Dr. Chad Woolner: What’s going on, everybody? Dr. Chad Woolner here with Dr. Andrew Wells. And on this episode of The Laser Light Show, we’re going to be talking to our good friend Dr. Patricia Bona and we’re going to be talking about her experiences working with both people and with animals in the chiropractic setting. So let’s get to it.
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.
Dr. Chad Woolner: All right, welcome to the show, everybody. And Dr. Pat, thanks for being here with us. Welcome to the show, So you are from Pennsylvania. Correct.
Dr. Patricia Bona: I am originally from New Jersey.
Dr. Chad Woolner: New Jersey. Okay. And now you also have a place down in Ocala, is that what it’s called? Ocala, which I just learned is the horse capital of the United States, or rather, of the world. This is something new to me.
Dr. Andrew Wells: It’s not Kentucky. Oh, well.
Dr. Chad Woolner: You might think, “Yeah, I would imagine that if someone asked me, that’s exactly how it would be.”
Dr. Andrew Wells: Lexington or Yeah, I knew Ocala was a big horse place. But yeah,
Dr. Patricia Bona: I think more so because there’s such a variety of horse breeds in Ocala. We’re in Kentucky. It’s predominantly Thoroughbreds. Oh, well, that makes sense. So I think that’s why they don’t give it that title. Nice.
Dr. Andrew Wells: And so, it makes sense that you’d be there because you are a chiropractor, and you work with both human beings and animals as well.
Dr. Patricia Bona: Yes, I’ve had a pretty lovely practice since 1992, when I was certified by the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association. So for a long time, I did primarily horses, but I’ve more recently, in the past five years or so, started to work with more dogs as well. And cats and other sundry animals.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Do you see a signal? I’m asking out of pure curiosity and perhaps ignorance. Is there a significant difference between the horse breeds you work with, or is it just a case of “a horse is a horse is a horse”?
Dr. Patricia Bona: No, there are significant differences in their personality, their conformation, their constitutional makeup, and what they’re being asked to do. So, there’s a huge difference from that perspective, but they are just wonderful, giving animals. The fact that you can put a horse in a horse trailer and then take them out, and they’ll get back on the horse trailer as long as you didn’t have a horrible drive, is a testament to how human-oriented they can be, showing a desire to have a partnership.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, never thought of it. That’s really interesting. Like, what other animal can do that too? Maybe like an ox? Probably. Well, you wouldn’t go riding an ox.
Dr. Patricia Bona: Actually, I have a dear friend in Montana who has a horse she broke. Wow, yeah, wow. The horse participates in parades and everything. Why can’t she take lessons for flying lead changes?
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yes, That’s amazing.
Dr. Andrew Wells: She must be a pretty incredible woman then to do that.
Dr. Patricia Bona: That’s incredible. Actually in Wyoming, not Montana. Yeah,
Dr. Chad Woolner: Wow. Pretty crazy. That’s amazing.
Dr. Andrew Wells: So, Did you start working with animals at the beginning of your career, or is that something you kind of transitioned into?
Dr. Patricia Bona: It came in pretty quickly. I wanted to focus on riders and having riders see themselves as athletes, which was back in 1987. I tried to promote this by writing an article and offering it to a couple of the larger magazines, EQUUS and Practical Horseman. They wrote me back, saying they don’t discuss topics like that. So, I was a bit ahead of my time. Consequently, I was lecturing and conducting various small clinics locally. Then, I believed my horse needed chiropractic care and began exploring that avenue. I met Dr. Judith Shoemaker, who is one of the very big names and an incredible mentor. At the same time, I worked with Dave Duquette, a world-renowned farrier, who looked into chiropractic care for horses. Then, I asked David to examine my horse, and he noted that the pelvis was uneven, and the feet were incorrect. Initially, I met Dave when I was leasing a horse, and he was the one who first taught me to evaluate a horse’s posture mechanically, which is essentially physics. The cannon bones, akin to our shin bones, need to be vertical, just like the uprights of a building. Evaluating posture in horses, however, differs significantly because, unlike humans, where a frontal view can reveal posture, with horses (and even dogs), you must assess from both the right and left sides for symmetry. It’s fascinating. When Dave came to help with my horse’s feet, after riding my horse at his recommendation, he removed the shoes, trimmed the feet, reshaped them, and asked me to ride again. The difference was profound. As a chiropractor, riding my horse always resulted in my back going out, requiring adjustments each time. It turned out that the imbalance in my horse’s feet was causing issues for both of us, leading to a significant revelation. This was incredibly inspiring. I often tell people how much I can relate to various physical issues, whether it’s neck, back, or unusual injuries, or dealing with animals that have problems. It’s a wonderful education to have in a profession full of diverse techniques and options. The laser has been the most profound tool in my practice, benefiting horses, dogs, and humans alike. I am very blessed and never leave home without it.
Dr. Chad Woolner: What percentage of your time spent in the clinic is with humans versus animals?
Dr. Patricia Bona: It’s about 50-50. Okay, take out the travel, it’s probably, I should say, actually say, probably 60-40, more weighted towards the animals, But now I’m doing a little bit more adjusting on the road, part of me with the humans, the riders, because that’s what I want to do, work with that partnership.
Dr. Chad Woolner: I arrived early for practice, and we went to a horse show to set up a booth as part of our practice. This was specifically because we were conducting screenings there. We had a patient who was very active in the horse community, and she suggested we set up a booth there since many riders were dealing with injuries. So, we agreed, and that decision was quite enlightening for me early on. It made complete sense—the connection or correlation seemed obvious. However, your point is intriguing. I might not have made the connection as you did. I would have assumed it’s inevitable to experience issues with your hips and pelvis from riding a horse. To some extent, it is inevitable. But, the significant improvement for the rider, when the horse is properly aligned or when their hooves are correctly shod, is remarkable, as you’ve noted.
Dr. Patricia Bona: Yeah, so the feet are the foundation of their support, the base of their support. They’re kind of like having your pistons well-balanced. If those four pistons aren’t well balanced, the rest of the system is going to be off, and then you’re going to have compensations, wear and tear, and misalignments. But the interesting thing is riders will pay for chiropractic care, laser treatments, acupuncture, and very expensive equipment for their horses, but they almost always neglect themselves, right? It’s about really putting it back there and saying, ‘You’re doing all this, and this is the variable, and you deserve to have your body in alignment and well-tuned as an athlete.’ That was the problem when I wanted to approach the Akwesasne practical horsemen; they weren’t looking at it as a partnership, and the riders were athletes. They need to cross-train, watch their posture, eat well, and understand that mental and physical fitness is for everything.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah. So tell us maybe a little bit more about how you’re using lasers with horses and other animals as well.
Dr. Patricia Bona: I will work with pretty much anybody unless they’re pregnant, or there’s a contraindication for using the laser. I use it to tone the spine and then apply it more specifically to different areas where I want to perform myofascial release on a horse or address joint inflammation. It’s very specific; there are different frequencies we can use. When it comes to whether horses or people can feel it, most can’t feel the class II cold laser on their arm. Sometimes, it feels almost like a breeze gliding across your skin. However, our awareness as humans is much less than that of horses and dogs. Horses, in particular, respond very quickly. I can tell when the frequencies I choose are effective because usually within about two minutes, the horse might lick and chew, drop its head, take a big breath, and relax. They respond very physically, akin to how we feel when, during winter, there’s a nice warm, sunny day, and you can wear short sleeves and bask in the sun, thinking, “Ah, this feels so good.” Animals feel and respond to it very quickly, which is fascinating to witness. It’s remarkable to see how subtle their responses are something people don’t often understand. What’s great, though, is when patients or riders come in and get adjusted, and they see the effectiveness of muscle balancing and laser treatment, they can appreciate even more why horses or dogs respond so well to it.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah. When you use the laser on the horses, are you using a veterinary laser or a human laser? Which one is it? Do you notice a difference?
Dr. Patricia Bona: Well, no, I think it’s a matter of the lasers, the laser; it’s just how it’s, you would say, labeled.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Sure.
Dr. Patricia Bona: I have the human laser that I use on animals. Okay. You know, so? Yes.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Awesome. So, when you adjust horses, is there an instrument that you use? Or is it manual, both, or across the board?
Dr. Patricia Bona: Because there are so many different chiropractic techniques available, I focus a lot on manual adjustments. However, I also emphasize preparation, as it’s important for the body to be ready. Whether it’s working on a human and performing trigger point therapy, muscle balancing, applied kinesiology, or using a laser to prepare the body for an adjustment, the approach is similar to horses. For them, probably 80 or 90% of the adjustment time involves doing soft tissue work and balancing, since soft tissue work directly influences the nervous system.
Dr. Chad Woolner: For those who are listening, maybe take us through what that would look like. In terms of what an assessment would look like, I’m always fascinated whenever I talk to people who work with animals. When you talk with humans, humans can communicate verbally and tell you, “This is where it’s hurting for me,” or whatever, and fill you in. With animals, I would have to imagine there’s still a certain level of communication that takes place, but I’m assuming it’s more of an intuitive type of communication. So, maybe walk us through what you do, how you assess a horse, particularly. We’ll say, and then what the adjusting process would look like. I’m fascinated. I don’t know if I’ve ever actually seen a horse get adjusted before, I don’t think I have.
Dr. Patricia Bona: So, my initial intake involves taking a history to find out what the owner’s concern is, whether it’s performance-related or something else, and getting the appropriate information from a veterinary perspective. It’s similar to dealing with people: very simple. We have body language. Even though I’m off camera, sitting here confidently, it comes through in my voice, right? You’re relaxed, and that comes through in your voice too. But when you look at a person, you observe body language; you can walk up to a friend and know they’re very happy, or you can see them from across the hall and think, “Wow, there’s a problem, I better go check on them.” So, with animals, particularly horses, posture is their language. Horses engage in a lot of posturing, similar to how a dog might raise its fur or put its ears back. Horses have very significant body language and spatial relationships.
Fortunately, I have a very lovely, long-term clientele, some relationships lasting 15-20 years. Many of them understand and appreciate having their horses evaluated monthly, recognizing it as a worthwhile investment of time and resources. Horses are very smart and as intelligent as dogs, I would say. It’s just that we don’t take them home with us; we can’t spend as much time with them, but they are very communicative and intelligent. It’s a beautiful bond that horses and humans share.
When examining a horse, especially a new one, I look at their posture and body language first. Are they standing with all four cannon bones vertical? Then, I walk around and observe the body and posture. My background in 4-H, where we did confirmation and judging contests, has been invaluable. As a fourth and fifth-grader, I learned to assess horses, placing them in order of their conformation, and then defending those placements behind closed doors. Although it might not be the best confirmation, it’s about justifying your placements.
However, we often misinterpret terms related to a horse’s structure, saying a horse has “mutton withers” or is “croup high,” which are terms that refer more to posture than conformation. I like to clarify this because a horse’s conformation is more about their bony anatomy, similar to humans. You can be fit or less fit and have good or poor posture. Many people come to me thinking they’ve shrunk, but often it’s just poor posture. With horses, it’s the same. Ensuring a horse is comfortable in its skin is crucial, as this can be discerned by their stance and reaction to their environment.
The skin, being the largest organ, plays a significant role in my evaluations. I look at the symmetry of their shoulders and hips, and the angle of their pelvis, as there’s often a “prettier” side which correlates to performance or injury issues. The impact of gravity on these asymmetries is profound. I also pay close attention to the skin, especially in regard to scar tissue, since horses, like humans, can accumulate scars that affect their internal structures.
I consider myself an artist working with a living medium, able to effect significant changes. Despite taking before and after photos being time-consuming, it’s a profoundly rewarding part of my work. As I’ve expanded my practice to include dogs, I’ve found that you can learn to read them just as well, although horses, with their size and expressiveness, provide unique insights.
In treating horses, I often start with their posture and symmetry, then move on to addressing issues like scar tissue. Educating owners on what to look for and how to maintain their animals’ health is a significant part of my practice. This extends to checking the legs and feet, as discomfort in these areas can affect overall posture. I employ various techniques, adjusting from both above and below to address soft tissue and skeletal issues alike.
Being fit and aware of one’s surroundings is essential, especially in a busy barn environment where a horse might react unpredictably. It’s like being a martial artist, constantly attuned to the interplay between horses, people, and the environment.
Dr. Chad Woolner: You know, I couldn’t help but think as you were talking about this, do you get a fairly decent gauge or read from the horse as to what their owner is like? And the thing I was going to say is, almost immediately, you know where I’m going with this, right? But I would imagine that most people willing to make that kind of investment in their horse probably take good care of their horses is my guess. But again, I’m curious if that comes out in the assessment, like if you don’t have a very good owner, or this owner doesn’t treat you very well, just based on that read or something like that. Does that happen? Has that happened?
Dr. Patricia Bona: Well, not from the perspective that they’re not being treated well. If someone has called me and they’re treating me well, it’s a matter of personal dynamics and education. Yeah, you can see that this horse could be a little bossy, and the owner is a bit intimidated.
Dr. Chad Woolner: The dynamics.
Dr. Patricia Bona: Dynamics of personalities, just like you, mean that no one’s going to be the alpha. And you’ll have a child respond and react differently with a father versus a mother, or, you know, a sibling, or whoever it might be. It’s about understanding those dynamics. So, it’s looking at that, and then you have to have a conversation with them at times, you know, yeah.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Helping them understand better the role they play with their horse. Yeah, that’s fascinating. So, when it comes to the adjustment side of things, I mean, because I’m still trying to wrap my head around how you actually put your hands on a horse’s spine and adjust the spine. I’ve heard that there are audible cavitations when you adjust horses, correct?
Dr. Patricia Bona: There they are, very often audible, or you feel things moving differently. I’ve started chiropractic and am doing motion palpation as well. Okay, so the big thing is that looking at the anatomy, if you put yourself on all fours, and if you understand the anatomy of a human or yourself, you can kind of relate to where the thoracic spine is and where the lumbar spine is. Sure, but the cervical spine of a horse and a dog is so different. They look like spaceships to me. So when it came to doing that study with the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association, at that point in time, I had the ability to get in and do more dissections, and I had some cervical specimens so that you could learn that differently. But, relative to physics, as we know, our spine processes how I related it to the owners. If you have a sailboat, the mast is really tall, but the spinal cord and the spinal column are actually the hull of the boat. So, it doesn’t take much leveraging on the end of that.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Spinous process, just by this process. Thank you.
Dr. Patricia Bona: Relative to getting that motion back, okay. So, between the shoulder blades, right, we have that going there. The base of our neck, the horse’s withers, can be sometimes 10 to 12 inches long. And then the joints are that much smaller because they’re quadrupeds and not bipeds. So, the joints themselves don’t need to be as large to carry; it’s more of a shearing force. Susan, see how that worked.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Fascinating. Wow.
Dr. Andrew Wells: And so you mentioned earlier in the podcast, that you’re using lasers as kind of like a preparatory type activity. So are you lasering every horse every time before an adjustment is that kind of standard protocol?
Dr. Patricia Bona: It is nice because it’s so profound and powerful. However, from another perspective, it’s very interesting because we’re talking about metabolic disorders in people, and you might think that’s mostly about weight and such. But horses also suffer from metabolic disorders related to the pituitary gland and others. As horses age, they may not shed their coats properly and can develop insulin resistance, among other issues. The coat-shedding aspect is particularly fascinating. I’ve used brain frequencies on a young Mustang mare that a client brought in, or rather, that I went to see because we often have to travel to barns since people bring their horses in, and many have clinics to which they ship their horses. But I do a lot of traveling. So, I targeted the brain with specific frequencies, and two days later, the horse began shedding its coat.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Wow, and what does that typically look like in terms of how long you are putting it on an area? Are you moving it, or do you have it stationary on a stand?
Dr. Patricia Bona: What is it I’m holding in my hand? Okay.
Dr. Chad Woolner: And so, you’ll do what, pass it a couple of times, hold it in the same area for a few minutes, typically two?
Dr. Patricia Bona: Given I had about two minutes, I wanted to see some sort of changes. Okay, it depends on the horse and what other factors are involved, but because you’re not really going to access all the lobes of their brain—their brains are smaller—I typically only laser the frontal portion and then the sides around the ears and the atlas. Okay? And we wait to see what kind of changes occur. Sometimes, you’re going to expect a change, like with horses that have had any sort of spinal issue. I’m not treating a disease, right? It’s the effects. For example, if a horse has had Lyme disease or if a horse has had equine protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM), which is pretty significant if you laser their brain and it helps them, you’ll see they’ll just start yawning, sometimes 10-20 times. So, you know the body is having this huge release.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Wow, that’s amazing. Do you notice if, after laser treatments, the horses become more affectionate towards you? For example, do they lean their noses against you or show any similar behaviors?
Dr. Patricia Bona: The horses quite often will turn around because they want to touch the laser, or they’ll put their nose on it and want to touch it, even with some other tools. Because I use various tools, like a wash or a spoon, I get pretty deep into my work with a fast release and spend a lot of time on it. So, they want to turn around, put their nose on it, chew on it, and see what it is.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s hilarious.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Hopefully haven’t lost any lasers with that. Chewing.
Dr. Patricia Bona: Pretty protective about that.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing. So, owners, I would imagine, notice pretty significant effects pretty quickly from this as well. With the lasers,
Dr. Patricia Bona: Some people are very tuned in to their horses. They might say, “Well, if you can just check their neck and then, you know, laser it-she’s so responsive that we might just laser her before a competition,” and you can see a big difference. So, it’s really about having that awareness as an owner, trainer, or rider that you can really tell what helps the most and prioritize things in that way. That’s amazing. Owners, I would imagine, notice pretty significant effects pretty quickly from this as well, with the lasers.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Do you still have your horse or horses?
Dr. Patricia Bona: My horse retired. He’s 22. His name is Sorento, and unfortunately, he had to retire when he was about 13 because he had a systemic disorder called degenerative suspensory ligament disease. This disease affects the glucosamine in the tissue, resulting in the ligaments’ inability to keep their ankles off the ground. The condition distorts the tissue, similar to untwisting a rope or cable, which can’t be twisted back. Despite this, Nick, a very social thoroughbred who almost raced but never hit the track, came to me when I was leasing a barn for my two horses. Someone approached me about bringing their boyfriend’s horse over due to a lack of space at their barn, so I took him in, and he was eventually abandoned by me. However, I believe things happen for a reason. Once, while I was in the stall telling him I was going to take his blanket off, something scared him, and he kicked me very hard in the leg, knocking me to the ground. Luckily, I had been working out a lot, but I wasn’t sure if my femur was fractured. I managed to get up and out of the stall, only to see he had split my quadricep in half; the injury was about eight inches long, bruised, and bleeding. Yet, all things happen for a reason. I called up my contacts and retrieved some equipment I had lent out, including a G machine, and I used kinesiotape on it since it was right in the middle, allowing me to still use my knee and hip. I got in touch with Dr. Gloria Weintrob, who lent me a low-level laser to use, and it worked so well that when I saw in a journal that Dr. Ruka and Dr. Murthy were conducting a seminar in Baltimore, I, being just outside of Philadelphia, decided to attend.
Dr. Chad Woolner: It’s like back in the day
Dr. Patricia Bona: Back in the day, yeah, it’s been at least probably 20 years, okay. 20 years ago, yeah. So to this day, I’ll feel the dent in my leg. It’s my tattoo, I say, and I thank Nick because that’s my horse’s name. So, before I reveal the big reveal, as I was exploring other options, I’ve been very focused on orthopedics in relation to posture, muscles, balance, and treating yourself as an athlete. But on the other side of that, I go for acupuncture. You know, I recommend acupuncture, I was exploring other energy techniques. This is where I took some courses on visceral manipulation; I was kind of searching for something to complement my practice. And then my horse kicks me in my leg and introduces me to cold laser therapy and all the fantastic offerings that Erchonia has in the seminars and stuff. My horse’s name is Ultimate Machine.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Ultimate machine. That’s amazing.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s such a cool story, and thank you for sharing it. I think the listeners can probably hear your voice, but they can’t see the expression on your face or your body language, which says a lot about your pet story. Undoubtedly, it has helped a lot of people and many other animals just by sharing that story. I do believe everything happens for a reason.
Dr. Patricia Bona: Yeah, I’ve had many people who will thank your horse for kicking you.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s right. Yeah, Now, do you work with other chiropractors in the animal space? Additionally, are you involved in teaching, lecturing, or mentoring other chiropractors who are interested in working with animals?
Dr. Patricia Bona: I do want to ask them, too. In the past, I began delivering lectures to our national organization, the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association, starting in 2012. That’s when I first discussed posture, skin, scar tissue, dents, and dings, topics that have only grown in popularity since then. Over time, I’ve developed various techniques. For example, I’ve created one I call the “Upper Elementary Release.” This technique is crucial when there’s significant scar tissue causing contraction in the neck. While it’s primarily for horses, I’ve performed similar releases on people. The process involves freeing the soft tissue and muscles that can become entrapped around the trachea. This intervention has had profound effects, significantly altering the horse’s posture. I last presented this technique at the AVCA conference in 2018 in Tucson. It involves taking before and after photos of the horses from both sides, then performing this 10 to 15-minute release—or sometimes less—and documenting the remarkable differences. I named it “Upper Elementary Release” because it targets the area around the trachea, close to the horse’s esophagus. This is relevant because horses are susceptible to gastric ulcers, a condition affecting around 70% of horses, competition or not. However, I estimate that 60 to 70% of these horses also have posture-impacting dents, dings, and scar tissue, which could affect the alignment of their internal organs. In fact, I’m scheduled to attend a webinar that may be hosted by an osteopath or osteopathic veterinarian—my apologies for the uncertainty—where the discussion will focus on scar tissue and visceral issues in horses.
Dr. Chad Woolner: fascinating. Yes, Wow. That’s amazing.
Dr. Patricia Bona: So, in 2018, I lectured to about 700 farriers and foreshores at the International Healthcare Conference in Ohio. It was a fantastic experience, featuring four PowerPoint screens as I discussed the crucial role of a farrier in maintaining the balance and health of horse feet, which need attention every four to six weeks. This maintenance is vital to prevent the hooves, which grow like fingernails, from causing changes in the animal’s physics due to leverage, which can lead to tearing of the lamina and pain. My lecture focused on posture, the occasional resistance of horses to adopt certain positions, and how, similar to humans developing flat feet when things go awry, a horse’s nervous system can adjust to mitigate this issue. We can employ exercises to address a horse’s flat feet, just as we do for humans.
Segueing slightly, I’ve found the use of heel lifts fascinating. Before utilizing laser technology, examining a person’s pelvis and applying heel lifts were common practices of mine, which could be either a temporary or long-term solution. However, since incorporating the Erchonia laser into my practice, I’ve observed such significant improvements in arch formation post-muscle balancing and adjustments that I seldom resort to heel lifts anymore.
Returning to the conference, the presentation was exceedingly well-received, prompting requests for my return. Although committing to such engagements is substantial, I am eager to collaborate with veterinarians using the Erchonia method and am willing to share all my insights. I have a YouTube channel with around 30 videos that could benefit from better organization, but it serves as a platform for sharing my work.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Are there a lot of animals? And when I say animal chiropractors, are there many that work on them? There aren’t many that work on horses, are there?
Dr. Patricia Bona: You know, it’s difficult for me to answer that because you have to consider how many horses there are, right? Like, in comparison, as a human chiropractor, we cater to about 20% of the population. Is that still the case for horses? That’s my best guess. As for horse chiropractic care, I’m not sure of the exact figures. I hold certificate number 52 with the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association, and I understand they might now have up to 6,000 or 7,000 chiropractors. People come from all over the world to get certified. There’s also an International Animal Chiropractic Association. Yeah.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So you’ve been at it for a while, being certificate number 52. That’s impressive. Yes, that’s amazing.
Dr. Patricia Bona: I started the course I think in 1991 or 1992. I’ve been in practice since 1987.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Wow. Where did you go to school? Logan, okay. And there’s the veterinary, the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association. It sounds like, if you’re doing dissections, this is in-person training.
Dr. Patricia Bona: In-person training requires you to be a veterinarian or a chiropractor, or to be entering your final semesters or trimesters to take the course. It might now be a 300-credit course, which is quite intense. It was initiated by Dr. Sharon Willoughby, who was one of the pioneers in the field. Contrary to what some might think, she was a veterinarian before becoming a dual-licensed chiropractor. Nowadays, there are many more professionals in this field, which is commendable. It represents a significant commitment in terms of time, education, and financial investment.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s amazing. Well, it’s cool to hear what you’re doing. I mean, what a career. What a cool perspective you have, you know, in terms of seeing the impact of lasers on humans, on horses, and on other animals. That’s amazing.
Dr. Patricia Bona: I’m very grateful that my mother is a single parent. She gave me the option, which you might not be aware of, but she did. At one point, she asked, “Do you want to find another piano instructor? Do you want to take ballet lessons, or do you want to take riding lessons?” I wanted to do all three, but I knew that wasn’t feasible at a young age. And being of Hungarian descent, I’ve had people not understand my passion for horses. Then they visit Hungary, and they’re like, “It’s in your genes; you can’t help it.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Hungary is a very big course—oh, yes, place. Okay, yes, I’m learning. I know none of this stuff. He or she teaches me all sorts of things. That’s one of the benefits we get from this podcast: talking with people. We learn so many cool stories and insights on stuff I just otherwise wouldn’t know. And so, I love my very nominal experiences. But all of my experiences with horses have been so great. We took our kids a couple of summers ago to Yellowstone, and they had a horseback riding thing. Our kids just had such a good time. Horses are… There’s something just so special about horses, particularly from what I’ve seen with kids. So, and obviously, they’ve got like all these different horse camps for kids with special needs, or kids who’ve dealt with trauma. They use equine therapy, right? Is that what they call it? Yes.
Dr. Patricia Bona: So going back to what you said, I’m not the best with quotes, but one of our Presidents, Roosevelt, once said, ‘There’s something about the outside of a horse that’s good for the inside of a man.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Oh, what a good cooldown. Yeah.
Dr. Patricia Bona: Yes, back to the riding and stuff. A lot of people think that riding is bad for you, you know, but that’s because they don’t understand that when you learn how to ride, it’s such a beautiful relationship and an athletic endeavor. So, if someone sees a doctor and says, “Oh, you need to stop riding because it’s bad for your back or whatever,” they don’t understand it. And then you just have to say, “Well, why do they have therapeutic riding?” They have therapeutic riding for people who are paraplegics and quadriplegics because it stimulates the spinal cord and reflexes that you can’t activate in any other way. And also, riding is beneficial for emotional support. There’s a larger association called EAGALA (Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association) that uses horses for people who have trauma. So, there are many different certification programs and opportunities when you go and look for them, physically, mentally, and emotionally, that involve interacting with horses and dogs as well. But there’s just something about horses and what they symbolize. They’ve carried civilizations into battle and done incredible things. In fact, there’s a story about Sergeant Reckless, a horse who made a huge impact during the Korean War. There’s a huge bronze sculpture of her at the World Equestrian Center. She made about 20 journeys in one day, carrying ammunition amidst the chaos of war. Her story is truly remarkable. She was a hero, supplying our troops with ammunition while everything was getting blown up around her. And she did get to come home and retire. It’s a really beautiful story.
Dr. Chad Woolner: I remember when the movies Warhorse and Seabiscuit came out. Both times, for whatever reason, the previews did not appeal to me at all. I thought, “It’s just a movie about a horse or whatever.” But both times, I went and saw the movies, and I was like, “That was the most amazing movie. It was so moving to me.” It’s just funny to me because, on the outside, I’m like, “Man, I don’t care.” But then you watch it, and you’re like, “How can you not be moved by those movies and stories?” It shows you what incredible animals they are and what a beautiful relationship exists between humans and horses, unlike any other animal-type relationship. And that’s cool that you get to be a part of that and play such a significant role. You’re such an early adopter or dare I say, pioneer, in that realm. What a cool career you’ve had. We certainly appreciate you being here with us and taking the time to share that with everybody here.
Dr. Patricia Bona: Well, and I’m so grateful for that. And I’m far from a pioneer from back then. But I think some of my techniques are related to, you know, soft tissue and integrating that. Sure, again, the soft tissue is the nervous system, you know, and we need to work with that. I’m so grateful that my mother allowed me that opportunity. One last little story is that so watching horses form and function, I started to watch people. So from a child, I’ve imitated how people walked. And then my good friend, Dr. Peggy Dillon, was in the fourth with me, and she ended up getting into chiropractic. I never thought I was even going to go to college. But I took college prep courses, and then all of a sudden decided that’s what I was going to do in the short term, but watching the horses form and function, watching people’s form and function and imitating how they walked. You know, it’s just a blessed life that came full circle.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So you have horses to thank for chiropractic college, and horses have you to thank for chiropractic college. Right. It’s a beautiful story. Really, really neat. So that’s awesome. So well. Incredible. Thank you again, so much for sharing that with us. Any final thoughts, Dr. Wells? No.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Just wanted to say thank you for being on this episode. This is a really entertaining episode, if for nothing else. We don’t often hear these kinds of stories. Most podcasts tend to focus on how lasers work and their applications to human beings, and typically musculoskeletal pain. But you really painted a pretty picture of how this amazing technology can be used for animals, improving their lives and those of their riders and athletes. I love how you connected those two. Yeah.
Dr. Patricia Bona: Because we are animals. That’s what we forget. You know, and that’s why we have so many issues because we were supposed to be moving. We’re supposed to be active. We’re supposed to have a balance in our lives. Yeah. And to see how it easily affects the horses and the dogs. To not forget that we’re animals and we need to have that physical activity. And yeah
Dr. Chad Woolner: Great point. Lovely. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, thank you again, Dr. Pat; we appreciate you being here on this episode with us, and those listening. We hope that this has been really valuable for you as well. And we will catch you all in 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 our Erchonia lasers, just head on over to our website, Erchonia.com. There you’ll find a ton of useful resources, including research news and links to upcoming live events, as well as our e-community where you can access additional resources for free, including advanced training and business tools. Again, thanks for listening and we will catch you on the next episode.
Dr. Patricia Bona is a distinguished chiropractor specializing in both human and animal care, particularly focusing on horses. Certified by the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association since 1992, Dr. Bona has pioneered the use of laser therapy for animals, demonstrating its significant benefits for muscle balancing, inflammation reduction, and overall wellness.
In Episode #29 of The Laser Light Show, Dr. Chad Woolner and Dr. Andrew Wells chat with Dr. Patricia Bona about her unique practice in the chiropractic field, working with both humans and animals, especially horses. Dr. Bona, a pioneer in applying chiropractic care and laser therapy to animals, shares her insights into the benefits and nuances of treating horses, her journey into animal chiropractic, and the profound effects of laser therapy in her practice.
Dr. Chad Woolner: What’s going on, everybody? Dr. Chad Woolner here with Dr. Andrew Wells. In today’s episode, we have a special guest, Dr. Jake Cooke from England, here with us to talk about some amazing experiences he has been having using lasers in his clinic. So, let’s get to it.
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.
Dr. Chad Woolner: All right, welcome to the show, everybody, and a special welcome to Dr. Jake Cooke. Thanks for being here with us.
Dr. Jake Cooke: Thank you very much.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So you came all the way from the UK to here. How has it been so far?
Dr. Jake Cooke: Yeah, fantastic. Everything is bigger in America, right? Yes, it’s my first time in Florida, and it lives up to its reputation.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s Awesome.
Dr. Andrew Wells: So, for a little context here, we’ve recorded a previous episode, but we’re currently at Erchonia’s annual business meeting in Florida. We’re recording this episode live at the business event. We have doctors from all over the world who have flown into either speakers or learners, all eager to engage with our incredible mission and product. We aim to facilitate the widespread adoption of low-level laser therapy among doctors and patients. We’re thrilled to have Dr. Cooke on the show here. His extensive expertise and unique perspective are likely to captivate our American audience and establish significant credibility for our podcast.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s right. I already feel smarter just by being on this podcast with you.
Dr. Jake Cooke: So, that’s what I’m aiming for. Before you ask, I don’t know that. Well, I was about to say I don’t know the queen. I don’t know now, but I don’t know the king either. Not many of those guys. It’s a question that comes up every time.
Dr. Chad Woolner: I wasn’t even thinking about it.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Well, you do know Americans think that if you have an English accent, you’re just a little bit smarter than maybe you actually are and more evil.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s right. That’s the German accent that I think sounds evil, right?
Dr. Jake Cooke: In every film, is the smart guy who is evil depicted with a British or German accent? I don’t know. Yeah, that’s for sure.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So, when I think of English culture, my mind immediately goes to my wife. She adores all things related to Jane Austen, period films, and England. She has wanted to visit England for quite some time. Therefore, we’re planning to make that trip happen. We had planned to go for our 20th wedding anniversary; the idea was to visit England and then travel via the Channel Tunnel to France, possibly exploring other European countries as well. From what I’ve seen, it seems like an incredible place.
Dr. Jake Cooke: It is amazing. I think we get so much of your media over here, and sometimes we assume the countries are very similar, like England and America being just the same place. But when you visit, you realize celebrities like Cardi B highlight how different things are. You guys have a lot of really fantastic stuff like this. We’re in Orlando right now, right? Yeah, it’s just a giant playground, isn’t it?
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, pretty much.
Dr. Jake Cooke: It’s a huge playground. We don’t have anything like that in the UK. But when you come to our place, you’ll see beautiful little villages, towns, and cities that you just can’t imagine. So yeah, you go to Paris, Bruges in Belgium, Amsterdam – it’s just good. I’ve got something that is very hard to replicate because they’ve been built up over such a long period. Yeah.
Dr. Andrew Wells: We have the cheap imitations of English towns. So, if you go to Universal Studios in Orlando, you’ll see the wonderful Wizarding World of Harry Potter, or whatever. It’s made to look like, yeah, that’s all English to me. I don’t know if that’s supposed to be London, or some other city in England, or whatever. But yeah, we have cheap replicas.
Dr. Jake Cooke: So I was teaching in Edinburgh, Scotland, a couple of weeks ago. You know, the city that inspired Harry Potter. You walk around the city, and it’s just stunning. So, I remember I took the bus into the city center, and as you approach, you get this superb view of the castle, the crowning jewel at the heart of the Royal Mile. Suddenly, you’re hit with this feeling, ‘This is amazing.’ Yeah, it’s something else. I mean, an architect today couldn’t just design something like that and replicate the same effect. So, you’ve got to go see it for yourself.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Isn’t there a chiropractic college in Scotland?
Dr. Jake Cooke: I think it’s in development. Okay, so I don’t think I’m going to get loads of hate mail, but I don’t think it’s been launched yet. Has it? I think it’s in development.
Dr. Chad Woolner: But there is a Cairo school in the UK, correct?
Dr. Jake Cooke: So, we’ve got the ACC, which is down on the south coast. It’s one of the oldest, over 50 or 60 years old now. Okay, we’ve got a new one in London on the South Bank. Okay, there’s one over in Wales. Okay. So, it’s expanding quite fast. From having one or two for a very long time, we suddenly have four. And then, I think there’s one in Spain. So, yeah, we are far behind you guys in terms of numbers. In the UK, we have the NHS, which provides healthcare free at the point of contact. This means you could get hit by a bus and feel perfectly fine about staying at a hospital because it’s covered. Not that we encourage that kind of behavior, of course. The British Chiropractic Association approached the NHS to try and secure contracts, and the NHS was like, ‘Great, we love what you do. But how many of you are there?’ When we said there are about 3,000, they were like, ‘Well, that’s just not enough. You can come back when you’ve got tens of thousands.’ So, I think that’s probably one of our missions now.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Wow, that’s amazing. Completely different here than in the United States. For sure.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s funny. When I first graduated from chiropractic school, I was going to apply to the state of Wisconsin. I remember getting some emails back saying, ‘No, we’re not doing any. We’re not letting any more chiropractors into the state.’ I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ They were like, ‘Oh, yeah, we have too many chiropractors here.’ I’m like, ‘Is there such a thing? Why can’t I take the state exam if you’re not going to accept it?’ That’s interesting. So, people in Wisconsin, if you know much about the state, this is not true, but let’s say they’re all healthy. None of them have any kind of musculoskeletal issues. They’re all good. It’s refreshing to hear that a government-sponsored health organization wants chiropractors because that would never happen here. I don’t know. Hopefully, it will. But yeah, that’s interesting.
Dr. Jake Cooke: We’ve got a unique setup that’s truly interesting when we compare the pros and cons of both systems. The downside is that it’s been underfunded for a long time, leading to its near collapse. Some would argue it has already collapsed, which is why there’s a strong interest in exploring what can be done for improvement. Internationally, the treatment of back pain seems to have been largely unsuccessful. Considering that most people will experience back pain at some point in their lives, and there’s a 60% chance of recurrence within a year, we’d deem any other condition with such statistics a failure. This indicates a need to explore alternative solutions. In the UK, there’s hope for a more open-minded approach, which is one of the aspects that initially attracted me to the use of lasers.
Admittedly, I’m terrible at remembering names, but there’s a fantastic speaker currently discussing how the population is sicker than it has ever been. This is a stark contrast to 20 or 50 years ago when reading from the original chiropractors’ manuals, a single adjustment could often be a one-hit wonder for various ailments. Nowadays, it seems rare in my practice to achieve such immediate results with just one session. It’s becoming evident that many of us, like Andrew, who are exploring functional medicine, are doing so because traditional methods are no longer sufficiently effective on their own.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, it’s interesting to see—I can’t remember who you’re talking to. But it’s interesting to see that, when you set politics and social issues aside, and you look at socialized medicine, there’s a completely different objective versus the privatized or, you know, kind of more of a capitalistic model. In that, they’re very much of the mindset of necessity—that they’ve got to get results as quickly as possible, as inexpensively as possible, and as effectively as possible because that’s what drives costs down. Right, the metrics that they’re looking at are much different than the metrics associated with a for-profit system. Yeah, you know, it’s different.
Dr. Jake Cooke: Again, considering the pros and cons, one downside is that we may be a bit slow in conducting all the necessary investigations. In contrast, a potential con here is the overenthusiasm leading to excessive diagnostics. For example, instead of opting for a simple X-ray, there might be unnecessary expenditures on diagnostics, such as 5,000 pounds worth of tests including X-rays, ultrasounds, and MRIs. This contrasts with other systems where the financial structure doesn’t support such extensive testing, leading to a rise in the popularity of private care. Since COVID-19, the private healthcare sector, including functional medicine and laser chiropractic services, has seen significant growth. Patients, previously accustomed to receiving these services for free, are now turning to private care, making it an excellent time to be in practice. However, it’s also challenging due to patients’ high expectations based on past experiences, such as miraculous relief from back pain decades ago, which they unfairly compare against current treatments. Yeah.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So, how long have you been in practice?
Dr. Jake Cooke: I think it’s 13 years now.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Okay. And when did you start using lasers in practice?
Dr. Jake Cooke: Well, that’s a good question. It was probably about four years ago.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Did you get exposure to it in school?
Dr. Jake Cooke: That’s not the case anymore. I remember hearing about lasers in school, but it was just a casual mention. Then, there was a sports chiropractor. Again, I’m terrible with names and have forgotten his. He came to talk to us about professional cycling, mentioning that they use lasers and that he had a study showing it was comparable to NSAIDs for pain relief. I thought it was interesting, but no one had one, note my actual exposure was through a patient.
So, I work with chronic pain and chronic dizziness, meaning the vast majority of my patients present complex cases. A definitive complex case called me, saying she had severe fibromyalgia with all its worst aspects: not just chronic pain, but cognitive issues, digestive problems, and extreme fatigue. Her pain sensitization was so acute that even gently running a thumb down her spine caused pain, not from pressure, but from the lightest touch. It was truly awful for her.
She contacted me after being recommended, expressing interest in lasers and inquiring if I used them for chronic pain management. To be honest, I knew nothing about it at all. She was familiar with a particular technique and directed me to resources. Subsequently, I consulted with a team in the UK, and we purchased a laser device primarily for her treatment, to see what would happen.
This case was complex, and while I wish the solution was as simple as a single treatment, what the laser therapy provided was an opening. Before, any contact or movement triggered immense pain and inflammation, making any conventional treatment more harmful than beneficial. Simple adjustments would incapacitate her for days. With laser therapy, however, we observed a gradual decrease in her allodynia and pain sensitization. Remarkably, her widespread fibromyalgia pain began to centralize, allowing for periods where physical contact and joint movement became possible without exacerbating her pain.
This shift indicated that the laser treatment was reducing both peripheral and central sensitization, enabling the beginning of strength exercises and active cognitive movements. This, in turn, seemed to enhance pain inhibition from the brain, offering her a pathway back to a more normal life. This experience was my first real indication that the laser was effective, prompting me to further explore its potential and application in treatment.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, what a cool—yeah, well, several things that I think when I hear you tell that story that is cool. Some doctors might think, “Okay, I tried this laser, and it didn’t fix it. Everything rests upon this single solitary tool, and it didn’t fix it. And so, therefore, we’re going to toss it out.” Right? You have the sense, the clinical wherewithal—we’ll call it that—to recognize, you know, when you even kind of hinted at that, that you’re just using this as a tool, as a means to help facilitate other things that need to take place to help this patient. Yeah, absolutely. And so, that’s a huge, fertile ground for doctors listening, a huge clinical nugget that they can take in terms of how to use the lasers. Right? Because I think sometimes, at least for me, in my practice, since I have two lasers that we use at our practice, I think by default I sometimes want it to be more than that, not the way that you’re describing. It’s like, set it and forget it, and then let the laser do its thing, and then hope it works, you know. And you certainly can do that, because obviously, the clearances that have been done show that they have that ability. But again, like you’re talking, you’re not talking about your run-of-the-mill, you know, low back pain or neck pain case; you’re talking about somebody who’s dealing with a lot of other complexities.
Dr. Jake Cooke: You know, if you were to write down all the processes that you’re fighting against, it’s complicated, right? Yeah, it’s not just, you know, and I think sometimes when I can be critical of laser therapy, sometimes I’m like, I just didn’t do what I wanted to do. But then, when I compare it to other stuff that we use all the time, like spinal manipulation, which we use all day, every day. But how many of your patients, when you do the adjustment, genuinely get up and be like, “Oh, my God, that was the most amazing thing, the pain is completely gone, I can do everything,” right? And if they do, often, they’ll have that response in the moment. But the next morning, they’re waking up, and they’re feeling stiff and achy again. And I feel like sometimes with the laser, you get that immediate effect. And then people ring up and say, “Well, I didn’t do anything because the next day I was so sore.” So, you have it; it’s a process, you’re combating a lot of complex physiology. And so, we’re just trying to stack tools and techniques to try and slowly shift the tide away from it. So, sometimes the way I describe it to patients and other chiropractors is to ignore the complex physics and all the clever stuff that these guys can talk about for hours, but very simply, you’re taking the cell, and you’re trying to shift it from a stress state into a healing state. That’s all it is. The laser works in a completely different way from any manual therapy, soft tissue work, or any strength exercise; it’s working on a completely different level. So, it’s a tool that’s going to help you physiologically take that cell and shift it toward a healing state. And, you know, if you’re looking at the research behind spinal manipulation for that, you have it. How long have I been studying spinal regulation? We can’t say a lot of stuff with confidence, you know, how does it work? We can talk about neural and anatomical pathways, but we don’t know for certain that is actually how it works. Yes, we can look at proprioception and going up the cerebellum, but those are a lot of actually quite theory-based stuff. Whereas when you look at the laser, there’s a lot of research saying, like, we know this is the heart of the mitochondria. Whereas with spinal manipulation, there’s a lot of stuff we think, we think, we think, you know. I saw a paper last week; we think there’s some opioid release. But it’s a, but it’s up in the brain, and there’s lots of other stuff going on, and just human contact can do that, you know, touching someone’s back, you know.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So, I think it’s a lot more challenging to develop or design studies around manipulation. We know that, right? You know, how do you differentiate a sham adjustment from a real adjustment? That’s a challenge. And I know they’ve done that; they’ve conducted placebo-controlled studies with manipulation, but it’s far more challenging to do than comparing sham laser versus real laser, you know, exactly.
Dr. Andrew Wells: And so, one of the neat things about lasers we talk about is that let me start by mentioning one of the negative aspects of laser therapy: you can’t feel it. However, in this case, and for your patient, the benefit was that she couldn’t feel it. My question for you is, if you hadn’t been clever and risky enough from a business standpoint to invest in a laser for this particular patient, would you have any other backup plan? Given that you couldn’t touch her or use many physical modalities, what would have been the next step without laser therapy?
Dr. Jake Cooke: Early on, we tried to make a difference. I’ve saved this for you guys and for listeners at home. I passed the American Chiropractic Neurology Board exams in 2014. Then, I went on to pursue a Master’s in Musculoskeletal Neuroscience, which I believe I finished last year. So, I have a unique neuromuscular approach. However, everything I did for her just relapsed. In the office, she’d be okay, but by the time she traveled home, she’d have a splitting headache. Honestly, I didn’t have any other course of action to consider. Even when I thought I hadn’t done much in the clinic, carefully checking for pupil dilation, changes in heart rate, pulse rate, and blood pressure, I realized we hadn’t done much at all. It almost wasn’t worth coming in; we did so little. Then she’d call and say she had a terrible reaction, having been in bed for three days. It’s probably the worst case I’ve seen, to be honest. It was just devastating, especially for such a young woman, just stuck at home in bed.
Dr. Andrew Wells: It’s a frustrating thing for patients who have fibromyalgia or have been diagnosed with it because they really get bounced around from provider to provider with really no answers, and they’ve likely already tried a lot of things. These patients often get lumped into the bucket of “well, it’s all in your head” or “it’s a mental issue. We can’t fix this issue.
Dr. Jake Cooke: Have you tried CBT? Have you tried essential oils? Have you tried changing how you think about that pain? So, yeah, sure. But stabbing pain is still a stabbing pain. I can decide it’s…
Dr. Andrew Wells: You’re right. Many healthcare providers, and I include myself in this, tend to avoid addressing that patient. Like, let’s just move on to the next patient. And maybe someone else has something that can help this person. Instead, he leaned into it and tried to figure out some solutions. How’s the patient doing now, by the way?
Dr. Jake Cooke: I haven’t seen her in a long time. I hope she’s doing well. I hope that means she’s doing well and making slow and steady progress. So that was positive.
Dr. Andrew Wells: And you at least got to a point where you could use physical modalities, and it sounded like she was improving at the point when you were seeing her. Yeah.
Dr. Jake Cooke: Absolutely. And then, from having had that exposure, I think most of us who like using the laser have had a personal kind of impact. So, for me, the big one was when my wife was pregnant with our second child. Unfortunately, in the last 10 days of her pregnancy, she caught sinusitis, so she had this terrible, full headache. My wife’s tough; she gave birth twice without painkillers, so she’s a tough woman. Yeah, she was—I came down one morning, and she was on the sofa, head in her hands, basically couldn’t talk through the pain. It was like 10 out of 10, just horrendous, and the GP was really lovely but basically said, “Look, you’re due any day. There’s no medication we can give you. You’ve just got to hope it goes away.” And I know we’re not really meant to use it on a pregnant woman because we’ve got no studies saying it’s safe; we’ve got no studies saying it’s dangerous either. But I know technically you’re not meant to, but it’s like, this is just madness. I’m doing it. So, I’ve got the EVRL, so ultra-wide and red. We put it on the kind of infection setting, showing it around her sinuses for five minutes. And this is no exaggeration at all. At the end of five minutes, she sat up and said, “My headache is gone. I’ve got some throbbing next to my nose just here, but my headache is gone.” And that, for me, was my kind of first personal one. It was like, that’s really exciting. You haven’t touched, you haven’t done anything to her at all. We’ve just shone it around the sinuses. I think, because, you know, in the third trimester, they can get quite congested. It’s not the road.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Oh, edema.
Dr. Jake Cooke: So, I think I don’t know whether some aspects were infection and what aspect was maybe just edema, but whatever the laser did, it obviously drained some edema and reduced the pain. And we just used the laser two or three times a day for, I think, only two days. Symptoms all cleared. Wow. Quite miraculous. Yeah, I don’t use that word very often, but that was real. That’s incredible. So, and then we did the same for another, giving out all the little secrets, but she got mastitis as well when she was breastfeeding. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a woman with mastitis. It’s just awful. The pain is horrendous. You feel so sorry for them. And again, the chief advice was cabbage leaves. You know, I think it was like stewed cabbage leaves.
Dr. Chad Woolner: I have heard that. Yeah, I’ve heard stuff like that. Have you heard that before?
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah. I’ll
Dr. Jake Cooke: Say that obviously didn’t do anything, but the laser did. So, she used the laser. And because I work with chronic pain, I’m used to seeing immediate changes, like the pain doesn’t hurt as much, or it reduces by half. For example, if someone has whiplash, they might have acute neck pain or chronic neck pain. So, we touch their neck, ask how painful it is, and they might say it’s seven out of ten. You do your laser treatment for a couple of minutes and then touch it again. Normally, they’ll say it’s dropped to about three. With her, when that paralysis occurred, she would use the laser, and at this point, I wasn’t doing the laser at all; I just left her in a room for five minutes. She’d come back and say, ‘Yeah, it’s shrinking again.’ So it’s not in such a wide space, and it’s more tolerable because that pain is horrendous. It just drives you mad, especially when you’re trying to breastfeed a child and look after them. She, in particular, really benefited from having that laser. I have my personal experience too. I like indoor rock climbing, and if you have kids, you know what it’s like trying to make new friends. There’s a guy who lives across the street with a child the same age, and we got chatting. I invited him to try climbing, and during my warm-up, I was being careless and didn’t warm up properly. I tried to show him some moves, but my foot slipped off the wall, and I strained my glutes. It was horrible. Normally, if I were on my own, I would have gone home, but since I was with my new friend, I decided, ‘Let’s climb for an hour.’ Getting home, standing up, sitting down, walking—I was yelping. The pain was like seven or eight, really awful. I went to bed thinking the next day would be worse. So, I lasered it about three or four times during the day. Honestly, I didn’t feel a difference after each session. I thought, ‘This is going to be horrible. I might even have to take my first day off from work ever.’ I’ve been very lucky not to have had an injury the day before. I went to bed with the pain at seven or eight and woke up in the morning, and it was probably a two or three. I could put on my socks and get dressed by myself. My wife had to take my socks off for me the night before. That personal experience was like, ‘Well, that shouldn’t have happened,’ in terms of physiology and stuff. It should have been a night of inflammation and swelling and just a horrendous morning. So, that was cool.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s amazing. Yeah, so, I mean, that’s the thing I would say that’s so cool about these. I mean, among other things, it really opens up a window of opportunity. Right, you know, that here, you were able to, you know, we, I think, sometimes set unrealistic expectations with what we’re expecting in terms of outcomes and things like that, for what we define as successes. And clearly, you’re active, really active, you know, rock climbing, and things like that. But put this into perspective. For the average patient, let’s just say, if they’re dealing with pain that is sufficiently debilitating to where they can’t put their socks on, a huge win for them is being able to put their socks on unaided, you know what I mean? That’s a huge win. And that’s very meaningful to people, especially when we’re dealing with people in an older population, where all of a sudden, mobility is it and, you know, just basic ambulation is a challenging thing for them. They’re not looking to, you know, compete in a marathon or a triathlon or go rock climbing or anything; they’re just looking to function, you know, if you can help restore function, that’s a huge thing. Yeah.
Dr. Jake Cooke: A big part of what I’m trying to do at the moment is ask patients what they called us for. You know, if there’s one thing I could do for you, what would it be? Or what is your goal for coming here? What are you hoping to achieve? The immediate answer is always “get rid of the pain” or “get rid of the dizziness.” What I’m trying to do now is dig into that a bit more. Okay, great. So if I had a magic wand, bam, done. Is there anything you’d be doing tomorrow that you’re not doing today? Then again, they’ll give you some wishy-washy answer, but I’m trying to find out what the deeper reason is. Why are you paying for healthcare now rather than just waiting for the NHS? Why is this so important? I get that the pain is unpleasant, but what is it stopping you from doing? Normally, it comes down to “I can’t play with my kids.” So dads say, “I feel old, I can’t lift my kid up, I can’t play football with them—I mean soccer. I can’t play soccer with them.” And moms say, “I feel like a terrible mom, you know, I can’t look after my kids properly.” Older people say, “I can’t go for a walk outside. You know, I feel old. I didn’t feel old.” I think that’s something the laser is very good at. It just shows them the potential very quickly. And that’s what we’re going to be doing over the next few weeks or months, especially with acute injuries. You know, someone who’s got acute low back pain, you can make a difference quite quickly. It can be quite exciting. And you’re right about managing expectations, but it’s quite exciting when you can palpate something and it really is a nasty, sharp pain, and then you shine a laser on it, do nothing else, give it another poke, and they’re like, “Does that same place hurt?
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah
Dr. Jake Cooke: It’s putting graduates.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So, what do you foresee in terms of the future for your clinic using lasers, beyond musculoskeletal pain? What are you currently using them for, and what do you foresee?
Dr. Jake Cooke: So I think when you’re in the clinic, you get pulled in many different directions. I try to be primarily a clinician before a researcher, but I also make time to conduct extensive literature reviews regularly. When I see a patient I’m struggling to help, I use that as a critical clinical question to guide my research. One of the reviews I’m currently conducting is on migraine progression, specifically, the factors that convert episodic migraine into chronic migraine. We define chronic migraine as experiencing a headache more than 15 days a month, which is quite severe—essentially having a headache every other day. Now, I understand what the laser does for pain, and I want to explore its effects on migraines and other conditions. I work a lot with dizziness and see many patients with vestibular migraine and conditions like vestibular neuritis. I’ve been using the laser through the ear to reach the vestibular system, but I haven’t thoroughly researched the scientific support for this approach. It seems to be working well, but I’m interested in delving deeper into what the laser can do for these various conditions. Sometimes, I think it improves metabolism, right? It enhances mitochondrial function. It’s not a cure-all, but almost; it doesn’t matter what the condition is because you can try this one.
Dr. Chad Woolner: It’s going to be the foundational premise and mechanism of what makes it work that is part of what makes it so exciting. And I dare say I understand exactly what you’re saying; I dare not claim that it’s a panacea by any means. But the mechanism is so foundational that there is a solid rationale for using it for a very, very wide range of different types of conditions and problems that people present with.
Dr. Jake Cooke: Yeah, absolutely. I think I am in my clinic. So, I always look at what other people are doing. For the first ten years of my career, I basically went and observed a lot of people and asked many wiser and more successful individuals, ‘What would you do if you did it again?’ In the UK, it’s a very different market compared to America. The answer that always came back was, ‘Go solo, and be really lean for maximum profits with really no fat,’ or ‘Open three or more clinics.’ So, you either want lots of clinics and people, then you’ve got enough income that other people can do work for you, and you’re not, you know, working at both clinics if you have only two, running between both, answering the phone sometimes, and doing the marketing and stuff like that. They’re like, ‘Three or more clinics.’ So, I went lean, which has been great. But I think probably in the next few years, we’ll get to the stage where we’ve maybe outgrown that space. And that’s where I think maybe having something like the FX, you know, having something where we can have one room come in laser for however long treatment and other rooms, something like that. I don’t have the space for it where I am now. But maybe, I think that’s probably where I’d like to go. Yeah, my wife’s accountant. She was also, when we got married, our best friend. So, we did such a cliché. My best female friend got married, and it was her oldest friend. So, basically we met at a wedding, and then got married. So, our best friend gave a speech at our wedding. And she called us the dreamer and the planner. And I’m the dreamer, and my wife is the planner. So, the one frustration we have with each other is I’ll get really excited. So, after this weekend, I can tell you, I’m gonna go down this path: ‘This guy, that guy, this guy. Oh, what do we do?’ and she’s gonna just get it straight away. And she’ll start firing for perfectly reasonable reasons why we should not be doing that. And then I get frustrated because I’m like, ‘Yeah.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, she keeps the parameters in place. Yeah,
Dr. Jake Cooke: We’ll say a long time ago.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s good expectations. That’s good. That’s amazing. Well, it sounds like you’re doing some incredible things at your clinic and helping a lot of people over there in England. And yeah, it’s been really cool having you here.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Dr. Cooke, Erchonia is making a push to have a bigger presence with low-level laser therapy in the UK and Europe. Are you seeing the use of laser therapy pick up? Or do you see it as being a bigger part of not only the private sector in UK healthcare but also, do you ever see this becoming a part of the National Health System?
Dr. Jake Cooke: And I see what a digression it is becoming more popular. So, you’re definitely hearing about more clinics having lasers. I think one of the difficulties we have at the moment over there is the confusion between LED and laser. Same here in the US. Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, I had a patient the other day say, “I’ve had a laser.” I was like, “Okay, which clinic did you go to?” And you look, and it’s one of these full-body LED things. Um, like, it’s not saying that doesn’t work, but it’s not the same. You know, and the research is different, you know, if we’re looking at one working through heat, and one working through light, and they have different mechanisms involved. I think that’s probably where we have the difficulty is that you know, a patient the other day used the laser, and then he sends me an email saying, “I found one on eBay.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Oh, geez.
Dr. Jake Cooke: No, you haven’t. It looks the same, right? No, it’s not.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Does it admit a color of light?
Dr. Jake Cooke: Yeah, that’s literally a torch. A torch is not the same. Yeah. And I think that’s the challenge we have, and I actually think the accounting team in the UK is very good at pushing research. They’re really good at it. So Simon always says that we don’t care what you decide to purchase; we don’t care. You know what, but we just want to educate you on why you’re purchasing that one, you know, the difference between them. So, I think it is more popular, but I don’t think there are as many true lasers; I think the majority of them are cheap LEDs, and they have their time and place, but they’re not the same. Whether it’ll be on the NHS or not, the NHS is very slow to adapt to new things. I can’t remember the time frame. It’s something ridiculous, like 20 years from research to application or something like that.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, there was a study that we’ve cited. I think it was Cambridge, if I’m not mistaken, wasn’t it? The title of the study was “The Answer is 17 Years. What’s the Question? The Lag Between Research and Implementation in an Actual Real-World Clinical Setting.” And so that’s exactly right. You know, I don’t think that’s just a UK thing. I think that when it comes to seeing the translation of what is understood from a research level to being adopted into mainstream medicine, just globally and in general, we tend to see those same types of lags. So, unfortunately, that’s just the way it is, to a certain extent.
Dr. Jake Cooke: I think part of the difficulty we face, as well as when looking at the research, is that it’s quite muddy. This is because researchers have done such a poor job differentiating between the different wavelengths and frequencies and all that kind of stuff. So, when you look at a paper stating there was a positive or negative correlation, you realize the range of devices used, or different methodologies, complicates matters. For example, systematic reviews in laser research are quite hard to derive value from due to these inconsistencies.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Such a vast array of different types of settings. And, but that’s..
Dr. Jake Cooke: Saying it’s all you know, does it work for a literature review on TMJ I was doing not so long ago? Does it work? And then one systematic review says yes, analysis, no. And you look at what papers are included, they’re all over the place. So, you kind of feel like the industry needs to have stricter definitions of this is what this one does. This is what we call it. And then when you do research, you know, maybe the laser guys stick with phototherapy.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, even just having a commonly accepted nomenclature in terms of names and terms would be helpful. So, thank you again for taking time out of your schedule to be here. We’re excited. This is going to be a really fun weekend. And it has already been a ton of fun chatting with you about this and hearing your experiences firsthand. Anything else you wanted to add, Doctor?
Dr. Andrew Wells: No, just thank you. Thanks for being on the show. This is great. And we’d love to have you on again for another episode sometime down the road. So thank you very much for your time.
Dr. Jake Cooke: Hey, thanks for having me. It’s been a real pleasure. And I’d love to come back.
Dr. Chad Woolner: We will definitely have a yes. So, alright, doctors and patients, thanks for listening. I hope this has been valuable. We’ll talk to you guys in 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 our 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 our Erchonia 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.
Dr. Jake Cooke is a prominent figure in the field of chiropractic care from England, recognized for his innovative use of laser therapy in his practice. He has a background in chronic pain and dizziness management, making him particularly adept at handling complex cases. Dr. Cooke’s career spans over 13 years, with the last four dedicated to integrating laser therapy into his treatments. His academic achievements include passing the American Chiropractic Neurology Board exams and obtaining a Master’s in Musculoskeletal Neuroscience. Dr. Cooke’s unique expertise and approach to patient care, especially his use of laser therapy for various conditions, including fibromyalgia and migraines, underline his significant contribution to chiropractic medicine.
In episode #28 of “The Laser Light Show,” hosts Dr. Chad Woolner and Dr. Andrew Wells interview Dr. Jake Cooke, exploring his groundbreaking work with laser therapy in the UK. Dr. Cooke shares his journey into the world of laser therapy, beginning with a challenging patient case of severe fibromyalgia. His successful integration of laser treatments in clinical practice showcases the potential of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) in addressing chronic pain, inflammation, and a host of other conditions. The discussion also touches on the differences between healthcare systems in the UK and the US, the expansion of chiropractic education in the UK, and the potential for laser therapy to be recognized and adopted by the National Health Service (NHS).
4-Minute Read
Tibial fractures are without a doubt a high-damage injury with the need for intensive rehab. Given that the tibial plateau is one of the key bone structures that support the body’s weight, it is imperative to partake in any physical activity such as walking, running, or jumping. Patients recovering from this type of injury can have difficulty doing everyday tasks. A fracture of the tibial plateau is usually caused by a high-energy impact and on most occasions, requires surgery.
Below we will answer some frequently asked questions about tibial fracture recovery and pain management.
Tibial bone fractures are among the most common long bone fractures seen in 4% of the senior population. This is often due to falls and other accidents. Tibial fractures are also a common sports-related injury among athletes engaging in sports heavy on running and jumping or contact sports such as football, soccer and rugby. Injuries of the tibial bone are also often seen in young children. It is a common pediatric fracture as young children are at risk of breaking limbs even when low force is applied at the time of injury.
For tibial fractures of non-displaced bones, recovery may take three to four months without surgery to heal. For displaced tibial plateau fractures, or when surgery is required, recovery may take around four to six months.
As with any major surgery, postoperative pain is a common complication that can in turn lead to potentially delayed recovery. In one study, of 267 patients with tibial shaft fractures, 147 (55.1%) reported chronic post-surgical pain after one year of surgery. As pain is a natural stressor, it stimulates physiological and psychological responses in the body. As the patient attempts to recover, these responses can cause postoperative complications and have a direct effect on the patient’s recovery time.
Treatment for tibial shaft injuries is generally operative in cases where the bone has been misplaced however, techniques such as physical therapy can aid patients during the process of healing and postoperative pain management. A physical therapist will recommend exercises and treatments to restore the patient’s mobility and alleviate the pain of the patient as much as possible. Therapist will focus on restoring the patient’s joint range of motion and reactivating the leg muscles. However, note that each injury and individual’s healing journey will be different, so recovery time will vary. Physical therapy is also limited when it comes to postoperative pain reduction. It can assist in reducing inflammation and calming the patient’s pain in the long term, however, physical therapy does not itself target the patient’s pain.
Low-level laser therapy (3LT®) is a modern technology that is being used in the field of medicine to treat sport injuries and musculoskeletal disorders. 3LT® is a laser treatment that is a professional’s preferred option for pain killing and wound healing.
3LT® uses irradiation with laser light of low intensity, without utilizing heat. This nonthermal technology causes a photochemical reaction in individual cells that alters cell membrane permeability, leading to increased mRNA synthesis and cell proliferation. In other words, 3LT®reduces edema and inflammation after surgery. 3LT® can even be used during surgery to decrease pain during and after operation. One study found that laser radiation at wavelengths of 650 and 808 nm can decrease postoperative pain and analgesic use in the postoperative period.
3LT® is a proper postoperative pain reduction technique. It is completely safe, painless (of course), and noninvasive. This is why it is easily accepted b y patients and providers alike. If you would like to learn more about this technology, read our blog on how this technology really works. You may also contact Erchonia today to learn more about how our 3LT® treatment can transform your postoperative experience.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Hello and welcome to The Laser Light Show, this is episode #27. This is Dr. Andrew Wells, with special guest Dr. Dustin Dillberg and today we’re going to be talking about lasers in acupuncture.
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.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Dr. Dillberg, welcome to the show. Great to have you here, my friend.
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: Happy to be here. Thank you.
Dr. Andrew Wells: So we were just talking a little bit offline before we hit the record button. And I think this is going to be a really interesting episode. And I think this is what we’re going to dive into obviously, as the title would suggest Lasers and acupuncture. But there’s a lot we can talk about here. And so to kick it off, maybe Dr. Dillberg, if you can just kind of give us a little bit of a background on who you are, what you do, where you’re from, and we’ll start there.
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: I am a doctor of Chinese medicine and acupuncture. I was raised and still practicing in the land of Hawaii, thanks to my father. He’s a chiropractor who has really interesting experiences that led him to be exposed to and get into Chinese medicine as well, ultimately becoming an acupuncturist himself. But I was just raised in this clinic, similar to the way my boy is in my clinic, crawling around full rugrat, I was. That’s the earliest memory I have; just in my dad’s practice. And I still have an interesting flashback to an experience watching him bring in a woman who wasn’t even able to walk through the threshold, a tiny little threshold in the doorway, in excruciating pain with a walker. And it just kind of rocked my world when I was young, as I was sitting at this little desk, definitely right next to me right now, coloring and watching an inadequate like this woman in agony, walk back to the treatment room, come out, probably 45 minutes later – my attention span was way shorter than that, I was already on to a whole different coloring book, but watched her walk out, walk around her back, laughing and with tears of joy, just this huge impact. And I remember like coming out of Superman, you know like a completely different person was transformed out of that woman that came into her office. And I wanted to be a part of that. And thankful for his experience, his past, his mind, and his willingness to kind of think outside the box and push hard to integrate new techniques that hadn’t been joined together before and just kind of formed my mind into thinking that’s just the only way to do things. And so I continued to follow in his footsteps. After I was hit by a car when I was seven, I had terrible whiplash, ligament damage throughout my spine, hip, and shoulder issues, and a lot of it went semi-undiagnosed because I was young and I bounced back and I wanted to go jump on the trampoline shortly after the accident, which I was unconscious for quite a while. You know, kids bounce right back, but later on, with a migraine setting in and the limitations in athletics and things like that, that were found, it was evident that I needed a lot more work and luckily, he had amazing mentors. Dr. Gilbert Yvonne was able to work on me and impact my life. He took me under his wing and taught me a ton of stuff, as well as some of the DCM mentors and other techniques. So it’s just been a really fun experience. I’m proud and happy to be a second-generation practitioner. And yeah, just bring more new things into this amazing clinical experience that we get to identify, you know, what works best for that individual patient, what works best for that individual situation or case, and identifying the way that one plus one doesn’t always have to equal two, that there’s a synergistic value between multiple treatments. And that’s certainly something that I found later there. It’s just undeniable.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, I found what you mentioned. So your dad was a chiropractor. Was he also into Chinese medicine, or was he just kind of like a classic chiropractor who would experiment and dabble in different things?
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: He knew he wanted to be a chiropractor at a very young age, as well as after having an experience where a chiropractor helped him after a baseball injury right there on the field. And so he’s really interested, he was like, head down, that know what his future had in store for him. And as he went to high school, was able to get his car back to school really quick and early. So they went to Cleveland Chiropractic School. The way the story goes, the first day that you go into the bookstore, to buy all your books, you have to do your readings prior to your first day of class and all that kind of stuff. You notice an elderly gentleman, in his, like, early 60s, he was Korean, and he wasn’t getting treated very well. I mean, this is way back in the 70s. And there was a certain level of racism and things like that, that surrounded the Asian population in certain areas. And so this gentleman was just frustrated, you didn’t know why he was being treated this way. And he was just trying to get his books, he didn’t speak English very well. So people were scoffing at him and things like that my dad just happened to have a soft spot in his heart for him that day, look at his schedule. And we have like three of the same classes. Let’s take a look at you have all the same classes, but three of them, I’ll actually be in at the same time, follow me around with grab all the same books, and I’ll let you know, on your way, they grabbed all the books, he led this gentleman, his name was Mr and go before him in the lines. And they, for some reason, didn’t want to accept his personal check. He didn’t have enough cash to cover it. He was 20 bucks short. And my dad was like, Alright, I’m a starving student. He already had my older brother at the time. He was very concerned about just cash flow as he entered chiropractic school. And he said, here’s 20 bucks, or more, I forget exactly how much less but here’s 20 bucks, but I will find you if you don’t give me this that my dad is like, high school wrestling guy. And you know, the whole, the chiropractor that I Joker has way too many similarities to CrossFitters these days, which I love and adore. But um, so he’s just jacked. Basically high school kids and I will find you if you don’t give me my money back. And they said, Thank you, you paid for his books in cash waiting outside for him, I’d have no idea waiting for him, went through it paid for his books walked outside in the stone. And it happened to say you were, you know, an American that showed me great gratitude, or just like kindness. And for that, I will let you be my people. And my dad looked at him and said, You’re entering school dude at the same time as I am. I’m like, 18, 19, I think I’m alright. But thank you so much. I just remember the basket eventually. But go ahead. And you know, thanks. It turned out this guy was the grandson of one of the last emperors as a Korea’s personal physician. So that went down the lineage in this family. So he was basically born and bred to be a practitioner or a doctor. And he has Korea changed in their political environment. He was sent off at an early age to become westernized through the different countries. So he’s spent time actually treating and spending time with royal families all over the world. But he spoke like eight different languages in English, this wasn’t his strong suit. He had an immense amount of knowledge in medicine in traditional means and a number of other techniques. And when he came to the US, he was very, very fearful. Like most acupuncturists actually have been, as they brought acupuncture and Chinese medicine into the US, very fearful of being deported, being attacked for going against standardized Western medicine going against the standard of the American Medical Association. They wanted to be really quiet, really respectful, and careful of doing anything and so he realized that he wasn’t able to practice in California without a license and degree of some nature and so he started looking into what intrigued him because he could have went and got a degree in acupuncture with his eyes closed or taught at the school and probably had an honorary degree, but this neurology in this brain-based stuff In this terrible practice, you know, the physics and the, the anatomical understanding was so much greater than what he knew. He wanted to study that. So that’s why he was going back to school. And he actually somewhat by force pushed my dad into like, No, you’re going to be an acupuncturist as well, you’re gonna blend these things together. And so, back in the 70s, there weren’t that many people that were, you know, had dual degrees, and chiropractic and acupuncture, and my father was literally one of them.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s an amazing story. Wow, that’s incredible. Okay, so I totally understand why you’re an acupuncturist now. Yeah, it’s so your dad. So he started then from his initial education as a chiropractor and learned acupuncture along the way.
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: And really, his mindset is still that way. Once you’re a chiropractor, you’re a chiropractor first, right? And so his mindset is still incredible. And he does everything with a chiropractic focus and supports it with acupuncture. Actually, when I was going through a lot of my work with Dr. Brock Pettibone, I was enrolled in Elysee, which turned into Southern California Health Sciences, in the chiropractic program. And around dinner, your uncle, as he was visiting my dad, pretty proudly, he was like, ‘Hey, girl, ask Dustin what he’s got in his future.’ And so the girl asked me, and Dr. Pettibone, like, ‘I’m really proud of him, accepted into the school, I’m going to be a chiropractor, and I’m going to go through a dual program of chiropractic and acupuncture.’ And he kind of chuckled. He was in the process of starting his own chiropractic program at that point as well and had a very specific way that he wanted things taught and things like that. And he actually told me some experiences that he had, studying Chinese medicine and the five-element theories and things like that. He’s like, ‘I think you can do everything that you would ever want to do, and potentially more if you work under an acupuncture license rather than a chiropractic license.’ And this.
Dr. Andrew Wells: This came from Dr. Yvonne. Yeah. Wow. Okay.
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: He taught me how to go to chiropractic school.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Wow, that’s crazy.
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: I am very thankful it hasn’t worked out exactly the way he described in terms of every state having their unique situations, there’s scope of practice issues, no matter what industry you’re in if you go from state to state and all of that. But overall, it has kind of opened up opportunities for me in very unique and neat ways. While I was going through medical school, I was still going through his curriculum and under his tutelage, and he was challenging my way outside the scope of what my brain could handle at the time to just push me into thinking differently. And so, I went through and I must say that I have more of an acupuncturist-first mindset because I talked to my dad and my mind works, TCM first, Cairo second, and he works out with first TCM, second, we just have some interesting dancer in the way that things are discussed or thought of. But yes, it’s kind of neat that like, actually, it was mentioned, I think, in one of the podcasts that you did with Brock, and Trevor, and the late-night one, they were talking about the friend that went back and got the MD, which I actually considered myself and like when you enter into a new scope of practice, sometimes there are limitations to what you can or should do. And I’m actually really used to being an acupuncturist in the state of Hawaii, and in the US.
Dr. Andrew Wells: It’s an amazing story. Thank you for sharing that. It’s interesting when you look at natural healthcare providers, whether it’s a chiropractor, acupuncturist, Chinese medicine, nutritionist, or naturopath, there’s a lot of fluidity between the philosophies, and the approach to health. The tools that we use, and the techniques that we use are very, I find, very interchangeable. Except when you get into the medical field where it’s very, very strict protocol-driven systems. Not that we don’t use protocols, we do. But yeah, you’re exactly right. There’s a lot of limitations there. And I think healthcare started off that way, where you just had a bunch of really smart people that were really interested in helping people get healthy and had some really good, lots of really good tools that they would use interchangeably and not so specialized. And I think we’ve very much gotten away from that in healthcare, except for chiropractic and acupuncture. I think we’re like the two healthcare professions that are still kind of looked at in a little bit of a funny way because we don’t just do one thing. We’re not like a one-trick pony. And that’s yeah, I can help people that way. Yeah, yeah. Can’t leave them out. Yeah, absolutely. Right. And yeah, and I think my gut is that we’re actually trending back toward that. I think that patients, especially, are starting to realize that we’re not just a bag of chemicals that can be adjusted up or down or left or right to treat symptoms, we’re actually a vitalistic being that’s more than just chemical reactions and physical reactions, that there’s something a lot more to health. And so, you know, and maybe you just got to get to talk to smart doctors, like you think and act the same way. But I, you know, I think I’m seeing our profession grow in ways that I didn’t even see 10 years ago when I first started. And I think it’s patient-driven. You know, I think docs like us do a good job and our professionals do a good job of educating patients. And I think it’s coming around, hopefully.
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: I agree. And it’s not just, you know, the bag of chemicals. But it used to be seen as a bag full of individual bags of chemicals, where your serotonin levels were uniquely individualized, they’ve had nothing to do with the rest of it. And so if we just influenced one chemical that would change that. And it’s just, that we know that everything’s connected. And we’ve known that for a long time, we’ve gotten distracted or skewed away from that idea. But we’re coming back full circle, the pendulum starting to swing it sure seems like again, and it’s so fascinating and interesting to me, with just the history of that you just heard, to now see, tools that used to get laughed at, when I would, I would pull out a, you know, a wash off tool, it’s like a piece of bone or, you know, metal, and somebody is like, you’re gonna scrape that on me, it’s going to do something like, Are you kidding me? And now that is like a very common tool, or cupping, or, you know, you’re gonna put a needle in me that has nothing in it, like me full of syringe, right? And now dry needling is one of the fastest-growing things in medicine. And these are things that have been tried and true for thousands of years. Maybe even up to like 7,000 years or older. Like it’s incredible data. That’s tried and true, right? Yeah, yeah. It’s coming back full circle into like, you want to know the coolest, newest, hottest thing in medicine. We’re gonna stick a needle in, you are gonna throw a cup, a suction cup on you. And Olympians are gonna rock it all over. It was pretty funny.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, that’s right. I always say, with Erchonia lasers, it’s kind of a shame that you can’t see any burn marks on people’s skin, because you don’t know that you’ve had it done. And that’s like that. I would lump laser into that therapy as well because you have laser done on you. And it’s like, is it working? I can’t feel it. It’s not tingling yet. And patients haven’t seen like, yeah, it’s just, it’s just light
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: We can just put a stamp like a rubber stamp at the right next to the laser, and then just stamp it at the end just so people have evidence. That’s beautiful.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I love that. Yeah, that’s exactly right. It’s nice that it doesn’t have any evidence. But it’s like, yeah, it’s not a very good marketing tool. In that respect, is it?
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: That’s the truth. And, truthfully, you don’t need to show all those bruises or marks from scraping or copying to have an effective result either. But it’s almost become like that, like, put it on a little longer. Everybody will see it.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, it’s at the CrossFit gym, and you have your tank top on. It’s like one of those marks. It’s like it’s the best advertising tool. It’s like, oh, you’ve never done cupping, you should go do it. And then yeah, every now and then everybody else starts showing up with the leopard print on their skin. So maybe you can share, you were sharing with me before we started the recording that you also do some teaching and lecturing. What does that look like? How are you involved in educating other providers?
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: But in my heart is the ability to train, impact, and change the future of our profession as much as possible. Being just one guy on a little spot of a rock in the middle of the ocean and being quite removed from a lot of the seminars and conferences, symposiums just due to location, has really empowered me and got me excited and pumped to be able to teach others. Being able to influence how other doctors are then able to teach or impact their patients that much faster hits the nail on the head for me. I feel blessed and privileged to be able to talk and speak all over the place for a number of different entities. For example, Pacific College of Health Sciences and their acupuncture program, as well as their other awesome programs. Also, Zymogen Nutraceuticals and Erchonia for breast belts, which is one of my favorite tools. Teaching, at this point, for me has been primarily in seminars, conferences, symposium setups, and some intensives like week-long intensives, and things like that. However, I’ve always wanted to have more of an impact in terms of potentially having more resources online, whether that’s a training program or something along those lines, and publishing a couple of the books that I’ve been working on for a long time. So, there’s more in the future, I’m sure. But right now, I just travel around and speak and influence, trying to encourage and motivate.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s amazing. Now, when I think of acupuncture, traditionally, I don’t think of laser therapy. And so I’m kind of curious, and it almost seems like there’s a little bit of a yin and yang there, where it’s, I think, when I think acupuncture, I think thousands of years old, very traditional type of approach. And then when I think of laser therapy, I think of futuristic technology, and I don’t necessarily think of those I know how they fit together. But I’m just kind of curious how you brought those two modalities together.
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: It does seem, yeah, which is kind of special, right? The balance of opposites is amazing. And I think it’s certainly needed in the more traditional medicines, ancient medicine, and that we need to bring them up to speed and utilize the new tools, which has happened quite a bit actually. And so there’s actually a movement just to take a small step back, there’s a little bit to change the perception and understanding of what acupuncture is because acupuncture is really just one technique within the system of medicine that is a complete system that is something that utilizes so many different tools, from hands-on, you know, bodywork massage between our shiatsu cupping gua sha, the herbs, a lot of the investigation or examination, processes of tongue diagnosis and post-diagnosis and seeing the body of an integrated unit where one aspect influences and changes all the other components of the body. It’s such a beautiful functional medicine, I see it fitting that functional medicine paradigm perfectly from 1000s of years old. And it’s also used, including most of the major tasks, such as acupuncture or what we call complementary acupuncture and moxibustion. And moxibustion was a huge part of acupuncture and Chinese medicine. Moxibustion is for those that don’t know, like that cigar-looking around the rule that people would light on fire and burn, and it emits oddly enough wavelengths between 400 and 1000 nanometers, that are influencing the tissue on a cellular level on what we would always see a meridian and acupuncture and neurological impact, changing the potentiation of healing. And being able to, in a simple way of providing free energy provides warmth and vitality to a tissue and a system that is deficient and you can even treat access with that type of power and energy. And so, the way I see it, the same way our needles have changed over the years, you know, acupuncture needles that have been found in tombs and new Egypt have been found in the pyramids, used to be made of certain materials that we no longer use, we use, you know, surgical stainless steel at this point, right? We should also update our tools and other ways. I think the updated Moxa literally is laser therapy. It’s as simple as that. If you know how to provide acupuncture or moxibustion, you know how to use laser therapy, you can influence the acupuncture points with that laser. It’s been proven in so many studies. Now, it’s been really effective for changing all sorts of things from all of the traditional uses for acupuncture points, centers on the foot being able to treat liver three. For eye disorders, you can do that with a laser. If someone is very needle phobic, you’re dealing with pediatrics that are going to try and kick you or scream. When you get anywhere near them with a laser or a needle. You can use a laser really effectively. We know that there was a study that showed pericardium six changing heart rate variability and neurological function and brain changes just by lasering with the 405-nanometer wavelength P six, which is that point that a lot of people know of as being kind of that C stickiness point or motion sickness points that those pressure points things that they sell on the counter gas stations and things like that. You laser that point, and you actually have a profound and systemic, neurological shift and change that optimizes the body. So acupuncture and lasers, I think fit in better than lasers in just about anything else that I’ve ever come across. It’s already been built into our medicine for 1000s of years, already trained on how to use it, it’s just a new tool that needs a brief introduction and owner’s manual, or use as my you gotta know how to turn this one on instead of lights the tip with a flame.
Dr. Andrew Wells: When we first discovered low-level laser therapy, when Dr. Woolner and I discovered it, we were like, ‘Wow, why?’ And as chiropractors, we were like, ‘Why isn’t this in every chiropractic practice around the world? It just made way too much sense for us.’ It’s like, here’s an easy, simple way, just like you were describing, to affect tissue at a local level, at a systemic level, on an energetic level, to help improve their outcomes. And we were just, you know, we kind of stumbled across it, but just by accident. And my question for you is, in Chinese medicine and for acupuncturists, why, I guess, why isn’t this in more practices? And are you seeing any kind of resistance there to adopting things like laser therapy?
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: I am? It’s a great question. There has been far more resistance than I expected in terms of introducing laser therapy. I think a lot of it is because the acupuncture profession, as we kind of mentioned, was very careful, scared, and worried. One of the biggest pushbacks I get is, well, lasers, can I use that in medical practice? I can understand that when you’re speaking of maybe the class for lasers and things like that, that is quite dangerous to use, which, like you, and a number of other people who have been interviewed on this podcast, I did fall into that trap as well. And to take a small step back, before I continue answering that question, I was actually introduced to full-time stimulation and laser therapy at my acupuncture school, but not because it was a part of the program. It was actually a colleague of mine, a fellow student, his father was a scientist who started making photons stimulating devices, Martin Bales my colleague’s name, and his father, Dr. Bales, who was a PhD, I believe, was making things out of biosales, scientific and stimulating photons. He realized how that lower-level stimulus was quite profound and therapeutic. So, in our clinics, we started using infrared cameras and charting, noticing the facts that would change when you use these photons, which was completely outside of my understanding at the time. I didn’t grasp the importance and the power that it would have in my future. It was a really fun thing to experience clinically and put together some minor case studies and research that we were able to do in the clinic at Pacific College. Later on, realizing that things were progressing really quick. And as I mentioned, I got sucked into the sales trap of a little bit of that power was doing think about what more we’ll do, which is completely false. And from an unknown what I know now when I was purchasing my first lasers. So, there’s been a lot of pushback in the scope of practice of being scared about introducing something that they didn’t have a lot of understanding or knowledge. Because it does seem so different and new, people aren’t explaining laser therapy as a new form of moxibustion like I think it should be shared, it really is using energy, which is, you know, a photonic energy. It’s using light into a specific channel. That happened to be really effective when it’s done right when it has FDA clearances and proof of why it’s so effective in a certain way. But it’s also within your scope of practice, I would hope, to turn the lights on to practice in your clinic. If you have the use of turning on a light bulb, you also should have within your scope of practice. The use of light to be therapeutic means that you can recommend someone to go outside and observe the sunrise and sunset because of the hormonal and neurological changes that has within your medical practice. You should also have the means to recommend a specific type of stimulus from that same type of source, a light source, to be able to stimulate your body to heal more effectively. So, there’s been a lot of pushback. There’s also a huge amount of people that have tried what I jokingly call the gas station version of lasers, the little pin lights and things like that, that really don’t have the effectiveness or they don’t work. So, people may have tried to get in at their cheapest level with a non-professional grade and on, you know, proven version of laser therapy and feel like, I tried, it didn’t work, it didn’t do anything, which I can completely understand and respect that perspective when you don’t use something that is over Erchonia is great. It’s a completely different ballgame. Lastly, like what you said, there are a lot of people who feel like, I want to be more traditional, I mean, I’m a traditional practitioner, and I wanted to use traditional means. That’s where I think we hit a certain roadblock of our patient understanding. What our patients are there for and what they want, they want to get better as fast as possible, and their time is valuable. They want to go to practitioners that really have their very best interests at heart. They want to identify and see them for who they are, a unique case of one. They aren’t someone who sits somewhere on a bell curve in a research study. We actually want to treat them uniquely and personalize their protocols. They want to go to someone who has an open mind and is very experienced or educated. I think integrating multiple techniques is one way of really becoming more educated, and more knowledgeable. Laser is certainly one of those things that will help your patients see you as someone who is more cutting edge or more advanced with new technology and incorporating that into the tried and true ancient philosophy and the groundwork, the framework that we’ve been given in the types of careers that you and I have. We have this amazing education that we get to then add in new influencers like laser therapy or other modalities that will carry us to the end goal that much faster. That’s how I kind of present it to patients who are skeptical or worried about laser therapy. What I’ve personally seen as my visits when I incorporate laser therapy into the other modalities that I normally do anyway, is far more effective. So, you need, you know, usually about half or less the number of treatments that leave the need for you to get to your health goal. Each treatment is more than doubled in value than it previously was. So, there’s a little bit back, there’s a little skepticism, and there’s definitely the hurdle of price, which is something that I think as practitioners, we need to get over, especially as you are helping your patients. Your patients are happy to pay you for your services. They’re even investing in your practice and use professional grade equipment, medical grade equipment, you are going to be able to reap the benefits of getting not only better results but actually having a better income for your time. So, you can use that income any way you want, whether that’s to take more time for your family or to give back to charity work and start sponsoring other patients who may not be able to afford it. That’s the type of stuff that really gets me excited and happy is that our treatments have become so valuable to people that I’m now able to give back in ways that I’ve always wanted to and make an impact in people’s lives that I was having a hard time accessing prior to that.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, sometimes I think it’s natural for healthcare providers. We tend to be martyrs in our profession. And oftentimes, like you mentioned, I think a lot of it has to do with hanging on to traditions for tradition’s sake. And sometimes I think it’s especially, I’m speaking from a chiropractic perspective, we can be a little bit dogmatic about our techniques and our approaches. And it’s like, well, you know, in chiropractic, we have BJ Palmer, and the question that we have, like debates of like, what would BJ Palmer do if it was 2022? Would he be doing these things? And so sometimes you look at it through that lens, like, you know, we have, for example, regenerative medicine, we have peptides, we have some interesting nutrition approaches to helping tissue heal. And the question is, like, would BJ Palmer have used that, or would he just be sticking to his manual, like, you know, done-by-hand techniques? And I gotta imagine, as forward-thinking as he was back then, that no doubt he would be very much into these tools because at the end of the day, as practitioners, we want the end result of our patient getting better. And most practitioners, I think, would argue it doesn’t necessarily matter how you get there as long as you get there without harming the patient, and you’re truly helping the patient. And I guess in Chinese medicine, who is your BJ Palmer?
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: That’s a great question. I am having the hardest time getting the image of these bracelets with WWJD out of my head. And I would hope that as that bracelet says that on one side, and you flip it over, you would see ‘laser’ on the other side because you would laser. And within the acupuncture world, it has such a dynamic and rich history, I will not be able to sit and name one person. I think that would do a huge disservice. You know, there have been so many masters in this medicine that go back eons, historically beyond my knowledge of the history of it. And it comes from so many different areas, we really don’t know the origins of this medicine very well because it dates way past where our historical knowledge goes, we don’t have written accounts. But we do have things inside of caves and tombs, like I mentioned, and, you know, they go way back a long time. So I don’t know who that would be. But we certainly do have some masters that are even still living that I know are very intrigued and interested in laser therapy. And unfortunately, they’re, you know, they’re so respected in what they do. And a lot of them are more in the educational role of teaching what they know best, rather than in the stage of their career where they’re adopting new technologies and actually putting it into use in practice. But I was talking to a number of my colleagues and they literally have said verbatim, quotes, like ‘I truly believe light is the future of medicine.” I think being able to influence ion channels and influence the body in ways that are as subtle and gentle as possible that restores that homeostasis and balances the body back to its, you know, God-given original design is what we need to achieve. We are so heavy-handed, so often, that light can reprogram our tissues, we’ve proven that. And so I think that, like we’re talking about the pendulum swinging in different ways, I really do think it’s going to be hugely adopted in the future. I also see acupuncturists and I hope and pray that they continue to kind of break out of their shell and become the leaders in healthcare that I truly believe they’ve been educated to be, they’ve been designed to be, rather than a little bit more quiet and reserved, and so respectful that they choose not to share, if that makes sense. I want to encourage that person to come out of their shell and actually make a bigger impact and adopt these new technologies. Because everybody else is adopting their old technologies. It’s incredible how many physical therapists, chiropractors and MDs are striving for the use of dry needling or acupuncture-style sports med needling, motor point therapy, trigger point therapy, cupping, gua sha, all of that is being adopted by the rest of mainstream medicine right now. And it’s quite a compliment, honestly, that they’re taking our tools and their jaws are dropping with how effective it is. That’s awesome. Let’s go ahead and continue to push this medicine further. Because of the people who came before us, it wasn’t easy for them to make a dent in the American Medical Association or in medicine worldwide. There are other advances. And this is certainly, and I mean, are Erchonia being so fantastic at actually doing the research of identifying not just what’s flashy, what’s most marketable, what’s most high-powered and, you know, something you feel but actually doing the research to identify what’s most effective? What’s going to make the most powerful long-term changes in the safest way possible. It’s so in line with TCM.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, I hear that, it’s interesting. You say that because I’ve been in the chiropractic space, and maybe I’m naive to this, but I’ve been waiting for acupuncturists in my community and globally to kind of stand out a little bit more. Chiropractors are funny. Say that again.
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: I hope they will. But yeah,
Dr. Andrew Wells: I hope they will too because the world needs them and they need to be a little bit loud. I think you know, chiropractors can sometimes do that to a fault. And also sometimes tend to shy away from conversations that need to be had with patients or other healthcare providers. But, you know, I really appreciate you being on this podcast, because I think you’re somebody who’s maybe an exception to that. And that you’re talking about moving healthcare forward, not just moving Chinese medicine forward. And I don’t mean by not carrying the tradition of Chinese medicine, I mean, making sure that you’re using the same practices and principles to help more people. I think as natural healthcare providers, whether you’re a naturopathic chiropractor and acupuncturist, or a Chinese medicine practitioner, like it is, the world is counting on us to make a big change. And it’s one of the words that you said, really stuck in my brain, it’s not being so heavy-handed in our approach. And literally and figuratively, when you’re looking at laser therapy, that’s one of the beauties of it is you can affect health in such a great way by talking about not being heavy-handed, it’s such a gentle approach, without having to blast people with high power, hurting them, even actually having to put hands on them. What a cool modality. And I think, if I were naive to acupuncture, which I very much am, I know a little bit about it. I’ve been to an acupuncturist just because I wanted to know what it was like. But if I was a layperson, a patient seeking therapy, and I walked into an acupuncturist’s office and saw that they had a laser, knowing nothing about it, that would make sense to me. That seems rational, like, Okay, I could see how an acupuncturist would use light or laser therapy to help somebody heal, it seems like that’s kind of in line with the philosophy. I just can’t. Right? Am I right?
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: Absolutely. And it goes back to what you’re saying. Like it’s not a disservice or a disrespect to our traditions, it’s actually with such utmost respect that I feel so privileged to know what I’ve been taught, thanks to the, you know, the Masters long before us, that we want to use that information in education to push it forward, to be able to utilize tools that weren’t available at their disposal to take the knowledge and combine it, right? And so if you’re an acupuncturist, which I have to also say you do know about acupuncture more than you would ever give yourself credit for, probably because most chiropractic techniques that are kind of specialized, you have your nat, or bioenergetic, synchronization technique, your best technique and those types of techniques have five elements and Chinese medicine written into them in their framework all over the place. If you look at even a lot of like the AMC manual for the URL, you got not only your neurological stuff, but you have all your acupuncture components to that, your five element components into that, the understanding of different frequencies and wavelengths are all within the acupuncture medicine paradigm as well. And so chiropractors and neurologists, Emotional Freedom Technique practitioners, massage therapists, they’re all utilizing things that are grounded in Chinese medicine, that’s crazy. So you already do know that. And it’s just funny that the ones getting out there and preaching it and sharing the information from Chinese medicine, commonly are acupuncturists, which just breaks my heart. Because a lot of things can be lost in translation when you don’t have as thorough of a knowledge base in the medicine, things can be taken inappropriately, such as cupping, and only wanting to show cupping marks as that’s when the therapy is done. That’s a former direct misrepresentation of the therapy itself. Right. And so, unfortunately, you know, there’s a lot of different types of practitioners that don’t know the ins and outs of cupping therapy that are using that and they’re actually known as a couple of specialists because acupuncturists aren’t actually saying the word as well as they could. But if you are an acupuncturist, or you’re a patient and you go into an acupuncture office, and you see a laser in use or in their practice, it only makes sense to me that you would think that while they are certainly up on their continuing education, they are adopting new technology and protocols. They are able to treat things that usually hit roadblocks like roadblocks of most patients in acupuncture, are going to say they’re scared of needles, and they are worried about if it hurt or not. They’re worried about cleanliness, because like acupuncturist office sometimes can be kind of dusty, or, you know, like, is this actually medical grade, those types of things. Yeah. Laser overcomes all of those fears. And it can also assist every other type of technique, whether you’re doing functional medicine, or you’re doing herbology, or you’re doing I mean, I leave it through cups, I laser over needles, I laser. With one hand, as I’d got the laser, I’ve got my quad shot tool, and the other and I’m going, you know, side by side, it just fits into everything, or you have your stance, you have your FX four or five, that over the scalp acupuncture points, or the ear acupuncture points, or over the Oregon and meridian or symptom, while you’re focusing on another area just it’s supercharged, some superpowers your treatments to literally be able to act like you have six times instead of two and make you so ridiculously efficient in your practice, that you can see more people in less time and have an impact, it’s just out of control.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I want to circle back to one of the things that you mentioned before what you just said, stimulated something, and I personally feel that acupuncturists, chiropractors, and naturopaths should earn a very good living without having to break their backs doing it. And congratulations to you, you have a brand new family and a little guy at home. Off air, we were talking about how fun that is and how important it is to spend time with family. And I’ve worked with a lot of providers who don’t allow themselves to do that. They spend way too much time just trying to over deliver to patients, and they don’t necessarily make a good financial living doing it. They’re gonna get stuck in their practices and feel like, you know, that’s not why I think every healthcare provider got into the profession. Number one, to help people, and number two, because they were interested in and have a passion for it. But number three, also to be able to make a living doing it. And I think that’s one of the things that laser therapy provides is I know a lot of practitioners that from a financial standpoint, do really well with their practice. And I don’t mean that in a sleazy way, I mean that in a way that they’re helping more people. And if you’re helping more people, you should be making more money. But also, this is you know, this is a technology that can be done passively. Just like you mentioned with FX 405, it has a stand. Or if you have a, you know, a technician helping you or somebody like an assistant chiropractic assistant, medical assistant, they can do this, you know, they don’t have to have training in how to put a needle into somebody’s body, you can just wave it over a body part literally, without having to worry about hurting somebody. And so that was an end.
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: You can empower your patients, you can literally teach them protocols and send them home with a laser. And it’s hilarious how with just what you mentioned, the practitioners, you know, with the greatest parts commonly have the worst business. And I’m guilty of it for sure. If it wasn’t for my wife and my office staff, I would only spend seven hours teaching one patient, everything I can. So I’m just exhausted and breaking my back kind of doing everything for them. And then on the way out, it’d be like, “Hey, you want my shoes, my shirt too.
Dr. Andrew Wells: And my kids like laughing because I used to be the same way. Yeah, I feel you on that
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: Which isn’t doing your service like a true service. It’s more of a disservice to your patient when you can empower them to take responsibility for their own healthcare. You can value their time and yours. Something that any travel agent or anybody who travels knows, you’re willing to spend a little extra for a direct flight. If you want to get better faster, you’re willing to pay a little bit more for it, right? You don’t have to take that much time off of work in order to come to the office. You don’t have to come in five times a week or three times a week for this many weeks, and then two times a week for this number of weeks. We can treat you less often and get you the results you’re looking for and then teach you and empower you how to treat yourself. If that’s something you’re interested in and using lifestyle myths and other means to continue the changes that the laser will do in-office, we know that it changes your brain. And I have another pushback that I just wanted to touch on really quick is that I know doctors are scared to death of doing brain-based treatments because they don’t know enough. And I do not know what you know, Trevor knows. Dr. Berry is brilliant and Brandon Brock is a brilliant gentleman I love being close to him, and you know, certainly an idiot in comparison, but it shouldn’t shy you away from being able to treat. As an acupuncturist, you either have access to charts, or you can look it up on Google or DuckDuckGo, or you can already rely on your experience of laboring over acupuncture points, laboring over the scalp neurological points. If you don’t know where to treat for vertigo or where to treat for a movement disorder post-stroke, refer to your scalp acupuncture points. And chiropractors, you can do this too. PTS, you can do it. Like I love teaching other professions, chiropractors how to influence their practice what they’re already doing by just adding a tiny bit of Chinese medical knowledge, a little bit of acupuncture knowledge, and all of a sudden, they can supercharge and superpower what they’re doing with the laser specifically. I love that.
Dr. Andrew Wells: If you’re a practitioner listening to this, maybe if you’re an acupuncturist listening to this, I would really encourage you, and I think Dr. Gilbert would also encourage you, if you’re curious, to learn more about it, do a little bit of studying on what lasers can do for your patients and for your practice. On the Erchonia website, they have tons of really helpful resources, lots of research, a list of events with doctors who are experts in this area speaking, and they host lots of local and larger events. So, I would really encourage you, if this has sparked your interest, to follow up on it. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to buy a laser tomorrow, or next month, or next year. But if you look into it and really do your due diligence, I think you’ll find that it’s a really powerful tool for a wide scope of issues that would fit very nicely into the practice model and also the philosophical model of Chinese medicine. And so, that being said, Dr. Dillberg appreciates your knowledge, your insights, and your expertise in helping bring this technology and therapy into the forefront, because you and I both know there’s immense value in that and it’s much needed.
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: Is there anything you want to build and be on the same podcast as so many of these excellent doctors? Honestly, whatever Erchonia is doing, what you’re able to do, this podcast is helping so many people. And it’s an honor to be a part of.
Dr. Andrew Wells: If doctors want to connect with you or learn more about what you’re doing in your practice, what would be a good way to do that?
Dr. Dustin Dillberg: Email is probably going to be the best way to reach me. My name is DustinDillberg@gmail.com, which is easy to remember and use. I’m happy to answer any questions or assist in any way I can.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Thank you so much. That’s beneficial. And if you just Google “Dr. Dustin Dillberg, Hawaii” he pops right up there and appreciates you being willing for the doctors to reach out to you. So thank you for that. Thank you for listening to this episode. I hope you found this immensely valuable, and I look forward to connecting with you on the next episode.
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 links to upcoming live events, as well as the Erchonia e-community where you can access free additional resources including advanced training and business tools. Again, thanks for listening and we will catch you on the next episode.
Dr. Dustin Dillberg is a second-generation practitioner of Chinese medicine and acupuncture.
Episode #27 of the Laser Light Show podcast, hosted by Dr. Andrew Wells, featured Dr. Dustin Dillberg. The episode delved into the integration of lasers in acupuncture, exploring its scientific, technological, and physiological aspects. Dr. Dillberg shared his personal journey influenced by his father, a chiropractor turned acupuncturist, and his experiences that led him to embrace Chinese medicine. He discussed the transformative power of acupuncture, his recovery from a car accident with the help of Chinese medicine, and his passion for integrating new techniques into traditional practices.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Hello and welcome to The Laser Light Show, this is Dr. Andrew Wells and on today’s episode we have a special guest, Dr. Jerome Rerucha. This is episode #26 Lasers for Performance Enhancement.
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.
Dr. Andrew Wells: All right, let’s get this kicked off. Dr. Rerucha. Always a pleasure to have you on the show. This is actually your second episode, I believe on The Laser Light Show. So welcome back.
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Yeah, thanks for having me. Dr. Andrew. It’s great to be here.
Dr. Andrew Wells: And I think Dr. Mark mentioned that you may have been one of the first doctors in our profession to really like and find low-level laser therapy..
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: I was not the first, but very early on. So there were a couple of great doctors. I wasn’t with Erchonia when they were in the garage as we referred to. But very shortly after, when they started doing seminars, and fortunately stumbled upon them. Even when nobody knew much about it. It was always really into the dynamics of the triad of health and always looking at how we can help people better. So when I saw lasers, I just kind of had an aha moment of how it was very different from everything else that was being done there. Whether it was the emotional techniques, the structure, the soft tissue, and all the subcategories. So it was really interesting. There wasn’t much research out there. But just from a practicality standpoint, you can really see there was something there. So it was super fun to be a part of figuring out how we were going to structure this? How is this really going to make sense when we teach this to other people, and then to see it grow with the way it has and all the research that Erchonia has done to really validate it besides just clinical protocols. It’s been a labor of love for a lot of people and just the right forces came together early on.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Oh, that’s amazing. And maybe for doctors who haven’t had a chance to hear your previous episode or maybe haven’t heard of you before, can you give us a little bit of background on what you do and what you’ve been doing over the last couple of decades in your practice?
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: So initially, I was under chiropractic care. Pretty early on, I probably went to what the general public would consider a very general chiropractor where he spent 30 seconds, 90 seconds with you, it was pretty much the same adjustment every time, and we had to drive 40 miles, which people would laugh at. I’m not that old. I’m 52. But even then it wasn’t like there were chiropractors everywhere. I’m from a very low-populated area in Nebraska anyway. So we went there pretty regularly. My sister had allergies. My dad had great success with chiropractors for musculoskeletal issues. My grandpa died when he was 100. He probably got adjusted the first time when he was four years old. And he used chiropractic throughout his whole life. So he’d call himself an expert of a patient of different types of chiropractors. He always used it. So anyway, I got introduced to it very early on. And then a chiropractor moved into our small town. And they were very different. He was an AKC K person, a world-class cranial path did nutrition. So that was just a whole nother level of something that interested me anyway, even though I was a very young person. So that set a great bar. I’m not a very genetic specimen, but I was really fascinated by strength and strength training. So that’s kind of where you really start seeing how chiropractic can help the performance side of things, but it’s not a substitute for lifting and activating the body. Nothing like it, but it was a big difference-maker, to say the least. And it was fascinating to me. The analysis of how they can see things that nobody else could see wasn’t right And then any exercise phys textbook or technique of lifting so that from a very early age, you know, the performance benefits that chiropractic can have, especially when you’re integrating proper training and eating involved with it. So my initial career then I was a full-time strength coach and a competitive strength athlete at a competitive level for over 14 years, still working out. And then when I did get into a position in strength and conditioning that everybody would want, and it was great. But it was kind of like I saw all these functional injuries, career-ending injuries of athletes, and I’m like, I don’t understand what my chiropractor is doing because it was as much of a magic show of pre and post. But I’m like, I guarantee that kid could be playing in two weeks. This is not a career-ending injury, you know, nothing on the MRI, nothing. This is just chronic, nagging injuries. So I’m like, You know what, I can’t take this. For my entire career, the school didn’t use chiropractors, there was no chiropractor around the school that had anything to do with how I grew up under what I thought all chiropractors did. So I was like, You know what, I’m just gonna have to go to school and figure this out, even though I was on the fast track for any job you want in strength and conditioning. So that’s kind of how I got here today and not sad about it, I learned a lot. Still, to this day, we put a tremendous amount of the performance to principles. And we’re still involved in strength and conditioning. But what we do clinically with chiropractic, the performance side of things, too, as it scales up, and lasers are included in that.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I find it interesting that I don’t really know anything about the world of strength training and competition. Basically, we’re talking about competitive lifting of heavy things, correct?
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Yeah, so for me, I competed specifically in powerlifting. The thing I did the most was powerlifting. I never took Olympic lifting to the competition level, but I know enough about it to help others. Same with strongman; I mean, to this day, I probably do more strongman training than powerlifting. I guess after doing that for so long, you still do some of the core lifts. But you change things up every decade in your life as a total new chapter physiologically, whether you’re going into your prime or you’re plateauing, or you’re turning back that biological clock after a certain point. So I love it. Absolutely love it. And the uniqueness of what I would call performance chiropractic to integrate with that. I remind myself every day when I work on people, it’s like, ‘Wow, if I were the world’s greatest strength coach, here’s how I could help this person.’ But then some people, you remember how they’re stuck. And it’s a snap of a finger when you’re an advanced chiropractor identifying these things. And then you have great tools like lasers to accompany it. And you’re like, ‘Wow, what I was able to do in one or two visits with that person versus their last five years of struggling to get help.’ Constant reminding of the excitement of that. So it’s fun to share it with other people, your mission of how you’re training doctors out there and bringing this information to patients and things like that. There’s just a whole level of standard that other people are doing. But now that we live in the information age, it’s just so great to be able to get it out so much more easily.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Why is it, and correct me if I’m wrong on this, but why does it seem that weightlifting in particular seems to be sort of a pioneering and kind of an incubator for innovative things that come out in sports? It always seems like weightlifters are way ahead of the curve in terms of nutrition, they’re way ahead of the curve in terms of technology, way ahead of the curve in terms of thinking about physiology. Like, what is it? Why is it weightlifting that seems to always bring out these really cool innovations?
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: That’s a great point. And I’ve thought about that a lot. And it’s totally up to the lead, especially just in the clinical world, to move forward, but there are consequences in strength and fitness. It all comes down to competition. You’re going to embarrass yourself on the platform or on the stage, whether it’s track and field or whatever, strength and conditioning and healthy eating. It’s so important. And you can help a lot of people in your clinic, whether it’s symptomatically, and restore them to a higher quality of life. But it’s like, it’s really possible. So as we get into this, and as we define these levels of physiological success, there’s a big difference. We’re taking somebody with symptomatic limitations. And now they’re symptomatic free just to do independent activities of daily living, which that’s really important, but I would never define that as performance. So in strength and fitness, you’re taking healthy people largely, and it’s a lot harder to take a healthy person and make them excel. They’re not only healthy but especially if you take it to the levels that we’ve always been involved with, you’re pushing the boundaries of what humans are defined to do. And it’s so exciting. Strength has always raised the bar to every other industry. And then research and protocols just follow from it. But yeah, there’s always been cutting-edge people because it’s that drive to win. Like, if you do the same thing that everybody else is doing, then you only have genetics to rely on who’s going to win if everybody’s using the same principle. So it’s like, “Hey, you still want to recruit and try to find people with some natural talent.” But it’s like, when you don’t have natural talent, you’ll even in our little town, we’re in a little town in Georgia right now. And it’s probably population-wise, we’ve set the most state records, national records, and world records, just based upon per population in the last three years added. And we don’t have anybody who’s a genetic specimen, you know, we’re just regular people walking around the street. We just offer something to have them start with clinical care to come in and some of them get, it’s like, “Wow, you know, this is kind of interesting. I feel great. Now, what can I do with this now that I feel so much better that I don’t have limitations?” So we’ve had quite a few regular people leaving in their very senior years compete at a high level. So one of our members is at Worlds right now, this weekend, you lift tomorrow. So she was a chronic pain patient and never could lift until she was 68 years old. She always wanted to compete but had so much pain. And she got referred to us and told us that she always had this drug to compete, you know, in the strength sport, but she could never lift weights at all, it would just collapse or so we took over all her training and programming. And yeah, she did great. I mean, she was just untapped potential from a mental perspective. So she’s broken every state record at her age category, underneath the times, like now she owns a total of 150 state records, probably because she’s 75. But she’s so strong. She’s broken every record from age 55, to 60, 60 to 65, 65 to 70, and 70 to 75. And she’s ranked number one in the world right now. So she’s favored anything can happen. But we’re really proud of her. It’s just we give her some good ideas that, you know, keep her sharp and in tune and performance chiropractic, but we don’t take all that credit. It’s just we unleashed a monster, but the monster was always there. And sadly, nobody else did it.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Wait, hold on, did I hear that she came in as a pain patient and couldn’t do any of these things? You helped her find the right therapy to be able to do these things. And now she’s a world champion many times over.
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Yeah, she’s won worlds twice. And she owns all the national records, all the state records, and she’s set a couple of world records, too. So yeah, she’s 75 years old. She’s under 40 pounds, and she’s deadlifted 300 pounds.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Wow, that’s incredible.
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Yeah, We would watch as she first came in, diagnosed with osteopenia, and in certain places, osteoporosis. You know, it’s like, yeah, that doesn’t matter. That’s just the right way, you know? We can. That’s the right way to do it..
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s incredible. That’s such an inspirational story. I’m curious, what did her progression look like? So, what were you doing with her? And obviously, this is a laser podcast, so I’m assuming that you did some laser with her. But maybe you can talk about how you integrated those protocols, not just from a pain and recovery standpoint, but then, of course, this is all about performance. And maybe you can speak to that.
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Yeah, so when she came in, she had a lot of experience in chiropractic. She had very positive responses. So she had life-debilitating migraines when she was like 15. I mean, just totally flattened. She’s not a dramatic person at all. And her family wasn’t, like, totally rich and wealthy, but they had enough funds that they could really seek out, not just locally, you know, who can help our child because she’s just suffering so bad. So every neurologist, every expert, every notion, lotion, and potion, you can pretty much think of, and then one day, I think she was like 19 and she’s just having a severe episode and some neighbors came over. And they’re like, ‘Well, where’s Gail at?’ They’re like, ‘Oh, she’s just having a very severe migraine again for days,’ and they’re like, ‘Well, has she ever tried chiropractic?’ And they’re like, ‘No,’ they just picked her up, put her in the car, took her to a chiropractor, and she says, ‘man, one adjustment. It was just 50% gone instantaneously, two adjustments 100% gone, never came back.’ And so she was like, ‘holy cow, this is amazing.’ So she’s always had to maintain chiropractic and they were really good chiropractors, they just don’t have a background in strength and fitness. And so she always had really severe neck and shoulder pain that could be managed well, but not in an active lifestyle like she wanted to. And so of course, everybody’s doctors included their chiropractor, like when she’d tell them she wants to lift weights, they’re like, ‘well, that’s a terrible idea. You’re not made for that, you know, you can’t get hurt, would you do it.’ And again, they’re very good at what they do. But it’s a totally different animal when you’ve done it yourself. And there’s so many benefits I’ve learned with chiropractic exams, and of course, the adjustment. But there’s a whole different level to understanding your chiropractic exam and what can be done. So truthfully, she had shoulder pads, she had a completely frozen shoulder because she was trying to lift at this time, she’s a very driven woman. She’s trying to live totally, in an epic pain pattern and can’t turn her head or shoulders completely frozen. She had like two or three nerve blocks before she came into our clinic in this cycle, it didn’t faze it a bit. And in her case, I created a whole brain-body fit for a three-dimensional exam. And, taking these principles. So even though she has migraines, it’s not just a selected exam for the upper body. So as we go through, and we body map her and brain map her pelvis was like really messed up dysfunctional. So we would just find the indicators that bothered her the most on her terms, and how dysfunctional she was. And in that case, I just put a belt on her. And her symptoms went 100% gone. And she just looked like she saw a ghost. We know the pelvis is involved. So once we kind of found out we’re a keystone now her neck needed to be adjusted, her scapula, and shoulders needed to be adjusted from other assessments. But it was a huge symptomatic, and everybody’s focusing on the area of the symptom, of course. So anyway, it was just really obvious. So it just took a few days before most of her pain was gone. And we were able to start training or specifically for powerlifting within 10 days, and never looked back.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I just think of, yeah, I think of someone in their 70s, you know, 60s, 70s, who are already clearly developing sarcopenia. And, you know, their muscles are atrophying and it’s just like, ‘Oh, well, I’m in my 60s and 70s. Now, that’s just going to happen.’ And it’s total rubbish. I mean, if you look at older people who are active, and even people who walk, not even just set aside powerlifting, but just people moving their bodies and walking, and then even adding, you know, some weight resistance training, any kind of training, like, if you compare them to their peers, it’s night and day difference. And I can tell you, I’m 42 years old, I can’t deadlift 300 pounds. And she’s like, she’s doing that at her age. Like, that gives me a lot of hope for the future for me and for everybody else. But this is just an amazing story of what the body is capable of doing if you just let it. Let it do what it does best. And that’s just, I’m pretty awestruck by that. And that actually makes me really happy to know there’s someone out there doing that. Because right next to me, as I’m recording this podcast, I have my weight wrapped around my bench and things like this, and I’m looking over. ‘Oh, Thank gosh, I have this stuff, because I want to be, I want to be able to do those things when I’m older.’ And so we’re talking about performance. Oftentimes, we think of elite-level athletes, or like college athletes and high school athletes, but there’s a whole other chapter to performance and the definition of performance as you go through these different periods in your life. And here you have a woman who’s just at 140 pounds lifting massive amounts of weight, like that’s, I think that’s a performance that most Americans could say, ‘Yeah, I want that,’ versus having a gold medal around their neck for something, you know, for some kind of sport. I think most people would trade longevity and health and function well into the later parts of their life as a performance indicator versus, you know, kind of being a champion in a certain sport.
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Welcome back to the ‘This is Laser’ podcast. So, when we saw the breakdown of it, even though she had a lot of symptoms in the neck and shoulder area, and again, you know, as we bring people in, you don’t have to just laser just one area, but it was really apparent. So obviously, we adjusted her ‘toes to nose’. We put more attention to the pelvis because we knew that’s where her Keystone breakdown was really affecting the pain cascade. And with that, we knew there were connective tissue injuries there. It wasn’t like a big bulging disc or this and that, but obviously, on the dysfunction she had and the difference the support made of the sacral belt to properly stabilize but not correct the weaknesses down there. So again, that’s where lasers are just super helpful. She had these blown fuses; we know the ligaments are, you know, definitely sprained strain down there, causing cascades. So that’s just one of the benefits of laser therapy, is you have these things and even doing proper adjustment to get weak muscles that can turn on, but just knowing how long she had the problem, and how she just had that fire in her eyes, always, you know, so us being able to use lasers to speed up that tissue healing, and just a difference-maker. And just that ‘aha’ moment of how we can demonstrate with her even doing my atone tests are different muscle weaknesses, and how that’s contributing to an issue, take the laser make it very tangible of how these things pre and post-change in seconds, or at least, you know, a minute at most. It’s very tangible to patients, and they can really get it and get really excited behind it.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Is she currently using laser therapy to prepare for competitions?
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: So she does regular maintenance adjustments, you know, and it’s not just that she chose the sport of powerlifting; that’s just really what she gravitates toward, you know, to be clear. And not that you see a lot of seniors, I mean, it’s just that there are more and more people all the time. It’s incredible how many 50, 60, 70, 80-year-olds are competing out there, not just in powerlifting. But it’s a great community. Everybody’s hugely supportive, even people when I was competing. I mean, you’re out there to beat and humiliate everybody, what’d you do, you know, but still, you’re very cordial. Even the people that are in your weight class, even when you’re at the competition, you’re still very supportive of them. Of course, you want to win. So it’s the most important thing, you just want to do the best you can do. And if somebody is better than you on that day, or they’re just better than you, accept it, you know, so they help you push yourself. But it’s a great, great sport, there’s really not much conflict between people. Everybody wants to see everybody do better and completely rewrite the textbooks. You know, that’s really the goal.
Dr. Andrew Wells: It’s so cool. One of the things I find fascinating about this story, and you’ve mentioned this as well, is taking people from pain-based care into performance-based care. Where do lasers fit into that transition from pain to performance? What does that look like in your clinic for your patients or for your athletes or… Yeah.
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: People do have some really significant asymmetries that were even there as little kids, but the body is amazing in how it compensates. So many times, you know, symptoms arise way after the fact that you’ve always had this problem; the body could compensate, and then it just kind of can’t anymore. So from every age and every progression of it. So, you know, with Gail, she’s pain-free, she takes really good care of herself. She doesn’t just power lift; we put a whole clinical exercise program together for her to balance the synergies and little postural muscles, not just the big muscles, and everybody has their weak links when you get to a certain age. So obviously, we’re adjusting her to do a certain amount of soft tissue. But, you know, especially as it gets closer to competition, six weeks out she’s minimum getting lasers once a week, and it’s not for symptomatic reasons. It’s for, you know, lasering the neck and shoulder area, so you don’t get hurt doing maximum effort on upper body lifts. You know, you’re lasering the low back twice a week as it gets closer to the competition. But yeah, so it’s a minimum; if she comes in minimum once a month, and that’s pretty rare. She pretty much gets adjusted. And of course, during those sessions, we’re lasering her areas, whether it’s her weak links that are symptomatic, but it’s like everybody’s got weak links, just if it’s not symptomatic. That’s not the point.”
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, and that’s accurate.
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: But yeah, the laser really helped prevent injuries in her case, and, you know, no different than anything else if you’re a soccer player. I mean, you’re predisposed to sprained ankles and shin splints, and you know, the bruising from impact injuries, whether the clunking of knees together, or all those things that it’s like, Hey, don’t wait till an injury to do proactive care. There’s a lot of chronic repetitive stress syndromes that correlate to injuries, and chiropractic, soft tissue, and lasers are phenomenal for just reverse engineering. What’s the biggest problem people commonly face, and let’s get ahead of it.
Dr. Andrew Wells: So what’s actually happening when you’re lasering? Somebody from a performance standpoint on a cellular level? What’s the mechanism of action that’s actually working there? On the patient?
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Yes. So whether it’s symptoms, or it’s for performance levels, you know, it’s well proven through research, there’s the mitochondrial benefits, there’s increased circulation, there’s decreasing the inflammation cascade in the body. Those are some of the big ones without going into the super detail. So, especially again, when you do certain exercises, like when you deadlift, I mean, obviously, if you deadlift, heavy or even working your eyelids, but you know, for the most part, it still is going to be a very heavy, intense low back exercise, glutes, hamstrings. So to prevent injuries, it’s fantastic just post workout or just lasering those areas, and there is that ATP component, I mean, you totally used up your stores for the day. So there’s that shot of phototherapy that you’re putting in there that really does have a mitochondrial ATP benefit. And, then you still have the circulation. So yeah, the recovery is profound. And even if people aren’t sensitive enough that they can feel the laser under normal circumstances, you know, when you really work out hard, and you deplete the body, most people you can close your eyes, and you’re like, “Whoa, feels warm,” or it’s like, well, there’s no heat with cold lasers, as you know, it’s just the increased circulation. That’s that replenishment of tissues. It’s no substitute for food. But it’s a very unique advantage, whether you’re doing it for symptomatic purposes, to help people heal. Or, again, I always say, as a strength coach, your mission statement is to improve performance and prevent injury. It doesn’t matter what sport you’re doing, improve performance, prevent injuries, that ‘s like, let’s seem like a really good mantra for a chiropractor. And you’re just not ailing it with such severe methods of activity. But our minimal goal in our clinic is independence of activities of daily living and to have the balance and the physical capacity and the neurological capacity to do that. And when you have weak links, aside from their symptoms or not, we don’t let those things go. So when we body map and brain map people, we don’t threaten them and say, “Oh, you’re gonna get Parkinson’s or Oh, you’re susceptible to low back pain,” but you just look statistically. And you look at what are the biggest chronic degenerative problems in our society, and then even what are the most common acute injuries and of course, concussions are a big deal. And it’s like, well, lasers are great for all of those things.
Dr. Andrew Wells: We are in, as we’re recording this, early October and getting into postseason baseball. And every time someone sets a record in baseball, this discussion comes up about performance-enhancing drugs and what these elite athletes are using. What’s fair, what’s not fair? And I think it was you who told us that even low-level laser therapy was potentially on the chopping block for use in sports as an unfair advantage. I don’t know if you told us that or not. But do you know anything about that?
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: That was not me. I have no idea who would have said that. Again, I don’t claim to know everything. That would be odd because this is shocking to some people. Everybody thinks steroids are bad and they’re illegal, and you’re a bad person if you use them. But it’s like, you know, in the athletic world, especially the lifting world, so it’s very well known. You have drug-free federations and you have open federations, and there’s kind of a joke that in certain federations, you get drug tested just to make sure you’re taking enough. You know, I mean, if you really, maybe you could beat certain tests anyway, you know, but that’s a whole different level of understanding. Most people don’t even know how to get into that, but the premise is, I find that hard to believe. I would really have to do some research to say, okay, who’s saying that? I haven’t heard anything from USADA, and they’re one of the major programs, you know, they do the Olympic testing, and you start as far from perfect, but make no mistake, if you’re going to be tested by USADA, especially when they just do random drug testing. So, like, our Olympic lifting athletes for the US, I mean, it’s two in the morning, you get a knock on the door, you know, it’s five on the board. So you’ll get drug tested all year long. And there’s no indication that you say this thing. You can’t use low-level lasers
Dr. Andrew Wells: Alright, maybe I’m propagating.
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: It’s like, no, I’m not saying you’re wrong. You’re doing journalism and you’re just repeating, there is cutting-edge stuff out there, you go, ‘Hey, this is coming down the road.’ I haven’t heard that at all. And I find that very hard to believe that would ever be the case.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, that may be absolutely true. And I would find that really odd to try to bend light for performance enhancement. Obviously, it has a positive physiological effect on the body, and that’s measurable and researched. But yeah, that may be false. One area I know you’re really focused on, obviously, is patients and performance for weightlifting. But there’s been a huge surge in the last 10 years in the general population about working on longevity and performance. You’d call these people kind of the biohackers in the health industry. And there’s a big push not just from the provider standpoint, but from everyday people who are just looking to get better performance out of their lives. They’re business owners, and they want to produce at a higher level, or they’re moms and they have four kids, and they want to make sure that they’re present for their children and live a long time to be around for grandkids and things like that. So there’s this huge push for biohacking and for performance and longevity. Where would you say lasers fit in, if at all, in that kind of movement?
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: I think the biggest advantage lasers give us is to improve function quicker. And so lasers work point and shoot, they work better through activation. So if you have a clinician that’s even skilled in identifying movement function and symmetries and these types of things, the real advantages, you know, if you want performance and anti-aging throughout your life, it’s like, okay, is walking healthy for you? Yes. But if you went and you gotta get knee or your pelvis, or you’ve got this little back, and you can’t walk properly, and you can’t walk symmetrically and you can’t arm swing, well, the most important thing is not to go tell that person to go walk because it’s good for you. And chiropractors have the greatest advantages. Like I love physical therapists. I know a bunch of smart ones too. But it’s like, the reason I became a chiropractor for performance reasons is like you have an unfair advantage. When you can become a ninja with your hands. I mean, I really smoked the adjustment. And it’s still not just doing flying sevens, it’s like which subluxation is going to relate to this, just like Gail it was clearly her pelvis and even her pelvis on one side, that was relating to this chronic neck and shoulder problem. And, you know, it’s to do ninja quality adjustments. And so, you know, lasers, some companies might not like to be saying this, but I’m a very honest person. It’s like, Well, look, lasers are not steroids, if you bench 200 by lasering, someone, you’re probably not going to bench to 10. But to stay injury-free, and everybody’s got little things underneath the line. And when you can remove those, and you can correct them, especially if you have the talent to adjust soft tissue and lasers make everything work better, a lot better. And that’s the magic. Truly laser is that if you’re at a very, very low level, yeah, it doesn’t surprise me at all. If you’ve never lifted a weight before, it’s like, you can’t do a push -up and we laser you and we turn some things on you crank out three push-ups, it’s like well, I don’t know, three push-ups is exactly a performance measure of it. But I know it’s better and I’m happy. But, you know, that’s just an improved function, I won’t give that credit as an improved performance level, because it’s still at such a low physical capacity.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, that makes sense. You know, what I find is that there’s a lot of truth to health and performance benefits when you’re combining lots of different things, when you have a comprehensive approach, when you’re combining adjustments with nutrition and exercise and recovery tactics and things like temperature variation, getting out in the sun, using light therapy, all these things when applied, have a synergistic effect on the body because we know the body is doing amazingly miraculous things every second we’re alive that we can’t really necessarily articulate or even measure in a quantitative way but we know when you expose your body to things that it needs and wants, it just seems to work a lot better. And for recovering from injuries or just feeling good and feeling like you’re functioning at your optimal level. I find that’s more of a pragmatic approach than this kind of miracle. What would you call it? Notions, lotions, and potions? Like yeah, we like to think that there’s something magic out there that does all those things but I like that makes a lot of sense, and I appreciate your candidness and honesty when it comes to what lasers can and can’t do. And so you’re not hearing like, and I’ve heard a lot of really miraculous stories from a lot of the doctors who have been on this program when they’re using lasers, like you see some pretty incredible things happen. But it’s often not in a vacuum. They’re also using other therapies and things that really accentuate the benefit of all the things collectively. So yeah. So what would you do if you have Docs listening to this that are interested in lasers for performance, or even just to help their patients get better outcomes? What would be the next good step? Like where would you point Doctors who are interested in learning more about lasers? Specifically, Erchonia.
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Yeah, Erchonia has a lot of great speakers; they all have advantages. And, you know, again, as you said, Dr. Wonderlic is out here right now. And you know him well, and what he’s involved in, it’s, I wish I could be doing a podcast on you guys. Because that was big, you’re sharing your own stories about what you’re doing, it is eye-opening what your whole group is doing to the people coming on board. So maybe one day, I’ll get to take your role on this same podcast, and I’m going to interview you guys and share with the world what you guys are doing. And lasers are involved in that. But yeah, so where would they start? There’s so many right ways, you know, I’m never going to tell an upper cervical person they should practice differently, I’m never going to tell a pelvis practitioner they should practice differently. So number one, lasers fit into how you practice. And going back even to the performance things and the miracles that you’ve heard and practitioners have shared. And there’s so many great practitioners out there. And they have books of miracles of how the adjustment of soft tissue and nutrition is done for patients. And they don’t use the laser. And what is so fulfilling for me is that in the 22 years I’ve been involved with Erchonia, you see great chiropractors who are hugely successful, and they are really good at what they do. And all of us, myself included, you know, we’ve helped so many people, you could pat yourself on the shoulder and go, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m great.’ And then when the person comes in, that you can’t help, you’re like, ‘Hey, it’s 80-20, or whatever your thought process is, you know, you help 80%, 20% you know, that can’t be fixed.’ But it is phenomenal to see people are doing the right adjustments, they’re doing the right soft tissue, they’re doing the right everything. And they just bring a laser into their clinic after they practice for so long. And they start lining up, you know, the 10 patients, the 20 patients, the 30 patients that they come in for maintenance chiropractic, and it absolutely helps them, but they still have those issues. And they’re like, ‘Gail, you know, and they have some noticeable dysfunction that they cannot do and what their regular life is. And then you take the laser, you just laser the chronic subluxation, or you laser the symptom, or you laser a brain lobe that relates, you know, it’s simple, the same-side cerebellum, opposite-side cortex, even when their back pain hurts and you see that all the time. And that is so exciting that it really lets you understand the unique benefits that lasers provide physiologically, but also through cellular and neurological communication because there’s no tissue regeneration that’s happened in that short time. So you can say, ‘Oh, they just have a connective tissue injury. Oh, it’s just a disk. It’s a lifting sprain, it’s degeneration.’ But when you practice successfully for a long time without a laser, and then you implement a laser, everybody should have those patients where it’s like, ‘Geez, I just thought Mrs. Jones would have done a little bit better from the history of everything I’ve done.’ And you see people bring lasers in and then you get that cannon, just holy cow. And it’s great reinforcement for the doctors and yeah, patients are blown away by it. So that’s always exciting to hear and see those from other people.
Dr. Andrew Wells: One of the things I speak most loudly about is that you’ve done laser therapy for 22 years. Yeah, so that’s a big number. And what I found, at least in our profession as chiropractors, is that we tend to jump from gadget to gadget, technology to technology. Like, what new thing came out this year that everybody seems to be using in our profession, But you’ve been using Erchonia lasers for 22 years and still continue to use them. And here we are, continuing to talk about these things. It’s one of those things that becomes kind of an axiom. It’s somewhat self-evident that it sticks around for so long because it works and it’s valuable. It’s valuable to patients, it’s valuable to doctors. And that’s what, you know, as we interview more and more doctors and experts like Dr. Rerucha, they say the same things. Like, this is a really valuable tool that you’re using in conjunction with what you’re already doing and also kind of spans the scope of all the different variables in our profession. You have your upper cervical doctors, you have your pediatric doctors. I mean, shoot, we’ve interviewed veterinarians on the show that will tell you like, lasers are amazing for their patients, for their animal patients. And so that’s one of the really magical things about and one of the reasons we actually really enjoy doing this podcast. Not just to promote something that we think is valuable and helpful to patients and health worldwide, but just to meet really interesting people and just the scope of what you can do with laser therapy is pretty, it’s pretty unbelievable. And it’s really entertaining, actually, for us to do this because every time I do an interview, I’m kind of blown away. And this interview particularly with you, the story of Gail is just incredible. And I really appreciate you sharing that with us and tell her thank you for being a story that we can share and help inspire other people to age in a great way and to perform well into their 60s and 70s. And I’m really curious to see what Gail will look like in her 80s and from what it sounds like, she’s not stopping anytime soon.
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Yeah, she has the intensity for competitive lifting like I had when I was in my prime, you know, trying to win nationals. So it is inspiring. She’s inspired a lot of people.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I love it. Well, Dr. Rerucha, thank you so much for being a guest on The Laser Light Show. And for your second episode. I really appreciate it and I’m sure we’ll have you on again sometime in the near future. For all of our guests, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you have any questions about how laser therapy works, you can always visit Erchonia’s website, Erchonia.com, to get more information. And thanks for listening and we’ll see you in the next episode.
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 links to upcoming live events, as well as the Erchonia 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.
Dr. Jerome Rerucha has been a thought leader in weightlifting and sports performance who has been using low-level laser therapy in his clinic for over 2 decades! To learn more about Dr. Rerucha and his work go to: https://www.performancepractic.com/
The podcast episode #26, “Lasers for Performance Enhancement,” hosted by Dr. Andrew Wells on The Laser Light Show, features an in-depth conversation with Dr. Jerome Rerucha about the benefits of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) in chiropractic care and performance enhancement. The episode opens with Dr. Chad Woolner sharing his fascination with lasers from childhood experiences and their profound impact on his professional life as a chiropractic physician. The discussion then moves to Dr. Rerucha, who provides insights into his journey with laser therapy and its transformative effects on patients, particularly highlighting the story of a 75-year-old patient named Gail, whose life was significantly changed through chiropractic care and laser therapy, leading her to become a world champion powerlifter.
5-Minute Read
Childbirth is a remarkable experience for any woman to undergo. During the roughly 9 months leading up to the highly anticipated day, expecting mothers spend a lot of time researching and deciding how they would like their birth to go. If the pregnancy is healthy and there are no medical concerns, doctors will mostly opt for a vaginal birth. Even though “natural births” tend to be preferred by obstetricians, there are many reasons why having a C-section may be safer.
A C-section is a surgery in which your doctor delivers your baby through a surgical incision made in the abdomen or uterus. Cesarean section may be used to deliver your baby if there are complications during labor that could affect your health or your baby’s. However, like with any other major surgery, c-sections may carry long-term symptoms. Learn more about these symptoms and new emerging technologies that are aiding these concerns below.
C-section surgery recovery tends to take longer than vaginal delivery. Because this procedure involves cutting through the abdomen muscles, recovery can take 4 to 6 weeks on average, compared to 1 to 2 weeks for a vaginal birth.
Cesareans can have many of the expected risks involved with any major surgery such as risk of infection, vomiting, headaches, and many more. However, postoperative pain is one of the major concerns expecting mothers have about c-sections. According to the U.S. Institute of Medicine, 80% of patients who undergo surgery report postoperative pain, with moderate to extreme pain levels. These symptoms can lead to potentially severe complications and possibly delay recovery for these patients.
Postoperative pain is an acute form of pain that arises after serious surgical trauma. Post-surgery injured tissue creates muscle spasms, inflammatory reactions, and an afferent neuronal barrage that shock the nervous system. Women experiencing these symptoms feel extreme pain and a pulling sensation months or even years after surgery.
Proper pain management for women who underwent cesarean section is not only essential to decrease infections, and hospitalization, but most importantly, it aids women return to their normal life functions. There are many medical technologies that claim to decrease pain and manage these problems, however, there is one technology that does not only address pain management, but also accelerates the healing of wounds.
Low-level laser therapy (3LT®) is used on cesarean section patients to accelerate surgical wound healing. 3LT®is a professional’s preferred method in the treatment of post-op pain due to its non-invasive and safe technology. This makes it widely accepted by patients because it reduces the risk of overconsumption of analgesics and other pain management drugs. LLLT reduces the edema and inflammation after surgery, speeding up the healing process of wounds and modulating metabolic processes.
3LT® is an optimal option for those looking for alternatives to prescription pain drugs. So how does laser therapy work anyways? This safe, non-invasive treatment works by exposing skin cells to concentrated wavelengths of low-level red light targeted to help increase cell reproduction.
The target? The mitochondria – the body’s powerhouse. For a deeper dive into the link between mitochondria optimal performance and the overall body’s ability to reduce pain and inflammation, check out the blog How Does Red Light Therapy Work?
The second most commonly asked question aside from how the treatment works is, is it safe? 3LT® is an extremely safe, non-invasive, non-toxic and painless treatment that is not associated with any side effects at this time. The treatment is perfectly safe to use in the management of postoperative pain. Read on if you are interested in learning more about the safety concerns of red light therapy.
C-section births are often an option chosen by expecting mothers and sometimes, an in-labor last resort to ensure a safe birth. No matter what the reason may be, dealing with painful postoperative symptoms should not be a long term deal. Contact Erchonia today to learn more about how our 3LT® treatment can transform your childbirth experience.
Join us as we interview Joseph Zapolsky, the International Sales Director for Erchonia. As one of Erchonia’s first employees, Joseph brings a unique perspective on HOW and WHY Erchonia has become the preeminent organization for LLLT, worldwide. Go behind the scenes with Joseph as he tells his professional and personal stories.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-zapolsky-iii-24b1b342/
Dr. Chad Woolner: Hey, what’s going on everybody? Dr. Chad Woolner here with Dr. Andrew Wells. And this is episode 25 of The Laser Light Show. And on today’s episode we have with us our good friend, Joseph Sapolsky from Erchonia, and we’re going to be chatting with him about his experience and go from there. So let’s get started.
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.
All right, welcome to the show everybody. And welcome, Andrew and Joseph.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Good to be here. Hey, Joseph, how’s it going?
Joseph Zapolsky: Hey, it’s going great. So happy to finally get to get on an episode and do the podcast with you guys. Obviously, as you know, it’s been a big passion project of mine since we kicked this off. So now to be one of the people that are participating. I couldn’t be more excited.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, just to give the listeners a little bit of context here. We started this podcast really after meeting Joseph and his team at the Parker seminar in Las Vegas. That was really, for Chad and I, one of our first real exposure to low level laser therapy. And, Erchonia really stood out as the front runner in, you know, between all the different companies and people. Not only talking about the benefits of low level laser therapy, but also for people in like the red light therapy space. And so we got a crash course on–we actually just did a recent episode on this couple episodes ago with Dr. Kirk Gair on, you know, the myths and misconceptions about laser therapy.
And we really, Erchonia really sucked us in to their, to what they’re doing in a good way. And we were really impressed with what they’re doing. And so, Joseph, we have you to thank for that because you’re the one who really helped us take our idea of creating The Laser Light Show and spreading the word and the message about low level laser therapy not only to practitioners, but also to patients. It’s cool, we get a lot of patients who listen to this podcast as well. So my hat to you, Joseph, for helping us get this set up.
Joseph Zapolsky: My pleasure. It’s one of those things where God works in mysterious ways. But the timing was absolutely perfect. Because David Tucek, who’s my counterpart here, he does domestic sales, directing, and I do international sales directing, we knew we had to get into the podcast arena, because it’s such a medium now that everybody’s consuming. And it’s such a great way for people to learn about your products, your services.
But from a time management standpoint, we just couldn’t figure out a way to host it and get it done ourselves. And lo and behold, you guys reached out to us through the Erchonia website, like you said, we were able to meet up in Parker Vegas, which is always a fun meeting that Parker University puts on, great way to collaborate with people, make connections. And that got the ball rolling. And now here we are, I think 25 episodes in, we got more episodes planned that you guys are recording right now, not only in the next couple of weeks, but at our annual business meeting. So it’s full steam ahead. And I hope that we put together a product that, like you said, doctors, practitioners, the general public is very happy and excited to hear.
Dr. Chad Woolner: And it’s been a lot of fun, man. And it’s really cool to see just how far this has come in such a short period of time. And yeah, it’s been great.
But so Joseph, we’ve known you for a little while now. But for those who are listening, do you want to give kind of a quick snapshot of your, not only your experience with Erchonia but maybe life pre-Erchonia and your story?
Joseph Zapolsky: Yeah, I would love to. So my current position here at Erchonia now is International Sales Director. Like I had mentioned, I work with David Tucek, who is one of our founders’ sons, and he does domestic sales. But him and I have been joined at the hip running the sales department for coming up on six years now. And just about two years ago, the international arena came under our umbrella as well. So day in and day out, David and I are directing our sales team, both domestically and internationally.
We do have a European office, you guys have done podcasts with several people from that office. And then throughout the other regions of the world, where Erchonia is present, we have distributors.
So day in and day out, a lot of my interaction is coordinating things with these distributors, seeing how to help them get the lasers into different markets. And then once they’re in those markets, how do we showcase the lasers? How do we get into congresses and trade shows in the areas? And how do we educate their doctors? As you guys know, through this podcast, through our seminars, education’s very important to us. So we try to bring that same program to other countries around the world. So doctors can see the differences of low level lasers, and what they can truly do to help people.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that has got to be such…Number one, like, I don’t want to say overwhelming, but maybe it is a bit overwhelming. I mean, for crying out loud. You’re like literally responsible for lasers in the entire world for this company. I mean, that’s, that’s got to…Well, I guess the question right off the top of my head is, what’s that growth look like for you? Because how long have you been with the company?
Joseph Zapolsky: So the growth is unbelievable. We have now been reaching out to all these different areas. And at this point, we’re represented in 48 different countries.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Holy cow.
Joseph Zapolsky: As far as myself, the growth has been really fun because I’ve been with the company 20 years now. And when I started, we were renting four little garage spaces at a business park in Arizona, hoping to make a few sales a month and keep things going; to now you know, 20 years later, being a worldwide entity and getting to do a podcast, connect with some famous people getting to travel other countries. I could have never imagined as a 20-year-old kid building our handheld adjusting instruments in a rented garage all those years ago.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing. That’s absolutely incredible. So 20 years, what were you doing before that?
Joseph Zapolsky: So before that, I had finished high school. And I moved out to Arizona where the company was located at that time. And I was just doing young man’s work that I could make good money. Work in swing shift, or graveyard shift. You know, driving forklifts, picking up heavy boxes – things you could earn a good living at that time.
Now, I don’t think I could be picking up those heavy boxes. But I was very fortunate because our owner and president Steve Shanks, he’s our other founder along with David’s dad; I met his nephew in seventh grade. So I’ve actually known the families that own Erchonia for much longer than those 20 years, coming up on 30 years now.
And when I was in Arizona working those warehouse jobs, Erchonia was just starting to get some traction. So David’s dad, Kevin, had known me. I always hung out around the family. And he said, Hey, I can get you some part-time work if you want to make some extra money as a young man. Of course, I was like, “Yeah, let’s do it!”
So I’d work my swing shift or my graveyard shift. And then I come into Erchonia, about three days a week, four hours a day, doing some sub assemblies and part-time assembly work. And within about six months, he said, “Okay, we got enough work now to get you full time.” So I quit my other job, started with Erchonia full time. And here we are 20 years later, and they always afforded me the opportunity to grow. So I stuck with the company and Lord willing, this is my first real job, if you will, and my last job ever.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That also speaks to it. And for people who know Erchonia, they know what I’m saying is true. That story is also representative of Erchonia as a whole, as a company.
And we had this conversation a little bit with Dr. Kirk Gair a couple episodes ago, and talking about how a lot of different device and laser companies seemed to like pop up on the market and then go away. They’re like they’re here, they’re there. And the one thing that I can say and having now met a lot of Erchonia employees is they’re a very long term focused organization; not just with their products, but with the people that work there. And it’s no surprise when you look at all the research that’s been done for laser therapy is pretty much all Erchonia research that the other companies cite. And I think it’s just because Erchonia seems to understand that there’s incredible value in long term strategic goals, and not just looking at getting sales, you know, getting lasers in offices and producing, you know, producing, yeah, just selling equipment. They’re really focused on changing an industry, the healthcare industry. And they’ve done that.
And so to hear, you know, you hear these stories of employees like “I’ve been here for 15 years or 20 years” or “Yeah, I knew them for when I was in seventh grade, for heaven’s sake.” Like, it just goes to show you where Erchonia stands and what they value and their ethics and their principles and why they create the best products on the market.
And so when people say, like, “Well, why can I buy…Why should I get an Erchonia laser versus this other laser that’s maybe less expensive? Or kind of looks the same? Or whatever?” And the answer is always “Well, when you’re lasering someone’s brain, or as some part of your patient’s body, don’t you want to know that what you’re using on them is not like some fly by night company, and that the company that made this thing that you’re putting on your patients is the real thing?”
And that’s what like, when, when Chad and I were at that Las Vegas Parker seminar, that was what we noticed, like, wow, like, why would we, you know, if we’re going to promote a laser company, there was no other option for us. It’s like, yeah, that was pretty clear. And so I love that story. And that, and we heard your story, too, when we were in Las Vegas. And that was also with Penny Sneed, same thing. She has been there for like, 20 some years. That’s really cool. That’s really cool. Thanks for sharing that.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So, Joseph, my other question for you. I’ve got lots of questions. But since you’ve been there the entire time, you’ve seen not only tremendous growth from the business side of things, but no doubt, you’ve seen tremendous growth from the research side from the, you know, kind of clinical side of things. What would you say, is one of or maybe multiple things, in terms of accomplishments that you’ve seen that have been some of the most remarkable to you, maybe like one of those things where “Man, I would have never thought we had accomplished XYZ?” What are some of those accomplishments as a company that you’ve seen, again, predominantly from the clinical research side of things?
Joseph Zapolsky: On the research side, the thing that really stands out to me the most is how many FDA clearances we have been able to garner over my time at the company. And that speaks to how many different indications for use that the lasers have been proven through level one clinical trials to be effective on. When I started here, we’re working with a single diode red laser, it had an old school egg timer that you’d literally turn to the right and listen to it ticking back to the left as it’s treating, but we were going for neck and shoulder pain. And it’s like, okay, we had seen some different things before we proved it through a study that this would work for that application. But now all these years later to not only prove that out, but to see all these different things we’ve been able to treat, you know, a few examples, chronic low back pain, neck and shoulder pain, acne onychomycosis, non-invasive fat loss, that, to me has really been the wow factor. And if I would have looked at it from all those years ago, and go, we’d be here now, with all these indications and things that we’ve proven the lasers can help people with, I would have never thunk it.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s got to be again, like, I’m just trying to put myself in your shoes at that time, like saying, this is cool. Yeah, this laser is helping with, you know, pain, right? Which I think, again, at least for me, from where I’m coming from, before really getting to know Erchonia, what they were doing. I kind of like my attitude was kind of like, yeah, yeah, I know, low levels, they help with, you know, musculoskeletal pain, which I shouldn’t be dismissive of, because that in and of itself, is truly a miracle, especially in light of the, you know, opioid epidemic and crisis that we’re seeing right in front of us play out with, you know, all this garbage that’s out there. What a powerful way to help kind of pave the way to showing people a far superior way to solving that problem. But the crazy part is all of a sudden, you know, over that span of time, you’re seeing the application of these lasers in so many other realms and ways. And so the other question kind of hand in hand with that is, what do you foresee coming down the pipeline in terms of the future of lasers? What you know, this is in a span of 20 years. Or what do you see in the next 20 years? Or what do you hope to see in the next 20 years?
Joseph Zapolsky: I think you hit the nail on the head when you talked about the opioid epidemic. As a company, what I hope for and what we see is looking at the current situations where this country, or countries around the world have an epidemic. Have a real problem to deal with. And we may have a way with lasers to help that. And do so in a completely non-invasive, pain free, drug free way.
And I think one of the things that we’re the most passionate about and where we’d like to see the company go, as we work into the future, is when it comes to brain based applications. So we’ll be looking at research as far as Alzheimer’s, dementia, things that you’re seeing are serious problems. And if you look at some of the stats, doctors that we work with, like Dr. Dan Murphy, will run the numbers at the seminars he does, it’s going to cripple the health care system on how much money is being spent for those kinds of neurodegenerative disorders.
So if we can offer a way to help with that, it’s something we’re very excited about, something we’re very proud about. The other thing is, I’d like to see some research as we’ve evolved from non-invasive fat loss, which is a very aesthetic procedure, people all want to look good, feel good. But if we can maybe look at some of the ways when we do this fat loss, how it’s affecting blood markers, as far as cholesterol, A1C, how it may be helping with diabetic peripheral neuropathy, which is something we’re doing a study for, I think those are ways we can expand how we’re doing the research, and really help some serious issues that this country in the world at large is dealing with.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, it’s kind of interesting, when you look at the economics of healthcare, and/or even just say, sick care. The question that might be coming to mind for people is like, “Why aren’t low level lasers more mainstream?” You know, and without sounding conspiratorial, the reality of it is that economics support the current model.
The way things are, you know, that that industry, you know, big pharma and/or the kind of, you know, Western medicine model right now is established and set up in such a way that there are very much deeply vested groups, special interest groups that don’t really have a tremendous incentive to change things all that much. And quite frankly, especially when it comes to shifting things away from, you know, a ongoing, what do we call that recurring revenue model in terms of pharmaceuticals, you know, that they’ve got, you know, their biggest blockbuster drugs are all these, you know, quote, unquote, like lifestyle medications.
And so I think the thing you said, that’s interesting, Joseph is, at some point in time, people are going to have to recognize even the vested special interest groups are going to have to recognize. You’re going to, you’re going to reach a tipping point, so to speak, you know, where all of a sudden the cost of not doing something is going to, you know, what I mean, exceed the potential loss of revenue from switching to a more effective, safer, more cost-effective solution like lasers, you know, what I mean? Kirk Gair had kind of briefly mentioned this where, like over in Russia, they’ve been ahead of the curve in terms of low level laser therapy. And we had kind of posed the question to him, “Well, why do you think that is? Why does that seem to be the case?” And he said, well, from his perspective, it was simply a matter of dollars and cents, you know, that they’re very much because it’s socialized medicine over there, if they’re, they’re incentivized the opposite, you know, to make sure that they keep costs down, so that they can really be effective in that realm. And so that’s at least one of the reasons but in terms of, does that make sense in terms of, you know, at some point in time, thinking that there’s going to be this kind of tipping point?
Joseph Zapolsky: It does, it makes perfect sense. And I actually think that we’re already starting to see that awakening in this country, where you’re starting to see a lot of doctors working towards functional medicine, working towards preventative medicine, to get ahead of the problems. And like you said, keep the costs down. As sad as that may seem as a way to practice medicine, you’re going to get to a tipping point where the current system can’t keep up with what the problems are presenting and what they’re costing.
And that is starting to be something I’m seeing a lot more of. So I hope we really do make that change, especially here in the United States. The other thing I’m hoping, which I’m so thankful our owner Steve Shanks was of this mindset. When I first started working for Erchonia a lot of people look to us shining a red light on someone’s shoulder for pain going “You guys are out of your mind. A bunch of craziness, you know, just voodoo medicine!”
And now that he’s really pushed the research and proven it through these level one clinical trials. So the highest form of science to show safety and efficacy. Now you go on PubMed, and there’s a lot of peer-reviewed and published articles. And people are starting to realize, okay, there’s some other ways we can do things here. And a way we can really fight the status quo and make a change.
Dr. Andrew Wells: One of the coolest things we’re seeing in healthcare right now is this really big push into, this is kind of a catchy word right now, but like the biohacking world. And so you now have people who as a result of just traditional health care are really finding solutions on their own. And that’s one of the benefits and curses of the internet, is you can go on and do research on fixing your own health problems.
Because I mean, man, when least in terms of chronic health care, like our system is not doing a good job of that. And so people are now taking it in their own hands to get themselves better. And I really see, and correct me if I’m wrong, Joseph, but through doctor’s prescription, I would see lasers becoming a almost like a household tool for families to be able to use. Not just because they’re powerful tools, but because of the scope of what you can use them for.
We talked about fat loss, we talked about pain, we talked about the potential for brain health. We talked about toenail fungus of all things like what it’s almost like what can a laser not do? It seems like almost like a Jedi wand, you can use it for all these different things. And so where my mind went, as I’m hearing this is just a really powerful tool that a family would have in their quote unquote, medicine cabinet. They would have light therapy. And my question for you, Joseph, like, how are you using this at home? I got to imagine you’ve been with a company now for a long time. What does that look like for your health and like your family’s health?
Joseph Zapolsky: Yeah, and I agree with you, Dr. Wells. I think it’s something that if we do it the right way, proving it out through the studies that are required to show that it can be used at home. As you mentioned, it is a prescription device. So a doctor does have to prescribe it for a patient to use it. It could be something that could help with a lot of different issues people experience at home. And sometimes they may not be able to see a doctor all of the time. So they might benefit from using it on a more regular basis.
Myself personally, I’ve been very fortunate working for this company. I have a daughter who has Down syndrome. That was something that we did not know about until she was born. My wife working in the medical field does everything by the book. So all of the blood work she did, all of the scans, she did all the things you do through a normal pregnancy, showed no signs of any problems.
So until our daughter was born, Cecilia, we had no idea that she had Down syndrome. Now with the guidance of Dr. Trevor Berry, who has been on the podcast, Dr. Dan Murphy, who has been on the podcast, and Dr. Robert Silverman who has been on the podcast, we were able to get some good guidance from them on chiropractic care for her, on laser therapy for her, on nutrition for her. Not only her but mom, when she was breastfeeding when she was doing the things early in development. And we’ve been so fortunate that her development is ahead of the curve. She’s been unbelievably healthy. I probably say the only problem is she’s just ornery so all things considered. We’re pretty lucky and we’ll take that but it just goes to show how having those kinds of resources and you mentioned Dr. Wells people looking at what they can do to improve the health and well being of themselves and their families. This becomes another tool that can play a wonderful part in that
Dr. Chad Woolner: I’d like to dive just a little bit deeper if you don’t mind Joseph, on this because this is fascinating to me, you know. Down syndrome is a fairly common you know, diagnosis. You know, there I don’t know what the percentages, but I think we all probably know someone have a family member or a friend that you know has Down syndrome. And so when you say that it’s helped, can you can you quantify that in any way or give us a little bit more of a tangible like, what would your daughter look like without doing this you know, in terms of, and I know you’re not just putting it all on laser it’s just it’s laser, and it’s magic obviously you’re talking a more holistic approach of diet, lifestyle, chiropractic, all of that included. But maybe paint for those listening who either; A have a family member or a friend with Down syndrome, you know or know someone who does, what does that look like with or without you know, if you weren’t doing those things, what would things look like? What has it looked like since doing those things?
Joseph Zapolsky: Absolutely. And I think you really hit the nail on the head Dr. Woolner as far as the holistic approach. And what I mean by that is it’s a combination of the right foods, the right nutrition, laser therapy, and then not only that, but anybody out there that’s listening, that may be struggling with these things, you’re going to be your child’s best advocate.
So get out in your local community and find the right resources. There’s different therapies, different school systems, things that can really help. So I think the combination of that, when I’m painting the picture for other people is; on a growth chart, she just had her checkup at seven years old. They’ve never put her on the growth chart for a child with Down syndrome. She’s on a growth chart for a normal child her age. And she’s in the 90th percentile as far as height, which a lot of kids with Down syndrome, they do not grow as tall. When it comes to what she’s able to do as far as physical activity, playing, climbing, running, jumping, she has no issues. I believe that big combination of the physical therapy she received from her schooling system, the laser, and the proper nutrition.
We’ve also been very fortunate that so far, at seven years old, she has never had a surgery. And she’s had no problems with her hearing and her sight, which once again, for people out there who know or who have someone in their family with Down syndrome. Those are very common things that they deal with. So am I going to sit here and go, “Oh, the laser magically fixed all that!” No, I think it’s one resource in a toolbox that we were very fortunate to have at our disposal to help with her development and her health.
Dr. Chad Woolner: What’s so cool to me almost to the point of like, goosebumps when you’re sharing that, like seriously, is it’s not just this, like subjective, nebulous, like, “We think she’s doing better” you know what I mean? Like, because as a parent, I would want to lean that way, if I had a child that needed some attention and some help, I would want nothing more than to lean into that and hope and start to like, almost like, I don’t want to say imagine things, but I think it’s only inevitable that you want to. And so what’s cool about this is that here, you’re talking very concrete, objective measures that you can see. And again, not attributing 100%, it’s all because of the laser. But at the same token to you got to attribute something to the to the laser there. You can’t just say, “Oh, no, that’s just because of…” because I guarantee you there are those out there who probably do incorporate good nutrition, and other things, and maybe aren’t seeing potentially the same, you know, objective results that they would potentially hope for. And so you have to imagine laser is playing a critical role in that as well. So that’s, that’s really exciting to hear that, you know that it’s not just this, like crossing your fingers subjective hope, I hope it’s working, I think it’s working. But instead, you’re seeing, like, very objective measures there. That’s incredible.
Joseph Zapolsky: Very fortunate, I’m very thankful to be a part of this company, where I not only have the lasers that we can use, but we’ve been so fortunate to work with the doctors we have, and I mentioned a few of them there. So to be able to get their guidance and their help. It’s just a wonderful support system. And like you had mentioned Andrew, talking about the Erchonia family, it really is a family and to have that support system as well. It’s been great, and I couldn’t be more thankful.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yes, for those who are listening, I would simply say, and I really do mean this with all sincerity, Erchonia has done…if there’s one thing Erchonia has done, they’ve done a lot of right things. But if there’s one thing they’ve really done, right. They have curated some of the world’s best experts. They’ve done…we’ve said this before, I think on the podcast, but that’s and that’s one of the coolest things we get as a result of being able to host this podcast, the opportunity to talk to these experts. But literally the smartest doctors in the world are all involved with Erchonia.
And so it’s really cool to be able to see how Erchonia has just done that, and continues to do that, you know. There’s certainly an, I think, an attraction factor there when, you know, brilliant doctors see the research that Erchonia is doing they gravitate towards it. And so that’s, again, one of the cool things that for those listening, I think a certain peace of mind and reassurance that’s there knowing that it’s not just the technology but also the company that Erchonia keeps. They bring in some of the world’s best. And so it’s really cool to see that and to see that information, because collectively that makes a big difference, you know, moving forward with the knowledge base and/or you know that in and of itself being such a powerful resource for practitioners and for patients alike.
Dr. Andrew Wells: One of the things I’m noticing with laser therapy, that if you’re as I’m now as I now know about laser therapy and that’s…now seeing trends you saw years ago. Everybody, like Joseph mentioned earlier, he started with like one red light and now and then Erchonia moved to using violet lights and I think the violet lights were also…correct me if I’m wrong. So those were, I believe, Kirk Gair mentioned that those were…in that research, some of that was done in Russia. Is that correct?
Joseph Zapolsky: There has been research done in Russia with the violet lasers. There was also some done at the University of Illinois. And then, what Erchonia has done as well. So obviously that portfolio, or that library of research when it comes to violet lasers, specific ones at 405 nanometer, is ever expanding.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, and I’ve yet to see companies, other than Erchonia, put that research into actual practical lasers. So you have red, you have violet and you also have green. I don’t see anybody…other companies doing that, but I see other companies now trying to kind of emulate that and start to do that as well. So just another plug for Erchonia that they’re always on the cutting edge of what laser therapies are doing. But also are forward thinking in that respect where they saw, you know they saw the benefit and did it before anyone else was doing it. And I think, yeah, that just shows the wisdom and longevity of Erchonia as a company.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So, Joe-
Joseph Zapolsky: And hopefully we can, oh sorry, go ahead.
Dr. Chad Woolner: No, you keep going, Joseph.
Joseph Zapolsky: Hopefully we can continue to do that, because it’s something that’s important to us as a company to be at the forefront of what laser therapy can do to help people, and not every research project is going to work. Not everything we try to come up with is going to come through and be the next greatest thing. But as a company, it’s important for us to continue to push that envelope and the category of low level laser. So for anybody who is interested in us as a company, who has already supported us by purchasing a laser, about using our equipment. We’re going to continue to do that, so rest assured as we move into the future, that is important to Erchonia, to expand what lasers can do to keep solidifying the laser’s safety and efficacy through research and also to continue educating. I think we’ve done a great job educating in the US. Now it’s time to take that more globally so other countries, the distributors we’re working with can share that information as to why what we’re doing is different.
Dr. Chad Woolner: To that end, Joseph, you had mentioned earlier that you’ve got coming up here in November, Erchonia annual business meeting for the practitioners, specifically, who are listening. What can they expect at this year’s business meeting? What in terms of kind of the event itself, and or any exciting announcements or any cool things that are coming down the pipeline that you can hint at, or drop hints at, or give us as much information as you’re at liberty to give.
Joseph Zapolsky: So the annual business meeting is our funnest event of the year. If you need more information, you can hop on Erchonia’s website and look at all of the stuff we’re doing and get registered there. Just Erchonia.com. But it’ll be November 3rd through 5th. It’s at the Ritz Carlton in Orlando, and this year is going to be our best event ever.
We have two different educational tracks at the meeting. One will offer CE hours for chiropractors, which is the first Healthcare Group that supported us, so it’s important for us to give back. So while they’re attending on the Thursday, and Friday, they can get 12 CE hours for being there.
We’re then going to have a medical room which is going to have MDs, DOs, nurse practitioners, and podiatrists teaching about different ways lasers can help in their professions. So there’s the chance for education, and like you had mentioned, the best doctors in the world teaching these classes. Now also, we’re going to be doing live episodes of the podcast with you guys there, which is an exciting new add. We have never done that, so there’s going to be a lot of people doing live podcast episodes there on Friday.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s gonna be fun.
Joseph Zapolsky: Oh yeah. Oh yeah! On Friday, evening we’re doing a cocktail party and it’s going to be a masquerade ball, which to me is very exciting. I think everybody after the pandemic’s looking to get out, dress up nice, have some fun. So that’ll be something we do there.
And on Saturday we do a golf tournament which I’m hoping to win for the second time in three years with the help of Trevor Berry and we all have a ringer on our team. His name is EJ. He’s the partner of Diana DaGrosa, who did one of the podcast episodes with you and, man can he hit a golf ball well. So that’ll be what we’re doing at the meeting, along with the possibility of introducing a new product and having a celebrity guest speaker there, which I can’t divulge those details, but we would love for you guys to come take a look at it.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So yeah, lots to look forward to. And so for docs who are listening, go to Erchonia website and they can register right now. Cost for the event is, I’m just looking right now, I’m on the website. What’s the cost for the event?
Joseph Zapolsky: It’ll vary depending on what you want to do, cause we’ve made it customizable, where you can just do the education classes.
Dr. Chad Woolner: OK.
Joseph Zapolsky: Just do the cocktail party. Just do the golf tournament. So it really depends what you want to take part of.
Dr. Chad Woolner: You know that that’s the other thing too, in terms of CEs, that’s one of the things that I’ve always just admired about Erchonia is they always provide some of the most cost-effective ways for docs to get CE credits. And you know, I’ll admit I was one of those docs for a long period of time where it was like when it…when CE time came, it was always “OK. What’s going to be the lowest cost and the quickest and easiest and if it happens to be entertaining and/or enlightening and cool, that’s just a bonus cherry on top.” I know that’s, like, embarrassing to admit, but. It’s just the truth, but since then you know, and especially since with Erchonia, it’s like you go to these events and they do such a phenomenal job again with really providing just such incredible, I’ll give a huge shout-out to Jerome Rerucha.
I went to his Erchonia seminar in Salt Lake. Man, talk about powerful hands-on application that was so clinically relevant. We’ve, we’ve adopted and incorporated at least three or four components of what he taught. Just as a direct result of what he taught in our clinic. And so just, I’m sharing this for practitioners because if you haven’t yet been to another Erchonia event, what better opportunity and what better time to jump in than their business event this year? And if you have, you know what I’m saying. You know that they do just such an incredible job. And so we’re really looking forward to that. I think that’s going to be a ton of fun, and I’m excited to see what kind of the new announcements are. I think that’s going to be…we’ve got some exciting stuff that no doubt will be. We’ll be discussing on future podcast episodes for sure.
Joseph Zapolsky: Yeah, absolutely, and that event, I mean, we pride ourselves on having a good time as a company. So if you haven’t yet had a chance to experience it, I promise you’re going to have a really fun time. The property is beautiful, the golf course is beautiful. It’s just so much fun and for anybody that may be listening, that’s thinking of coming in from out of state, It’s also a wonderful place if you’re bringing family with you, friends with you. Because being in that central Orlando area you’re close to Disney World, you’re close to Universal Studios. Obviously, it’s one of the towns that has so much as far as entertainment and dining. Because there’s so many conferences in the area. So it’s a great place to come where maybe you don’t only come to our meeting, but you make it a bit of a trip and enjoy the rest of the stuff that Central Florida has to offer, while you’re in town for, you know, five days a week.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, it’s going to be incredible, man going to be…and it’s beautiful. It’s at that Ritz Carlton, correct? Correct, yeah, what? What an incredible…I’m looking at the picture right now. It is. Yeah, it’s going to be an incredible venue. It’s going to be a ton of fun. So fantastic Andrew. Anything else you wanted to go over?
Dr. Andrew Wells: No, the event’s just a month away, so make sure to go on the website. Get a ticket, make some travel plans if you need to fly in and. And yeah, I haven’t been to this event yet, but we’ll be there in a month. Chad and I both, and we’re really looking forward to it. And I know from talking to other docs and it’s just an amazingly fun educational event and it’s right before the holidays when docs and patients start to like wind down before the holidays.
So this is like one more like business, really fun business event before you know at that time of year people kind of get dormant in the month of December. So let’s go out in style. I’m looking forward to it. And Joseph, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Thanks for sharing your story and your history with Erchonia and some of your family and personal stories. That means a lot to us and I think will also mean a lot to our audience. And also to know that you guys practice what you preach. And that says a lot about you and your company and the products that you guys use so thank you.
Joseph Zapolsky: My pleasure guys, I really enjoyed being on here and sharing and it’s one of the best parts of this journey. And not only do I get to make a nice living, but doing so in a manner that helps a lot of people. I love it and hopefully I’ll be back on for a future episode and maybe we can dive into some different topics or different things you guys think that the audience would want to hear.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s awesome, man, for sure. That is absolutely for sure. So Joseph, if we don’t see you in person before then, which I don’t think we will, we are going to see you here real soon, just in a few short weeks at the business event. And for those listening, if you guys are planning on attending the business event, please make sure to connect with us in person. We’d love to see you. Let us know if you’re a listener of the podcast and we get a kick out of that, so looking forward to connecting with all of you as well in person. And thanks for listening to this episode. We’ll chat with you guys on the next step, so 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 Erchnoia 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 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.
Dr. Kristin Hieshetter explores the science behind the powerful benefits of laser therapy for concussions and other brain-related health issues. If you want to hear some amazing and miraculous stories from the trenches, you will not want to miss this episode. Join us as we explore concussions and lasers with Dr. Hieshetter.
https://www.bestflorencechiropractor.com
Dr. Chad Woolner: What’s going on everybody, Dr. Chad Woolner here and this is episode 24 of The Laser Light show and on today’s episode we have with us Dr. Kristen Hieshetter and we’re going to be talking about lasers for concussions. So let’s get started.
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.
Dr. Chad Woolner: All right, welcome to the show. Dr. Wells, how are you doing? Good.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Doing great. Thanks. Awesome. Yep.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Welcome Dr. Kristen Hieshetter. How are you? Good to have you here with us.
Dr. Kristin Hieshetter: Thank you for having me on board. I think this is going to be a fun little snippet of my day.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah. So tell us a little bit about yourself where you’re from, what you do, and what you love about lasers. Let’s start there.
Dr. Kristin Hieshetter: Thank you so much. I’m originally from Michigan, I practiced in a very small town called Newbury, Michigan for about 11 years. And that was where I first began working with low level laser therapy. I bought an XLR8 handheld device. And at the time, my clinic was located in a specialty clinic of a hospital so they ran all my labs and all my X-rays. It was a really neat setup, but I only had two treatment rooms.
And after purchasing one laser, I fixed a patient who was a rather prominent figure in the community. He had had a stroke in 2013. I lasered his brain using Dan Murphy’s cranial protocol in February 2016. And by April that year, he was walking and talking and picking up rocks in his 60 acre field, which he hadn’t done since his stroke. So when people in the small town saw what we had done for this gentleman, my clinic became so busy that I had to relocate. I purchased a building across the street from the hospital, I was still an affiliated physician, so they still ran all my tests for me. But in the purchase of that building, I had to get the FX 635. The 405 hadn’t been invented yet. So I got the 635 and a base station. And from there it was lasering everybody that came through the door.
We fixed so many different conditions, not just related to spine but related to pain because I was a hospital affiliate and I had a registered nurse who worked with me. If a medical doctor had written a prescription for a certain treatment protocol, we were able to legally do it – Michigan’s quite restrictive in their scope.
So that clinic did very, very well, for a number of years. And my husband, he was a chemical engineer, I was offered a position down in South Carolina. So that’s where I now practice. We started our clinic in August of 2020. So during the middle of a global pandemic, yeah, we opened up in a hyper saturated, basically hyper saturated area, as far as chiropractic goes. And we were still able to grow, survive the pandemic, and create a really amazing clinic in a town where nobody knew who we were. And it was because we’re doing things with lasers that no one around here is doing, which is thrilling for me, you know, I love it. And as we were talking before we came live. I love teaching other doctors to use these protocols, because I can’t put my hands on every person. I can’t show the protocols to every single person. But the more doctors who truly understand the power of these devices, and why you would want to put a laser on every patient. That’s my passion. We can’t possibly reach everybody by ourselves. But as chiropractors we’ve seen over the past decades, that as long as we team up and have a clear concise message and deliver care that goes above and beyond. We do very very well. So that’s pretty much why I love lasers. I will never practice without them.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, I wanted to bring up an interesting point, and thank you doctor for mentioning a little bit about your background. I didn’t know where Newberry Michigan was so I looked it up as we were talking here, and you, it is a small town and that’s in the U.P. (Upper Peninsula), correct?
Dr. Kristin Hieshetter: Yes. I had over 8,000 patient charts. There were only 2,000 people in the town. So basically, I had people traveling hours to come to me.
My most interesting patient case was, well I had a lot of them, but I became reputable. I had one patient who was very old, she had horrific scoliosis and she had a compression fracture. And on Monday, she was able to walk into the clinic. By Wednesday, she was in a wheelchair. So they had just wanted her to go to the ER and put her on pain meds and do all the ridiculous stuff. Well, her neurosurgeon was at the University of Michigan, and we called his PA, because he was operating at the time. The PA texted what was happening with this patient, and I said, she’s not going to get better with laser. This is what happened. He then, because we were so rural, you had to airlift these people. So we airlifted this patient to University of Michigan, she got emergency surgery, but the respect that I had earned by being a very good clinician, and by being able to articulate what I was what I was doing with these low level lasers, gave me the professional latitude to call up a neurosurgeon at U of M and say, Hey, she’s got a compression fracture, it’s only visible on the left posterior oblique, the radiology team missed it, I have to get her to you. And so he said, “okay.” And she flew down, and she was walking again in three months.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Wow, that’s an amazing story. And the interesting thing I wanted to bring up about being a reputable doctor in a small town is we’re going to segue in a minute to talk about concussions, which is what this episode is about, but you help somebody with a stroke. And then those people talk, they hear things, and then all of a sudden, you get, I imagine, I’m just guessing you’re getting now back pain patients, you’re getting patients with other things, probably saying, Hey, can lasers help with XYZ?
And the interesting thing about lasers is it can help with concussions, but they also help with lots of other conditions and things that patients are suffering with. And so I just find that, I find that really, I find that small town communication process really fascinating. And then here you are with this amazing tool to help a lot of different people with different things. And you said what, eight, you had 8,000 files with 2,000 people. That’s incredible.
Dr. Kristin Hieshetter: It’s pretty wild. It was pretty wild. And it’s my joy. And I still keep in touch with a lot of folks from that region. I’ve been doing telehealth all through COVID. I drop shipped all of our brain protocol supplements to these people. Six of them have become chiropractors now. So it’s been a fun ride. It’s been a fun ride. Yeah. Cool.
Dr. Chad Woolner: For me the question as you were sharing all this the question that you kind of touched on a little bit, but I’d like to maybe probe a little bit deeper here. Is the relationship dynamic in a small town like that between you and other health care professionals, particularly the medical community, right, obviously affiliated with the hospital? What was the response that they were seeing, not only from that pretty dramatic, stark experience with the post stroke, but just in general, lasers for these other patients where they were they were they open to it? Were they just indifferent about it? Or were they actually starting to take notice of it as well and be like, “Wow, this is a legit service that she’s, you know, a resource.”
Dr. Kristin Hieshetter: I think there were perhaps a couple of physicians that were almost standoffish, okay. But 90% of them would send me their pain patients or patients that they just couldn’t fix. And one of my dear friends is a cardiologist in that region. His wife is a physical therapist. He was getting chronic headaches because he was a, you know, seven foot tall former javelin thrower for Michigan State University. And he was a concussion patient. He is a cardiologist who’s seven feet tall. When you’re in the ER trying to put the defibrillator on the patient and trying to do CPR. He had hit his head on some of the low hanging equipment. And sustained a concussion himself. Yeah.
So of course as a concussion patient is a seven foot ER doc cardiologist, brilliant guy and his wife’s a physical therapist. I’d worked on them before for other things. I’d adjusted their baby and their daughter and so they said, “What do you do for concussion?” I said, Well, we maximize brain health, we maximize brain energy and ATP. So in chiropractic that means low level laser, medium chain triglycerides, acetyl, l carnitine, alpha lipoic acid, magnesium to plug the calcium channels. And so that way we take the brain astrocytes that are sick from getting clocked in the head and make them healthy again.
So as a cardiologist, well, how do the astrocytes get sick? Well, when we get hit in the head, we throw the plug on the NMDA receptor, we’ve got to replug that or too much calcium is going to rush into this cell, the cell is going to become a sick brain cell, and that sick brain cell is gonna become a dead one. If we don’t stop that neurometabolic cascade. Well, how do we do that? We pop a laser on it, because the laser, not only is it going to help close that calcium ion channel, but it’s going to upregulate the metabolism, metabolism of the brain so we can pump out those metabolic byproducts that have already built up.
We know that if the mitochondria get too backed up, you’re not going to be able to clear those toxins as efficiently so the excess glutamate, the excess sportaid, those are all going to continue to make your brain cells sick if we don’t pump them out. So then he says, “Okay, well, what about the fatigue of concussion?” And I said, Oh, buddy, this is the best part.
So we know that you hit the back of your head, when you were doing CPR on your patient, all of the energy that your brain is producing is going to the back of your head right now to heal the damaged area. Correct. And he says “of course.” This is why you can’t think this is why you have brain fog. Your brain is not devoting any energy to your cortex, your prefrontal cortex and your homunculus and your temporal lobes, we’ve got to get the energy back in those areas.
How do we make a meaningful upregulation in ATP? Number one, medium chain triglycerides, right because the brain can function 60% better on those than it can on sugar or carbs. And then we put a laser on it because now we’re getting that cytochrome c oxidase activation, we’re getting 36 ATP per electron transport chain cycle, and we’re knocking out the free radical production. So I’ve thrown out enough of the big fancy words where my buddy was convinced. We used it to treat his concussion, and his was severe. It took about two weeks before he wasn’t dizzy.
But at that time, we were also adjusting the cervical spine and working on other places in his body. And it was really neat because he had been driving from Northern Michigan all the way down to Grand Rapids for about an eight hour trip to get Botox injection in his suboccipital musculature. After working on him with chiropractic care and low level laser, he stopped doing that. And his wife was so excited that they didn’t have to make this crazy trek down to lower Michigan in the wintertime with two little teeny tiny kids. They ended up actually purchasing a laser. Wow. So they still Yeah, yeah, it’s really cool. So we’ve made a lasting impact on these health providers who really understand what it’s about. They don’t want to be without it once they see the value of what these devices can do.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s amazing.
Dr. Andrew Wells: We’re, as we’re talking about this, Dr. Hieshetter, Chad and I just had a conversation this last weekend about and looking at some of the really sobering statistics that the CDC is putting out in terms of brain health. So not just for concussions, and TBIs. But when you look at neurodevelopmental problems, when you look at cognitive decline, dementia, Alzheimer’s, I think the stat was and correct me if I’m wrong, Chad, that by the year 2050, which is 28 years from now, that half of children born in the US will will be born with an autism spectrum disorder. Is that I get that right Chad?
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s what I’ve heard. Exactly what I’ve heard. Yeah.
Dr. Andrew Wells: And similarly when you look at older folks, is that half of the population I believe would die with a neurodegenerative disease. Yeah, so we’re talking about half the population just born and half the population who are in their older years. And think of the personal impact of those conditions but also the global impact on everybody in society. What that’ll have, it’s a very scary, very sobering statistic. And as you’re talking about brain health, you seem to light up a little bit and get excited about that because as it exists right now, in conventional medicine, there are literally no tools for this. I mean, you’re mentioning like how, and no offense to the cardiologist but how insane it is to have to go and get Botox injections in the musculature right like I understand there might be some therapeutic value for that but probably is doing literally nothing to help the brain heal.
And just in here, you have probably a very brilliant doctor, a cardiologist, probably very passionate about what he does and, and like, what do you do for, you know, what do you do for somebody suffering with a brain health issue. And so no doubt that this is probably why you’re busy practitioner and why you’ve been successful in your practice in Michigan and South Carolina, just you’re helping people with with problems that are conventionally very difficult to solve, or just having no like, no, literally no tools in the tool belt, in terms of solving these problems.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So yeah, the the point that I was gonna bring up too sorry, I was just gonna say the point that I was gonna bring up too, that you made mention of is this whole idea of, you’d said, you know, if we don’t intervene with something, the sick brain cells are gonna die. And it’s frightening to think that one of the standard protocols associated with concussion is just kind of this watch and wait mentality of just kind of let’s just wait it out, you know, when what you were hinting at is that time is of the essence, right? If you’ve had a head injury and a brain injury, timing is critical. We know that with things like stroke, and yet, for whatever reason, that hasn’t yet, kind of permeated in terms of concussion, either. You know, concussion, the standard is like, oh, you’re okay, you’re not dead. So let’s just kind of wait. And what you’re showing there is like, you can get on top of this, and you should get on top of it as quickly as possible to start kind of stopping some of the, you know, detrimental effects that will take place.
Dr. Kristin Hieshetter: And we did that too, you know, for our football players, or hockey players or soccer players. They were coming in for prophylactic laser treatment all throughout their seasons. And I was very fortunate, because I could offer treatment packages that were very affordable for these patients. And so what I would do is say, okay, during your season, you can come in, and for $300, you have unlimited access to the laser all season long. Every athlete, so two to three times a week, as often as these kids could get in, they’re getting under the laser. Because we know that upregulating ATP ahead of a concussion helps. We know that taking omega 3 fatty acids ahead of the concussion helps. Taking adequate magnesium so that your body can run those metabolic pathways is going to be preventative. Adequate vitamin D is going to be preventative, a good iron free copper free multi, without any preservatives or titanium dioxide, you know, come get the multis from us because they’re better. So we would package it up and give the jocks 20% off your vitamins and a discounted laser package to continue to keep your brain healthy through your season. Because you’re right, you won’t notice the symptoms right away. But you’ll be a person who wakes up at age 35 and can’t find your car keys anymore. You forgot where this is, you forgot where that is, or your spouse may notice that you’ve got personality changes, because the brain neurons, the mirror neurons in particular, the neurons that say, oh, yeah, I can tell my wife’s a little bit peeved at me, I think I’m going to dial down my response or formulate an appropriate response when those neurons become sick and damaged. Now we’ve got a spouse whose personalities are different from the person we married.
And you see this time and again, I don’t know if you remember the story of Mike Webster in the Philadelphia or Pittsburgh Steeler who had gotten a concussion. But when they figured out what he had, and Dr. Bennet Omalu wrote on his death certificate brain disease instead of suicide, and all of the newspapers blew up, and everybody was freaking out, and they’re saying, wait a minute, he committed suicide. And that was what the coroner wanted on the autopsy report. Well, Dr. Bennet Omalu was this very religious guy. I don’t know if you’ve read his book. It’s beautiful. But he would pray over every patient and he would say, “Okay, I’m sorry that you came to be here this way. Mike, show me how you died.”
So he does this autopsy on like Webster, physiologically, he’s banged up. He played football, but he’s normal. And when they get to his mouth, they see that Mike Webster had been pulling out his own teeth and super gluing them back in his head. And in the movie, they open in that scene. So Bennet Omalu says, “Okay, why in the world would somebody be pulling out their teeth and super gluing them back in? That makes no sense. He’s an American football player. He’s on a throne. They’re like gods, why? Why would this happen?”
So he covered up Mike’s body, went home, came back the next day, and prayed again and just decided to start slicing through brain tissue. And this man had a brain that looks like an 85 year old Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s patient. There were plaques, but he was only 50. So it didn’t fit the profile. And Mike Webster (sic) then writes on the death certificate that he died of a brain disease.
And it blew up the news. And he refused to change his clinical diagnosis. He refused to back down and the NFL didn’t like that. But now Mike (sic) starts getting all these calls from all these NFL players wives, saying, “My husband flipped the crazy switch. He’s an alcoholic, he’s become violent. He’s doing this. He’s doing that.” You know, they tried to silence him, but he refused to back down on this issue. When you look at statistically 210 out of 211, NFL football players autopsied back and want to say 2013, this study was they all had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, all but one.
And if we can offset that, and give these guys a normal life, why wouldn’t you want to do that? And so there are ways to love your game, and protect your brain doesn’t mean you’ll never develop it. I have no idea. But we can do better than we’re doing. And when you look at the fact that our government defunded research for Alzheimer’s medicines in 2018, because they couldn’t find anything that targeted all 36 separate and distinct causes of Alzheimers, what am I going to do? I’m gonna put a laser on it. I’m just gonna grab up my laser and laser my brain every day to keep those ATP pumps going, I’m going to use my supplements every single day. Anything we can do to offset our risk is something that we should all be doing because like you guys said, These statistics are staggering. If 50% of our adult population is going to have a brain disease. And 50% of our youth population is going to have brain diseases too, where are we going to go? And what direction we’re going to point ourselves in.
And when we look at brain health and concussion, there was a study that came out in 2019 on using low level lasers for seizure and for autism. They found that the overactive brain could be slowed down by using a red and violet laser together. And they did EEG so it was amazing. They did the EEG before the laser. They did an EEG during laser treatment and showed that they had synchronized beta waves in the brain. And then 10 minutes later, those waves were still synchronized. So they basically halted the seizures in these patients using a red-violet laser combination. So if we look at the capacity for just red to upregulate, run the metabolic pathways, get the ATP production, get the mitochondria healthy, and then take a violet with it to synchronize brainwaves. The sky’s the limit in terms of what we can do with these devices. And in my opinion, every single chiropractor in America should have one of these. Every single medical doctor should have one of these. Yeah, I can fix a fracture in two weeks with these bad boys. I mean, it is so fun. It’s just so fun. Yeah.
Dr. Chad Woolner: The question I have for you and I don’t know if you know this or not I have an answer to this. But I’m just curious with all of what we’re seeing with this. Is the NFL taking notice of this? And or even high school or college teams taking notice of this and saying every NFL team should have a laser that they’re using with every single player that’s playing?
Dr. Kristin Hieshetter: You know, I don’t think that they are, I wish that they were. I have a couple of colleagues who I know are team doctors for these athletes. We had a patient who had an Avulsed hamstring tendon and pulled the growth plate off with it. So we had sent him to the Packers surgeon, the Green Bay Packers surgeon. And the surgeon said go ahead and play your whole football season on this bum leg because when I have to fix you at the end, I’ve got to tear the muscle completely off the bone anyway. Wow. So he had only evolved the common hamstrings tendon and pulled the growth plate with it.
So he came back to me because he was given the greenlight to play his entire football season. And Mom and Dad said “hey, can we just keep the laser?” I said you better keep the laser and because he was coming in for brain health anyway. Yeah. So we put him in a category one sacred simple technique blocking position to approximate the femur head to the ischial tuberosity. We plopped the laser on it. And I also put the laser in the lumbar spine, not down the leg, right because the cell bodies are where the lasers do the magic. The cell bodies where the mitochondria is the cell body makes ATP the nerves are just branches.
So as clinicians we have to remember the nerves for that area. The terminal end is the phylum terminally in the spinal cord so you’ve actually got a laser about T 12. If you really want to target that hamstring glute area. So you’ve got the effects we plonk one on the T 12 area. One is just going over the lumbar spine and then one was directly on the ischial tuberosity. We did that three times a week. At the end of his football season. He went back to the Green Bay Packers surgeon to see what it looked like they did a second MRI, the growth plate reattached. The hamstrings tendon reattached. And the kid plays college. Yeah, it’s awesome. He plays for Finlandia University now. He’s going into his senior year, but we have those pre and post MRIs. If you’re practicing without a laser, you gotta get in on this stuff. I mean, the stuff that you can fix is the unfixable. And that’s, to me, there’s nothing better. And there’s no risk, there’s no risk, the worst we can do is nothing. So hey, if I can’t fix you fine, then go get the surgery. But let’s try. He’s gonna make you wait anyway, let’s just try.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s exactly what I’ve been saying in terms of from day one, since we’ve gotten these lasers, and that was kind of the cool thing for me. Realizing this, like, when you look at the body of literature, not only does it show how effective they are, but also equally as much, showing just how safe they are. And so for me, it’s like, what a very liberating feeling. That is to know like, anybody who walks through the door, no matter, virtually, I mean, I shouldn’t even say virtually anybody, regardless of the complaint. You can do no wrong here in terms of, you know, using laser. There’s, there’s only upside, there’s zero downside here to it. So. And not only that, but that’s the thing, too, that I have seen firsthand is just the versatility in terms of being able to offer people some sort of answer and or hope for, again, such a wide array of different things that may or may not have fallen within the purview or abilities of a traditional practice, right. In terms of what you can offer. There are probably practices out there who have a wide range of tools, right? We do chiropractic, we do massage, we do rehab, we do Graston and ART and any number of these other modalities that we offer in our practice, but laser, I would I would argue hands down, trumps them all in terms of the versatility of and wide range of things that it can treat, you know, such a indispensable tool really
Dr. Kristin Hieshetter: Well with concussion too. You can use it as a diagnostic. We had a lady who fell in the shower. She had a slip and fall, she had brain fog. So her daughter came to see me, and they rented a laser. She brought it to her mom’s house, put the laser on her mom’s head and her mom’s head pain got worse. The mom had already checked out of the ER two days before, but she’s got a concussion and her pain got worse. So they called me and I said to my friend “Kim, I said okay, you need to go back to the ER, she has a brain bleed. Laser doesn’t make people worse. Go back to the ER, I think she has a brain bleed.” I’ve never met this lady. But yes, she had a brain bleed, and she would have died if she had not rented that laser. Wow. But that’s the cool part about this. That’s what I love the most. Is that okay? She had a concussion. Concussion patients don’t get worse. They get better. Why did she not get better, get back to the ER, and lo and behold, that’s why so again, as a diagnostic tool, that’s what I love about what you said, Chad, these can’t harm you. So if a patient gets worse, there’s something else going on. Yeah.
Dr. Andrew Wells: And good on you Dr. Hieshetter for I think a lot of doctors are using lasers, therapeutically for injuries once they’ve happened. And you mentioned that you’re also using them prophylactically to help in the inevitable head injury that most high school and college athletes are just going to go through if they’re in some sort of contact sport. But also I think the genius in what you’re doing is you’re using, you’re creating an affordable package for athletes to come in. And I would imagine there’s some performance enhancement in that as well. Because in Chad, Chad brought up the great question of like, well, why are we in like all of these professional sports teams, because it just makes too much sense. It’s easy to do, you could put it in the hands of any, like any athletic trainer. But I think the window into the team’s sports teams, I just thought of this is not from an injury, post injury standpoint is from a performance standpoint. And that’s one of the really cool things about lasers is there’s a huge component aspect to it. I think there is some debate on whether lasers should even be used in sports because it gives you somewhat of a competitive edge on because of the benefits of lasers but really like what you’re doing whether that was a planned business strategy or not is get in front of athletes before they actually have the injury and you may not have actually been able to help that that football player with the growth plate issue had you not been in the position to have helped him before that?
Dr. Kristin Hieshetter: Certainly, certainly. And to that point to the number of concussion patients from that town that we worked with and worked on. That same football player, his younger brother, had gotten a bad concussion; his head was rotated to the left and someone fell on it. And his left eye, yeah, his left eye would not track. It was so creepy and he had been to the eye doctor and the eye doctors like yeah, you your brain damaged. Good luck with that. So mom and dad had brought him to me. The optic nerve was a little bit implicated as pupils wouldn’t dilate nicely, but cranial nerves three, four, and six, they’re all found in the brainstem. So we laser through the open mouth. And then of course, we did the whole head concussion protocol with the diode on the forehead, top of the head back and ahead for about 10 minutes. And then I also lasered through the temple area to try to target the optic nerve. And within four treatments, he was perfectly fine again.
Dr. Andrew Wells: But that gives us like miracle stories that Edie chiropractor would like. I just want one of those in my entire career and you’re just rattling off these crazy stories. That’s amazing. Well, and for next week.
Dr. Chad Woolner: I was just gonna say I you know when you say these, and I want to highlight this because I’m not I’m guessing you’re not saying it in like this nonchalant arrogant way. You’re saying it in this nonchalant way. Because you have seen it so many times that you just know the result. You know what the result is? It just so matter of fact is the way you stay at it, you know, here, here, a kid whose eye is not tracking here, like, yeah, and then in for treatment, it was all resolved. I’m like, holy cow, that’s incredible, you know, but again, that’s the thing is when you start to see it, you start to recognize the pattern that, you know, yeah, we can fix this, you know, you got a really, really powerful tool that can do a lot of really incredible things.
Dr. Kristin Hieshetter: I appreciate that, you know, it is a very powerful tool. And when I can’t fix somebody, I don’t over treat either. You’re out in two weeks, you know, and it’s, it’s, I do realize now I’m just like, oh, yeah, it’s nonchalant. Just, we’re going to put a laser on that nerve and that nerve and see what your body’s going to do with it. And I have yet to, to have an instance where we don’t make some sort of lasting change.
I’ve got my work cut out for me next week, I have a person traveling a couple hours to get here because she was walking her dog. And the dog ran; they’re on the beach, and she had the dog leash, pulled something that paralyzed half of her diaphragm. So she’s going to come see me next week. It sounds more like phrenic nerve than anything else. And I’ll let you guys know how that one goes. But these brain injuries, the brain wants to heal. The brain wants to function. I’ve got an Alzheimer’s patient right now who we’ve been working with both gut and brain because she had had so many massive symptoms. And we know that for every nerve that goes from the brain to the gut nine go back up. And that the guts’ nervous system, the enteric nervous system is completely separate from the brain, but it controls so much of the neurotransmitter distribution, that in a lot of these concussion athletes, we don’t just do the brain will do the gut as well and will do the vagus nerve. And it’s because of that gut brain axis that we see tremendous results. I have an entire gut reset program that we do with patients. We run some tests to find out who’s living in the gut. Are they friend or foe? Are they driving any chronic diseases like autoimmunity? Are these microbes allowing you to produce the right neurotransmitters? Are they messing with your hormone balance? You know what, what’s really happening physiologically ties in a lot to the gut. And if we can’t get a concussion patient better, it’s because we missed something in the gut. So I tend to just do it all at once. Now, I’ve evolved in my practice that way. Just because it’s so clinically important. I don’t want to miss anything.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah. I think Dr. Trevor Berry said it eloquently. He said you don’t have a neurology program if you don’t have a functional medicine program. And he was saying the same things. If you’re not looking at the gut, if you’re not looking at immunology, you can be missing some really key pieces that affect the brain and affect neurology. And that’s, I think that’s important for doctors to recognize, too, is that lasers aren’t always the fix all cure all for everything. The brain doesn’t live in a vacuum in your skull and is not affected by other things. And that’s the other cool thing about lasers that you’re using, obviously, lab testing, and you’re using certain supplements, I imagine and from a nutrition standpoint, to fix a lot of those gut issues to repair brain gut access. But also, you can use lasers for gut issues as well. So that’s a whole other spin off of helping the brain via the gut.
Dr. Kristin Hieshetter: Yeah, and a great read on that particular topic is by Dr. Tom Verni. The Er and why he’s an MD. His book is called the Embodied Mind. And he’s got a very large portion of it, that ties in gut health. But what I found really thrilling about his book, and I just got back from teaching in Wisconsin. I dedicated a lot of my lecture to the gut brain axis. And what Verni writes about are these studies where the bad microbes that we don’t want in our gut, you can knock them out with pulsed violet laser, the good microbes that are supposed to live there, love pulsed red lasers. And this guy’s a medical doctor, right? So I’m reading this and I’m sharing it with his class. Look, if you’re doing brain health, if you’re doing concussion, if you’re doing gut, you’ve got to have a red-violet laser, because now we’ve just opened the floodgate on so many more ways to help your patient, it thrills me. So this is I guess I’m kind of geeking out now I was nonchalant before but now knowing that somehow in nature’s perfect design, violet and ultraviolet kill the bad guys. And red is where the good guys shine. The low level laser therapy that Erchonia keeps cranking out just continues to thrill me and makes me want to keep going and practice and up my game and learn more and keep chasing all this information that’s just pouring out of pubmed.com Right now, because people are finally getting it.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Ya know that you know the thing I keep thinking and all of this that has been so cool for Andrew and I is like we get to glean all of this collective wisdom from these doctors. And I think that’s, we again, we have Erchonia to thank for that because Erchonia has done such an incredible job of curating such a phenomenal panel, if you will, will call you a panel of experts, you know, docs who just really, and so for me what I feel like and I’m saying this selfishly, I feel like we kind of have an accelerated, you know, path of learning through through this podcast, because we’ve been able to kind of get the Cliff’s Notes version, so to speak of each of these clinicians experiences here, we’re hearing just a snippet of your experiences, and yet, you’re just sharing so many cool insights from not only the research, but also more importantly, I think your own personal hands on clinical experience that you’ve had. And so it’s great to hear these stories, and I think highly beneficial for you know, those listening doctors and patients alike. And so all the more reason to tune in and listen to these episodes, not for my sake or Andrew’s sake, because we’re, we’re just facilitating the conversation is all we’re doing. And so it’s really cool to be able to hear firsthand from you, and from so many other incredible people. So yeah, it is exciting. And I feel the same way when you say that, like, it’s kind of cool to geek out and dive down some of these different holes in terms of the Science in the specifics. And what’s really cool is that we live in a day and age now where we can start to really dissect and dive deep into what’s mechanical, from a mechanistic standpoint, what’s actually happening. And now we’re at a point where we have the means to, you know, really figure those things out and not just be like, “Hey, this is this cool phenomenon. When we do this thing. It appears that this is happening.” But really we can in a very sophisticated way explain in detail what’s actually happening. So that’s a really, really cool thing, I think.
Dr. Kristin Hieshetter: Yeah, and I appreciate what you guys are doing too because as I said in the beginning, when I teach I come from a comprehensive standpoint, I want everybody every doctor out there to have a laser and know what to do with it. Because you’re gonna save somebody some major hurt and major heartache and major suffering if you know how to properly use these and even my daughters. They’re, they’re 12 and nine, but they know how to grab the laser program and pop it on there. I mean, we go to the beach, we bring a laser to show why their friend got a jellyfish sting. We pull the kid out of the ocean, zap it with a laser and 10 minutes later, the kids are fine and running around playing again. But we’ve put lasers on just about everything in our house. We’ve got a German shepherd with Lyme disease. I’ve got a husband with multiple head injuries and a family history of MS. So every day, my poor husband, I’m like, “Hey, just take your supplements?” He says “No, I just got up!”
Dr. Chad Woolner: So if for no other reason, you go to the beach with Dr. Kristen. So that if there’s a jellyfish thing you can avoid getting urinated on and instead have a laser I would I would much prefer a laser. Because isn’t that the standard care treatment? Is you pee on the leg or pee on the arm or whatever it’s not. That’s what I’ve heard anyways, right? You’re supposed to urine.
Dr. Kristin Hieshetter: The NH four in the human urine is like the anti venom, apparently, but we’ve never had to do that.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, you could just you’re you’re more dignified and sophisticated than all those other savages. No peeing on jellyfish stings.
Dr. Andrew Wells: So a couple questions for you, Dr. Hieshetter we get we’re finding that we’re getting listeners on the podcast that are providers, and we get listeners who are just interested in using lasers for different issues. Because of the title of this podcast, I imagine we’re gonna get patients who are like, “Wow, I really need this!” Or they know somebody who’s had a concussion. How do they find you? Or if they live somewhere that’s not close to you? How would they get access to Erchnoia lasers?
Dr. Kristin Hieshetter: Oh my goodness to gain access to Erchonia laser, if you just call the company, I don’t know their number off the top of my head because I just tell Siri to call Joe or David or any of the guys. But go on the erchonia.com website. There you could find a list of providers in your area who have the lasers.
You can also call the company directly. They can help you purchase a laser, they can help you find a provider.
If there are patients laypeople, or doctors today who are interested in, for instance, I’ve got the University of Michigan neuro sport protocol as we had mentioned earlier, a lot of places don’t restrict activity or they don’t know when to turn people loose again, after they’ve had a chronic repetitive impact situation or one huge blow that knocks them out of the game. I’ve got all of that information available. If you email, ihsflorencesc@gmail.com. And just request the concussion stuff. My office manager can send it out. But it’s beautifully depicted. I mean, it talks about, “Can you ride a bike? Can you run? How’s your agility? Are you in the red mentally or physically? Can we clear your BI doctor went to restriction level?” And the U of M protocol has a pyramid that you go through, an algorithm or flowchart if you will. And it’s nice as clinicians to give it to your patient because they say, “Well, Billy is fine. He can go back and play football.” And you can say No, he can’t because he can’t stand with his feet together and close his eyes without tipping over. He’s not ready yet.
And so now I work with mixed martial arts, like Brazilian jiu jitsu fighters and these guys, they look fine. They’re big and strong, but they can’t stand on a vibe without getting motion sickness. And that’s just standing still. So we know that they’ve got chronic traumatic encephalopathy. And because they can’t stand on the vibe plate without wanting to puke, even though they’re big and strong and look good and aren’t bleeding anywhere. They’re not okay. They’re not okay, neurologically. So we’re working on these guys a few times a week, using low level laser on the brain while they’re on the vibe plate to try to upregulate those places that have been damaged from concussion, and it’s working. But these guys have to commit to it. And we have to keep going until they’re all better, or they are going to end up incurring really nasty brain disease down the road.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s incredible, incredible work that you’re doing. Yeah, Dr. Kristen, thank you seriously, so much for taking time out of your schedule to be here with us. You’ve shared some really, really valuable insights. And it’s really fascinating. I’ve really enjoyed this interview, really enjoyed hearing what you’re, what you’re sharing, it shines through just how passionate you are about, first and foremost helping patients, but also utilizing these tools in just a variety of different ways. And obviously, particularly on this episode talking a lot about concussions. So it’s great to hear the great work that you’re doing there for patients and how you’re helping so many different people. Was there anything else you wanted to add? Dr. Wells?
Dr. Andrew Wells: No, just other than, yeah, thank you for sharing what you’re passionate about. Thank you for being one of those people that we need in the health care system, because there are people like you who are few and far between. And my hope is that other health care providers can listen to this podcast and learn from what you’re doing and hopefully follow in your footsteps and help people with issues that nobody else is helping with.
Dr. Kristin Hieshetter: So thank you very much. That’s yeah, my hat’s off to you so much, guys. Appreciate your time today, too. I know that you’re busy doctors as well. So we in the chiropractic community are very blessed to have this type of venue and format for sharing all the good that we do. Thank you.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, you bet. Thank you so much. Docs, and patients alike hope this has been a valuable episode. We’ve really enjoyed this. Share this with others, we will make sure that we put all the resources that Dr. Kristen talked about here in the show notes so you guys can access that. And so we appreciate her being willing to share those resources as well. And we will talk to you guys in 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 Erchnoia 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 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.
On today’s episode, we sit down with Dr. Kirk Gair to discuss some of the most common misconceptions about the laser industry. Not all lasers and light therapies are what they seem and Dr. Gair unpacks some of the alarming and misleading claims regarding various products on the market…. Buyer beware!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/drgairlasertherapy
Dr. Chad Woolner: What’s going on everybody? Dr. Chad Woolner here with Dr. Andrew Wells and this is Episode 23 of The Laser Light Show and on today’s episode we’re going to be talking about laser myths and misconceptions with Dr. Kirk Gair. So let’s get started.
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.
All right, everybody. Welcome to the show. And Dr. Kirk Gair, welcome to the show, man. Glad to have you here.
Dr. Kirk Gair: Thank you guys. I’m glad to be here as well. Thanks for having me as your guests, it’s some important information for doctors to get.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, so let’s get right to it. The big problem we have with Erchonia is the lasers just aren’t powerful enough. Right?
Dr. Kirk Gair: Right. Right, right. You know, it’s amazing how we hear this so often and, and yet, it’s so easy to dispel that type of myth that’s out there. But people can, it’s kind of like all the fake news and information in the last couple of years too, where you can just be perplexed looking at what people believe that’s like, this is so easy to show you that that’s not the truth. But yet people are believing the inaccuracies. And if you look at the research on that, going back to the 1960s, when laser really got started, and you got to figure by 1974, the Russians already had laser as part of their state sponsored standard health care. And they were doing a lot of research on lasers. And they clearly showed that you have this, what’s called a biphasic dose response called the orange Schultz law, and this is to where when you do higher dosages, you don’t get a better result. And they found that the most effective dosages, if you look at the paper called low level laser therapy in Russia published in 2017, they talked about that the most effective wavelength they found was 635 nanometers. And they found that a lower energy was more effective. And when you bump up the energy, and you can find you go into PubMed, you can just look at tons of research. And you’ll see this, that as you increase the dose, you get a different response, you can go from having a positive response to having a very negative one or a completely opposite effect.
And it’s like going out in sunlight, you know. If you go out and sunlight at the right time of day to get the right kind of UV rays, for say, 10 or 15 minutes, you can get all the beneficial effects of sunlight, you can get, you know, the melatonin production, you can get all kinds of things like vitamin D, etc. But let’s say you stay up and say, “hey, I want to amp up the dosage of this. And let me let me like, get a reflective aluminum surface here. And let me moist up in baby oil. And let me stay out here to get a higher dosage.” You don’t get a better result. And you can actually get DNA damage.
And that’s what you see in the research is that over and over again, when you go beyond certain dosages, and it’s usually shown that the therapeutic window is around two joules, up to maybe 10 joules, when you start going over that to 20 joules or 50 joules, you can get very damaging effects on it and it can go very rapid, and once you go over these thresholds there. So that’s easy to dispel. But doctors keep believing this, more power, kind of like remember the 1990s show Home Improvement? With Tim “The Toolman” Taylor? Anytime Al would bring out, you know, some equipment, Tim would look at it and say, “Hey Al, you know, this baby needs, it needs more power.” And he grabbed the power up and what happened? He ended up blowing something up. Now we’ll have to fix it. Yeah, and Al would come in and say “no, no, no, Tim, you don’t need more power. You need the right power.” And that’s a key thing for doctors to understand is they don’t treat laser like you’re Tim “The Toolman” Taylor, be more like Al and be sensible and look at the research and use the right amount of power.
Dr. Chad Woolner: You know, as you’re, as you’re saying this about the sunlight, I’m totally envisioning these people that we’ve all seen. They’re like, you know, in their 40s and yet their skin looks like it’s their 80s, you know, and they’re just like walking around these these leather bags, you know? No amount, no amount of logic that you’re going to tell them is going to change their mind. And I think that’s…the equivalent would be the same thing. You know that it’s funny as you say that because I used to…I really did, like truly, I used to think that same thing. There’s something inherent that we gravitate towards in terms of that, that feeling of heat, you know. We’ve used in our clinic, a class four laser, and we really liked it. It’s it’s great, you know, I like the fact that you’re that you feel the heat and you can feel a kind of deep penetration of that heat. And all the while I’m thinking, again, prior to my understanding the state of the research, all the while I’m thinking this is really doing something more than it’s actually doing. And again, not that it’s not good and not doing something it clearly not has a physiological effect.
Dr. Kirk Gair: Yeah, I think that’s a key thing you pointed out there too, is that when you talk about you feel that heat and that, you know, that especially those infrared higher powered lasers, that’s what their effect is, is it’s a thermal impact, right. And that’s what they’re FDA cleared for this is what doctors don’t understand is they think, “Oh, well, this is, I can do all the same things with this other high powered laser, and I can do in a shorter period of time.” It’s like, No, you can’t, that’s not what the research shows. And your FDA clearance shows that look, and I encourage doctors to do this, look at what your high powered laser is cleared for. It is for topical heating to temporarily reduce pain. You don’t get the same kind of enzymatic and photochemical changes with those other wavelengths and with those higher powers that you do with the lower powers.
Dr. Andrew Wells: So a question for you Dr. Gair. I think a lot of the misinformation that doctors are getting about lasers and their effects come from other device manufacturers. And a doctor will go to like a seminar, they go to a conference and they meet people selling these other devices. And the reality is there’s other low level lasers on the market besides Erchonia. But, I’ve seen and maybe you’ve seen as well, that other manufacturers and reps are claiming, like, “oh, like, you don’t need to spend the money on Erchonia Laser, just get ours. And by the way, ours is more powerful.” And essentially, which means it’s better. So is it like, without naming names? Is that Is that really where this is coming from? And if so, why? Why do you think that the other manufacturers are doing that?
Dr. Kirk Gair: Yeah, that’s definitely where it’s coming from. And there’s one particular company that’s doing this quite a bit. It’s a company that’s very popular in the neuro world. And the irony is these companies, even these class four ones too, is they’ll knock Erchonia, and then on their own web pages go on there and look at what research they cite. They actually cite Erchonia research and just support their device that’s completely different.
And that’s the that’s the irony that’s on there. And even when you look at the research papers they cite, they’re all almost exclusively low level laser research papers, that even in those papers will say that if you go beyond this certain power and whatnot, you’re going to get an opposite, opposite effect. And that’s where it’s really being driven.
Some of it is because some of the reps are ignorant. And they’re just repeating what they’ve been told to repeat, because it’s a great sales point. It reminds me of, do you guys watch Mad Men? So it’s when, when when Don Draper is sitting there, and he’s trying to figure out, you know, the pitch line for the cigarettes. And he just comes out with “oh, it’s toasted.” And they’re like, “Yeah, but you know, these other cigarettes are toasted too.” He’s like, “Yeah, but it doesn’t matter. It’s the pitch, and people are gonna, like, buy into the pitch.” And that’s what it comes down to is what is the pitch that sells things. And that’s what people hear.
And like here in America, especially, we always think bigger is better, more power is better, regardless of the research. So when they see this, like this, take this particular laser that’s popular with the neuro community here’s, not naming names so much, but they will they do all kinds of crazy stuff. Like they’ll claim that they’re the most powerful laser in the class three, or you know, low power category. But yet, by claiming most power, the power that they list actually makes them class four. So they’re going back and forth on things. And then they talk about how a class four doesn’t work as well, because it’s got the high power. So that’s why we use low power, and they’re all over the place. And they talked about being less expensive. Well, one of the reasons why they’re less expensive, is their laser is not collimated. And you can see this in the pictures that the doctors who are using it online will show they’ll show using it on the head, which is not FDA cleared, or they’re only FDA clearance is as the thermal laser. So it shouldn’t be used on the head, but they’re using it on the head, you see it away from it, and you don’t see clear lines of the laser because it’s non-collimated, you see a big fuzzy spot.
So it’s basically turning it into an LED at that distance. And so they’ll use our research to try to claim that you know that theirs is better because it’s more power. And their usual claim is they’ll say, “By being more powerful, we can do that treatment in a fraction of the time.”
So let’s take like the FX for low back pain. It takes 20 minutes for us to do the chronic low back pain treatment. That’s what we showed with the double blind placebo controlled study where eight sessions over 20 minutes caused an initial pain reduction of 58% at the end of the two months. And then at the 12 month follow up there was an additional 17% reduction in pain for a total of 75%. But they found that and studies show that when you do low power over longer time, you have a different and a better effect than high power in a short time.
But these companies, they pitch their lasers like it’s a microwave oven. So the analogy I like to use when I’m teaching doctors this, let’s say, we’re going to go have a barbecue, and I bring out a slow cooker, and I’m gonna cook these ribs. I’m gonna put this certain amount of energy into the ribs for, say, three hours at a certain lower energy. And then somebody else comes in, says, “Hey, I’ve got this microwave, I can put the same amount of energy into those ribs, and I can do it in 30 minutes.” Are those ribs, is the texture gonna be the same? And it’s gonna be completely different, because that high energy in a short period of time changes what’s going on in the molecular structure. And this is shown time and time again in research, you look in the book by Tuner and Hode, and that talks about it. You look at the study, biphasic dose responsive, low level light and laser therapy by Hamlin. It talks about these things, it talks about how longer time at lower power has a better effect than higher power and short time. So there’s not really any research to support these claims, but they’re making the claims anyway. You know, and they get away with it, because the FDA is not really cracking down on them very much, and it’s a great sales point for them.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, as I hear that, I’ve been very sensitive of the fact that our listenership on the podcast has been, you know, doctors, as we kind of figured it would be, but also some somewhat surprisingly, patients as well. And so, I’m thinking from this perspective, both doctor and patient that, you know, for those who maybe might have a concern, potentially have like a higher investment cost with Erchonia. I think both doctor and patient can appreciate the the security, if you will, I don’t know if that’s the right word, or the peace of mind in knowing that what you’re investing in isn’t just the device itself, but you’re also investing in the research that has gone into that to ensure that A, it’s safe, and B, it’s effective.
There’s, I’m telling you man, that has been a really cool thing for me. In fact, we just had a new patient come through the door, who had been talking to a podiatrist about her plantar fasciitis. And the podiatrist was like, “Well, if this splint thing that we’ve prescribed for you doesn’t work, then it’s going to be surgery.” It was like straight to zero to, like, Mach 10, in terms of his approach. And it was, it was so cool to be able to tell her look, we have the research to back it up. And so often in the realm of Physical Medicine, and I appreciate it in certain realms, we give these approximations, and I get it, but it was cool to be able to say we should see resolution in six to eight treatments. That’s the timeframe that we’re gonna be banking on, because that’s what the research shows. And so it’s powerful.
Dr. Kirk Gair: Yeah, it’s so true. And that’s what I tell when I do my travel across the US and train with other the doctors, I tell them, “hey, don’t even listen to me, don’t believe me. Fact, check me, but do it in the legit way, not the Facebook way.” Really look into things, read the research. And you’ll you’ll see these research papers that Erchonia has to get the 20 different FDA clearances, I say look at the other companies and see if they have any research on their product. Almost none of them do. There’s a few that have some research on their product. Most of them don’t. Most of them cite our research or the low level research on there. But like you said, here we can clearly say these are expectations if we go back to the brain ones too. So let’s use that as an example with this other company that’s coming out and saying, “Hey, we can put more power into these kids’ brains. And we can make a big difference.”
And we’re getting reports of kids having seizures, because they’re putting in one watt, which is 1000 milliwatts into these kids, and sending them home telling the parents to do “Hey, do an hour on your kid with this laser.” And this is…that’s a huge, huge dosage that’s actually contraindicated, especially when you have an infrared laser because you have a thermal impact. So now you’re actually putting an infrared thermal laser on the brain at high power, you’re heating up the tissues. There was one that Dr. Brock shared, where he knows of a guy who had this laser used on him and he had a psychotic break and had to be institutionalized. Because the body is not designed to receive that much power. It makes as much sense as saying, “hey, you know what, if I take you know, this much Tylenol in a day, it’s beneficial. But let me take 10 times the recommended dose instead of going up to 2500 milligrams maximum, through that 25,000.” What’s going to happen you’re gonna get liver failure. And we see this with everything with all kinds of medications that you have a therapeutic window and when you go beyond it, it doesn’t work well, but for some reason, trying to get this through some doctors minds is making me think of like that scene from back the future where where the guy’s grabbing his head and going, “Hello? McFly? McFlye?” trying to wake them up. And it’s like, I want to take some these doctors. No, we read McFly. We read the research here because we’ve got clearly showing the dosages that work, let’s say for autistic kids as we submitted that paper to the FDA, and you know, are kind of like Steve Shanks, says you they don’t just pick these values out of the air that he tried higher power things and thought it didn’t work as well. And they’ve tried to teach particular times and they found what are the sweet spots that are in there. So there’s a ton of research, like you said, that gives peace of mind to the individual who’s buying this laser that is beneficial, that is therapeutic, it’s going to do what it says to do. And and we have these parameters where it can be effective.
Dr. Andrew Wells: This reminds me of a thought when I was in…I was studying for national boards. This was probably like 14 years ago. And I was sitting in on a board review class with Dr. Danoffrio, he’d just mentioned the kind of like in passing us “Oh, yeah. And by the way, I use lasers on on brains.” I remember thinking like, “wow, that sounds like really dangerous. Like, why would you have a laser on somebody’s brain?” Because I’m thinking there’s all kinds of different wavelengths that can go through someone’s brain, some are healthy, some are really dangerous. And I was even thinking, “Well, I would never put a laser on my brain, because who knows what kind of effect that would have like 10 or 15, 20 years down the road?” Or even immediately, like you mentioned, you have these people who have these really immediate adverse reactions.
So I remember like, just banking that and I heard it, and I kind of dismissed it. And then I also, you know, I also kind of categorized lasers as just just for musculoskeletal pain . And because of the research, we’re seeing now that there’s there’s a huge scope, very wide scope of applications for lasers. And then, so doctors are now realizing this. And they’re starting to feel comfortable lasering brains.
Not, you know, but just based on misinformation from brands and companies. You can very easily do harm, because we’re talking about right brain tissue, it’s super sensitive to heat changes, it’s very sensitive to a lot of different things. And so, I think these well intentioned doctors, and also patients are looking for solutions and answers unwittingly subject themselves to damage. And that’s like the worst outcome for everybody, not only for the patient, the doctor, it’s a massive liability, but it’s also black eye to the industry, where people are already I would say, you know, somewhat skeptical about things like light therapy, We’re used to biochemical approaches where, here’s your symptom, here’s the pill, we’re gonna make a biochemical change in the body, and you’re gonna get some some kind of symptom relief, some kind of hearing as a result of that.
And when we’re talking about laser therapy, we have, I think, a really unique opportunity now, especially backed by the research and the hard work that Erchonia has done to really put their best foot forward and say, “Hey, this is not only effective, but it’s safe.” And then spoil it by just giving misinformation and and right kind of the shell game of like, “Hey, look over here, look over here, we’re doing the same thing.” But it’s actually not the same thing. And I think it’s, that’s why we’re doing this episode right now for not only for doctors, but also for patients to know that like, if you’re gonna laser somebody’s brain, or any part of their body, no know what it actually is. That’s just based on marketing and sales hype.
Dr. Kirk Gair: Yeah, that’s so true. And you brought up a good point there, when you talk about we’re used to like photochemical, photochemistry, or we’re used to biochemistry kind of reactions. That brings up a good segue into, you know, the difference in these wavelengths, too, is that you get a different reaction with say, visible light, versus say infrared and far infrared because, and this is basic physics too so again, please, I encourage people to fact check me go and look at the articles on the physics of light. And so if we look at infrared, that’s going to have more of a mechanical or a photo thermal effect in the body. That’s why like when you use that, that class four laser on the arthritic knee, it feels good, because you feel the heat that’s going on, there’s a photo thermal kind of effect on it. We go on the visible spectrum, we’re not really we’re not getting that thermal impact. We’re getting photochemical and enzymatic, and we’re getting signaling cascades. And there’s a fascinating paper that Steve Shanks, just showed me recently talking about the effects of, say, violet wavelengths of lasers. And this is something that definitely patients don’t know, most doctors don’t know, I didn’t even really understand this very well until doing deep discussions with Steve.
When we look at, say, like a violet wavelength laser that we’re using on the body, the energy in every individual photon is the highest energy of any type of wavelength we can use on our body. And this has nothing to do with the wattage, what it has zero impact on it. It is the inherent energy of it. And this energy is at like 3.06 electron volts per individual photon. Then we go down to like, say a visible red one that’s clicking at about 1.9 electron volts. So it’s still energetic, but it’s less. When you go down to infrared instead of 1.49 electron volts, so much lower. Now, the reason that’s important is that it takes at least that 1.9 electron volts to cause an electron in the cell, when laser hits it, to jump that electron into a higher energetic state. If you use an infrared laser, it doesn’t have the energy to trigger this electron to jump into a higher state.
So why is that important? Why do we care about that? Well, some cool things happen. There’s a whole cascade that happens. So let’s say you get the violet laser, and you get it on the cell, the electrons going to jump into a higher energetic state, and then when it falls back down, and especially sometimes it’ll stay there a little longer. As it falls down, it can trigger this release of other fluorescent lights, as the cell… as the as electron’s flowing back down. So if you have a violet laser, it’ll jump that electron to a higher state, it’ll be there for a little bit as it falls back down, you’re gonna get this phosphorescence to where it’ll release a green photon.
And then you get all these enzymatic cascades and suddenly cascades that only occur with that wavelength. Because specific wavelengths can trigger specific changes. And so there’s things you can do with the violet that you can’t with an infrared. Things with the green that you can’t with a red or an infrared. So the violet will get its reactions at that wavelength. And then it’ll trigger the release of this green one that gets specific reactions. And then that electron is gonna fall back down and release a red fluorescent photon that’s going to trigger red types reactions. And so it takes just one photon to trigger cascades like a domino effect. And we’re talking about millions of reactions that occur with a single photon. So this is why it’s there’s a huge difference between visible and infrared. So when an infrared company tries to quote our research and say they can do the same thing, it works differently. It works photo thermal, not photochemical.
Dr. Andrew Wells: You know what I’m seeing as well, and I want to get your take on this, Dr. Gair, is we’re talking about lasers and other manufacturers that make lasers, what what is what’s your take on LED lights? because I often find even probably even more so than Erchonia being compared to other lasers, it’s actually Erchonia being compared to two LED products, and those are a lot more prolific just because they’re, like, extremely cheap to buy for doctors and patients. But yeah, what are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Kirk Gair: Well, and especially now, like, if you’re on social media, you’re gonna get bombarded by LED products from China that make outrageous claims that are not supported by anything FDA backed on there at all. I think the easiest way to kind of, in a sense, debunk that one is let’s look at the studies that Erchonia did to get FDA clearances. They always use the double blind and quadruple blind placebo controlled studies.
And guess what the placebo is. It’s an LED device that’s actually of the same wavelength. And it’s actually turned on, it’s doing the same amount of dosage, the same amount of everything. So they’re not even like trying to say, Oh, it’s just a sham treatment, which turned off, they’re actually using an LED and comparing it.
So let’s go back to the autism study. So in the autism study, they took two groups of kids and one group got the Erchonia lasers, the other group got an LED of the same amount of dosage and everything, same wavelength, there was no impact at all, no change with the LED on there. They then took the kids who are in that LED control group and crossed them over six months later, and they received laser. And you saw that those kids got the same kind of benefits from the laser. So it’s nothing unique to the kids, just the LED didn’t really work very well on it.
When we look at the Zerona for fat loss, there’s a lot of LED companies out there that claim that they can that their LED device is just as good as Zerona, but it’s a fraction of the cost. Many of them actually will quote the Zerona research ironically, on their page. One even used our study showing the effects of the Zerona laser on fat cells were triggers that transitory poor, and causes the emulsification of the fat, which we had to give them a cease and desist letter on that one to stop using that and misrepresenting it.
Well, in that study, to get FDA clearance, guess what the placebo device was? It was an LED. And the LED showed about 10% as effective as the as the true laser. So we’ve got that one. Awesome. Let’s go to chronic low back pain or as you mentioned earlier, plantar fasciitis. Both of those ones, the placebo was an LED device. And you see some benefits while the LED is being used. But where the big difference comes is that the LED doesn’t show long term benefits. So both with the plantar fascia, fasciitis study and a low back study, we showed that even when the laser was stopped, the patient continue to get better towards creating long term changes where it’s actually getting tissue to heal, whereas the LED didn’t.
So we have those studies that help to really support that an LED may have some impacts, but it’s nowhere near maybe about 10% as effective as a laser. So I think for a doctor using it in a clinic, would you want to get something that’s 10% as effective? Or do you want something that’s more effective in your office? I know for me, I want to blow people’s minds when they come in. Now when we go into one of the big guys who’s who’s talking about LED being equal to lasers is Michael Hanlon. And Michael Hanlon started off as a researcher at Harvard. And now he basically is as on the advisory board for practically every LED company around the world. So a lot of this information came from a paper he published with, Hiscanin (sp?) was his co-author. And it said LEDs being equivalent to lasers basically. And so I was online and this Hiscanin, he has a social media page for LED therapy. And he shared the Erchonia laser study on autism, “what a great day for, for lasers and led this is showing the impact of LEDs on the brain.”
And he’s talking about how great of a study it was that Erchonia did. And so I go on there, “Hey, man, thanks for sharing, but I gotta let you know, LEDs were the placebo and they were showing they have no impact.” And so we got into this discussion that I can send you guys to the little picture so you can see about our discussion. He immediately goes from supporting the research to knocking it. “Oh, well, you know, you must have used LEDs that were different powers, different, you know, different, you know different dosages etc.” I said, “no, no, it was identical. And then those kids actually got laser later they had a change.”
And he said, “Well, you know, yeah, but that’s just this is just one study. But, Hamlin and I did this study where we had 359 articles that show that LED was just as effective as lasikplus.” Well, what he didn’t know is that I had read all 359 of his studies, I actually went to his paper, because I looked and said, “Hey, I’m objective. Let me read this and see Is it true or is it not?” And I looked at his 359 research papers. Well on there one was a study on a bumblebee on using LED on a bumblebee literally on a single bumblebee. A lot of them were low, low level kinds of studies on just, like a doctor’s case study that they wrote this thing up and sent it in. So very low quality, not placebo controlled. Out of the 359 studies, they only had three studies that directly compare to LED and a laser, none of the other studies directly compared it, because to say that it’s equal, you need to put them on an equal playing field. It’s kind of like saying, “who was the best boxer of all time, like if Mike Tyson fought Muhammad Ali in his prime who’s going to win or if it’s the Dodgers are today versus you know, the Dodgers of 50 years ago, who would win?” The only way you can compare that is a direct comparison, you need like a hot tub time machine, to put them back together and at the same time and go head to head. And I told him, “You didn’t have head to head studies, you got three studies. Two are on two hypersensitivity and one was on post surgical cardiac pain.” So when I called him out on that, then he actually admitted, yeah, you’re right. There’s more research on lasers being more effective than LEDs right now. But then he spun into, “but I think in the future it’s going to be different.” But he just admitted that he didn’t have the research to prove his claims. Now when they did that study, Hamlin failed to mention all of his conflicts of interest. So Steve Shanks, Erchonia’s owner and president and chief researcher caught that. And he reported it to the journal and they had to issue a correction that he failed to list like, there’s like 30 different conflicts of interest he had. So again, that’s where you have money influencing, influencing things, because you’re selling a product on there.
Dr. Andrew Wells: So science is, what is the saying? The sciences is what?
Dr. Kirk Gair: The Science is settled?
Dr. Andrew Wells: Science is settled. Yeah.
Dr. Chad Woolner: The question that keeps coming to my mind, and I want this to be a sincere question, not a loaded question. Because I want to…I’m genuinely curious about this. Why do you think it is that Erchonia seems to be, and correct me if I’m wrong, but it sure seems to me they’re the only one that is sincerely engaging in research. I know that there’s a massive time component and money component that goes into it. I know that Erchonia spends a significant…why do you think it is that so few, if not no one else in the laser space is engaging in the research?
Because I know the easy answer for us to say,” Oh, they’re just lazy, and they just want to make money.” Maybe that might be it. But the thing for me is, and not not to say that, “here we go on the Laser Light Show chat gonna start a, a rivaling company with Erchonia.” But the thing is, I think that there would be an opportunity for a laser company who was sincere enough to say, you know, what, there’s, there’s a huge opportunity. There’s only one laser company right now that’s actually sincerely engaging in real legitimate research. There’s a huge opportunity for us to also do the same and not just piggyback off of there. Do you think it’s that laser companies just think too little too late? There’s no way we can catch up to Erchonia? Or what other factors do you think are there as to why so few are actually engaging?
Dr. Kirk Gair: Yeah, I’ve thought about that. I’ve got I’ve got a couple of events is tha, first off, why does Erchonia do so much research? I think one of the things is we’ve got the Tom Brady of lasers with Erchonia. Steve Shanks. I mean, if you sit down, Steve Shanks, and I sat down at the annual business meeting last year, and for four hours, just talk laser. And I felt like I was just like, talking with Stephen Hawking, you know, because he knows lasers so well. So when you have someone like that directing the research, that’s really unique. And he just he loves the research.
So as he told me, he said, “Look,” he said, “if a different wavelength or different powers is better, we’d use it. We’re not married to a specific wavelength. All we care about is research.” And I think that’s the unique thing is he comes in with an open mind of like, let’s just do what shows what the research shows works. Whereas a lot of other companies come and say, “we’re making this product like this. So let’s make sure that everything fits to support what we’re doing,” instead of saying, we make the product that fits with research, right? So Steve started with the research of what was what was the research showing, and then built it up from there and then continues to research it. That’s why he thinks changing. Like, if it was 20-18 years ago, when I start with Erchonia, we look at the treatment times that were recommended. They were recommending 30 and 60 second treatment times.
Well, as time goes on, we know that’s not the most effective thing. So we look at them a lot longer. So that’s that’s the aspect of where Erchonia is coming from. Now, let’s talk about the other companies. I can tell you, particularly about this one company that I’ve been mentioning without saying it name like Lord Voldemort. I’m not saying the name of it, but it’s popular in the, in the neuro community. My associate doctor used to be their second in command and their main researcher. So after he left that company, he told me, he said, “Dude,” he said, “Here’s what our research was.” He said, the owner of that company actually said, “we’re not going to do any research. There’s no point in us spending any money, all we need to do is we sit back, we wait for Erchonia to do their research, spend their money on it, spend their time, let them get the FDA clearance.” And he said, “all we have to do is we just file an equivalency with the FDA.” And he said he couldn’t believe that they could get an equivalency with like, say, a completely different wavelength, a completely different power. But they just have to file an equivalency with the FDA and say, Hey, we’re a laser too, we can do everything this device claims to do. And instead of spending $5 million, they just sent in a paper to the FDA and they get a clearance.
So it’s a really easy way to do it. And a lot of these companies are you know, they’re newer, they’re smaller, they don’t have the resources to do it. And they don’t have a Steve shanks. So I think that’s a big reason for doing what they do. And you look at all these companies, almost all those companies those class IV ones, their FDA clearance is based on claiming equivalency to a 1970s heat lamps study. And I encourage people to fact check me, go look at the 510 clearance for the other lasers, and you’re gonna see that and I’ll bring up some specific ones. So the Yvonne laser 510 clearance is for increasing topical temperature to decrease pain. That’s the only clearance cutting edge MLS laser increase surface temperature to decrease pain for temporary payments. That’s what the clearances are for. So I can at least speak to that one particular company as to why I hear from their former main researcher who, as he said they never did any research they just copied Erchonia on there.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Oh, yeah, and for me, I, my mind immediately first goes to at the end of the day, you know, the people and I don’t want to say they’re gonna suffer, right? Because it sounds like very melodramatic and disingenuous. But what I mean by that is is imagine if every laser company, put in the same level of effort and money and resources into the research where lasers would be collectively, right? The tide rising for everybody. Because clearly these other these other laser companies have benefited from Erchonia’s research.
Imagine if they were engaging in high caliber research? How Erchonia you could benefit too, vice versa? Do you know what I mean? And I think Erchonia would be open to that, like, Hey, that’s a cool study that was done by XYZ laser company, this was this was powerful this, this shows and validates what we’re doing too you know, like almost like this, you know, field where everybody was collectively engaged with at the end of the day, the patient in mind, right? For the benefit of the patient is the real idea there that that to me is where my mind automatically goes it means.
And that kind of goes back to a little bit of you originally stating, or you were talking, when you talk about like Russia and these Eastern Bloc countries, why do you think it is, they see, and again, maybe this is just my perception, but they they seem to be further ahead in this game than we are? With with a lot of like, not just lasers, but a lot like the cutting edge stuff. You know, I was at a seminar with Jerome Rerucha. And he was talking about some of the studies back in like the 50s and 60s that Russia was doing with vibration plates and vibration therapy and things like that. What do you think it is about those countries or that region that that at least again, the perception where where they’re kind of further ahead on those things?
Dr. Kirk Gair: I hate to say this, because I am a capitalist, but I think it’s capitalism, you know, it has been the healthcare system. Here, we are so dominated by our pharmaceutical companies. They are the dominant driving force. So anything that’s outside of their control for their financial benefit gets suppressed and gets poo-pooed.
So in that study, if you look at that one, low level laser therapy in Russia, in 2017, they actually talked about this, and the Russians were confused. They’re like, “What the hell is wrong? Because you guys, you guys are not? This works really well, you know, this works really well.”
And I think the thing is that, you know, their system was designed just to save money, you know, because you’re trying to socialize it, and they’re trying to save money and just look at the results and and looking objectively at the research. And also in sports performance they’re looking at how do they get that unfair advantage too so they’re looking at it objectively.
Whereas when it comes to the US, there’s so many, and just looking at our FDA. I mean, come on, you know, you’ve got, we got the autism study, we submit that in 2018, and it still hasn’t gotten approved. And meanwhile, you got these radical Alzheimer’s drugs that all kinds of experts came out and said they’re dangerous and they got approved. So it’s just we have a completely different model. And I don’t say we should have a model like Russia at all, but I’m just saying that’s the downfall, that’s the negative impact of, of our type of system, especially when it’s dominated by by big pharma. The Russians also talked about that study, they said, one of the problems was that the studies in Europe, and in the US were using the wrong set of parameters. They said they use the wrong wavelengths, they use powers that were too high. And so and they said, they would then find one study that said, like say Aetna would find one study that said, Oh, at least it was ineffective. So they extrapolate that out to all lasers are ineffective. So they didn’t even use logic. They were just looking they had their conclusion in mind and look at how do we support? You know, the conclusion we want to have? So they had that bias going into it.
Dr. Chad Woolner: What would you say are some of the other most maybe common myths or misconceptions around laser? Anything else? I mean, because obviously, this is the big one. Yeah, talking about is the wavelength versus power.
Dr. Kirk Gair: Right. I’d say perhaps the biggest one that is going to be depth of penetration. Because you hear this to where everybody starts hammering on, “oh, just the deepest penetrating laser. So it’s the best laser that’s on there.” Well, okay, the depth of penetration is going to be important. If you’re like, what you’re saying you’re using that class IV laser to try to heat up a joint to get that deep pain relief. When you use a high powered deep penetrating laser. The high power is inhibitory for pain signaling, but it’s also inhibitory for other types of cellular processes, the deep penetration, then you can get like into an arthritic joint or into a painful disc, you can get that thermal kind of a relief. However, that’s not what has to drive the bus for healing.
So let’s look at this, again, I encourage the doctors to fact check me. There are studies by Oran and Microphonics on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, where they actually lasered over the tibia and showed, in a mouse model, they showed improvements in spatial awareness and cognitive functioning. And they said, “Wow, we didn’t even have the laser the brain but by using a visible laser. We were able to affect tissues far away.” And one of the theories was they said that lasering with the tibia stimulate mesenchymal stem cells, which then migrate up to the brain and clear it out amyloid beta plaquing, and improve brain function. And they said also created this whole signaling cascade, far away from the site of application. Kind of like having sunlight, I can get sunlight on my arm, and it’s not just going to stimulate vitamin D here, I’ll get melanin, I’ll get a melanin in here, but I’m gonna get vitamin D throughout the body, I’m also gonna get melatonin production, or effects in the brain by light stimulus here.
And so we look at this we can have, the depth of penetration is not what determines the factors. There’s a study on photobiomodulation in anulus cells effort for disc herniations. And it talks about violet, green and red wave into lasers, which do not directly penetrate to the disc. But they showed that with these lasers, you can stimulate these signaling cascades, that will stimulate extracellular matrix modifying enzymes to actually repair the disk. So that deep penetrating laser will not stimulate the extracellular matrix modifying enzymes, but you’ll get a thermal impact. So it feels good while you’re under it, but you don’t get long term changes. Whereas with these ones, you’re actually repairing the tissue with a surface penetrating laser.
And this goes back to what I mentioned earlier about that electron jump into the higher orbit. In that particular study, and this is basic physics for lasers and light, that is where they say you can take a violet laser, because some people are gonna say, “Oh, well, that’s just a dermatological, laser it only hits the surface.” Well, yeah, initially, but you get this cascade of events that occurs that can go deep through the tissues, because it’s signaling things deeply. Steve also talks about with the body being 60%, water, and blood being 90% water, that the blue and violet light propagates the best through water membranes, it goes the deepest, whereas infrared goes the shallowest, you hit these thermal impacts, whereas violet, and blue doesn’t get that. So you have this whole myth that visible lasers don’t penetrate deep enough to do anything beyond the surface. And that is easily knocked out by just reading about the physics or talking about the way these electrons jump up and fall down.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Well, Kirk, you can you can talk probably more specific on this, but I remember being shown at least one I’m sure there’s probably more than one study that they could visibly see on either functional MRI or something where when they laser your brain, they saw an immediate impact on various brain regions. And so, again, correct me if I’m wrong here, but what what you’re saying and we’re what the study is implying is though, even though it’s not directly like, “Okay, I shine a 635 nanometer or a 405 nanometer wavelength on the head, that is penetrating through the head and hitting the brain.” It’s not that it’s that it’s, there’s a signaling cascade, like a domino effect, if you will, indirectly. But but the but the thing that we’re seeing, at least on whatever imaging is taking place, that’s in real time, correct? I mean, it’s the signaling cascade is instant, I mean, the speed of light, right?
Dr. Kirk Gair: Yeah, it’s happening as you’re doing it. So like, we go back to the Erchonia autism study, they use functional MRIs on there. And they showed the kids brains before they got the laser and you’d see, you know, red showed where there’s neural activity and blood flow. And then they do the functional MRI and you see changes in that to where you’re seeing increases in blood flow, increases in neuronal activity, especially to the cerebellum and frontal lobe, which are very important for kids with autism to try to manage those symptoms.
And you and like you said, you’re seeing that in real time happening. It’s not like you’re trying to follow up months later. This isn’t a five minute treatment that you’re sitting it Calixto Machado who did the research on on autism, he also did studies with quantitative EEG is on the brain doing vagus nerve stimulation with the red violet combination, and you can see changes in the EEG that happen while you’re doing it.
I talked with my good buddy, Dr. Datis Kharrazian, about this stuff and he sent me a paper that was published when he was at Harvard getting his PhD in research showing that there are these canals too, that connect the bone marrow in the in the skull to the surface of the brain, and that stem cells and immune cells can migrate through these canals and our visible lasers to stimulate stem cells and, and immune cell migration too, so you get that benefit.
And then Penny and I, Penny is the West Coast sales rep for California. She and I had a really fascinating experience when we’re at Life West’s Wave in August of this year. We had our booth for Erchonia across from this company called the Wavy that does EEGS of the brain, they partnered with Crocs to create this new type of the EEG that doesn’t have all the mess and it’s got a really nice kind of kind of cap it’s put on there. And one of the administrators for Life West had a stroke. And so he’s over there and he’s getting the scan done. We didn’t know he was getting the scan done. But he’s getting the scan done it like at like 9:55 in the morning, and it maps his brain. You can see this complete dysfunction to where this whole hemisphere is just not firing at all. And so in between this time he comes over and he sits down under the FX.
We do a 10 minute session on the FX. We didn’t do any like functional neurostimulation know he just had the laser on his brain. So I didn’t even deal with any kind of eye movement activation or cranial nerve stimulation, just the laser on his brain. Out of curiosity. He didn’t tell us he did this, but he goes back across and he has Wavy run another brain scan on him. So it’s just one hour apart. And we have this paper showing it. It’s where Wavy didn’t know he got the laser. We didn’t know he got the Wavy done. And he gets this print out. It comes out. He’s like, “guys, check this out.”
And the guy who was who, who was there with Wavy comes over and asks us, “what the heck did you guys do?” We said, “why?” He’s like, “look at this scan. we saw a change here in just one hour apart, that we never have seen it change this rapidly for. Normally it takes,” he said, “months to see a change in the brain base. And you see how we had this little X on here, that’s where there was minimal brain activity. And that’s where his stroke was. And look at that you see the color change here indicating increased neuronal activity.”
And we saw really quickly, so we have objective evidence that it did it. And it’s safe, we’re not lighting them up with tons of too many photons, they’re like, you’re gonna see some of these other companies, the Voldemort laser that I mentioned earlier, they’ll show sticking 200 joules in two minutes on a person’s head. There’s one of them where they have four lasers doing 700 joules per spot for 2800 joules. On the patient’s brain. The World Association of laser therapy recommends only going between 2 joules and maybe 16 joules for a dosage. And they’re doing 2800 joules, which there’s no research to support it. So as you mentioned earlier, these doctors are going to get in trouble at some point because that laser is not FDA cleared for use head and the way they’re using it. There’s no research to support it. So whereas we’ve got all the studies that you said, showing the changes showing the benefits and the safety.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s wild. absolutely wild. Andrew, anything else you want to cover, myths and misconceptions? Any other questions? Burning Questions about lasers? You’ve given us a ton to chew on here Dr. Gair, a ton.
Dr. Kirk Gair: Cool. Awesome. I’m a total laser nerd.
Dr. Chad Woolner: No, that’s awesome.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I just want to say, yeah, they know I really appreciate this. When I read before we started recording, you know, we said “this is probably going to sound like a rant. But also this is all true information.” And I like when Dr. Gair says, “just look up the research fact. Do your fact checking. And you’ll find the information.” And that’s what we found as well. You know, we’ve had the opportunity to interview a lot of really brilliant doctors, many of whom use, or actually all of whom use their Erchonia lasers, and they all say the same thing. Like there’s a lot of comfort and safety and peace of mind like Dr. Woolner mentioned in knowing their research and know what you’re putting on your patient’s body. What’s the best way to do that? If doctors are like, “Yeah, you know, I’m going to take you up on that challenge. I do want to look at the research, what is the easiest way to find the research specific to Erchonia lasers?”
Dr. Kirk Gair: Specific, just go on to the Erchonia website, that’s an easy way to do it, because they have links, you just click on Research. And that’s where, you know, I’d say if you’re looking at getting other lasers go on to the other lasers, companies websites, look to see if and list their their their FDA clearances. And they can see most of them just say “FDA cleared.” Which doesn’t say what and you need to know that because like, let’s say, here, I’m in California. And I do realize that six seminars three times a month training doctors, I tell him, “hey, whatever you’re going to do, make sure you see what it’s FDA cleared for because then you know how to use it.” Here in California, the board says not only does your laser has to be FDA cleared, you can only use it as its FDA cleared. So like any of these doctors who are using the Voldemort laser on the head, they’re in violation of the state board. It’s a board violation, what you’re doing right there.
And then if they’re marketing it, if they’re saying, “hey, I can use this laser for these brain conditions,” it’s not cleared for even use on the head. Whereas your Erchonia laser, and you can see this on the website, head to toe clearance for chronic pain and inflammation from the head to the toe. So that way, let’s say if something did happen, and the board asked you, “Hey, why did you use this laser on the head?” I’ve got an FDA clearance. “Is there any research that supports this?” Yes, we have the autism study, we have the acute EEG study by Calixto Machado. We have a pending FDA clearance for this stuff.
So you’re backed by it, whereas these other ones, they ask you, “do you have an FDA clearance for use on the head?” “Well no.” “What’s your laser FDA cleared for?” “for topical heating?” “Should you hate the brain” “Well No?” You know, you’re gonna get yourself in trouble. So you got to look at those things and think think objectively, and you got to think like a lawyer too. I mean, let’s be honest, that’s just what our nation is like. And even if you didn’t cause the actual injury, truth doesn’t matter. It perception is what matters. It’s kind of like when Bill Clinton was on trial for being impeached. And they asked him a question he told him “well, at depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.” Spoken like a true lawyer that he was. You know, the truth doesn’t matter in the law. It’s just perception and how you spin it.
And that’s the thing is you open yourself up to vulnerabilities when use those ones in different ways. So you look there under the websites, compare one to the other, compare their FDA clearances, compare the research and do this, if they cite research, read the paper that they cite, because most of the time they’re gonna cite an Erchonia research paper or they’re gonna cite other research that doesn’t even support their laser most of the high power devices cite low power or research done there. So it’s like how can you use that to support your device when your device is completely different?
And the way they tried to do is by saying, “we could do this in a fraction of the time, we can do it one minute what took 20 minutes and fact check me on that.” Go on to PubMed, read the nuts and bolts of low level laser therapy, read the biphasic dose response even by by Hamlin, which was with Harvard. And you’ll see them talking about that those things are not accurate. The best way if you really want to dive into get the book by Tuner and Hod on low level laser therapy. It’s expensive. It’s like 170 bucks. It’s super thick, though in there they cite. There’s like 125 pages of research in there citing 2500 studies. So if you really, really want to learn this stuff, look at that. They have a great section, even talking about sales tricks on there, and it’ll list all the things we talked about, that’s talked about in that book, and they’re independent. They’re not associated with any laser company. So they’re just talking about the research, but that’s a great one to do.
Dr. Chad Woolner: For those who prefer microwave ribs. You can go for another laser company.
Dr. Kirk Gair: Yes. Exactly.
Dr. Chad Woolner: The other thing I was gonna say before our webinars start our webinar, our podcast episode started with you here. I told Andrew, I said you need to pass this up the chain to Steve Shanks and everybody there at Erchonia. Tell them, they need to change the slogan for Erchonia to rip off micromachine’s slogan, “If it doesn’t say Erchonia, that’s not the real thing.” You know, remember the old machines slogan, “if it doesn’t say micro machine, it’s not the real thing”?
Dr. Kirk Gair: Exactly, exactly.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So anyhow. But yeah, Dr. Gair, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to be here with us. You’ve really given a ton of value and a ton of great information and appreciate you really helping.
Dr. Kirk Gair: Yeah, if I can add one thing, for docs to continue this discussion to make sure you join my Facebook group Dr. Gair’s Laser Therapy and Marketing Secrets on Facebook. Yeah, cause we’ve got close to 800 doctors in there now. And it’s a great discussion, it’s a great place where you can learn more. Yeah, any questions open. You know, even if you don’t have Erchonia lasers, I have doctors in there who have high powered lasers, because there’s benefits to those as well. Sure. But I just want to dispel the myths and see how you use different things for different conditions on there. And that’s a great place to learn more and to make connections with doctors.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah. Thanks for offering that Dr. Gair. And I hope docs take you up on that, because sometimes I think docs listen this podcast and they have questions like “man, it’d be really cool to talk to Dr. Gair.” Well, here’s your opportunity to do that join the direct access to Dr. Gair. And yeah.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Number one, I’ll put a link here in the show notes for that. But also, number two, I’m a member of that group, too. For what it’s worth. Not that not that there’s any value of me being there. But just what I can attest to is the fact that that Kirk, you are extremely engaged in the group, and constantly number one, on top of answering questions really, really well and effectively and quickly. And then number two, constantly putting out great, you know, articles, research papers, food for thought, tips, tricks, you name it, it’s a really high value groups. And what’s cool is at least for now, anyways, it’s a free group. And so docs should really take advantage of that. So great, great opportunity there. So awesome.
Dr. Kirk Gair: Yeah. And that’s my intention is to keep it free. Because it’s, you know, I started with lasers 18 years ago. And that was before, we had podcasts, and webinars and seminars. I know how difficult it is. And I based my whole purchase of the laser off of Dr. Murphy. I trusted him. And so that’s what my basis was, but now we have access to more information. And my whole goal is, as you mentioned earlier, when things are done improperly, it’s bad for the whole category of lasers. Because then as they say, someone, a patient goes in, they get a bad result, or they don’t get the right device or someone said-
Dr. Chad Woolner: I tried that already, it didn’t work.
Dr. Kirk Gair: Yeah, exactly. We all do that. And you know, then that patient comes away they say, “Oh, laser doesn’t work.” And that’s bad for everybody. So my whole goal is just to help people be as good as they can be. Because I’m maxed out, I’m so booked. It’s just crazy that I have more than enough patients to deal with. People need help, especially now in the post COVID world where we’re seeing long COVID. And there’s things you can do with the lasers to help with that. And we really need like an army of doctors who have lasers and who have the knowledge of how to use it to help people so that they don’t succumb to the greed of the corporations who are just looking to get them on their drugs for the rest of their life.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, great. Great point. They’re so awesome. Well, thanks again. Dr. Garrett. Docs, thank you so much, though I should say Doc’s and patients, thanks for listening to this episode. We hope that this has been incredibly valuable for you. Share this with others. If you’re feeling like they need a little bit of a healthy dose of truth to help offset some myths and misconceptions to set them straight. Share this with him. And we will talk to you guys 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 Erchnoia 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 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.
Red light laser therapy, otherwise known as low-level laser therapy (3LT®), is a promising emerging treatment used to treat a number of medical concerns including joint and back pain, among many others. Researchers have noted the effective biochemical and physiologic effects of therapy. 3LT® has specifically been shown to target inflammation reduction, tissue healing acceleration, and pain modulation. These positive effects have proven to pain practitioners that laser therapy is an effective and safe way to manage these chronic conditions.
Since the treatment is still new to the market, professionals and patients have many questions about its uses and safety concerns. Here’s why laser therapy for pain is perfectly safe for your patients. Of course, medical professionals must provide guidance for their patients. Here’s where you can start…
Low-Level Laser Therapy encompasses light therapies that utilize lasers in the red and near-infrared (NIR) range. These devices emit LED light at specific wavelengths, penetrating into the skin and providing powerful therapeutic effects at the cellular level.
These highly concentrated lasers stimulate cells to support the mitochondria, known as the “power generators” of the cell. As laser therapy is performed, the mitochondria absorb the light and increase the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the cell’s fuel. The cells transform ATP into energy and cells become more energized, allowing them to perform their functions more efficiently as well as repair and regenerate damage.
Scientists have discovered under performance of mitochondria leads to adverse physical effects such as pain, and skin and immune deficiencies. Research has shown that light therapy in the red and NIR reduces pain for patients.
Related reading If you are interested in learning more about how 3LT® works.
3LT® is an extremely safe, non-invasive treatment and is not associated with any side effects at this time. The treatment is also fully painless.
The treatment is nontoxic and less harsh on the skin compared to topicals used to target the same concerns.
As with any treatment, overuse and abuse of laser therapy could lead to damage of the skin or eyes if proper protection is not used. Proper handling of the devices is imperative to their effectiveness and safety. Only practitioners who are qualified and trained in these therapies should be providing these treatment solutions.
The list of benefits for low-level laser therapy is extensive. Here are some of the reasons why practitioners in varied practices, use 3LT® to aid their patients:
3LT® has potential to improve patients’ overall health. By increasing cellular energy the treatment creates a positive chain reaction in the whole body. Similarly to how your energy levels affect your ability to perform at your best, whether that is in a sport, at work, or when facing obstacles, energized cells allow other parts of your body to perform at their peak.
No short-term side effects have been observed in any clinical trials and long-term effects are unlikely. However, the treatment continues to be reviewed and tested for further examination.
Given the often severe side effects of drugs and medications, light therapy is a great alternative for patients looking to stay away from painkillers. With the current opioid crisis, keeping patients away from potentially dangerous and addictive drugs is a priority.
Medical practitioners should consider 3LT® in their treatments and an alternative to prescription drugs. It is natural, safe, and effective. It can potentially treat many of the same symptoms and provide relief fast with none of the side effects.
As with any treatment, proper training and use of the device will ensure the safety of the treatment. 3LT® shows promising results in the treatment of numerous conditions including those of the skin, pain modulation, tissue restoration, and reducing inflammation. Within the scientific community, there is still continuing research and education in progress. However, 3LT® has shown to be a completely safe treatment with only positive outcomes for the patient.
Contact Erchonia today to learn more about how our 3LT® treatment can transform your practice.
