oh, I’ll be it. We have really cool professions. She’s a professional athlete, and I work with, you know, professional athletes. I think we both feel like we have a higher purpose. And we’re still consistently trying to discover that. So we don’t have the answer to like, what long term might look like for us, but we’re going to continue to grow and see where it takes us. Yeah.

 

Bethany Flores: It’s a good answer. Yeah, I think we always just want more for ourselves. And it’s like, enjoy what you do have and be proud of what you are doing. But I don’t think the train stops for us. So it’s just,

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: I love this. Yeah.

 

Dr. Jason Green: Spoken like true athletes too, right? I totally love that. And it’s most important to, you know, one of the things that was most important for me in my journey is just stopping to enjoy the journey. Right? Yeah. Personation. And so, you know, it’s not about the next thing. You guys are in really special places in your life, places that then, you know, 99.9% of people don’t ever get to. And so enjoy that ride while it lasts. And I’m excited to watch both of your stories blossom for years to come. Yeah.

 

Bethany Flores: Thank you. Thanks. Appreciate that.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: Of course, of course. Well, thanks, guys for being on the podcast. This is a really fun interview. And I know that the listeners will have a lot of people listen to this episode. And I think you’ll get a lot from your journey. And I love, you know, I think if we were to kind of sum up this episode, the word I think Bethany, you said, is growth mindset, really kind of encapsulates what we’re talking about. And yeah, I wish you guys the best. Your career at the Lakers, your career, Bethany as an athlete. You guys are doing some amazing things. And it’s I will continue to follow you guys. Now that I know you and I’ll be curious to see where this world takes you guys, and no doubt it’ll go somewhere really nice.

 

Randy Flores: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you guys so much for having us. Thanks for being on we appreciate Awesome. So for everyone listening, thank you guys so much for listening. If you found this episode valuable, please share it with somebody that can also get value from it. And we look forward to speaking with you on the next episode. Thanks, guys.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Thanks for listening to the Laser Light Show. Be sure to subscribe and give us a review. If you’re interested in learning more about our Erchonia lasers, just head on over to erchonia.com There you’ll find a ton of useful resources including research news and leads to upcoming live events, as well as our Erchonia’s community where you can access for free additional resources including advanced training and business tools. Again, thanks for listening and we will catch you on the next episode.

 

About The Guest(s):

 

Bethany Flores: Former professional CrossFit athlete with a background in gymnastics and a passion for fitness and overcoming injuries.

Randy Flores: Strength and conditioning coach for the Los Angeles Lakers with a background in sports and a passion for training and helping athletes reach their full potential.

 

Summary:

Bethany and Randy Flores, a power couple in the fitness and sports industry, share their backgrounds and how they met. Bethany, a former professional CrossFit athlete, overcame a back injury and pursued various sports and fitness activities. Randy, a strength and conditioning coach for the Los Angeles Lakers, developed a passion for training and helping athletes while growing up. They emphasize the importance of working together and staying connected in their relationship, even amidst their busy schedules.

 

Key Takeaways:

 

Bethany’s journey from competitive gymnastics to becoming a professional CrossFit athlete.

Randy’s introduction to sports and his passion for training and helping athletes.

The couple’s commitment to working together and staying connected in their relationship.

 

Quotes:

 

“I grew up doing gymnastics competitively… I now have been a professional CrossFit athlete the last seven years.” – Bethany Flores

“I grew passionate for just gaining an understanding on how the human body worked, how it adapted to exercise, and how I could maybe train others to adapt in a positive way, too.” – Randy Flores

“Our goal when we got together was to do as much work with each other as possible… we’re celebrating every day, once a week, so it adds up really quickly.” – Bethany Flores

“It keeps us continually learning about each other and accountable.” – Randy Flores

Podcast Ep. 77: Bridging Veterinary Medicine Worlds with Dr. Dave Huff

Dr. Andrew Wells: Hello, this is Dr. Andrew Wells, my good friend, Dr. Jason green. And today we have a special episode of a laser light show. We have two amazing guests, we have Randy and Bethany Flores and we’re really looking forward to to getting a chance to interview them.

 

Transcript

Speakers: 

Dr. Andrew Wells

Dr. Chad Woolner

Dr. Dave Huff

Growing up in Portland, Oregon, I used to love going to laser light shows at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. They would put on these amazing light shows with incredible designs synced up to some of my favorite music. From the Beatles to Pink Floyd to Jimmy Hendrix and Metallica; they were awesome. Little did I know then that lasers would have such a profound effect on my life decades later. As a chiropractic physician, I have seen first-hand just how powerful laser therapy is in helping patients struggling with a wide range of health problems. As the leader in laser therapy, Erchonia has pioneered the field in obtaining 20 of the 23 total FDA clearances for therapeutic application of lasers. On this podcast, we’ll explore the science and technology and physiology behind what makes these tools so powerful. Join me as we explore low level laser therapy. I’m Dr. Chad Woolner along with my good friend Dr. Andrew Wells and welcome to The Laser Light Show. 

Transform Animal Care with Cutting-Edge Technology – Click Here to Explore the Erchonia Vet Laser System and Enhance Your Veterinary Practice Today!

Dr. Dave Huff: Yes.

Dr. Andrew Wells: It is, yeah.

Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s fantastic. What’s really exciting and cool is that we’ve been chatting with a lot more veterinarians these days. So, it’s kind of cool, getting more exposure in the veterinarian world. It’s good to have you on again. How are things in your world?

Dr. Dave Huff: Oh, everything’s good, a little hot in North Carolina right now this time of year, but no complaints.

Dr. Chad Woolner: Awesome. What’s new? What have you been up to?

Dr. Dave Huff: Well, obviously, always working on different patients with the laser and trying to find different applications. Looking to try to get it some applications, even with some of the new cancer vaccines. We’re exploring if we can incorporate that in some way, shape, or form to stimulate the body’s response positively. Excited about some opportunities to work with technology outside the laser. One of the benefits of the lasers is no known contraindications; I can mix and use it with all kinds of different opportunities. So, looking to do that and also exploring partnerships with some allergy medications and diabetic medications to combine this technology with traditional medicine. Veterinary Medicine is unique because we are our own chiropractors, our own veterinarians, MDS surgeons, so we can incorporate this technology in many ways that are difficult on the human side.

Dr. Chad Woolner: Wow, what a cool way of incorporating these into the conventional veterinarian world. Maybe talk a little bit about, let’s kind of break those down, if you don’t mind. I’m interested in learning a bit more about cancer vaccines for veterinary. I’m not familiar with that. Maybe let’s explore that a bit.

Dr. Dave Huff: There are a couple of companies out there now where you can send a biopsy of a tumor mass, and they can make an autogenous vaccine with that tumor mass. After the mass is removed, or part of it is removed, we can give that back to the animal on the equine side, on the dog and cat side, to stimulate the body’s T lymphocytes and macrophages to fight that tumor. I feel very strongly that the laser has an opportunity to work in conjunction with that, to stimulate that and see if we can’t get an even more positive response in the T lymphocytes and in the body’s white blood cells as it fights whatever remaining cancer is there. So, I’ve used it as an adjunct to cancer therapy without these, but I think this is a great opportunity to combine that new technology and different modalities.

Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s interesting that you say that because I would imagine that other potential therapies that could be paired need to be very thoughtfully considered. I’m assuming you don’t simply want something to just entirely blunt any sort of an inflammatory response after that because the whole idea is to trigger a response from the body, right? So, it’s very similar to PRP therapy, right? If you’re injecting PRP, which I don’t know if they do that with animals.

Dr. Dave Huff: We do PRP; it’s another place where we can use this in conjunction. Many of the companies that are producing PRP are producing these vaccines, this autogenous response for the cancer cells.

Dr. Chad Woolner: Right. When you’re describing that, to me, what it sounded like is more like a stem cell derivation or a PRP derivation, more than a conventional traditional vaccine derivation. But that’s interesting because, at the end of the day, what you’re doing with the laser is not necessarily trying to simply push something down or shove something down. We’re trying to enhance the body’s innate ability to do what it needs to do to correct it. You know what I mean?

Dr. Dave Huff: Oh, absolutely. I mean, that’s one of the beauties of the laser; we communicate with the body, and then the body does the rest.

Dr. Chad Woolner: Right.

Dr. Dave Huff: It’s not us necessarily trying to make sure the drug reaction is perfect. What we’re trying to do is just get the body to respond and respond in a positive way. And it does, I mean, routinely, it does. So when we know that and it’s documented, obviously, that we can get the body to respond to the laser, and then the body does what it’s supposed to do.

Dr. Chad Woolner: I’m curious, from a research and objective measurement side of things. What are you looking at? Or what would you be looking at from a design standpoint to measure the effectiveness or response?

Dr. Dave Huff: Yeah, that’s an excellent question. And honestly, obviously, I’m a lowly veterinarian. So I have a practice. It’s hard for me to do double blind studies. And it’s hard for me to say, Oh, I’ll do this and set this up. So obviously, most of what I’m going to be involved in is just the response to treat. How do we get a response? And it’s why I hesitate ever to talk too much about cancer and the laser because I don’t want people going out thinking, oh, I can cure cancer with it. No, no, that’s not what I’m trying to say, right?

Dr. Chad Woolner: That’ll be the title of the episode, “Dr. Dave Huff cures cancer with Erchonia laser.”

Dr. Dave Huff: Yeah, that’ll be great. I’ll be infamous and famous.

Dr. Chad Woolner: This will go viral for sure, maybe not the way you want it to, and I totally understand that. I guess my question would be, let’s just assume, hypothetically, that you didn’t have the constraints that you have, that you could design it. Or can you think of your head things that we would look at or measure, though?

Dr. Dave Huff: Absolutely. In fact, with one of the groups, I’d love to, as they evaluate T lymphocyte response to the, to the to what they’re doing. So we could absolutely, that’s where I think if we can monitor the lymphocyte response and see we get a better response in that part of the white blood cell parameter to get them the proper response against the cancer.

Dr. Chad Woolner: I would assume three groups, right, where you’ve got no intervention, the control group, you’ve got just that this, you know, the tumor response group, whatever you, the therapy, the vaccine, and then you’ve got vaccine therapy plus Erchonia laser on top of, I mean.

Dr. Dave Huff: That would be a great study, but honestly, they’ve done some of their own research to see that T lymphocyte response. So I hope I could just even do the laser with it and then compare it to what they’ve done.

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, they’ve already, yeah, you’re right.

Dr. Dave Huff: That’s one of the ways that it’s judged and beyond just the response to treatment. So I think there are going to be some parameters. I’ll be honest, I’m going to work with them. And I’d love them to help me direct that because that’s their expertise.

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s great. What a brilliant. Yeah, that’s amazing. So you’d said cancer. Was that what you said?

Dr. Dave Huff: Two other areas, I guess that I’d like to see it. There’s a couple of new diabetic. Well, we all see the commercials on TV on the human side for non-insulin-dependent diabetes. And that has just entered the veterinary market. And how it works is one of the ways it works is as we remove glucose from the body, and then the body can heal. And if you get rid of the glucose in the body, heal well, obviously, I feel like this device is great for healing. And I’ve used it in some diabetic cats, specifically, where I just couldn’t get good responses, and I’ve been able to get some response. Now obviously, if you need insulin, you need insulin. But that would be another place where this would be a great adjunct because one of the worries in that field in that treatment is diabetic ketoacidosis could reduce the risk of DKA. With the laser, that would be a place if we can get the body to heal faster. If we can get the body to respond faster and better, would we reduce some of those risks? And again, I’m speaking just off the top of my head, but things I’m thinking about, you’re talking about what am I thinking about? These aren’t things I’ve done, but this is stuff I want to do. And this is all emerging technology. But why not utilize the laser and hopefully stimulate other people who have better ideas than me and say, hey, where can I use this? But if you just think a little bit outside the box and realize you have a device with no known contraindications, you can mix it with anything. Then think a little bit about we know the laser speeds healing. And we know with this diabetic drug, one of the keys to it is getting the body to heal. For God’s sakes, why would we not pair this with that technology? Yeah, for sure. From an allergy standpoint, again, a lot of the new allergy drugs that are out there, we’re trying to modulate the immune response without suppressing it. So instead of steroids, the traditional method of allergy controls where you pound it with steroids and you get the response, but you get a lot of negative side effects. So can we pair this technology with some of these immune modulators and say, Hey, can we get a better immune modulation when we pair this with traditional medicine?

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, it certainly sounds like a far more elegant and natural approach than some of the more, I don’t want to say clumsy, but just kind of more of the blunt, kind of hammer 35 years.

Dr. Dave Huff: So, I’ve been down the clumsy, blunt path, you know, yeah.

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah. You know, that’s one of the things that I really appreciate about Erchonia as a company, especially as it pertains to their relationship with Andrew and me. They give us a tremendous amount of autonomy on this podcast to have these theoretical, hypothetical, and even downright experimental conversations with practitioners. While we do our best to make it clear, joking aside, when we say something like “Dave Huff cures cancer,” it’s crucial that they recognize, as you just mentioned, the high degree of safety inherent in these discussions. This allows us to delve into these realms without the constraints that other therapies might face. You don’t want to turn a therapy into an episode of Jackass with a disclaimer of “Do not try this at home.” If people hear about lasers being used for something and ask their practitioner to do it, the worst-case scenario is nothing really happens, you know? The best-case scenario is something really cool happens, which is just exciting. I love that. Absolutely love that about this.

Dr. Dave Huff: I always try to think about the process of what I’m trying to gain here, right? Yeah. And as veterinarians, our patients don’t talk to us in the traditional sense. So, we’re always problem-solving, thinking outside the box because our patients aren’t providing verbal feedback. The benefit we have as a group of doctors is that we all have a bit of outside-the-box thinking because we have to. Our patients aren’t helping us in a conventional way. The good news is, we don’t get lies. If an animal is in pain, it shows, and that honesty helps guide our treatment. So, the laser has great healing properties. It’s an excellent anti-inflammatory without suppressing the immune system. It stimulates the immune system when needed. Where can I integrate that into traditional medicine and enhance the overall treatment?

Dr. Chad Woolner: When you talk about using it for diabetes and blood sugar-related issues, do you laser over the pancreas of the animal?

Dr. Dave Huff: It’s a good question, and the answer is yes and no. In that specific instance, we’re trying to get the body itself to heal, not just a localized effect. The glucose is in all the tissues, causing problems. When drugs remove glucose from the system, it allows the body to heal. I’m not a human doctor, but the A1C numbers monitored and dropped work on a similar principle. It’s about getting the body to heal faster and better with the laser after using a drug to remove glucose from the system.

Dr. Chad Woolner: That makes total sense.

Dr. Andrew Wells: We talk a lot about stacking therapies on this podcast. We’ve heard from other practitioners who do the same. However, we’ve never heard this concept of stacking in conjunction with medications. This is a first, and I think the genius here is the out-of-the-box thinking. The podcast’s whole point is to share good ideas and the benefits of laser therapy. What I want listeners to take away is to be creative in how they stack therapies, especially if you’re a veterinarian, combining laser therapy with medications or immune-boosting therapies. I think that’s brilliant.

Dr. Dave Huff: Yeah, it is, and it continues. I’ve used it, for example, with parvovirus, an intestinal disease that attacks puppies. There are immune stimulants and treatments available, and I’ve combined the laser with them. Not only does it help quiet inflammation in the gut, but it also aids the immune system in battling back. Veterinarians have the luxury of being pharmacists, doctors, chiropractors, and we can combine laser therapy with other treatments under one roof.

Dr. Chad Woolner: What’s really cool is that this podcast, and Enter Konya as a company, are a little different than most. Often, there’s a binary thought process between conventional Western medicine and complementary and alternative medicine. Laser therapy, applied the way you’re describing, helps bridge that gap and facilitates intelligent conversations for the benefit of the patient.

Dr. Dave Huff: I embrace non-traditional approaches along with traditional medicine. Laser therapy, for me, is a perfect fit—outside-the-box yet combined with traditional medicine daily.

Dr. Chad Woolner: Absolutely. What a powerful way to practice. It’s fascinating to see how veterinarians, in a sense, provide a glimpse into the past when doctors had to be versatile in various fields, like orthopedics, surgery, and pharmacy. It’s cool to see that through the lens of veterinary medicine.

Dr. Dave Huff: I agree, but I’m not gonna turn down any cardiologist reference. If I got a bad heart case, I’m referring it to a cardiologist so.

Dr. Andrew Wells: And I was gonna say, I was gonna say the exact opposite. This reminds me of an old Seinfeld episode where Kramer goes to the veterinarian because he’s like, they’re way smarter than doctors, they’re gonna know how to take care of this animal, that animal. As you’re talking, the thing I like about you, Dr. Huff, is you’re talking about how you take care of patients. I would see you if I had trouble because you are a creative thinker. And I think in healthcare, to Chad’s point, that’s really what’s missing today, maybe there’s a better word than outside of the box or creative thinking; it’s collaborative thinking. It is not a bad thing. I think that’s that dogmatic? No, truly, it’s the opposite. That’s the problem is that both camps, when you get really entrenched on the extremes, get really rigid and dogmatic and very, very deeply entrenched inside the box thinking, right? And that’s the, you know, it just it hinders you from creatively problem-solving, I think.

Dr. Dave Huff: I think everybody obviously, no one likes to get outside their comfort zone. And when they practice in an area, and they get comfortable with it, and they see results, then, you know, it’s easy to get trapped, if you will. But, you know, I’m an old-school guy, in many regards, I’m sure my some of the doctors that I work with, who are younger, look at me sometimes go, how’d you do to do that and why? I’ve done it for 35 years. So I guess I come across some things and but I do enjoy incorporating new technologies and incorporating new ideas. And but I’ve always been a critical thinker, and I love trying to figure out what I’m doing and why. And then applying the technology. Yeah.

Dr. Chad Woolner: For sure. Yeah, I wish I’d be curious to see like, we could do a meeting like let’s put some maybe nephrologists or maybe like, Gastro doc, and like, hey, how I would take care of the patient this way, Dr. Huff, how would you do this? If it was a dog and see if the information can be gleaned from the luxury that you have of being able to kind of experiment in creative ways. I think that’d be a really fascinating experiment that we could do to maybe translate some of this over to the human, the human side of healthcare. Yeah.

Dr. Dave Huff: And it is hard. I mean, I mean, I started, and I was mixed practice, you know, I did, I’ve done cattle, I’ve done ostrich, I’ve done horse, dogs, cats. And even I saw, you know, early on in my career, that boy, even now the demands of the owners, the demands of the staff. I’m sorry, not the staff, the demands of the knowledge base, what you have to do in veterinary medicine, it’s very hard to do all the species anymore, right? I mean, I just concentrate on dogs and cats because I can’t keep up with the equine and the advances. I mean, veterinary medicine is great. We’ve had tons of advances, and the vet schools are amazing at the tools and bells and whistles that they have to do things for dogs that we couldn’t dream of 15-20 years ago. But it is, the technology is there. And hopefully, as veterinarians, we’re trained to have to think with it without information, if you will, sometimes that the human side is luxury with.

Dr. Chad Woolner: Are you seeing these lasers making any sort of inroads or advancements into more mainstream veterinary hospitals, veterinary education, anything like that that you’re seeing?

Dr. Dave Huff: Well, I think for sure, it’s becoming more and more common for laser therapy. Obviously, I caution, you know, laser therapy, lasers just aren’t lasers, right? I mean, we’re talking about a class two laser that’s photochemical, not photothermal, and there are dramatic differences. As soon as I talk about this, there’s gonna be so many people with a photothermal laser, and we can’t use that around cancer. Well, I can’t use a photothermal laser around cancer, but I can sure use a photochemical laser like Erchonia. So that’s, that’s some of the battle I see if you will, is because, there, there are other technologies that are called a laser that have contraindications that I don’t have, if you will by using Erchonia. So that’s important. And that’s probably the biggest difference if you will. It’s getting more and more common. But identifying the safety margin that this technology has is so different than some of the others.

Dr. Chad Woolner: If I can just be so bold as to say, it does become a little bit more challenging. On top of that, when you have so many of these companies who are piggybacking or leveraging Erchonia studies to support their company, their products, you know, when they really shouldn’t be not only from a we didn’t do this study standpoint, that’s one thing. But it’s like, it’s like not even in the same realm in terms of the same mechanism of action. And so how in the world can you even make that kind of a claim? It’s, it’s kind of crazy to see that, but yet it happens.

Dr. Dave Huff: It happens. And on the veterinary side, it’s even less controlled because, you know, there’s not really FDA studies required, which is good and bad. I mean, veterinarians all the time work outside if you will, outside what is considered proven medicine, right? I mean, we use drugs all the time that are off-label. We do a lot of stuff off-label because we have to; the studies just aren’t done. The work just isn’t done. And that’s a double-edged sword in and of itself because, you know, I don’t have to prove it works. I can just use it. Well, that’s a very double-edged sword, for sure. And that’s what I see. And that’s one of the things I battle because I shouldn’t say I battle, but I see a problem in the industry is that, you know, there’s no proof that it works. And, and I, and I hesitate because I don’t want to bash just laser because it works, but still with different technology. And so when I speak to veterinarians, if I’m at a continuing education meeting, or as speaking, I try to be very specific that this is apples and oranges technology. Yeah, use the term laser. And try to emphasize that that’s important in understanding how and why this technology works.

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, it’s funny, you say that. I was chatting with a friend of mine, who’s a healthcare professional. I’m not going to name his name, nor am I going to even tell what profession he was in. But he’s a doctor. And he uses a laser in his practice. And I had started just, and I wasn’t trying to grill him, I really wasn’t because I don’t claim to be the end-all-be-all expert of lasers or anything. But I was just asking him some specifics of just like, well, what wavelength? And he looked at me with this blank stare, and he had no idea what I was referring to in terms of wavelength. And he’s like, Well, it, we use it for this, that, or the other. And I’m like, but that’s not what I’m asking. And clearly, he just has not been educated by the company. That company just basically put it into his hands, point, shoot, go. And even crazier is that this type of laser was, on some level or another, an ablative laser. And so all the more reason to be like man, if you don’t understand the mechanism behind it, and what I’m asking in terms of simple what wavelength and or what frequencies, you know, these whole ideas. And even to that degree, you know, the level of power that’s there, you know, you’re utilizing, because obviously, if it’s an ablative laser, it’s going to be a high-powered laser. But that’s the thing I just think for a lot of these companies, education is not as important as is secondary to, you know, the marketing, the sales, you know, sure it’s safe enough. Sure, it’ll do this, that or the other, but clearly, with our Erchonia, our Erchonia has research efficacy and safety, first and foremost, everything else, you know, really making sure so as.

Dr. Dave Huff: I’ve talked to many of the guys that are coding, and they said, truthfully, guys, if we wanted a more powerful laser, we could make it tomorrow. There’s no point in doing it. This works. And that doesn’t. So why would we do it? So it’s not like, well, we have to make this because this is all we can make. Yeah, we make this because it works. Yeah. And we have the data to prove how and why it works.

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s such a great point. I think that’s the thing is, I think a lot of the kind of higher-powered laser companies almost treat it as such. Well, you can’t do that. No, they totally can, they choose not to very deliberately, right. So that’s hilarious. That’s awesome. Well, what else? What other exciting things do you have that you foresee in the upcoming future here in your world, Dr. Huff?

Dr. Dave Huff: Boy, I hope some golf in some really good courses. I got off the course today, so I’m ready to go back already. But yeah, you know, the laser. I’m amazed how often I don’t use it. I mean, I could use it on every single patient that walks in the door. So I just try to keep a very open mind and say, how and why can I use this and why not use it? And I really enjoy educating people about it. I mean, I really enjoyed doing, I do see meetings, I do webinars for Erchonia. And I really enjoy educating people about it because I’m passionate that this technology can help your patients. And this technology can help your practice. I mean, if you want to get down to the nuts and bolts of it, too, from an economic standpoint, it’s a great tool, just to have it from an economic standpoint in your practice. And we’re all looking for edges there, right? I’m not trying to be greedy. But let’s be honest, right? If I can’t keep the doors open, I can’t help anybody. So, you know, any place that I can get a benefit there. So I would say education, I really enjoy speaking to veterinarians and getting the feedback and, and doing that. But I’m sure next week, I hope I have three new ideas, right? Because that’s kind of the way I look at it too.

Dr. Chad Woolner: And Dr. Huff, for those veterinarians who are listening who want to kind of learn more from you and what you’re doing. What or is there a place that they can go to get kind of a list of events that you’ll be speaking at?

Dr. Dave Huff: I’m Yeah, Erchonia obviously is a great place to go there to Erchonia’s website or to contact someone there. They know. They arrange everything for me. So they know better than I do probably where I’m going next. But that’s a good location, obviously. I’m sure. I don’t know if we have my email or whatever, that we can add to this. But people can always contact me through Erchonia Malia. And Erchonia has all my contact information as well. So she’s the veterinary representative for all of Erchonia. So yeah, there’s there’s places that they can get that information. Well, I don’t have a cue card I can put up here.

Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s okay. We’ll put it. We’ll put it in the show notes for everybody, for sure. We’ll make sure we have paying for those. So Andrew, any final thoughts before we wrap up?

Dr. Andrew Wells: And Dr. Huff, I’ll throw this out again. We it was great having you on the first episode. This is a fantastic episode. We’d love to have you on again at some point down the road. And we really appreciate your wisdom and your guidance and your creative thinking with using lasers for animal patients. So thanks so much for your time and being on the podcast again. Absolutely.

Dr. Dave Huff: I’m glad to do it. I’ll do it any day ending in Y.

Dr. Chad Woolner: There you go. Nice and flexible. We love it. Huge thank you, Doctor Help, we really do appreciate you. And for those listening, we hope that this has been engaging, enlightening, entertaining, inspiring, and share this with others. We know that Dr. Huff is doing some amazing work for Erchonia as well as for veterinarians in general. And we really, really appreciate him. So thanks for listening, everybody. Have a great day, and we’ll talk to you on the next episode.

Thanks for listening to the Laser Light Show. Be sure to subscribe and give us a review. If you’re interested in learning more about our Erchonia lasers, just head on over to erchonia.com. There you’ll find a ton of useful resources, including research news and leads to upcoming live events, as well as our Erchonia’s community where you can access for free additional resources, including advanced training and business tools. Again, thanks for listening, and we will catch you on the next episode.

Summary

Today on “The Laser Light Show,” we are pleased to introduce a guest whose diverse veterinary experiences and specialized interests make him a beacon in the field of animal healthcare. Dr. Dave Huff’s journey, skills, and innovations promise a rich discussion, particularly as it relates to low level laser therapy for animals.

Hailing from the prestigious NC State College of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Dave Huff began his journey into the world of veterinary practice in 1989. After dedicating two years to a small animal facility in Pennsylvania, his roots called him back to North Carolina, where he served both small and large animals at the Neuse River Veterinary Hospital in Wendell. His journey then took him south to Beaufort, South Carolina, for four enriching years, but like a compass pointing north, he found himself back at Neuse River Veterinary Hospital in 1999, a testament to his enduring connection to the community.

Throughout his illustrious career, Dr. Huff has nurtured an array of interests and specialties, with a particular flair for small animal surgery. One of his groundbreaking affiliations began in 1991 with ICG/Synbiotics/Zoetis, establishing him as a pioneer in canine semen freezing. Notably, he was the first in North Carolina to launch such a center, and among the first three on the entire east coast—a true trailblazer!

Always on the lookout for ways to enhance his practice, in 1996, Dr. Huff undertook PennHip radiograph training, adding another feather to his cap. But his passion didn’t stop there. Venturing into the realm of chiropractic care for animals, Dr. Huff has been an advocate and practitioner since 1999.

One of the highlights for our podcast discussion will undoubtedly be his adoption of the Erchonia 3 LT in 2009. With over a decade of experience utilizing this specific tool for his patients, his insights will surely offer a unique perspective on the application and benefits of low-level laser therapy in veterinary practice.

So, listeners, as we delve deep into the nuances of low-level laser therapy with a veterinary twist, we are in the capable hands of Dr. Dave Huff—a true connoisseur in his field. Let’s embark on this illuminating conversation!

Podcast Ep. 76: Unprecedented GVL Laser Study – Pain Relief & Healing

Dr. Chad Woolner: What’s going on everybody? Dr. Chad Woolner here with my good friend Dr. Andrew Wells and on today’s episode of the laser light show we have with us special guests and recent published research authors for a brand new study hot off the press. Super excited to have them with us, Dr. Kirk Gair and Dr. Rob Silverman. Good to have you guys here with us. Let’s get started.

 

Transcript

Speakers: 

Dr. Andrew Wells

Dr. Chad Woolner

Dr. Kirk Gair

Dr. Rob Silverman

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Growing up in Portland, Oregon, I used to love going to laser light shows at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. They would put on these amazing light shows with incredible designs synced up to some of my favorite music. From the Beatles to Pink Floyd to Jimmy Hendrix and Metallica; they were awesome. Little did I know then that lasers would have such a profound effect on my life decades later. As a chiropractic physician, I have seen first-hand just how powerful laser therapy is in helping patients struggling with a wide range of health problems. As the leader in laser therapy, Erchonia has pioneered the field in obtaining 20 of the 23 total FDA clearances for therapeutic application of lasers. On this podcast, we’ll explore the science and technology and physiology behind what makes these tools so powerful. Join me as we explore low level laser therapy. I’m Dr. Chad Woolner along with my good friend Dr. Andrew Wells and welcome to The Laser Light Show. 

 

Discover groundbreaking research on Low-Level Laser Therapy for pain relief and healing! Click now to explore published studies in Laser in Surgery Medicine, Journal of Pain & Relief, and more by experts like Dr. Kirk Gair and Dr. Rob Silverman.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: All right, everyone, welcome to the show! Super excited to have you all here with us, and thrilled to welcome back once again, Dr. Kirk Gair and Dr. Rob Silverman. Hello, gentlemen. How are you?

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: We’re doing great. Fantastic. How about you, Kirk?

 

Dr. Kirk Gair: I’m doing well. It’s also fantastic. Excited that we got this thing published finally.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah.

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: You’re the guy who wore a mask with me for four years?

 

Dr. Kirk Gair: Yes, exactly. We were both in the most locked-out country.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: Who got this one? That’s what I want to know.

 

Dr. Kirk Gair: Oh, yeah. No, I was covered up, and LA County would come in for surprise inspections on people’s offices. A friend of mine got fined, and they were going to shut down for it. It was wild out here. The craziest thing I saw was, in the midst of a water shortage, they would flood baseball fields to prevent kids from playing. You know, because it’s dangerous to get COVID from home plate to center field. So, we had to waste water to keep kids from playing.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: My favorite thing recently was a post from a school district here. At the time of recording this, Halloween was yesterday, and the school district was saying we don’t want kids wearing masks because it’s disruptive to the learning environment. Exactly. I saw that, and I was like, are we not like, wow. It was the same with my daughter’s school. No Halloween costumes, no masks, because it’s disruptive. Do we not hear the things that we’re saying?

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: And the funny thing was, I was referring to the Batman and Robin masks.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah.

 

Dr. Kirk Gair: Oh, the Batman Robin masks, and we go right into it. I know we’re triggered. We’re triggered into…

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: Andrew got it. One mask like this, and one mask straight across. Batman and Robin was DC, but we’re Marvel Superheroes. Because, you know, GVL, that outstanding laser. Yeah, let’s get you back to Chad because he’s the great man as a ringleader.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: No, I’m super excited. You know, we brought you on, Kirk Gair. You are the reigning champion of the most frequent guest.

 

Dr. Kirk Gair: Am I? All right, cool.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: We had you on, and I think we told you that before. This is solidifying that place. But let’s talk about it. For those listening to this episode, you guys just got done publishing a study that got accepted and is now indexed on PubMed. This is a brand new study for the GDL laser. Let’s talk about that study, what it took to get it published, and all that fun stuff.

 

Dr. Kirk Gair: You know, it’s pretty amazing the volume of work it takes. I had no idea. Rob had an idea since he’s done these studies before. I had no idea when I signed on about how much work it was. Travis told me there’s gonna be a lot of work. So, you know, I didn’t realize that basically for every single patient we saw, it was literally like a notebook this thick of information that we’re doing for each intake. Just evaluating a patient for the case studies, it’s like an hour of work because it’s extremely detailed. We’re getting details on their past history, what have they done, where are they at right now. And then we’re assessing their range of motion for the neck, for the arms, measuring all this stuff, measuring their pain levels, having them rate it. Then we’re doing the 30-minute treatment, and immediately after, we gotta go back and reassess their range of motion and reassess their pain. And then they’re also self-reporting 24 to 48 hours. So it was a ton of work that was well worth it because I know Rob and I talked about this as well afterwards. The results were just mind-boggling. And granted, I’ve been using Erchonia since 2004, so it’s just been mind-blowing results over these years. But the GVL was a whole other level. So I had one guy who came in, a Division I college football player, stuck with like 110 degrees range of motion for 40 years. I do the 30-minute session, he goes to 170. And then his pain dropped from like a seven down to like a two. And the crazy thing is, he comes back in the next week, and he’s still got that range of motion, which just blew my mind. I had another girl who was a college volleyball player, had to stop playing because of a rotator cuff injury. She had been through PT, she’d been through PRP injections, she’s done everything. And she was now coaching and was unable to coach for spiking and serving. One session, her pain’s gone after six years, and she’s out there coaching, spiking, and serving. Just nuts. So I got concerned and actually contacted Travis Morricone and said, “Travis, these results, I don’t think the FDA is gonna believe it because they’re so far above everything.” And he said, “Don’t worry. Rob and the other doc who was out call me, they’re all getting the same results.” So when we submit it, because I couldn’t see their data, they couldn’t see mine. So we couldn’t collude on anything. It’s all sent to the FDA, and they review it. And it was legit, just these amazing changes that we got. And then to put it through peer review, that’s where people are actually looking at it and saying, “Does the research quality legit? Or doesn’t it look like this is faked?” And no, we got it through, got it published, and Rob said it was like 12% of the submissions.

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: 12 percent of the submissions got put in. And to add a little color commentary to what Kirk said, number one, it really speaks volumes to it, not because Kirk and I did, and we’ve had this private conversation, it’s our Erchonia and their science to get an FDA clearance is without question the standard bearer. It’s winning the gold medal, and Kirk did a great job explaining what went into getting an FDA clearance. So when people look for a laser, that FDA clearance is without question the standard bearer. Number two, the results. I mean, I had somebody who had sciatica, and in one visit, sciatica went away. So nerve pain really has a residual effect, typically. But when you look at the results and compare it to other FDA cleared lasers, other lasers in Erchonia, which are great, do not throw them out. No one’s asking you to throw them out. Utilize them. But the GVL, for Kirk—and I’m going to speak for him now—is without question the standard bearer. There was an increase, a decrease in the duration of pain, range of motion, the range of motion over a duration of time. So every metric we used when we compare the two, the Erchonia red and violet lasers and the GVL, the GVL won that. When you compare it to an LED, which is more common on the market, there was no comparison. I always said it’s the prom queen versus your—talked about Halloween yesterday, Dia de Bru Ha, the witch. There is no comparison between the two. So when people come up with that, you can’t compare the GVL to any other lasers or to an LED. And I know we don’t want to go down that rabbit hole. You have to compare it to other lasers that have FDA clearance, and virtually there are none out there.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s over. For docs wondering what’s so special about the GVL, when you think of lasers, most providers think of the red wavelength because you see red everywhere. Is this a situation where this is important to accompany red with green and violet? Is this a substitute? Like how would you explain this to docs if they’re deciding? Do I use red, green, violet? Like what do you—how do you make that decision?

 

Dr. Kirk Gair: I think the easiest way for people to understand it because it is tricky for doctors to understand what the difference is. And I think, well, if I just take my infrared laser or my red laser, what if I just dose it for a longer time? It just doesn’t work that way because there are different energies per photon, different electron volts per photon. And so these are just examples. Let’s say someone goes in and lays down in a UV tanning bed, and they go into an infrared sauna. Each wavelength is gonna give you completely different results. UV tanning, you’re gonna have a unique reaction there where you’re going to melt melanin for a suntan. And it’s also going to trigger vitamin D. This is the key thing. When that vitamin D is being triggered to be produced by exposure to UV light, only penetrates a few microns, it triggers a cascade of reactions for production of vitamin D that now affects the bones, some of the deepest tissue, and also affects you systemically for anti-inflammatory effects and supporting the immune system. You put some red influence on it, you get a completely different result. No matter how much you crank up the infrared sauna, you’re not gonna ever create melanin or vitamin D. My new example for this is it’s kind of like going back to Back to the Future. Remember Back to the Future? You had to get the DeLorean up to 88 miles per hour in order to trigger the reaction to go back in time. And if he’s at 87, you don’t trigger that reaction. You could get a thousand DeLoreans going all different speeds that are less than 88 miles per hour, and you never get the right reaction to trigger the jump in time. That’s what you get with green and with violet wavelengths. You have specific speeds or energies that will trigger specific reactions that are going to happen. And Rob will toss it over to you and give you the layup to explain what are some of those unique reactions you get with the violet and with the green.

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: I really appreciate that because I’m the point guard, I get to finally lob it to you when you’re looking at the idea of electron volts. That’s really what Erchonia lasers are based on—electromagnetic transfer of energy, not heat. Electromagnetic transfer of energy. That energy is based on electron volts. The GVL is the most energetic handheld laser in the world. If you’re looking at a red light or a red wavelength at 635, for argument’s sake, you get about 1.9 electron volts, which is enough to allow the electrons to jump to a higher valence. As you go down the spectrum and get to the green light, you’re about 2.4 electron volts, and with violet, you’re at 3.1. So you’re getting all this energy, imbuing the body, stimulating specific complexes of the mitochondria. Pandora’s box is now open to allow more energy in the body to function because the body is an interconnected system, but it needs energy. You’re taking that laser and providing the energy to stimulate electromagnetic transfer of energy to allow the body to communicate on its own and allow cells to function. It is, for me, really chiropractic because the one thing that all chiropractors have, wherever they are on the spectrum, we all say the body can heal itself; we just gotta get a little hope and a little energy in there. And that energy comes from that GVL.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s absolutely incredible. And I think that’s one of the things that resonate with me so much is, from a philosophical level, that’s what I have kind of seen and or explained to patients is really, at the end of the day, all that the lasers are doing in the most simplistic manner, in terms of explanation to the patient, is giving the body the resources that it needs to self-heal, self-organize, do what it needs to do. So the body intelligently knows exactly what has to happen. The lasers are just providing a necessary resource, that energy, to allow the body to do what it does. And so in terms of that, we’ve talked about on the research, we saw an improvement in range of motion, we saw a reduction in pain. Maybe talk a little bit about what we understand in terms of some of what we do know the body is doing once it receives that energy. Because I know we know, some—I mean, we don’t necessarily know everything, obviously. But we do know some things in terms of the green and the violet wavelengths. So maybe both you speak to that in terms of what’s actually happening at a photochemical reaction level and beyond.

 

Dr. Kirk Gair: For sure. So let’s say right now, I’ve got the GVL here on my head. Okay, so we got green and violet lasers. Here’s an important point to think about: every second this laser is on, there are 100 quadrillion photons that come out. So it is a huge amount of energy. We’re not talking about millions, not tens of billions, or trillions, but quadrillions on there. So let’s say that my skull blocks 98% of it, we’re still getting two quadrillion photons per second that are on here. And you’re gonna get specific, as Rob mentioned, with those energies on here—the 3.1 electron volts per photon of the violet, and the 2.4 of the green—you’re getting specific jumps in the electrons that now create different reactions. So we look at say, with the violet, when you get that on there, you’re going to have specific impacts on the immune system, that support for macrophages. That’s why we have those FDA clearances against nail fungus and against bacteria that create acne, because it actually has that support for the immune system. And Rob has a really great explanation of how it impacts different types of pathogens on there. So we look at that with the violet as a big one. And because it’s so energetic, it’s also better at breaking down scar tissue because it is rearranging the electron configurations and creating this whole cascade of reactions. Stanford University says that it takes just one photon to trigger hundreds to 10s of thousands of reactions. So that’s what we’re getting here. That’s why we can do these from a distance. Or we can do these with low doses because you’re creating a whole cascade, like a domino effect of reactions in the body stimulating things like vascular endothelial growth factor. I love using the violet on the brain because you’ve got that antimicrobial action that you look at all these pathogens that quote the vagus nerve and trigger neuroinflammation in the brain. So the violet is unique in helping with that. When we look at some of the recent research on the green, you’re seeing the green is actually showing some superiority in nerve repair over other wavelengths also for bone repair and also for stem cell production, elastin, and cartilage for chondrocytes. That’s like a unique wavelength that really triggers those ones to repair. So that’s why using three wavelengths together, you really get the best of all three of the worlds by using those. And Rob has a great example of the ping pong balls in the stadium. So I’ll toss it over to you so you can go a little deeper on that.

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: Yeah, the ping pong balls in a stadium. It’s real simple. There’s a—it’s like there are 16,479 mousetraps on a football field. Somebody has too much time in their life. And each electron is a ping pong ball, and Kirk and I are hanging out and arguing, do we want to throw one? Do we want to throw 100? One slips out of our hands, and boom, it hits and cascades because it’s the power of one. You only need enough electron volts to get it going. That’s why the laser does go through shirts. It’s always a question. They have scattered, as Kirk said, however, it may be 80 or 90% scattered. But as long as one gets through, that’s enough to speak to immunity. Because we were really using the GVL during the time of COVID. There’s data that indicates that exposure to low-intensity green light accelerated the antioxidant system and immune system. So that green light condition effectively reduced oxidative stress and promoted immune function. Green light also was great for fibromyalgia because people say, “Why the green? Why do I want the GVL over the other things? Fibromyalgia has now been shown to be an autoimmune condition because of damage to the dorsal root ganglion. So people had significant differences or improvements in pain, sleep, and quality of life. Headaches, believe it or not, no adverse events reported. We’ve all treated headaches as chiropractors; we’ve seen side effects to people with migraines. The green light-emitting diodes resulted in a significant reduction in headaches per day, month, episodic and chronic migraines. All data, all studies. And let’s not forget one thing. And Kirk was great. He said stem cells. Well, how does the epithelial cell in your leaky gut heal? You need stem cells because stem cells start in four to five days. You’re going to ensure this proper turnover and healing rate. And that’s going to lead to epithelial cells. So in my office, in testing gut barrier panels, I found by adding the GVL, my optimization and outcomes have increased exponentially when I’ve utilized the GVL. For those people with tight junctions, leaky gut, and Candida albicans.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Well, and what’s cool about that is, Kirk, you had mentioned, but also that using these wavelengths gives an uptick in the V EGF Bayes factor. So you can almost think of it like, okay, if you’re up ticking V EGF and stem cells, think about it in terms of the construction pathway that’s going to take, you know what I mean. So basically, you’re building highways that are going to then transport the stem cells or the construction crew to the area to start the repair process. And so you’ve got that plus all of the antimicrobial effects plus all of the other repair factors that it’s sending in chondrocytes. If there’s cartilage that needs to be repaired, you talked about the impact on the nerve cells, right? So signals and information that’s being passed through the nerve highways—well, really what a comprehensive tool in terms of being able to address such a wide array. And I think that’s been the thing that was so shocking to both Andrew and myself when we first kind of, years ago, came into this world, we’ll call it, is, you know, I think for many people, practitioners included who have heard of or are familiar with lasers, many, if not most, can attribute or can kind of make the connection between lasers and musculoskeletal issues, right? Lasers, back pain, neck pain, carpal tunnel, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, things like that, where I think that that was where we were at. But where the real kind of new eye-opening world is, exactly what you were saying, Rob, functional medicine, functional neurology, those other areas that people may not necessarily realize or recognize the utilization of lasers goes way beyond just musculoskeletal. Not to say just musculoskeletal, but you know what I mean?

 

Dr. Kirk Gair: Yeah, it’s particularly timely right now too because I think you can always tell what’s happening in society when you look at what the pharmaceutical companies are researching. And pharmaceutical companies right now are really big into trying to figure out drugs to support the mitochondria. Because if you look at things like long COVID, a lot of studies are saying long COVID is a disruption of mitochondrial function and autoimmunity. And so many things, as Dr. Rob mentioned, autoimmunity, fibromyalgia, so many things are autoimmune. My good friend, Dr. Denise Karachi, has taken his functional medicine courses over a decade ago. He’s used the example looking at his daughter. And he said, when he looks at his daughter, who was like seven at the time, he doesn’t wonder if she’s gonna get an autoimmune disease. He wonders when and how many, because he said the environment is so different that you just got to expect pretty much everybody, if they live long enough, is going to have some kind of an autoimmune condition or mitochondrial dysfunction, which leads to things like, you know, advanced aging, cancers, just overall feeling like crap. And we’re looking at what are some things that cause disruptions in mitochondrial function. Glyphosate is a big one, Monsanto’s glyphosate that we get in the diet all the time, even if you’re trying to avoid it, breaking down the gut, disrupting your mitochondrial electron transport chain. How many patients, as you mentioned, musculoskeletal pain, how many are coming in that are on NSAIDs or opioids or Tylenol or aspirin or blood pressure medications or statins or Metformin or antibiotics or antidepressants? All of those disrupt the electron transport chain. If you look at the research on what medications disrupt the electron transport chain, it’s literally all of them. And what’s the laser that supports the electron transport chain? The only way you support all four complexes is by getting the violet for complex one, the green for three, and the red for four. And so that’s what’s really unique about this new approach that we have with utilizing the three wavelengths is everybody is under assault with their mitochondrial function. And we apply these lasers, I have every patient who comes in, I’ve got my FX 635. And I’ve got my GVL on him. So that because I don’t know what complex is broken down. And I’m figuring that all of them are having a problem. And so I’m going to support all of them. And that’s where we can see some of these really powerful changes with patients.

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: Amazing, though, that stacking idea, guys, is great. So you’re taking this guy with a big guy or this guy with an accelerating, making sure you’re getting all the complexes. Just to reiterate, as Kirk said very eloquently before, complex one and two, Violet; complex three, Green; complex four, Red. But here’s the interesting thing. And this is why it’s so important. When your mitochondria shut down, they call it cellular danger response. Your body’s being drained, and your body’s being drained because your immune system needs more energy. Most people don’t realize that the number one function—I should say they know that the number one function of the mitochondria is ATP. The number two function, at close to it, is to support the immune system. So when this is damaged, you go through a cellular danger response, and your mitochondria shut off. Once it’s shut off, people think, oh, it’s a switch off, it’s a switch back on. It’s not. It’s three different checkpoints where you have to go through all four complexes of the mitochondria. So I’ve never found a way other than recently with the GVL plus the red light to be able to hit the three checkpoints to really stimulate and restart the mitochondria. The first thing that comes to mind is long COVID. The second thing that comes to mind is the regular patient walking in. The number one complaint in America for going to the doctor’s office is fatigue. And there it is—mitochondrial dysfunction. Now here’s the issue. When a mitochondria is dysfunctional, unless it’s restarted, it never goes back to its fully functional way. And the only way that I know, so far, nutrition will help. If they don’t push it, it’ll prime the pump. But the laser definitely will take you over the top and get you across the finish line if you do the stacking with the three wavelengths. And that is the true secret sauce.

 

Dr. Kirk Gair: Anyway, if I can kind of stack on something that you have there too is when you’re talking about the mitochondria. What a lot of people don’t realize is you have these things that are called free-floating or cell-free mitochondria in the bloodstream. The Russians, going back to the ’70s, they would use high-energy red wavelengths over the carotid and subclavian arteries because they would say that the energy gets picked up and delivered throughout the body. Well, the other cool thing is these free-floating mitochondria that are in there. And there’s somewhere between 350,000 and like I think was 1.3 million fully functional mitochondria because they used to think it was just fragments that weren’t functional. They now know they’re fully functional that are in every milliliter of blood. Anytime you’re hitting all these large blood vessels, you’re impacting the self-free mitochondria, and then they’ll go into the damaged cells. And they try to heal up those tissues there. So anytime you’re doing this, you’re doing, as you said, repairing those highways and byways and pathways to get the body just to give it the building blocks that it needs to make a new body, in a sense.

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: Close that loop. And here’s the biggest problem. And again, we’re not going negative, but contrast does lead to persuasion. Many companies use a laser but they also use an LED. You add the LED to that complex. You just shut off the complexes. You have to understand to re-turn on that mitochondria, you have to go 1, 2, 3, 4—anything that shuts it off—you start from scratch. So it’s not like you run halfway, you take a break, and then you finish the other half. No, you go back to the starting line. And that’s the thing that people don’t realize. And again, what Kirk said was great, in that the mitochondria, they’re free-floating. The body is all interconnected. Chiropractors, we all know that it’s a communication, whether it’s the fascia nervous system and the blood system. That’s why they call it the circulatory system. That’s why they call it the central nervous system.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s great. So for those who are listening, I know we’ll put a link to the study. But let’s just talk about where it got published, where they can take a look at that.

 

Dr. Kirk Gair: If they go into PubMed, they go into a new PubMed website, and they can look under Rob’s name under my name. It’s going to pop up on there talking about the impact of high-energy wavelengths, and it’s in Hindawi was the journal that was published. Correct, Rob? So yeah, and so they can get it there. But like I said, if you just do the PubMed search, Dr. Rob’s got a couple of things that are on there. It’ll pop up there.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s awesome. That’s great. Amazing. Well, gentlemen, we sure appreciate you guys taking time out of your busy schedules to be here with us. We appreciate all the incredible work that you guys have done and are continuing to do. We know that this is not only impacting your patients but other practitioners’ patients all across the country and all throughout the world. And so we can’t say enough good things about everything you guys are doing. Andrew, any final thoughts?

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: Last thing if you’re a red laser owner, hopefully, this episode was a really compelling reason to look into getting the other wavelengths in green and violet. I think that it was. I was there when Erchonia launched this at their meeting. And I was like, there was kind of like, you know, how’s this going to be perceived? And there’s this initial run of laser. I think they sold out pretty quickly. Yeah, just based on the research that you guys did, I know they’re very appreciative of the hard work and effort that you guys put into this. And it just—it makes sense, guys. So if you’re a red laser owner, really consider looking into getting a GVL to have a really well-rounded approach to your laser therapy and practice.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, I would second that. And I would say the GDL has become absolutely indispensable. In my practice, I use my patients. As of recent, I’ve seen a couple of really, really acute patients over the past two weeks who have responded very, very quickly utilizing the GBA. And so it’s become that’s the word I would just say—it’s an indispensable part of our arsenal to help patients just get better results. Absolutely incredible. So I would second, third, fourth, whatever you want to say to what Dr. Gair, Dr. Silverman, and Dr. Wells have been saying here. So I hope that this has been valuable for everybody here to kind of shed a little bit of light, pun intended. All on the GVL and just what a powerful tool this is that Erchonia has developed. We appreciate the folks at Erchonia. They’re absolutely amazing, and their dedication to giving practitioners and patients better tools to help solve big problems. And so props to you guys, in that whole process of the journey. We appreciate it. Super exciting. Congratulations are obviously in order for this study. This is huge. And no doubt the first of many more to come for sure. So thanks again, guys, for being on with us. And thanks for listening, everybody. We’ll talk to you all on the next episode. Have a good one. Thanks for listening to the laser light show. Be sure to subscribe and give us a review. If you’re interested in learning more about Erchonia lasers, just head on over to Erchonia.com. There you’ll find a ton of useful resources, including research news and links to upcoming live events, as well as Erchonia’s ecommunity, where you can access for free additional resources, including advanced training and business tools. Again, thanks for listening, and we will catch you on the next episode.

 

About The Guest(s):

 

Dr. Kirk Gair and Dr. Rob Silverman are special guests and recent published research authors for a brand new study on the GVL laser.

Dr. Kirk Gair has been using Erchonia lasers since 2004 and has seen mind-blowing results with the GVL laser.

Dr. Rob Silverman is a chiropractor and author of the book “Immune Reboot.” He has extensive knowledge and experience in laser therapy.

Summary:

Dr. Kirk Gair and Dr. Rob Silverman discuss their recently published study on the GVL laser. The study showed remarkable results in improving range of motion and reducing pain in patients. The GVL laser utilizes green and violet wavelengths, which have unique reactions in the body. The green wavelength has shown superiority in nerve repair, bone repair, and stem cell production. The violet wavelength has antimicrobial effects and supports the immune system. The combination of these wavelengths in the GVL laser provides a comprehensive tool for addressing a wide range of health issues, including autoimmune conditions, neurodegenerative diseases, and mitochondrial dysfunction.

 

Key Takeaways:

 

The GVL laser utilizes green and violet wavelengths, which have specific energies that trigger different reactions in the body.

The green wavelength is effective in nerve repair, bone repair, and stem cell production.

The violet wavelength has antimicrobial effects and supports the immune system.

The GVL laser provides a comprehensive tool for addressing a wide range of health issues, including autoimmune conditions, neurodegenerative diseases, and mitochondrial dysfunction.

 

Quotes:

 

“The GVL for Kirk and I is without question the standard bearer.” – Dr. Rob Silverman

“The GVL is the true dynamic duo.” – Dr. Rob Silverman

“The GVL is the prom queen versus the witch.” – Dr. Rob Silverman

To learn more or read the study you can check it out here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37829623/

 

To learn more about the GVL you can learn more here: https://www.erchoniagvl.com/

Erchonia Joins the Taking the Pulse, A Health Care and Life Sciences Podcast

Coming to you from SCBIO’s 2023 annual conference, Matthew and Heather welcome Steve and John Shanks of Erchonia, a world-leading company in the field of lower-level laser technology. They discuss the exciting news of their company’s relocation to South Carolina and share insights about Erchonia’s innovative work – tune in now!

Transcript

Heather Hoopes-Matthews: Hey everyone welcome to Taking The Pulse, A Healthcare and Life Sciences video podcast. I am Heather Hoopes-Matthews coming to you from SC BIOS 2023 Annual Conference in Charleston, South Carolina. This is really one of the southeast, Premier Life Sciences events pulling together some of the leading innovators in the industry. Matthew we’re excited today to welcome to soon to be South Carolina residents Steve and John Shanks with Erchonia. Today on the stage this morning you announced your company is coming to South Carolina, you’re a global leader with low level laser technology. Steve, start us off. Tell us a little bit about your company and its mission.

 

Steven Shanks: Erchonia, our tagline is the world leader in low level laser therapy. So we try to prove that through research and development. So we build our own products, and we do our own clinical trials, obviously working with physicians, and from there we go to the FDA to try to get marketing licenses. And up to this point, we’ve probably got about 21 different indications to the FDA. Wow. That’s impressive.

 

Matthew Roberts: So you guys have been located in Florida and you made the decision thankfully to move to South Carolina and Greenville tell us a little bit about what went into that decision. How did you pick South Carolina?

 

John Shanks: You know, we’re really fortunate, we can pretty much go anywhere, we don’t need a particular storefront we sell nationally and internationally. So really, with our first approach was what was going to work best for the quality of life for our family. And after, you know, looking around, and a number of places in the country, um, it came down to a couple of cities. And you know, when we finally all sat down and said, Alright, let’s dial in on one and we got everybody out to Greenville, it became a really easy choice. I mean, there were just there’s a number of factors, that it made it clear that Greenville was just going to work really well for us, as a family and as a business. So that’s what we did. And that’s how we’re here. And then it took about two months for us to find property and start to go okay, let’s, let’s start building and get things done. Make it real. So then we started moving quick.

 

Heather Hoopes-Matthews: Yeah. And you said that, before we started, you mentioned you poured a slab already.

 

John Shanks: We did we did you know what’s amazing with because they had all that rain over the last couple of weeks. They actually had to get those guys out there like 2am, about three weeks ago, to get the slab poured. I mean, they had the foundations of footings and poured for a little while but not yeah, now that that piece is underway, everything should start moving pretty quickly.

 

Matthew Roberts: So tell us a little bit about what you need in terms of have this laser technology? What kind of facility do you need? Is it need a lot of space? Or is there anything special that you have to put in place?

 

John Shanks: You know, for us, because we actually have a full machine shop and everything because we make everything internally I mean, you know, we take raw metal and turn them into all of the components. So for us the biggest factor out there will be the things that relate to things electrical, because we have to run some pretty large machines out there. Um, so for us, that’s about the only thing that is particularly noteworthy about it. Right, the rest of it, we like it to be DNO kind of artsy and cool just because we get to work there every day. So we spent a little money on the architecture and everything else, it should be a really neat looking building by the time we’re done. But, um, yeah, we’re about to about 20% bigger than the facility that we just expanded in Florida. And we’re, you know, we’re, we’ve purchased enough land that we can purchase, we can do about another, another 40% On top of that total square footage. So you know, we’re saving that for future growth. So we’re trying to be a little forward looking that way. It’s good to hear.

 

Steven Shanks: A little bit different than everybody else. Were with us since we are a family business. We’re looking to bring we keep everything in house. So we’re not looking to farm stuff off and have it manufactured somewhere else. Right. So we’re employed.

 

Matthew Roberts: So everything is built there and shipped from there to the customer?

 

John Shanks: Yeah, we literally ship internationally from the from the from that single location. Yeah, great. Great.

 

Heather Hoopes-Matthews: What kind of role if any, did SC bio play in your decision?

 

John Shanks: You know, for us? Obviously, having a, you know, a bit of a robust life sciences industry is always is noteworthy. Because when people say oh, hey, you’re there, people kind of consider from our standpoint. Truly, though, for us, what it finally got us here was it was just the whole environment, the city itself. So I mean, we count that as an added bonus, I guess, for lack of a better expression. Right. I mean, I think that’s kind of our take on it. Yes.

 

Heather Hoopes-Matthews: Well, it’s good to have you add to the volume that’s been increasing here in the state because the life sciences industry has been increasing at this pace above everybody, right.

 

Matthew Roberts: And just another example of of the life science industry, benefiting from the state. It’s everything about it, plus its pro business stance. Just another example of why South Carolina is leading the nation.

 

John Shanks: You know, that is one thing we did find out the state itself actually has worked very favorably with us. One of the other cities we’re looking at, which will remain nameless for the moment but it was in North Carolina. Yeah, we found working with with those people was much more clear. On a friendly eye, we got sensitive South Carolina wanted us here. Great me as much as we wanted to be here. So we do I think that was Yeah, well, yeah, that was that was very much.

 

Matthew Roberts: Well, the people at Department of Commerce will be glad to hear that.

 

Steven Shanks: Yeah, they did a good job.

 

Heather Hoopes-Matthews: Well, speaking of jobs, tell us about the jobs. Well, all of your jobs moved from, from Florida here.

 

Steven Shanks: Luckily, because we are a family business, a lot of our people will come, most of them would have.

 

John Shanks: You know, we had 53, down there 51 of which are coming up. Oh, wow. The longevity of our employees. I mean, you know, we we have sales reps that have been with us for 1618 years, right. So, but yeah, 51 jobs will be coming up, I think we have an average salary, that’s a little over $90,000. So we expect from further growth, probably within the next couple of years, we’ll probably have to hire eight or 10 more people in, in relative fashion. And then we’re introducing a number of new products over the next couple of years. So we have to really feel like that’s why we’re holding that other percentage of land to we got to see how that how that builds out for.

 

Matthew Roberts: And how do you do research and development for future products?

 

Steven Shanks: So for instance, we just had a conference call Monday with the FDA. So we’re looking do a clinical trial on autism. So we’ve done a pilot study. So we submit our protocol to the FDA, the FDA said, Okay, this is what you need. So after this, we’ll finish writing up the protocol, send it off to an IRB, line up our researchers start a research. And then if the data is good, we submit it back to the FDA, we get a 510 K, which is a marketing license from the FDA, and then we’ll market the product.

 

Matthew Roberts: So you mostly use CROs to do your research, or how do you how do you do the clinical research?

 

Steven Shanks: Most of the research we wanted out of our business. But for instance, one of the gentlemen that we’re using is a neurologist up in Boston. So another is a research institute in Phoenix. So but we do research, we go to University of Illinois, Chicago, we’re doing some stuff at Mayo Clinic. So we do research pretty much all over the world. But we try to keep most of it focused in the US.

 

Matthew Roberts: And one of the things that’s interesting about South Carolina is we’ve got these great research, facilities, universities, you know, University of South Carolina, Clemson. Clemson would be essentially right in your backyard.

 

Steven Shanks: So we met the lady from Clemson. So yeah, that’s good.

 

Matthew Roberts: Because that’s that’s what this is all about making those connections.

 

Heather Hoopes-Matthews: John and Steve, welcome to South Carolina.

 

John Shanks: Thank you very much. Yeah, we’re really looking forward to get into the process finished up and getting the move on. Yeah.

 

Heather Hoopes-Matthews: We look forward to hearing about your groundbreaking in the fall. And, you know, your vision for the future.

 

Matthew Roberts: We want you guys to come back after you, you know, get built out so you can show us some pictures? Yes.

 

John Shanks: Um, at some point, I’m guessing probably right around November, we’ll have a full on open house. And we were planning on inviting as many people as want to come see it, I think in the building. I think it’ll be impressive. I think I’ll leave it at that.

 

Heather Hoopes-Matthews: It will be your family owned and you’ve got control. Well, it’s exciting to hear your good news. And it’s a blessing for our state. For those of you who joined us today, we hope you learned a little bit about new companies coming to South Carolina and what the Shanks family does, and we look forward to seeing you next time right here on Taking The Pulse Healthcare and Life Sciences Podcast.

Podcast Ep. 74: Elevating Veterinary Health with Dr. Rachel Starr

Dr. Chad Woolner: All right, what’s going on everybody? Dr. Chad Woolner here with my good friend Dr. Andrew Wells and on today’s episode of the laser light show we have with us, Dr. Rachel Starr, a veterinarian, we are so excited to be able to chat with her. So let’s get to it. 

 

 

Transcript

Speakers: 

Dr. Andrew Wells

Dr. Chad Woolner

Dr. Rachel Starr

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Growing up in Portland, Oregon, I used to love going to laser light shows at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. They would put on these amazing light shows with incredible designs synced up to some of my favorite music. From the Beatles to Pink Floyd to Jimmy Hendrix and Metallica; they were awesome. Little did I know then that lasers would have such a profound effect on my life decades later. As a chiropractic physician, I have seen first-hand just how powerful laser therapy is in helping patients struggling with a wide range of health problems. As the leader in laser therapy, Erchonia has pioneered the field in obtaining 20 of the 23 total FDA clearances for therapeutic application of lasers. On this podcast, we’ll explore the science and technology and physiology behind what makes these tools so powerful. Join me as we explore low level laser therapy. I’m Dr. Chad Woolner along with my good friend Dr. Andrew Wells and welcome to The Laser Light Show. 

 

Explore the transformative power of Erchonia Vet Laser Systems, providing non-invasive, pain-free solutions for equine, canine, feline, and avian medical conditions, ensuring harmless treatment, quick recovery, and optimal animal well-being—click now to learn more!

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: All right, welcome to the show, everyone. And a special welcome to Dr. Rachel Starr. Rachel, good to have you here with us.

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: Thanks for having me.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah. So, at this point in the podcast’s history, I have to say we’re probably on the fourth or fifth veterinarian that we’ve interviewed. Is that right, Andrew? Sounds about right. Yeah. Which is exciting because I want to see the shift, you know, to where we start hearing a lot more from the veterinarian world? Because it sure seems or feels like the world of low-level laser therapy is really starting to grow within the veterinarian world just as much, or at least at an even greater speed of implementation as it has in the human counterpart world. Is that what you’re seeing, Dr. Starr?

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: Yeah, well, we’ve had lasers; I’ve had a laser for 12 years. I’ve been using them for quite some time. And it does work on anything with mitochondria. So that pretty much encompasses everything that I work on. Oh, for sure.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, absolutely. Um, where do you practice?

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: I live in Traverse City, Michigan, and I work out of two clinics. And I am the holistic veterinarian for each of those clinics. So I specialize in non-pharmaceutical treatments or non-invasive treatments.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Do you see a similar dynamic in your realm of what we’ll just again, and it may not be this distinct and separate in the kind of human counterpart world? There is still, I think, very much to this distinction and separation between what people would designate as kind of traditional medical, and then this massive bucket of like, alternative, complementary integrative all these different synonyms, holistic things like that. Do you see a similar dynamic in the veterinarian world as well?

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: Absolutely. Although lasers are the one thing that has become well accepted in the general community, unlike in human medicine. Most, a lot of, I won’t say most, a lot of conventional veterinary clinics at this point have laser therapy. But there’s a lot of misinformation in the veterinary community because we don’t have FDA regulation. And so there’s a lot of class three B and class four laser therapy done. Because we don’t have to have FDA clearances to make claims.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Okay. Wow, that’s interesting. For those who are listening versus those who are watching this. Dr. Starr does have a guest. I don’t know if you can hear a little bit of wiggle there. But you have a guest with us. Who’s the guest?

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: I do. This is my five-year-old Datsun puck. And he, um, if my lap is available, that’s where he’s going to.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: I think Dachshunds are absolutely adorable. Our friend here in town has this Dachshund that is just the sweetest, cutest dog. They are just so darn adorable. So yes. They’re vocal though. Are they? They do a lot of singing for you?

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: He barks. Yeah, yeah. So I’m sorry if you hear him? No, no, that’s great. Sleeping on my lap. He won’t contribute.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Oh, that’s awesome. Fantastic.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: What is it in your practices? What types of patients are you seeing?

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: Well, I do the majority; 80% of the training that I do is with nutrition. So I see a lot of patients where we are working on whole food diets. And we’re trying to do fresh food diets instead of kibble, which is really processed food. If you think about it, and I have a lot of owners on the human side of things who wouldn’t eat processed foods for themselves, but they’ll feed their dog kibble, which is kind of the ultimate in processed food and isn’t macronutrient really balanced to what we know we should do for dogs and cats. For carnivores, I should say that many carbohydrates, carnivores, and then I treat specifically with nutritional supplements, and I adjust, and I do laser therapy. So when I look at what is this problem, and what am I trying to address in this animal, I oftentimes use the analogy for people of building a house. So if we’re trying to rebuild this structure in your animal, we would need both the raw materials to do that, right? That would be nutrition. And sometimes we need the workers as well. And that would be laser therapy. And so every time we laser, we’re going to go from maybe two workers to four workers to six workers. And so we’re going to get that done faster; we need to put in the right components. And then we need to give the animal the ability to use those components with the laser.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s a great analysis.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: I always thought for pet owners, we think of pets as our family, yet we feed them stuff, like you mentioned that we would never feed ourselves. And if you look at like, I remember I went to school, I remember to school close to a Purina factory. And it was like, the odor that came out of this place was horrible. And it was, you know, mainly corn, you know, GMO corn and all this stuff. And, and I’m like, Man, that’s, you know, that’s pretty awful stuff. When you look at the food that’s sitting on like your grocery store shelf, and these huge bags, like most people, I think, would know that that’s not the right thing to be putting in their families.

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: Right. Except for we’ve been telling people for about 40 years that that’s the right thing to put into their pet. Yeah. And so a lot of people, it’s just a lack of knowledge, right as we gain more knowledge. Just like in processed foods, we killed a lot of people in the 80s with margarine because that was the recommendation that was made. And I think that would be a very similar view to what we see right now, as far as I have many people who come in and say, Oh, my dog never gets any people food. And I say, since when do people corner the market on fresh foods, right? That’s an end. And they kind of because they’re doing healthy things for themselves. They have this like epiphany, where they’re like, Oh, my God, you’re right, you know. And then we can have a conversation about what we can do to make their pet healthier.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: Years ago, maybe 15 years ago, I bought, I saw an article on Dr. Mercola. His website, it was promoted by a veterinarian. Her name was Dr. Becker, if I remember right, but I bought her book, and the whole book was like how to make how to make your own pet food. Rob, and I bought it and actually started the process and I, you know, full honesty, like I started I’m like, This is really hard. And we’re, we’re at a stage in our life where I’m like, I just need to worry about, like my wife and I eating healthy. And that was like our primary focus. And so we kind of retreated back to well, we won’t do kibble, but we will like we just, we found like, we actually were very close to a great pet food store that had done for you like raw foods and done for you healthy foods that were not, you know, not your traditional appearing like food and our Yeah, are our cats. They never, they didn’t really have any, like chronic diseases or tumors growing their body that I’ve seen with my friends, pets, like all kinds of weird growth that’s there on these four animals. Like I’m sure you’ve seen tons of it, like do you see like tumors and like all kinds of joint issues in arthritis and lack of energy and like, that’s directly related to the crap food that we give our pets.

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: All the things that stem from inflammation in the gut? Yeah, absolutely. imbalanced microbiome.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, everything you’re talking about. I can’t help but see the very direct and clear correlation in the human realm. You know, in the human world, everything we’re talking about shouldn’t surprise us, and yet for some reason, I’m like, oh, yeah, you know, like connecting these dots back to biology is biology, whether it’s a human or a dog or a cat. And I understand that specifically, there are certain different mechanisms and anatomical differences, da, obviously.

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: Right? But you already have chronic disease in dogs is the same as chronic disease in people right down to back pain. Yeah, yeah. And probably the number one thing I use a laser for is back pain in the clinic.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: And that’s got to be so cool to see. Right? Because my guess is similar, again, similar to humans, you probably see pets kind of dragging in or being carried in, you know, then being able to maybe describe that for those who are watching or listening. What does a typical scenario look like in terms of that back pain? Yeah, just uh, yeah, so pet owner, what does that what does a classic case look like, you know, the pet owner, you know, drags the animal and carries the animal in, the animal can hardly walk or whatever. And then how many sessions all that fun stuff?

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: Well, it depends on the degree of back pain, just like in people. There are people who just barely move or, you know, that can’t get out of bed. Well, who just live with their back pain on a daily basis, right. So it can look like anything from the pet all of a sudden stops eating. And because they’re painful, they won’t eat, they can’t, or they can’t put their head down, or they can’t, you know, to get into a bowl. They usually come in hunched, like they’re guarded, their back is hunched up, you know, when you go down their back, they flinch. Or sometimes they’ll even cry, or if you move their neck, that sometimes it’s not, just like people could be cervical, could be thoracic, could be lumbar, actually lumbo sacral pain is really, really common. And, or to the extent where you have a herniated disc, and that’s impinging on the spinal cord, it could be nonambulatory. In the hind end, they could be dragging behind and not be able to move it. And that’s actually, if they don’t have deep pain, that’s a surgical procedure in order to get that because you’ve lost the entire spinal cord. And you have to do it quickly. So there’s all varying degrees of and most of them are dogs standing conch doesn’t want to move much, not eating. And then, you know, I see I see really varying degrees of response, or how many lasers does it take? That varies from animal to animal? I think, again, it comes down to what are their reserves, and what is their ability to respond? And I people always ask me how frequently we should do it too. And my other analogy is, so if we’re going to climb a ladder, I don’t know exactly how many rungs on the ladder. But if we’re gonna climb a ladder, the more frequently you laser, you’re gonna go up a rung every time that we laser the animal. And so the question is, how fast do you want to climb the laser? Or the ladder? Right?

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: the laser ladder.

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: The laser ladder. Exactly. So, when we, I generally start those dogs, we have packages of lasers in the clinic and I usually started with a package of six. And part of that is going to depend on how often an owner can get a dog into the clinic right? Unfortunately, we don’t have a rental program, I would love to have a rental laser. But we don’t yet in our clinic I’m working on that. So they, they work and they, you know, people work, some people can get, some people are retired and that’s, you know, their baby, they can bring it in and we can do two days even. So, that depends on the owner and what the owner is able to do, but I generally start with six and then I reassess. Are we continuing to get benefit? Is the dog doing really well? You know, do I think it needs more?

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s fantastic.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: What types of, so what specific lasers are you guys using in your clinics?

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: Um, so I have, um, I have a base station with two red and a violet, Violet red. And I personally at home have the first laser we bought. I bought from the clinic when we bought a base station for the clinic. So I have a PL 5000, which is an old red light, 635 nanometer and at home I also have a GVL so I do sometimes bring my GVL to work and use it on animals.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s fantastic,

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: though I do have but in the clinic At each clinic, I have red and violet.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: So you’ve been using the laser for 12 years, maybe tell us a little bit more about how you discovered how you came across lasers, what maybe your initial thoughts were in reaction was and some of the experiences that you had that really ultimately brought you into this world in the first place.

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: Um, so when I first started to learn about lasers, was when I was learning how to adjust dogs. And I took, I took Bill and men’s course in veterinary orthopedic manipulation. And then he talked about laser therapy. And I was open to that. I was open-minded to that; that’s part of being able to move on to different modalities is to be open-minded to them. So, so I started to do research on lasers, and I had some sales reps come in for class a class four, laser a class three, B, and I talked to the people that Erchonia. And I went, I did some research on how lasers worked, and how I could implement them in the different, you know, types of things that lasers could be used for. And it seemed like I wanted a red light laser. And with really low wattage was what my research led me to believe. And now, it was significantly less expensive for somebody who doesn’t own a clinic, I didn’t own the clinic, I had to go to my boss and ask him if I could, you know, to buy me a laser, here’s, you know, 1000s of dollars to spend on something that I’m going to use. And he said, you know, do your research on it. And as long as you’re using it and billing for it, I’ll buy it for you. So I said I promised to use it and bill for it. And I did, and I was getting really good responses. And so about two years into it, the we have we have a group of people that come to that clinic, we have some affluent people, we have some less affluent people. And when you’re talking about things like a cruise ship tear, like an ACL and people dogs have a cranial cruciate ligament, which tears just like people, and some people can’t afford that, at that time is about $1,500 to $2,000 to do that surgery, but I could laser them and get a nonleague dog in about three months, which is about the same period of time, not every dog, but many of them. So this was so expensive option for people who didn’t have the money to be able to pursue like, you know, the gold standard care. And, and I was having some good success with that type of thing. So two years later, I was at a laser conference. And I had told my boss that I really wanted the violet laser eye, because I just had read. And I was transporting this laser back and forth between the two clinics; he owned both of them. And so I was only billing on the days that I was there. But I was like, I can write a protocol. I can bill when I’m not even in the clinic. And he was like, okay, so um, I called him from the conference because of course, there was a conference special. And I said, if we buy a base station, you know, this is the special and he said, Well, what if we buy two? And I said, What do you mean by two? He said, Don’t you want the violet light in both clinics? And I said, Of course I do. And he said, Well, we’ll trade in the old one and and then I’ll buy you a base station for each clip. So clearly I was billing enough for it right that he saw the value here. And then I and then I, we came home, we got the base stations. But we had a technician at that time that was doing rehab in house post surgeries for animals that had orthopedic surgeries. And she was carrying the PL five with her which was transplant transportable, and she didn’t want to give it up. And so we ended up sending sending Erchonia a check for that one too. That’s awesome. And turn it in that we had three lasers. And then that original pl 5000 is now mine. At for my personal use at home for my animals and my children and my self and my husband.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s, that’s, that’s amazing. Yeah, it’s nice. It’s a nice perk of the job to get those via the old half lasers that you can produce. Yeah. Yeah, you get to take them home. It’s nice. All right.

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: Well, and I bought I bought it from the clinic but because again, it’s not my clinic. But that laser has been used. I mean, that’s a 12 year old laser. I’m still using it on a regular basis. And you know, my kids play sports We have some injuries. And I’ve it works really well in people too. I’ve, I’ve had some kids are amazing if you if you laser them while they’re doing range of motion, you can see increased range of motion while you’re lasering them. Yeah,

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: absolutely. I’m curious to, to know what difference you saw when you added violet into the equation as well as just read write, because you had how many years of just utilizing read without the vital two years? So tell us maybe a little bit about what started to change what, what, what things you saw into the equation or to the mix once Viola was added in the equation? And green too for that matter now too

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: Well, yeah, I have under the green one for very long. So we’ve been on the market since I bought it in February. Okay. Okay. I was excited for that. I see, you know, I see very good outcomes. And sometimes all you need is red, but I rarely just use red, I use a violet laser on just about everything. I personally feel like the violet laser is so underutilized in veterinary medicine, this is where we need to get education out to people because, you know, in a day and age where we have infectious issues. So one of the things that I noticed with the violet is I within treating, you know, I can treat skin infections, I can treat and even I’ve had some very good responses with animals that are not responding to antibiotics and clearing up skin infections and autoimmune disease. It seems like adding that violet laser in there really makes a difference with skin autoimmune disease. So I’m Violet, we need to be using violet, you know, we are getting antibiotic resistance we have Mersa we have in we have in the veterinary world. Pseudomonas is our kind of Nemesis when it comes to infections. And this is a tool that we have, that there’s no risk for, and that we can maybe reduce our use of antibiotics. So from that sample, and you know, fungus, we can treat fungus, especially since kita. connoisseur, which is our major drug against fungal infections, can cause liver issues in pets. So I really think the violet laser is a huge benefit that we need to be educating people more on.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Do you see a similar pattern or kind of trajectory? If that’s the right word of antibiotic overuse in pets, similar to animals? Because that’s been for the past probably five to 10 years, for those who are listening, have a voice of major concern is this idea that like, the more that we over, prescribe and overuse those drugs unnecessarily, it’s creating a problem or kicking the can down the road further and further and further, when we should really be starting to address it now, because this is what’s driving a lot of the resistant strains of things. Are you seeing a similar pattern in the veterinary world?

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: Yeah, definitely. So I have been to and going to conferences in the, I’m seeing more and more continuing education programs and conference speakers and conferences and things like that, talking about what we can do instead of antibiotics to try to decrease antibiotic resistance. And, we aren’t coming up with new antibiotics; they’re not new antibiotics coming on the market. We need to find other ways to deal with infections. I mean, being healthier and eating better is also a part of that, a little earlier. But this is a tool that I don’t understand why we’re not used. It’s very well researched, and we know it has efficacy from everything from COVID. To, you know, ringworm and to Mersa. So why we’re not using that? It’s just, I think it’s just an education issue, which I’m trying now. I’m trying to educate more people on using the violet laser as another tool in the fight against antibiotic resistance.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Boy, it’s interesting. We interviewed Dr. Rob Silverman, who obviously isn’t a veterinarian, but he was talking about how in humans, and I can’t imagine it being any different than pets, of how the violet can really help increase anti-inflammatory cytokines to help with resolving chronic inflammation. And so it’s kind of cool because you have this kind of one-two combo punch between the red and the violet. The red will help knock down some of the pro-inflammatory mediators. And then on top of that, if you’ve got the violet, which obviously helps with inflammation from the anti-inflammatory side, but also from the pro-resolving side of things. I think it was interleukin 10 that he talked about that violet helps increase. I’m assuming similarly in pets, that’s the same sort of idea of what we’re seeing there, too.

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: Yes, yeah. You would, and we’re looking at trying to decrease inflammation, increase immune response, and then directly with the violet kill off, you know, some of those invasive organisms. Yeah. I don’t understand why we, you know, during the COVID epidemic, why didn’t we have a violet-red laser in every ER or ICU? It’s really a tool that is being underutilized and was even researched on that.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, yeah. There’s a lot of research. Right.

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: Right. And that, you know, that’s what people are dying from. Right, right. Yeah, ionization.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Cytokine storm, that was the big conversation. Yeah, everybody’s heard that term over and over and over again. You know, the thing that’s so cool about the violet is that, unlike ultraviolet, which there’s always the potential risk there of too much. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. The 405 nanometer wavelength is the sweet spot, so to speak, you know, that you’re getting all the benefits without any of the potential drawbacks or risks that can come about from ultraviolet. Right. And so, yeah, that’s huge. So very, very cool that you’re seeing that? Yes.

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: I do similar things in people, you know, again, we all have mitochondria.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Right? Yeah. No doubt.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: Dr. Star, do you have any favorite kind of testimony stories or outcome stories with patients that come to mind over the last 12 years using lasers with patients?

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: Um, so, I mean, I integrate so many different modalities together lasers is one of is one of the many tools in my toolbox. Um, so I would say the most recently I had a dog who we were working with trying to, she, I think she had autoimmune disease. The owner didn’t have the finances for us to be able to do a biopsy to confirm that. But she had been on antibiotics for six weeks, and initially, she got a little bit better. And she had these big open sores on her all over her body. She was miserable. She was hunched up in her legs, her front legs were really painful, which again, is why I think she had autoimmune disease, like lupus or something like that. And she plateaued off and her improvement she did initially improve with antibiotic therapy over the first two weeks. When I saw her a couple of weeks later, she well at two weeks, she looked good. At four weeks, she looked like she was not much better than when I’d seen her at two weeks. And so I started lasering her with the red back well with red, multiple red and red violet. And, um, the next time she came in, she looks significantly better. So we lasered her again, and we were only lasering her every two weeks because she had two-week follow-ups, we had financial constraints. And all of her skin healed up after three or four laserings. So after, so she had, and I even took her off of antibiotics because I didn’t see any reason to continue killing off her microbiome if it wasn’t helping her any further. So the laser, they’re really turned around her skin condition and her, she just, she walked in, she wasn’t hunched, you know, or timeout painful dogs, whether hunched and they, you know, she didn’t want me to touch her joints and her front legs and that she started to stand up more upright. She was more interactive. She let me touch her more. She clearly felt a lot better. And the only thing there, and that particular one, the only thing that I had added was laser therapy for her. And I’ve had many, I’ve had many dogs they were it works very well. I had another, I had a dog where, in the very beginning, he was a show dog. And he was three years old. And he was at a show in Ohio. And he, he partially tore his cruciate ligament. And the owner called, and you probably don’t know this about show dogs, but once they have surgery, they can’t be shown anymore.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Oh, really? Yeah.

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: So the owner lived in our area, was one of our clients. And he called and said that, you know, the dog tore a cruciate ligament. Was there any option other than surgery because he wanted him to be able to remain a show dog? And, and, and FYI, he was an Australian cattle dog. And he was a working dog. He worked cattle on the owner’s farm. So he was a working dog as well as the show dog. And he was being shown because he was put up for stud. So the owner was making money off of him as a stud. And I said, Well, you know, I just got this laser, and we can try that and see. And he was not lame within five lasering. And we did more because I wanted to make sure he healed well, we held him back. He didn’t work or do anything for about three months or so. And he never had surgery; he returned to being a show dog. And he continued to work cattle on that owner’s farm. And because this was a really long time ago, I happen to know the end of this story. He worked cattle till he was about 10 years old. And he was euthanized at about 13 and a half.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s great. What a neat story. Yeah, that’s incredible.

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: I had another one who was a dock jumper. And so he’s an athlete as well. And there’s a difference between lasering athletes right and or in working on athletes, we have a different expectation for the outcome than we do with a family pet who mostly lays on the couch. You know, he was a dock jumper, and he wasn’t performing as well, and the owner noticed some swelling in the carpus. And she had taken him to a chiropractor and had adjusted, she took him to a rehab that he’d been lasered with a class three B laser, she took him to another rehab that he was lasered with a class four laser. So she was seeing me for nutrition. And when she came into me, she told me that he’d been through all of this already. But she was still the current swelling in the carpus was still there. And I said, Well, let me try my laser on. And she said he’s been lasered already. I said, but that was my laser. Yeah. And we lasered him. And she called the next day and bought a package of lasers because the swelling went down, overnight.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s such an important story there; all the stories are fantastic. Thank you for sharing those. But I wanted to take a minute to drill down on that. We know that this podcast is sponsored by and brought to everybody by Erchonia. That’s like a no-brainer, right? But it really is true when we say that not all lasers are created equal. Patients need to hear that, practitioners do too, right? Thank goodness that you have no doubt the pet owner is probably so incredibly grateful that you still press that issue. Because it could have been very easy for you to be like, well, they’ve already tried laser. I don’t want to bother, you know what I mean? I don’t want to pressure them or bother them. And yet you have the, I don’t even want to say tenacity, right? The willingness to press that issue a little bit and say, you know, no, you haven’t tried these lasers, you know, and that would have been a very easy thing to just drop the subject. I don’t want to bother her. She’s probably already tried all the secrets. You know what I mean?

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: Yes. Well, I remember back when I did all the research on laser therapy. Yeah, it didn’t search. I didn’t do the research not to incorporate that into the way that I practice. Right. And so I think, I think it’s important to understand, like I said, in the veterinary community, we don’t have that regulation over class three B and class four to that they can make whatever claims that they want to, and the class four lasers have done a very good job of marketing so that people think class four means better, not more dangerous. Yes. And really, class four just means more dangerous. It doesn’t. It doesn’t mean anything else, right? And so, um, I think that that’s something that we need to correct. As far as information goes in the veterinary community is understanding what the laser classification system is. It’s a hazard system, that’s it wrong. And that it doesn’t have anything to do with efficacy and that more power is not always better. So I’ll tell you another analogy that I use. Yeah. And dosage in that is if you were going to take an antibiotic, right, no infection, and I said, take one twice a day for 10 days. It wouldn’t make any sense for you to take 10 twice a day for two days. Right.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Right.

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: So when we look at dosage, we need to apply dosage correctly.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Dosing matters.

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: Oh, so true. And lasers as it isn’t medications? Yeah.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Absolute great, great point. We were talking to a practitioner who had spoken with a patient who had been to a clinic where the practitioner had set up a class four laser on a stand, so it didn’t move, and expected the patient to move. Which is just like, Insanity, which is just crazy to hear that. But man, that’s, that’s crazy. But though so true, what you share there in terms of dosing matters, efficacy matters, Research Matters, you know, and good on you for taking the time to do that to really research for the betterment of your patients, right? Because it does, it makes a huge difference. So

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: I think we so often we just want somebody to teach us how to use something and then integrate it instead of understanding how it works. And it’s so important to understand how things work in order to get the maximum benefit out of

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: it. Absolutely. Yeah. Couldn’t agree more. Dr. Starr, we certainly appreciate you taking time to be with us on this episode. This has been super awesome. We’ve kind of talked a little bit about a lot of different areas, a lot on violet laser in the vet community, which is super exciting, as it is in the human realm as well. Andrew, any final thoughts?

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: I just want to point out the fact that whether you’re working with humans or animals, a lot of the practitioners I’ve found that have adopted lasers into their practice, they don’t get rid of them, they tend to add more to them. And so Dr. Sar has been in practice for some time but using lasers for 12 years and I imagined Doctor sir, that’s laser therapy is probably not something you’re planning on getting rid of anytime soon, I imagined.

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: No. I, like I said, I would like to have some to rent out because for the people who can’t clinic regularly, we can get them out of pain faster, if we can send them home and they can do it at home.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah. And to that into Andrea, I wanted to point out as well, you mentioned this doctor star, but I want to highlight it again, you’re still using to this day, the same laser you initially invested in 12 years ago, I don’t know I really truly don’t know if I can make that same kind of claim with other pieces of equipment, I’ve had pieces of equipment come and go. And so that’s a true testament to the caliber and quality of the products that Erchonia makes that you know that again, what can happen is either a the product wears down, breaks down, etc., etc., and or B, some technologies just over time become irrelevant. And yet here we are. The quote unquote old technology is still utilizing the same wavelength of light is still getting great results for you and your practice. That should tell practitioners who are who are considering whether they’re a vet or a human practitioner. When you invest in an Erchonia laser, you can rest assured 10 years from now, 15 years from now, 20 years from it’ll still be just as relevant in terms of that should be very comforting and reassuring and give them significant peace of mind.

 

Dr. Rachel Starr: So yes, my other two my two base stations that are in the two clinics are 10 years old. So and you know, I would love the new touchscreen technology is a software that’s changed, right? Yeah. Great to have the touchscreen technology. They’re smaller. They’re they’re, you know, they are different than but but why would you spend, you know, $30,000 to replace a piece of equipment that works just fine.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Right? You’re getting great results. That’s incredible. So, so good. So well again, thank you for being here with us Dr. Starr, we really do appreciate it. Thank you for sharing your experience and your wisdom and the incredible stories and We hope that those listening, whether they be veterinarians, whether they be other practitioners, whether they be patients. Hopefully, they’re learning about some of these powerful alternatives to help solve some of these problems that, quite frankly, far too few know about. And so this is just one kind of one other drop in the bucket in terms of helping to spread that message, which is still vital to get out to, to the world. And so we appreciate what you’re doing in your realm and in your sphere. And we hope again, those listening got value out of this, we would encourage you to share this with others. And we will talk to you all on the next episode. Have a good one. Thanks for listening to the laser light show, be sure to subscribe and give us a review. If you’re interested in learning more about Erchonia lasers, just head on over to erchonia.com. There you’ll find a ton of useful resources including research news and links to upcoming live events, as well as are Coleus e community where you can access for free additional resources including advanced training and business tools. Again, thanks for listening and we will catch you on the next episode.

 

Summary: 

On today’s episode of the Laser Light Show we sit down with Dr. Rachel Starr.  Dr. Starr graduated from Michigan State University in 2000 and has been a part of the Suttons Bay and Elk Rapids Animal Hospitals since September 2005. She enjoys relieving pain and discomfort of an animal and helping restore the family relationship with the pet. Dr. Starr is particularly interested in Veterinary Orthopedic Manipulation (VOM), laser therapy and nutrition. At home, she has an English Creme Retriever named Esca, and a horse named Mickey. Gardening, horseback riding, and volunteering at the school are activities Dr. Starr enjoys outside of work. She also likes to spend time with her husband Jay and three children, Abraham, Jonah and Ari.

Podcast Ep. 73: Lasers for Lifespan and Longevity with Dr. Rob Silverman

Dr. Andrew Wells: All right, everybody. Welcome to the laser light show. We’re super excited. On today’s episode we have with us good friend, and special guest, Dr. Rob Silverman. So let’s get started.

Transcript

Speakers: 

Dr. Andrew Wells

Dr. Chad Woolner

Dr. Robert Silverman

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Growing up in Portland, Oregon, I used to love going to laser light shows at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. They would put on these amazing light shows with incredible designs synced up to some of my favorite music. From the Beatles to Pink Floyd to Jimmy Hendrix and Metallica; they were awesome. Little did I know then that lasers would have such a profound effect on my life decades later. As a chiropractic physician, I have seen first-hand just how powerful laser therapy is in helping patients struggling with a wide range of health problems. As the leader in laser therapy, Erchonia has pioneered the field in obtaining 20 of the 23 total FDA clearances for therapeutic application of lasers. On this podcast, we’ll explore the science and technology and physiology behind what makes these tools so powerful. Join me as we explore low level laser therapy. I’m Dr. Chad Woolner along with my good friend Dr. Andrew Wells and welcome to The Laser Light Show. 

 

Elevate your practice with cutting-edge insights on laser therapy applications, mitochondrial stimulation, and healthspan; join the conversation with Dr. Rob Silverman and other experts—click here for upcoming seminars and events.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: All right, welcome to the show, everybody. We are so excited. This is the second time we have had Dr. Rob Silverman on the show. Correct. Second, my friend, awesome. So we’re excited. Certainly not the last time we’ll have, hopefully not the last time we’ll have Dr. Silverman on with us. Today, we’re going to be talking about lasers and longevity. You know, I think this is such a timely and important topic because far too often, when we think of longevity, it’s too focused on just the quantity of life. But when we’re talking longevity, we’re not just talking quantity; we’re talking the quality of those years within that quantity. Right? It’s one thing to extend life and have like 10 years of pain and suffering extended life. But obviously, Dr. Rob Silverman is here to discuss how do we maximize the quality out of those years as well. Super excited. You are fresh off of the heels of lecturing down in Bogota, Colombia. So we’re excited to have you tell us, how was Colombia?

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: Bueno. Oh, no, Colombia was great. Bogota was fabulous. I was actually there center square during the earthquake, a lot of fun. Wow. Great people, great healthy food. Great Congress. You know, gentlemen, it’s amazing to watch the world come around the idea of healthcare and see the leaders and see how invigorating it is to see that the message that we’re on the trail that we’re on is one that’s helping people and making indelible marks on their lives. Whether it’s us, whether it’s Canada, I know you guys traveled and lectured internationally, whether it’s Bogota, in France, there is a segment of the population who is clamoring for this. So all those on this path, don’t give it up. This is the path that’s going to make a change in other people’s lives. And you know, isn’t that what we do it for? I mean, we were just talking about something right? Isn’t that what we do it for? I mean, it’s not for Mercedes or anything like that. It’s that handshake when you walk into the local restaurant, local church, or somebody says, thank you.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So yeah, how’s your book doing? Immune reboot, one of my favorites. It’s been out now for what, three, four months, or longer than that, hasn’t it been…

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: Longer. It’s been about eight months. You know, it’s doing great. Believe it or not, it had this U shape when it came out, and people had interest because immunity, and like in America, immunity went down. And now people are still searching how to keep their immune system strong. Because, you know, if it’s not for chiropractic, or what I like to refer to as medically adjacent practitioners, because I don’t believe we’re alternative. I don’t believe we’re complementary. I believe we’re medically adjacent. We run alongside with them. They can use some of us; we can use some of them. Yeah. So the idea of integrated, we’re not an alternative anything. People are looking for strong immune health, and they’re looking to be able to pick from the toolbox, and they don’t know where to go but you know, laser lifestyle. This is where it’s at. It’s what you, Andrew, and myself all report every day to our patient base.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So what are you seeing right now in terms of obviously, the timing of this episode is kind of interesting timing right because, like you said, that U shape is going to shift I think a little bit over the next few months here in terms of interest because of the fact that here we are, as we’re recording this, this is nearing the end of August 2023. There’s all sorts of rumblings right now, online socially about new variants of COVID that are coming out and what the government and world leaders are talking about bringing back masks, new vaccine updates and boosters and all that fun stuff. And yet again, we don’t seem to be, at least that I’m hearing. We don’t seem to be hearing a lot about proactive and or preventative strategies. And so maybe talk to that. And Dr. Silverman in terms of what you’re seeing, and what you’re, more importantly, doing to kind of help chime in voice of reason in this world.

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: Well, for me, you know, I know you want to talk about longevity, which is without question a topic of this year 2023. And you did a great job in the preview saying it’s lifespan versus healthspan. So for me, the key to longevity is turning on all the health switches. The master switch is having a robust immune system, the control switch lifestyle, but without question, the hidden control switch is using low-level laser that allows for electromagnetic transfer of energy. And the reason I say that is we’ve got a lot of lifestyle gurus. But other than the people that come on your show, there’s a small cadre of practitioners or laser superstars who really understand it. So the idea of switching or switching of aging, it’s turning on pathways, one pathway, and we’re not going to get too technical, the am PK pathway. It regulates the amount of energy; it’s a nutrient and energy sensor. It maintains energy homeostasis. You want to stimulate it, Alpha Lipoic Acid, Berberine, omega-three fatty acids, resveratrol, intermittent fasting, what a great lifestyle hack. We’ve talked about it, high-intense exercise, even caffeine. And let’s not forget those lights that you guys have in the background that are flashing the whole time I can see them. Low-level laser therapy can also turn on that health switch. You also have something called sirtuins; they protect the cell from damage, they repair them, reduce inflammation, they boost memory. They’re impaired mitochondrial health, they’re stimulated by NAD, green tea, turmeric, resveratrol, quercetin, again, exercise, intermittent fasting, extra virgin olive oil, coffee, and of course, low-level laser and low-level laser doesn’t deal with one individual switch; it turns on the whole body. One more switch that you want to actually decrease is the mTOR pathway. It’s a central processing unit that makes all the complex decisions relating to cellular growth. So it’s a signal for growth rather than survival. And you want to demand resveratrol, quercetin, zinc, melatonin, omega threes, ketogenic diet, vitamin D, intermittent fasting, coffee, curcumin, etc. So the takeaway is more sirtuins, more AMPK, less mTOR, lifestyle appeler supplements and add your low-level laser therapy by Erchonia.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: So when practitioners and or patients alike are hearing all of this, right, it could come across as maybe like a little bit of a fire hose. Because there’s a lot there. I think the first takeaway that I that I hear when I’m hearing this, if one is going to adopt this, they have to recognize I think on some level that this is going to be a true lifestyle approach mindset and lifestyle approach. Because when I again, when I hear that you can hear one of two ways, either a laundry list of to-dos, or you start thinking strategically, okay, how do I take all of those things and synthesize it down into something manageable? So maybe talk about some manageable strategies of how you synthesize all of that. And what does that look like on a day-to-day basis, maybe?

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: I think that’s great. I think I, without question, gave them the data dump. I’m so excited about this. I’m like, here’s all the data. Yeah, I got this big meal, but I got no fork and knife. Let’s make it a little bit more digestible. There are, as Andrew Chad was saying, Rob from New York, could you land the plane please? I got it. I got the memo. So let’s talk about lifestyle, and let’s talk about limiting our carbohydrate content. Let’s avoid some ultra-processed foods. Let’s decrease the amount of added sugar. We can have fructose, but let’s not have a large amount of fructose because carbohydrates put us into what we call a survival mode or a fat depositing mode. So we want to limit our carbs if we did just that, we will be much better off in our health bandwidth. We want to look to eat good quality proteins, look to eat good quality fats; that should be the basis of our macronutrient ingestion. Let’s try and get some exercise. We all don’t have to pump like Arnold or Ronnie Coleman or somebody like that. But let’s get some good quality exercise. I had a patient coming today, and he says, You know, I don’t like to lift weights. And I’m like, Well, what do you mean? He’s like, Well, I don’t like barbells and dumbbells and everything like that. I said, Would you do a push up? Yeah, well, that’s a bodyweight. Would you use a TRX? Yeah. Would you do a pull up? Would you walk? He doesn’t like the gym? Would you walk outside? Like the beautiful picture that Dr. Wells has behind? Would you want to walk in that forest, or behind that window, would you want to be outside and just walk around that building? I unfortunately am encased in this, you know, ground floor place, but you know, welcome to New York, you want to move you want to walk, you want to get that exercise. And if you can do some high-intense interval training, if your body allows you, the data indicates even four minutes of exercise will actually improve your health status. So they call that a Tabata. Then when you look at the supplements, I did give you a litany of supplements. Here’s some easy stuff, multivitamin multi-mineral, omega-three fatty acid, vitamin D3 with two good pre and probiotics. If you start with that, that’s great. And try and get the laser into your lifestyle. I just had somebody come up from the Midwest; you get laser therapy every day two to three times a day. And the change in his energy level, his long COVID symptoms, his approach to life changed; he came in like a dim light, and now he’s bright and shiny. So I mean, I’m not saying that because it worked for them. Full disclosure, I’m saying because I use it on myself; I picked the laser up because I have congenital torticollis. So that’s evident; people can see that there’s an asymmetry of my neck, I did it because I needed to help myself, because my neck is now fused. And chiropractic adjustments were no longer available. And the results were great because I was more pain-free; range of motion came back. And then again, I started to utilize this laser device, which has FDA clearances on my friends, my family, my wife first always my wife because I figure if I don’t kill her, we can move on in life as well. We just heard me in the other room. But in any case, you know, and now it’s a staple for patients. And I found it to be quite effective in this longevity mode.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: You know, something you said in a conversation we had I think a couple of weeks ago, Rob, that really resonated with me for whatever reason. And it’s just like, sometimes people say things at the right time. And it just it clicks. This was something you said you said something to the effect of muscle tissue is the tissue of youth or something, something to that effect. I don’t know if that’s exactly what you said. But that’s kind of what I heard. What stuck with me is for a lot of people when they hear about like resistance training and or just general exercise exactly what you said, like, I don’t want to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, I don’t want to be this, like, you know, you know, Hulk type person. But the reality of it is, is that muscle tissue and or muscle tone is is one of the key factors to a health span, you know, in terms of maintaining long term health, maybe speak to the specific of kind of that intersection of how muscle tissue plays a role with that exercise. But then on top of that, how lasers can enhance all of that and kind of connect some of those dots together a little bit. Fabulous.

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: Well, I believe that muscle mass is the currency of longevity that Dr. Gabrielle Lyon says muscle mass is the organ or the longevity organ. Or phrase it right. Yeah, great. And it’s one huge takeaway. So it’s not when we talk about muscle mass, we’re not just talking about muscle mass, we’re talking about having some muscle, some quality muscle. And if you think about in chiropractic, if we get back to that we’re structure and posture guys. I mean, good quality, muscle tone will enable us to have better structure, what’s my biggest problem? It’s not the nerves, it’s that my muscle tone in the area apart my SEM is shorten my scaling and shorten the other side is elongated, etc, etc, etc. So you know, as a chiropractor, we always talk about the central nervous system. But I think one of the interesting things that we add to the conversation is muscle, muscle tone imbalancing the muscle I don’t think we talked about that enough that alone, utilizing the laser where it can turn on and off muscles to have a proper tone. Is a fabric This ad. In addition, it was a 2016 study for performance, like muscle performance with elite sports athletes. And those who were lasered did considerably better than other elite athletes that weren’t so much so that at that particular games, they said they may ban laser unless it’s accessible to everybody, because it’s an unfair advantage, like taking a steroid or something like that. That’s hilarious. Yeah, and, you know, I think later before we, you know, get off, we definitely have to get into the idea of mitochondrial function, because if you think about mitochondrial function goes across a couple of different parameters. Number one, it does talk about longevity. Number two, it talks about health. And number three, it really talks about performance. And to be frank, looking at from among a functional medicine lens. mitochondrial dysfunction is one of the biggest issues we have. Because we, you know, when you look at what a mitochondria can do, mitochondria has immune system functions. It’s energy producing, and the number one mitochondrial organ in our body, our brain, and where are we without our brain? Now, I have been told that I’ve lived my whole life without a functioning brain. But I may be unique.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: Don’t I, to your point I don’t really hear much about in respect to lasers, I don’t hear much about muscle tonicity. We talk about affecting obviously, mitochondrial function, we talk about a bunch of other functions, but with lasers and longevity, like, explain to us how like for someone who’s, that’s a new concept to them. And also, to some degree me, tell us how that works. You

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: have the tenacity and the talent. Well, it’s interesting in that by producing the ATP, you can get, take a step back home in the plan a little shorter, not a long runway for Jad make.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Talk to me, like I’m a fifth grader. Okay, Rob, let’s just say,

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: sorry, I went from eight to five. Oh, goodness, there’s so many applications in what we’re saying we’re definitely going to get taken off the air. low level laser allows for the efficient production of ATP. And by doing so it also decreases the amount of free radicals or reactive oxygen species produce. So this is a good thing. And in that alone, a decrease in reactive oxygen species is anti-aging Improving longevity and health span and as such, but also the ability to produce ATP allows you to contract the muscles. Now we have different wavelengths to the muscles. And here’s the we have different wavelengths to the laser. And that’s very interesting. We have three wavelengths that we utilize, we use a red, which is 635 nanometer visible light, we have a 520, approximately, which is green. All of these have different properties, we have a 405 wavelength. Now what’s interesting about that is the read stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, the violet is sort of in the sorry, the green is sort of in the middle, and the violet stimulates the sympathetic nervous system. So when you add these together, there’s a balancing of systems. And that would be called the autonomic nervous system. And as chiropractors, we always talk about the nervous system, the muscular system. And sometimes we forget about the autonomic nervous system, this balance this homeostasis, that’s what we’re about, right? We’re all about homeostasis, getting the body imbalanced to optimizing it from the inside out. And laser helps you do that. And one of the beautiful ways it does is it stimulates the production of ATP in a mitochondria. In addition, a lot of studies have been done on laser to show that it affects the body from the inside out from a blood chemistry format, in that increases something called interleukin 10, which is a protein enzyme. It’s one of the anti-inflammatory cytokines that the body produces. But here’s the secret sauce to it. It conversely decreases interleukin one beta and interleukin six, interleukin eight TNF alpha data dump, those are a pro-inflammatory, so it actually flicks not only the switch of longevity, it turns off the switch of aging lasers been shown to increase interleukin 10. Now that said, just talk about lower back pain has shown most people that have lower back pain have an increase in interleukin six and interleukin eight and the feeling of musculoskeletal pain will lead you down and a decline in longevity. Because it’s not just healthspan and lifespan. It’s now going to vitality. Hey, I’m totally healthy. But you know what? I can’t walk that far. I’m totally healthy but I suffer from this that in the other thing, I don’t suffer from a disease, but my performance for my age or what I should be at my age is precipitously dropped. So I think we need to expand the idea of vitality and nobody does it better than you two guys to

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: thank you, Dr. Rob. Great. Great thoughts there. Boy, this is awesome. This is going to be a really fun episode for people listen to to fit two thoughts number one. Have you seen that new docket Docu drama on Netflix, painkiller? Yeah, oh, golly, it’s so for those who haven’t seen it. I’m sure by the time this is out, everybody’s seen it, you should see it because it’s very eye opening. It’s a it’s basically a docu drama about Purdue pharma and oxy cotton. And I can’t help but think I’m watching that with my wife in the evenings. And I’m like, I’ve got one of the Kony lasers literally sitting right next to me, by my bed stand on my on my bed stand. And I’m thinking the entire time as I’m watching this show, like golly, lasers could have solved. There’s this main character at the beginning, who’s dealing with debilitating back pain, and he starts, you know, down in a bunch of Oxycontin. And obviously, we know where that’s where that’s headed. But that was like the first point in all of this was just like, crazy to think about the fact that here we have these tools that can help. But in terms of also this idea of like, increasing healthspan. You have you read the book, body by science by Dr. Doug macguff. It’s great read, great read, when you started talking, it really reminded me of what he talked about in that book about defining health and fitness, right. Health being he defines it as the absence of disease, number one, and a balance of catabolic and anabolic states, or as you would call it, homeostasis. Right, you know, absence of disease and homeostasis. But the other fact of it, because people I think, sometimes use these terms interchangeably, and they should not be used interchangeably because there’s a difference between health and fitness. And he defines fitness as one’s resiliency or adaptability to stress. Right, so exactly what you said there, Rob, is you can have somebody who has a relatively high level of health or is considered healthy, but has very low fitness, right? They can’t walk for long periods of time, they can’t run, they can’t lift weight, things that are required, necessary stressors of life, you know, like you talk and I, as I’m saying this, I’m thinking about, you know, Greg Glassman, who was the founder of CrossFit, he was viewed as a fairly controversial figure, in that I read this interview that he had, somebody was like, So you mean to tell me that you’re gonna have some 80 year old woman doing deadlifts? And he’s like, yeah, absolutely. And they’re like, why would you do that? He’s like, Well, does she have to bend over to pick things up on a day to day basis? And they’re like, Well, yeah. And he’s like, so don’t you think it would be important to have sufficient muscle tone and strength and ability to be able to bend over and lift anything up off the ground? They’re like, yeah, they kind of make a good point there. So I just love what you shared there, Rob, because it’s, it’s really helping people see that longevity. It’s not just about health, but also about resiliency and fitness in this idea of capacity to to engage and do the things that people need to do on a on a day to day basis.

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: Yeah, I think we forget about vitality. And I look at that every day with my 94 year old mom, she certainly has longevity. She’s got a very long lifespan. Now, she hit the wall, and now she barely can talk. She can’t take care of herself. It’s 24/7 365 My dad is similar age does everything of course, his posture shot in with her she never optimized the vitality. So if I showed you a movie of her life, she would be the classic example of longevity. Not so great house fan, but not as bad as you think. But vitality because she didn’t watch what she an exercise. There was no moments in life. And you know, I look at her and I said, Hey, what do you suggest? And she said, you know, spend it now take care of yourself. Because, you know, now there’s, I can’t enjoy which I have a patient that’s 97 years old who drives in every day and he’s got a girlfriend Hey, good for him. And you know, travels. But I really want to hammer home something because actually two things will really want to hammer home. Could not thermal laser be an answer for longevity? Should it be the modality if we want to call it a modality? So let me give you some reasons why. Yeah, please. non invasive, no downtime. Um, no pain, typically a short treatment time, as pain relieving properties, decreases swelling, improves blood flow enhances energy production by optimizing mitochondrial function. It’s anti-inflammatory, its immune boosting properties are there. It promotes stem cell production, it decreases stress hormones, it’s neuro protective. Down regulates those stress responses in the brains. It Up regulates collagen production. And some lasers actually have a fat loss, cellulite reduction. And they’re able to address skin conditions. So for me as a modality, I believe low level laser is among devotee modality of the 21st century.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: Absolutely. It’s hard to argue with that. When you’re looking at all the potential things, you can use modalities, strategies that you can use, whether it’s breathwork, meditation, yoga, exercise, nutrition, cold immersion therapy, heat therapy. There’s a lot of choices. Providers and patients alike have a difficult time understanding how to actually apply these things. To the average person or doctor, it’s like, “Yeah, that’s all great. That makes sense, Dr. Silverman, but I have all these other things to choose from.” What’s unique about laser therapy is that it does so much across such a wide spectrum of things in a very easy-to-use tool that you can’t get wrong. It’s amazing for a lot of different things, whether it’s longevity or other health-related concerns.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: The other thing that I would add to that, too, that I think is so unique as well is how stackable lasers are. There’s just about nothing you couldn’t stack a laser into. You can’t say that with other modalities, right? When you’re hooked up to wires or when you’ve got some contraption that’s being strapped to you or utilized. Lasers are so non-invasive that literally, you could have somebody shining a laser on you while you’re doing just about anything, anywhere, anytime. You can’t say that or do that with other modalities. The versatility, not just in terms of conditions and applications but in terms of stackability, is what makes lasers equally so powerful and so useful.

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: I’m going to dock the plane for you on that. Stacking multiple lasers ensures that you get all the different wavelengths across the visible light spectrum. You can stimulate all the mitochondrial complexes because the key to mitochondria is there are four complexes that need to be stimulated. The violet light stimulates complex one and two, green stimulates three, red stimulates four. When you stack these lasers, you’re getting a full change in mitochondrial function. Combining different lasers, like the E VRL and the GVL, results in a synergistic effect, creating a powerful approach. Practitioners, press that power button and go for it. There are some special ideas, and that’s why you attend webinars by experts like Dr. Wellness, Dr. Silverman, Dr. Barry, Dr. Kirk, Dr. Dan Murphy, etc. Everyone has their own approach, but the basic premise is to press that power button and get started.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: It never ceases to amaze me. The minute we started using lasers in our clinic, the resounding message was there’s only upside, literally no downside. What that does is open up this playground for practitioners to experiment, knowing that these tools are inherently safe. It opens up the world for practitioners to experiment, knowing that outcomes will be inherently safe and efficacious. Lasers provide this incredible opportunity to explore and enhance patient care with very low risk.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: Laser therapy is the easiest lifestyle change. Once you have a laser, it’s super easy to integrate into your routine. For example, I laser my two wiggly six and eight-year-old boys simultaneously in the morning. I lay them down, point the laser, and get the front, back, and top of their brains. It’s that simple. Lifestyle changes like stress management, exercise, and good nutrition can be perceived as difficult by some people, but laser therapy is exceptionally easy for anyone. If I can use it on my excited boys in the morning, you can use it in your home or clinic.

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: Laser therapy is not only versatile but also safe and easy to use. Patients can incorporate laser therapy into their daily activities, whether they’re meditating, listening to calming apps, or simply relaxing. The benefits are vast, ranging from improved mitochondrial function to reducing stress hormones, promoting stem cell production, and even benefiting hair health. It’s a powerful tool that complements a healthy lifestyle and contributes to longevity.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Exactly. Laser therapy is a multipurpose tool with sufficient specificity for a wide range of conditions. It offers practitioners and patients an easy-to-use, safe, and effective modality for improving health, fitness, and overall well-being. The stackability of lasers makes them incredibly versatile, allowing them to be combined with various modalities for enhanced therapeutic effects. As we explore the potential of laser therapy, it continues to amaze us with its diverse applications and positive impact on longevity and quality of life.

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: I love it.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Well, Dr. Silverman, it has been an absolute pleasure getting the chance to chat with you. This has been a great episode. I think practitioners and patients alike will really appreciate the value that you’ve shared with us. So we really appreciate it. Always great connecting with you, my friend. And looking forward for sure to the next time we get to chat. Andrew, any final thoughts on your end?

 

Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, I just want to reiterate that lasers are like sex when done correctly. It’s amazing. Even when done incorrectly, it’s still pretty darn good.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, absolutely. I’ll leave everyone with that. There.

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: And I got fourteen lasers. So life is good.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Love it, man. Love it. Awesome. We’ll hope this has been a valuable episode. Share this episode with those that you feel could benefit from not only increasing longevity but increasing their health span as well. Dr. Rob Silverman, when and where will you be next? For those who are listening to this episode timely, you’re going to be in Wisconsin next week.

 

Dr. Rob Silverman: I will be in Wisconsin next week. You know what if you just go to my website, DrRobertSilverman.com, you can see where I’m teaching functional medicine. And you can see where I’m teaching laser for akoni lasers. We’re out on the road almost every weekend. We’re always strong in the Chiropractic and functional medicine model and markets.

 

Dr. Chad Woolner: Love it. Love it. We’ll make sure there’s a link there. So for Docs, if you want to connect with Rob Silverman in person and attend one of his seminars, I would highly, highly encourage that. We appreciate everything Dr. Rob Silverman is doing. If you guys want to pick up a copy of his book, which is amazing. By the way, he explains the immune system in such simple, easy, digestible terms. It should be standard reading for not only practitioners but patients alike, if you really want to take charge of your health in an impactful way, especially in lieu of the fact that unfortunately, we see some craziness coming down the pipeline right now. And if you want to avoid all the hype, and the panic and the fear, and you really want to learn some simple but powerful things that can empower you in terms of your health, get a copy of his book, immune reboot, it’s fantastic. So that’s it for today’s episode. We’ll talk to you guys on the next one. Have a good one. Thanks for listening to the laser light show. Be sure to subscribe and give us a review. If you’re interested in learning more about Erchonia lasers, just head on over to or codea.com. There you’ll find a ton of useful resources including research news and links to upcoming live events, as well as or Coleus II community where you can access for free additional resources including advanced training and business tools. Again, thanks for listening and we will catch you on the next episode.

 

Summary: 

 

Listeners of “The Laser Light Show,” today we’re honored to host a trailblazer in the realms of chiropractic care and clinical nutrition – Dr. Robert G. Silverman.

 

A chiropractic doctor by training and a clinical nutritionist by passion, Dr. Silverman has cemented his reputation as an expert in the fusion of these two disciplines. He is the acclaimed author of “Inside-Out Health: A Revolutionary Approach to Your Body,” which not only took the medical community by storm but also clinched the #1 spot on Amazon in 2016. The ACA Sports Council further recognized his invaluable contributions to the world of sports chiropractic, honoring him with the prestigious title of “Sports Chiropractor of the Year” in 2015.

 

Educationally, Dr. Silverman’s portfolio is nothing short of impressive. Among his myriad achievements, he boasts a remarkable six degrees in clinical nutrition. Such extensive academic accomplishments undoubtedly feed into his expert practice at the Westchester Integrative Health Center. As its founder, he’s renowned for employing state-of-the-art, non-surgical techniques combined with functional nutrition to address joint pain, offering his patients innovative and efficient solutions.

 

His expertise isn’t limited to the confines of his practice. Dr. Silverman is a pivotal member of the advisory boards for both the Functional Medicine University and Metagenics, playing a key role in shaping the future of integrated medicine. When he’s not advising or treating, Dr. Silverman is a sought-after voice on the international speaking circuit, elucidating on topics close to his heart and practice.

 

Media outlets frequently tap into his insights, making him a regular on platforms like FOX News Channel, NBC, CBS, and CW affiliates. Moreover, his thoughts and expertise have graced the pages of esteemed publications such as The Wall Street Journal and NewsMax. Tech giant Google too recognized his prowess, inviting him to their esteemed “Talks at Google” series to discuss his bestselling book.

 

In addition to his media engagements, Dr. Silverman is a prolific writer, contributing regularly to both peer-reviewed journals and mainstream publications. His articles have illuminated readers of Integrative Practitioner, MindBodyGreen, Muscle and Fitness, The Original Internist, and Holistic Primary Care journals, among others, positioning him as a beacon of knowledge in his field.

 

As we delve into our conversation on low-level laser therapy today, Dr. Rob Silverman’s profound expertise promises an episode packed with revelations and insights. Let’s dive in!

 

To learn more about Dr. Silverman and to find out when and where he’s speaking next, check out his website here:  https://drrobertsilverman.com/