On today’s episode we sit down with Dr. Brandon Brock and James Shanks to discuss how Erchonia’s Zerona and Emerald Lasers are providing doctors and patients with powerful new options in helping those who are looking for solutions for non-invasive fat reduction. To learn more about these tools you can check out Erchonia’s site here:
https://www.erchonia.com/product-category/lasers-for-fat-loss/
To learn more about Dr. Brandon Brock and his trainings you can find out more here:
https://www.erchonia.com/seminars/
Or
https://functionalneurologyseminars.com/brandon-brock/
Transcript
Dr. Chad Woolner: What’s going on everybody, Dr. Chad Woolner here with my good friend Dr. Andrew Wells and our special guests today: Dr. Brandon Brock and James Shanks from Erchonia, and today Episode 9 of The Laser Light Show, we are going to be talking about how Erchonia is changing the weight loss game. So let’s get to it.
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: Alright everybody and welcome to the show. We have with us Dr. Brandon Brock and James Shanks. How are you fellas doing?
Dr. Brandon Brock: Good thanks!
James Shanks: Doing wonderful! Thank you gentlemen.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Awesome awesome. James I’m assuming you’re in Florida. Dr. Brock. Is that correct James?
James Shanks: Yes sir I am.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Awesome, and Dr. Brock where are you at right now?
Dr. Brandon Brock: I’m in Dallas, Texas.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Dallas, Texas. Awesome. Well uh, I guess a great place to start is maybe just a quick intro; who you guys are, how you fit into this whole equation with Erchonia, and yeah. Let’s maybe start there.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Go ahead James.
James Shanks: Okay, yeah I’ll go ahead and get us started off here. So yeah I wanna first off thank you guys for having us on. This is very exciting to be part of this podcast. Myself, James Shanks, I’ve been with Erchonia corporation now for 21 years. As many of you…those that might know or might not know, we are a family owned medical laser manufacturer. Having been in business for 27 years. Myself, I’ve been grateful to be a part of this for 21 years. I’ve worked through every different aspect of Erchonia corporation; seeing this corporation built from the ground up – a true American dream, how it was initially started through you’ve heard in some of your earlier podcasts, so it’s very exciting for me. So now i’ve been blessed to be a part of this and help launch the newest line of lasers for Erchonia corporations which is the Emerald laser system as a product director so I’ve had many years of experience understanding lasers and its various applications and i’m just glad to be a part of this next generation of lasers and how its transforming non-invasive fat reduction and medical weight loss industry.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Very very cool yeah, the Erchonia story is amazing and it is number one, the founding of it but also just the fact that it’s still a family company is really cool. Good to have you on the show. Dr. Brock, tell us a little about yourself.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Well I’m Dr. Brandon Brock and I live in Dallas, Texas where I practice mainly, just sort of integrative practice. We do a lot of chronic illness, I also do a lot of orthopedics. I’m a doctorate in nursing practice – I’m also a chiropractor, hopefully maybe a PHD pretty soon so we’ll see how that goes but I have been very blessed I gotta tell you to be able to work with Erchonia, it is a family owned company and that makes it a tight knit…sort of good communication, the ability to help with research and development, the ability to go out and present and demonstrate and teach. One of the philosophies they have is not just talking about lasers but teach people physiology, labs, anatomy, how to be a better practitioner all around – they really gain that philosophy in regards to education over the last several years and it’s been fantastic. So, offering things to doctors in regards to education and then developing newer devices that are always improving in regards to lasers and really today one of my favorite areas is really body composition, fat loss and reduction for a whole bunch of reasons which I think we’ll probably talk about but yeah this is a great moment, thank you so much for letting me be on here, i’m really glad I get to be here with James as well.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, well we’re excited to have you both here with us. On a personal note, Dr. Brock, I was – this was years ago, I was in one of your classes in Portland, a CE class that you were doing on functional medicine and man now here you are getting ready to get your PHD. That doesn’t surprise me in the least just cause I remember at that class learning so much. I’ve got binders full with copious notes from that experience so it’s our privilege and honor to have you both here with us so we’re excited. So I think for me I’m fairly familiar with the Zerona Laser. Maybe we start there in terms of talking…you know differences between the Zerona and now this Emerald Laser. Is that a good starting off point, jumping off point?
Dr. Brandon Brock: Actually, can I start somewhere before then – I want to dive into that, but I want to share an experience that I had years ago as a chiropractor. We were always looking for good, unique things to add to our practice and weight loss was always one thing we were interested in. Mainly dealing with patients who had musculoskeletal problems, weight was always a factor. We always had a challenge with patients trying to get them and helping them to lose weight. Whether it was through lifestyle modifications, diet, exercise, we had pretty poor compliance to be honest with our patients in losing weight and that no doubt contributed to their back pain and their hip pain and their knee pain and other joint pain. And so we added years ago we added body contouring in our clinic. Full transparency I did some research and bought like probably the cheapest machine on the market – it looked like and probably was Chinese made and I think we paid maybe a couple grand for this machine and it had sixteen of these LED paddles and these LED paddles emitted a red light and we would wrap the patient in these paddles.
And we noticed some change with our patients because the patients would lose inches but I gotta be honest I was pretty disappointed in the total results for our patients and we- it wasn’t cheap for our patients to go through the program and we did it for several months and eventually scrapped it because we were not getting the results that we felt our patients deserved.
And so I kinda wanted to set the stage for the weight loss industry – there are so many different things even aside from body contouring, there’s so many new concepts and ideas and really a lot of snake oil type stuff in the weight loss industry because I think patients are desperate for change and they want to lose weight – they want to look good, they want to feel good and there’s lots of options for patients and there’s lots of options for doctors and so I wanted to start this podcast with that in mind and really I want to set the stage for what Erchonia is doing and why they’re different in the weight loss space and maybe that’s maybe we can kick it off there.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, James go for it.
James Shanks: Sorry, didn’t mean to cut you off there. No but yeah, I think you’re absolutely right and from your experience that speaks volumes just to what you’ve gone through which is much like a lot of people out there. When they’re looking at non-invasive fat reduction or body contouring, it’s hard to decipher what’s actually true, what actually has validity to it and like you said, you went and bought something off market, might’ve been from China, some LED pads there’s plenty of those on the market for sure but it’s a very competitive industry, a lot of people are getting involved and I think you started off the broadcast talking about all the FDA clearances that Erchonia has achieved and a great number of those has been on non-invasive fat reduction and kinda the introduction to the market.
In 2009 was the first initial launch of the system which would be first Zerona using red laser technology which in the last ten years has received five FDA clearances on that particular device alone and I think that holds a lot of value and weight when you’re looking at non-invasive fat reduction systems. And at this current time and if you look at the market and how its continually evolving especially coming out of this small pandemic being [INAUDIBLE] as I’m saying it now, that now it’s more important than ever, with patients that have been sitting at home, everyone’s been stagnant, bad diet. It’s people are coming out of this heavier than ever, lack of mobility, so it’s becoming more important and not to mention the high obesity rate even going into the pandemic.
So for non-invasive fat reduction systems like you experience yourself, you are looking at something that was LED based. It’s very superficial and those who might not know all the level one double live placebo controlled clinical trials that Erchonia does is with a placebo group which is an LED device. And if you just look at the simple comparisons to our first initial launch to the red laser technology, the comparison showed in the three weeks worth of treatments with the Zerona that the average patient loss with true laser which is 3.73 inches versus an LED pad which you had was just under an inch. So you could see there’s a great difference as far as overall results and outcome when just looking at those specific two examples of LED technology or actual true visible laser. And now there’s many other systems since the time of the inception of our first initial red laser system, the Zerona.
Now there’s things out there which a lot of you guys are familiar with the cryolipolysis, ultrasound radio frequency, high intensity laser, CO2s, LEDs. There’s so many different types of systems in the market now that make it a very competitive market, but it’s very unique. What I alway explain to anyone that ever discusses non-invasive fat reduction with me is – don’t take my word for it, look at the research, show what the research says because a lot of these other devices out there, whether it’s cryolipolysis, ultrasound, radio frequencies – they do have indications for the FDA, but if you look at the actual clinical trial data, the results are very minimal but I will give these other companies a lot of credit. They do a fantastic job of marketing on their side to really promote their products.
And even now more so, is those initial clinical trials that we’ve done which is more than most companies have, we’ve stumbled into something better and that’s what leads us into now what we have is the Emerald laser system and it’s really approaching something different that we haven’t seen before. The original model was using the red 635 nanometer wavelength which is very effective but we’re seeing, we had seen in our clinical trial data using green at 532 that it has about 25% to 30% more energy so we were able to have better results when we treated those same patients for the same amount of time with red. We’re able to get a full inch better results in less time.
So what we are doing is we’re seeing that we’re continuing evolving in our approach to not just medicine in general in the healthcare industry but also aesthetics and non-invasive fat reduction but I’d say most importantly what we’ve seen for the green laser system is we are still the only company in the world that’s does a FDA level one clinical trial to show what the outcomes would be on patients for 30 to 40 BMI. And those who are not familiar, that’s in the obese range or obesity range. So we are treating patients of widespread fat. Where typically everything else that you would see on the market – it’s going to be in the ranges of 20 to 30 BMI which is small pockets of fat that might be considered aesthetic treatment. So now we have something that’s looked at much differently now. It’s not just small pockets of fat but widespread fat. Patients that are much larger in size who really need the help with their weight, with their fat reduction and that’s what we’re looking at now. So we’re looking at something that’s kinda changing the way you look at non-invasive reduction treatment and I know first hand that Dr. Brandon Brock can speak to those things that he speaks of what he sees in his clinic there and I’m not gonna take up too much here and you can come back to me but I want to pass it over to Dr. Brock so he can talk about just the things that he’s seen and how he’s even taken it to the next level for non-invasive fat reduction.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, I’m excited to hear your experience first hand. That’s kinda the unique position you’re in. You know is working hand in hand with Erchonia, you get to see kinda what’s happening on the clinical research side of things but also first hand in practice, you know your experiences. So yeah that being said, I’m excited to hear what you have to say about that.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Yeah well. It’s been really great to be able to you know be sort of a clinical instructor and talk about the devices and what they do – not just for weight loss but for pain also. But again, you know we do a lot of not just weight loss, body contouring. You know just breaking down on body fat so people can you know look better, feel better, and so forth. But you know we got a lot of chronically ill patients here that they want to go just beyond looking better. They want to feel better and so it’s really interesting. You know we do a lot of observational studies and so in order to really qualify for our sort of program I run just some basic labs you know I don’t want to do this when somebody with hypothyroidism and I don’t want to do it on certain people that have conditions where it’s really impossible to lose weight no matter what you’re doing.
We like to screen those people, just as a good medical oversight but one of the things that we’ve noticed is that fat cells make leptins and it was really interesting what I heard in the introduction because those cells make leptin, they go up to the brain and it just sort of says – look there’s more fat here. So can you just slow down the eating and it says this but the hypothalamus and then you know you’re supposed to slow down your eating so you don’t have as much you know obesity. But it’s really easy for the brain to get leptin resistant and so the leptins keep going up and up and up and the brain just ignores it because it does the same thing with insulin.
Those leptins, they actually end up going into joints and they actually react with hyaluronic acid and you get sort of an inflammatory component. Sort of like synovitis and it makes your joints hurt. So fat actually does make joints hurt. A lot of people are like “Hey, look my knees hurt because I’m overweight” but then you start talking to them and they’re like “Well my hands hurt too” but you know that has nothing to do you know putting pressure on them. So a lot of people think that pressure and weight is really the big factor on the knees. One of the things we’re noticing is the fat starts the inflammation and then the weight further breaks it down.
And so we monitor leptins and what we’ve noticed that with you know just with some preliminary observational data is that when we use the laser the leptins are dropping tremendously so the people aren’t as hungry. It’s not just you know opening up a fat cell and you know reducing its content. Now we’re seeing leptins come down. The other thing that I was really concerned about was my patients that had insulin resistance or you know diabetes or borderline diabetes because it’s more difficult for them to lose weight. We’ve noticed almost a full point and reduction of A1C over the course of what we do is twelve treatments. And then really since the beginning of the pandemic, we‘ve seen a lot of people with inflammation, their c-reactive proteins have gone up and we have a lot of inflamed people and that allows people to carry water and they don’t get the look that they want and we’ve noticed that that’s dropped tremendously as well.
And then fat really also produces the chemical called adiponectin and then adiponectin comes out of fat and they stop inflammation. So if you have high leptins and low adiponectin you could really be stroking the fire of inflammation throughout your whole body just by your own obesity. What we’ve noticed is that we’ve increased adiponectins and we’ve done this with just laser technology. There’s very little nutrition use, we’re not really using medication. Of course we’re encouraging diets, we’re encouraging exercise and stuff like that, but I think the biggest thing that I’m really wanting to get across here is yes, we do get great results in regards to inches loss, we’re getting anywhere from five to seventeen or eighteen inches total inches you know lost body fat you know size, inches which is incredible. But we’re also seeing is all these you know really big factors in regards to our labs, our patients are getting healthier and I think that using the device, using the Emerald to promote health and to kickstart the promotion of health has been fantastic for us.
James Shanks: Yes so that’s incredible and this is why we titled this podcast “How Erchonia is Changing the Weightloss Game” I hope doctors are picking up on this because oftentimes when we look at body contouring we look at it just in the lines as aesthetics. And aesthetics is important and everybody wants to look and feel good but I want doctors to pick up on what Dr. Brock is saying that in and of itself is the positive factor of other things like joint pain and insulin resistance and weight loss resistance and overall health and metabolics so I you know, I’m happy that you’re here Dr.Brock because the thing that recurring theme here is it’s not just lasers work systemically on lots of different pathophysiology. I think that’s just incredible. My guess is that patients are coming in because they want to look good but the side effect is they’re actually healthier when they leave and I can tell you based on my experience just using these kinds of cheap LED panels that wasn’t a side effect that we were getting with any of our patients.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, I was gonna say that’s exciting to hear as well because a lot of times, exactly what you’re saying Dr. Brock is that patients are coming into you for multiple reasons, not just to lose weight but also because of the joint pain and so and I’m confident that your clinic offers more solutions besides weight loss programs obviously as an integrated clinic, you probably obviously address like you said orthopedics, joint pain and whatnot but it’s almost as though these lasers are kind of like jump starting the plan for these people. Is that a kind of a simple way of putting it?
Dr. Brandon Brock: Well it is for us. It’s really the paradigm that’s kind of changing. I have a lot of people coming in now. They’re like I want to use the laser because I want to detox fat and I want to help some of these other parameters because you know the word kind of gets around. And so it’s really been kind of you know unusual. We have patients trying to come in just to get healthier and they don’t even really have the aspects in mind. Of course, we still have the majority of our patients that want to look better but end up feeling better. Not just because they like the way they look, they feel better because they’re not as inflamed, their joints don’t hurt as much, they don’t have as much brain fog, their blood sugar has changed, we health coach them, their diet has changed. We do give them some exercise pointers and stuff like that so it really becomes a whole program and it enriches really the depth of your practice. It takes chronically ill patients and it makes them feel better about themselves and it takes people who just want to feel better about themselves and it teaches them about health so we’ve really been able to help just a whole different set of patients across the board. It’s way more versatile than what people think.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah I was going to say one of the recent studies that we came across that was really eye opening to us was Stanford just released in study in 2021 showing that people with insulin resistance are two times more likely to struggle with major depression and some people can look at that instantly and say “oh well, insulin resistance causes depression” and obviously that could be a very reasonable assumption but for us what that says, at least to me is what you’re dealing with is the same whether it’s leptin insensitivity, insulin insensitivity, or other inflammatory markers that are no doubt there, all those things are going to contribute to you know biochemical issues that will certainly create problems that could lead to you know depression and things like that. And so my guess is that you’re probably addressing a lot of those factors as well and that’s probably an explanation of why people are feeling better too – mentally, emotionally as well because you’re probably addressing a lot of those same issues that are contributing as well.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Yeah I mean one of the other… it’s really interesting you say that because we’ve looked at it of course – it’s hard to determine why people are happy of course. There’s so many things like I feel better, I’m happy, I look better, I’m happy. What’s interesting is you know when you have insulin resistance you really alter the types of amino acids that cross the blood-brain barrier that are really precursors to neurotransmitters. You know you alter like leucine, isoleucine, valine and really you lower the amount of tryptophan and tyrosine that can make serotonin and dopamine. And so when we reduce insulin resistance and by the way, our c-peptides which we use to measure insulin resistance – we have about an average of 50% reduction in those that have insulin resistance.
So I mean serotonin levels and dopamine levels, not that we really measure them in this but people are – they have more hope with dopamine and the things that they love, they love more because serotonin is there so the volume knob on their happiness was sort of turned up. It is so you know when we get that c-peptide down and we get that A1C down, people really need to realize you might have just shaved – I don’t know I mean we could guess 10, 15, 20 years of them having misery because they’re diabetic or borderline diabetic and now we’ve sort of rolled back time, they may never get it. And I really, that is a huge deal when you’re looking at metabolic components of physiology. If you can bring down anyone and keep peptides, you have done an amazing job and of course you know we do dietary stuff and everything but we’ve done that the whole time when we added the laser into it. Things were accelerated in regards to what we could do with those markers.
Dr. Chad Woolner: And that’s amazing and what’s exciting to me when I hear that is that for a lot of patients that I see who are dealing with these sorts of issues, for many of them, it’s not that they’re not willing to try exercise and diet, things like that, but I think due to a variety of factors including maybe perhaps even dare we say predatory marketing practices in this market, people are just exhausted with empty promises and so a lot of people are looking for something to kind of maybe help them get a little momentum and get some quick wins under their belt that will help kind of reignite if you will, kind of a higher level of motivation for them and so my guess is that this is at least in part is starting to do a little bit of that. Is that what you’re seeing as well in your clinic?
Dr. Brandon Brock: You know everybody wants to see immediate results and when you get older and you have a bunch of other like underlying sort of borderline conditions, you’re not going to see immediate results. But with the laser, they start to see results much faster and so it does really motivate them to stay in the game of health. One of the biggest things is, you know people do really well in the program. They’re done and they’re like now what? And they want to come back and we make make you know certain types of programs where they can come back and keep maintenance and they stay healthier and they keep losing inches and they keep getting healthier and the next think you know, after six months of this, their entire life has changed, everything they do is changed, everything they do is changed – the way they eat, the way they sleep, they way they you know interact with people. They have truly learned to transform their life and of course, that’s not all laser but it has been such a gigantic part of it that we just really don’t know how to do it anymore without that component because it works so well. Not just to jump start it but to keep it going. And yeah that’s,again I’m going back to the depth of our practice. That’s made it alot better and believe me when I first got an Emerald, I was very nervous about how I was going to use it and I just started working with it and putting it into my practice and the way it fits and it fit in excellently.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Do you also use the Zerona or have you? I’m assuming you’ve also used the Zerona and maybe talk some of the differences between the Zerona and the Emerald.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Well I use an Emerald but of course I’ve discussed the Zerona physiology and how to use it and what it can do in many seminars. But I think this is one I would probably point back to James and let him discuss it because I don’t really have as much clinical experience with the Zerona as I do the Emerald. Even though I have a lot of friends that have a Zerona and are very successful with it and very happy with it – you know they do very similar programs that we do they just use a red light instead of green light.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah James maybe talk a little bit about that.
James Shanks: Yeah, absolutely I’d be happy to. As we evolved in the non-invasive fat reduction market and just looking at the approaches of the different wavelengths, we saw the involvement of which showed from the 635 red which was the Zerona to the Emerald 532. But the just basic mechanism in the actual components of that of how it affects the adipose sites, so they’re both going to emulsify the subcutaneous fat in the same manner of just collapsing it, allowing the cell to open up in the cell membrane to see the bound triglycerides. What we found with the 532 laser, which is the Emerald, is that it emulsified it faster. And the fact since it’s a smaller wavelength, it allows for deeper absorption into the body which allowed us to take it to the next level of looking at how it affected much larger patients.
So with the structure of non-invasive fat reduction, the Zerona’s a great product and so is using a 635 nanometer wavelength, the green laser is just more effective from what we’ve seen from emulsifying the fat much deeper into the body. Also, in less time plus allowing us more coverage on the patient and treating much longer. Now in the 30 to 40 BMI range, even to the fact now that we have ongoing research now what we’re looking at treating patients higher than 40 BMI and into 50 BMI. We do have things that we’re working on currently and some of you are very familiar with the Mayo clinic and institute, well they themselves have decided to get a few Emerald laser systems because they have seen the research and seeing the effectiveness on non-invasive fat reduction and medical weight loss so they themselves have received a couple of Emerald laser systems and have purchased them to continue research along with the Mayo diet and even look at much larger patients up to 50 BMI.
So for us, it’s very exciting just to see the involvement and expanse of non-invasive fat reduction and who know what’s next but we know the newest investment is now the Emerald laser and not only just how it affects fat reduction but we’re still also seeing some secondary effects as far as the elasticity of the skin, not to mention the effects on collagen synthesis which is cellulitis. So you see a lot of extra added benefits to the emerald laser system that we didn’t see previously with the red technology.
Both are fantastic, both have clinicals done and had multiple FDA level one clinical trials and the results are great. Just the green at this point now seems to be better and gives us a broader spectrum and I’ll kind of you know open up that even more. What the Emerald allows us to do is, just myself as the product director and really getting the chance to evolve this technology and see where it really is going to go for us. I’ve been on the road for the last two years to introducing this to the market, trying to see kind of where it fits in and what we’ve seen with this is it’s appealing to every type of medical practitioner where we didn’t think that was the case earlier, might have not been the case with some other non-invasive treatments.
We have such diverse doctors and practitioners and medical providers – they’re now getting involved with this type of technology because it’s unlike something that hasn’t been seen. Anywhere from you know to the nurse practitioners, physician assistant, pulmonary doctors, urologists, cardiologists, medical weight loss, bariatrics, dermatologists, so you know even, in some states, dentists. So it’s really kind of opened up the market for something that’s considered aesthetics as we briefly talked about before. That’s really changing the way that we approach non-invasive fat reduction and medical weight loss and overall health and not to mention all the extra added benefits which Dr. Brandon Brock alluded to so for us, it’s very exciting because it’s not something that we were expecting. It’s really my myself but hearing all the feedback from doctors and practitioners like Dr. Brandon Brock. It seems to be a common theme that the patients are not just looking better but overall they’re feeling a lot better and they’re overall, I guess clarity and encouragement and just you know those in a lot of us have been around patients that you know are struggling with weight are struggling with just overall health. Now that you have something that can give them that, it’s great because it’s not just something you’re looking at to make them feel better – it’s something that you’re helping their quality of life and that’s really exciting.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah that’s- that is exciting and what you’re talking about with the Mayo Clinic, that’s gonna be really cool to see kind of how this progresses along and it’s cool to see you know. It doesn’t surprise me when you say that this is starting to expand into so many other medical and even dental clinics because at the end of the day, the question is do you see patients who are overweight? And that’s literally any type of practitioner you’re talking to whether it be a medical doctor, chiropractor, acupuncturist, physical therapist. We’re all dealing with it and it’s only compounding unfortunately and getting worse socially speaking. I’ve been seeing alot of social kickback against the term obesity itself which is really fascinating to me. I’ve been on social media, especially as of late and I think it’s just given the climate of things – socially, politically, whatever you want to call it. This is the latest group of people to push back or kick back whatever you want to call it against these terms and obesity rather than it being used as a clinical term, it’s all of a sudden become this like evil identifier. Do you know what I’m saying? Are you guys seeing that a lot of people really, this negativity associated with that people are taking this highly personally and turning it into something rather than an objective marker you know like dyslipidemia or metabolic syndrome or something like that. All of a sudden now people they’re almost kicking back against it and then almost like using weight as like a personal identifier you know and that’s not helping anything from what I can gather.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Yeah I’ll kinda chime in on that. A lot of people, look everybody wants to be at a level of acceptance and I definitely understand that people who can’t lose weight and they’re obese and again that’s a diagnosis code, obesity. So if they’re obese and you know they don’t want to be obese shamed or fat shamed, I definitely understand that but one of the points that I had is – it’s not something that works like okay we need to learn to accept this.
What we need to really be teaching is being obese is not healthy. So I can love an obese person, I can care for an obese person, in fact I do in my office. That’s the reason why I have this machine. And so we can definitely identify people, be happy for them but just making up a narrative that is false and say that you know it’s okay to be obese and it’s okay to be who you are – but we want to encourage people to lower their BMI, not have heart disease, lower their BMI, not die from diabetes. Not lose their vision, not lose their sexual functions, not lose their sensation in their peripheral nerve function. You can identify however you want but it’s not going to change the fact that there’s more literature than you could ever read about what obesity does to your overall health so we can’t change those facts. So the people you know and so I’m always sort of like, yeah you know what there’s definitely no shaming here, that’s why we have you in here but we have to educate you on the facts. We can’t change those.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, I almost wonder if the script is flipped and we had the same type of conversations around the exact opposite – let’s say anorexia, eating disorders and things like that, bulimia, I think people would inherently see the problem with that to where people with anorexia we’re saying that they were being shamed for anorexia same sort of thinking that you’re saying. You know that this is a clinical problem that needs to be addressed. There’s no sort of judgment against that person in terms of their character or in terms of who they are in terms of their identity. We’re talking about a problem that needs to be solved here and I think the more that people start to embrace and champion those types of narratives, like you said the problems are only going to get worse.
You know we got a, I think obviously like you’re saying, we’re inherently saying the same thing that we can still love these people and accept them for who they are but at the same time we still have to fight towards solving an inherent health epidemic that’s only getting worse you know so. To me when I hear you guys are saying that, it’s an exciting thing that we’re talking about with this technology, this is a tool that we can use to really start potentially changing the tide, shifting the tide in terms of this epidemic. So that’s got to feel really cool to be kind of on the cutting edge of this, of what you guys are doing.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I want to shift the conversation a little bit; I like where we’re going here and I want to talk about the business aspect of this. I know that weight loss clinics can be very lucrative if done the right way and I know that Zerona lasers and Emerald lasers are not the cheapest on the market and they’re not the cheapest for a reason. They have amazing clinical research to back up the results but maybe Dr. Brock you can speak to the financial aspect of the clinic so I know that question will circulate in docs and clinician’s heads of okay if we’re thinking about making the investment in a laser like this? What would this do in terms of the financial aspect of the clinic? Does it pay for itself? Is it lucrative? A profit generator? What does that look like for you and your clinic?
Dr. Brandon Brock: Well I can make it pretty simple for our clinic. You know the return investment, the money, everything – you can make it as complicated as you want but we really need one patient a month to make you know our payment and then everything you after that is profit. You know, assuming what you call profit. It’s just extra money that you’re making. So as a profit generator, you know without giving out any specific numbers I would say this – I’ve been very very very satisfied. I have not had to go out and do a ton of advertising because people like this technology because: A, it doesn’t hurt; B, It doesn’t bruise you up; C, it doesn’t burn; It’s not just spot reduction.
There’s a million things that I could say about it but as far as return on investment, actually compared to several other like restaurant chains and things like that and how long it would take you to you know start making money out of that and I made money out of mine the first month and so if you want to look at it in terms of revenue generation, it’s very difficult to find something where you can actually turn a profit in one month. In fact, you know we’ve, I can just say that we’ve made enough money to pay for our machine and we haven’t had it quite a year. We’ve had it just about a year so that’s the kinda stuff that I think people really wanna know. Can I do this? And the answer is yes. And it’s not like you have to really get in 10 or 20 patients a month just to you know make ends meet. It’s really not as difficult – it’s much easier than that.
Dr. Andrew Wells And one of the cool things I like about Erchonia lasers is that they look really freaking cool. Like I’ve seen a lot of different lasers like light devices and there’s nothing that looks as professional and high tech as Erchnoia lasers and I got to imagine for a lot of doctors if you have this in any capacity on display so to speak in your clinic or if patients are seeing like “Hey what is that? What’s that patient doing over there? like what is that device?” You’re gonna, you know, get patients who just kind of gravitate toward it and we’ll find it. We’ll find that machine and find the laser just from the fact that they’re in your office so that’s I think that deserves mentioning so yeah. and to find something that has a return on investment in the first month is pretty tough to find.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Yeah and there’s really honestly that there’s nothing more beautiful than that green light shining. It really is pretty, it’s really eye opening. People are really attracted to it and it’s so really what else is interesting is what it’s doing with brown fat, what it’s doing with visceral fat, subcutaneous fat, gynoid fat.
I mean you know what if we can show and demonstrate that we are reducing fat around organ systems and stuff like that I mean that’s another game changer so we’ve been very healthy of our very happy with the health of the skin. Like James just said I mean we’ve done a lot with people don’t lose weight and then they have a lot of excess skin. Seems like they are getting much more tension and resistance and resilience in their skin. You can obviously add skin products to it and make it you know and enhance stuff so you know the cellulite is a big deal, stretch marks, especially over the belly of you know various individuals that you know maybe have been pregnant or you know maybe on the you know the backside. It’s just there’s so many cool things that we get out of it, that we see improved whatever you take, stretch marks and you reduce their visibility in somebody that may be more important to them than just weight loss in general or our body contouring in general. So people were happy for a lot of different reasons but yeah the green light is fun like a little disco.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s so cool. James, if doctors listening to this and they’re wondering where they can learn more information about the Emerald laser or the Zerona laser or Erchonia in general, where would you have them go?
James Shank: Yeah absolutely, well there’s a few places they can go to look at it. If you just go to Erchonia.com, you’ll be able to find information on the products and upcoming events or you can go directly to the product websites. You have MyZerona.com and then EmeraldLaser.com will have a listing of all the events that we’re going to be doing for the rest of this year, whether it’s going to be a live stream event for it, if we;re going to do on-site seminars – we’ll have those as well. So if you’d like to learn more about products, please feel free to go on those sites and then also they can always contact me directly here at Erchonia and number here at corporation is 888-242-0571, would be happy to set up in-person possible demonstration if you’re local or even as zoom meeting – happy to discuss it with you at any time.
Dr. Brandon Brock: And lastly, I believe that you guys if a doctor would have purchase a laser, you guys actually help with the launch of the product. Is that correct?
James Shank: We do. So with all our laser products and specifically these products in general, we do help with the launch of the products. You have a full support team that’s provided with it. You have Sarah Bell to help with marketing and our clinical educators, Greg Mermigas and Brittney WIlson. They’re hold your hand through the whole process. So they’ll do multiple trainings and also you’ll receive access to our marketing boarding portals that will have videos, brochures, banners, recorded templates that we use for our social media marketing that you’ve seen on Facebook or Instagram and we help customize some videos with you as well in the office.
So what we like to do is unlike some other companies who will take a machine in and bring it to you, drop it off and it’s kind of up to you to decide what to do with it from there – we hold your hand through the entire process and you have a clinical educator that works with you for the entire lifetime of the machine. So we’re there to make sure that not only do you have a great and very productive laser but you’ve very successful with it. So we take the personal and hands-on approach to make sure that you’re getting a valuable product and you’re a part of the team and part of the family here at Erchonia.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s awesome. Yeah that’s got to feel for doctors, again kind of going back to what Dr. Brock had said, you know in terms of the investment you’re going to be hard pressed…especially. I like that comparison of like a lot of people think like franchises and stuff like that so often franchises, number one are extremely expensive and part of that is just with a lot of different franchises a lot of them are extremely expensive because there’s a known entity here. I think with this it’s very similar in that you get a lot of known entity with this. There’s not nearly as much of a gamble, you’ve got a proven path with nearly not a lot of the same downside that you get with that kind of conventional franchise models and so from a business standpoint. There’s just upside here with this which is really got to be exciting for doctors when they hear. So very very cool. Any final thoughts James or Dr. Brock in terms of Erchonia and weight loss?
Dr. Brandon Brock: No, I mean just if anybody you know gets an Emerald, we have a lot of paperwork and a lot of things that we can offer to kind of make it towards not so difficult and we’re always willing to share that information. You know you got the technical support, you got people giving you marketing, you know information and then we can really help out with the clinical information. Whether me with nutrition that goes along with it or paperwork that goes along with it or which labs we do and what they mean and how you use that we offer all that I know that I offer that to anybody that purchases an Emerald.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Very cool. Real quickly, what’s the distinction in terms of choosing between an Emerald and a Zerona in terms of that Emerald is specifically designated for medical clinics? Is that correct?
James Shank: Yeah so what the difference between the two systems – One of the FDA clearances of the Zerona was for a non-prescription system back in 2015 so anybody can offer that service currently with the Zerona Z6 Model. The Emerald Laser system with its FDA clearances in the ranges of 30 to 40 BMI for obesity will be more specific system with its wider range of applications so for medical type providers so it’s gonna be more specific to those types of doctors to where the Zerona is gonna be something to where anybody can have it so a lot of salons and spas and other businesses are doing that franchise type model to where the Emeralds can be very medical based.
Great thing I’d say about either product is they’re easy to implement. They’re very simple to set up, it’s completely hands off you set the laser, you set it up and the laser does the work for you. But as Dr. brock has mentioned, the Emerald will work in any type of facility or doctor’s office. Whether you want to do labs and go to the nth degree and analyze every little thing on it to make it more successful, it’s fantastic. You can as Dr. Brock mentioned on some of his results so you talk about from five to seventeen inches which is phenomenal and amazing. You know you can take a real in depth route approach or you can just set it up in your clinic and just treat whoever you want without doing. It can fit into any clinic and just treat whoever you want. It can fit into any office setting and that’s the beauty of it and there’s so many different things you could add to make it even more successful. No matter what that might be and that’s the support that Dr. Brock offers as well. So the last thing I say is it could be a fit for anybody and any type of office setting. It’s successful.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s exciting. Well Dr. Brock and James, thank you guys so much for taking time out of your schedule. We really appreciate it and hopefully this has been incredibly valuable for the doctor who have been listening. Exciting things are happening and I’m excited to see what transpires over the next year, two years, five years and beyond with what Erchonia, what they’re doing because things, there’s no signs of things slowing down any time soon. We appreciate you listening, make sure you share this with those that you feel could benefit your colleagues, Erchonia is doing some amazing things. We would encourage you to check out what they’re doing 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.
