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!
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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.
What happens when you invite Dr. Brock and Dr. Berry to talk about anything they want at 11:00 pm??? Join us for a stimulating discussion about integrative health, science, research, politics, and the future of health.
https://www.erchonia.com/seminars/
Dr. Chad Woolner: What’s going on everybody, Dr. Chad Woolner here and this is episode 22 of the Laser Light Show, and on tonight’s episode we have with us our friends and special guests, Dr. Brandon Brock and Dr. Trevor Berry and we are going to be chatting with them. We’ve had a great day at the seminar here in Minnesota and so we’re going to spend some time chatting with them and it’s going to be a lot of fun. 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 welcome Dr. Trevor Berry and Dr. Brandon Brock. Great to be here.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Great to be here baby!
Dr. Chad Woolner: So do we need to give a disclaimer on this episode here, gentlemen?
Dr. Trevor Berry: Well, we have lectured for about 12 hours today, but let’s just keep on rolling. Keep the momentum going.
Dr. Brandon Brock: We know the rules. Keep going on.
Dr. Andrew Wells: So here’s the deal on this episode, we’re gonna paint a picture here. It’s about 10 o’clock at night. And we just finished up the seminar. If you guys noticed there wasn’t a title to this episode. There’s no subject. This is a potpourri episode, whatever comes out of our mouths is going to be the episode. So we have no plan here. And I also want to mention that there was…dinner was had, there may have been drinks at the dinner.
And so. So what you’re gonna get this episode is some truth mixed in with some truth serum. That’s right, and we’ll see what comes out. So hopefully, this will be a good episode.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, yes unscripted. So how was the seminar? According to you gentlemen, well received?
Dr. Trevor Berry: It was everything we could have hoped for because we pack so much information. When we’re streaming it’s a whole different of, you know, medium of timeline and audience. And we had, you know, 150 online doctors, but when you have that message that we’re trying to bring it, it’s you know it, it translates to all different kinds of providers. It’s good for the chiropractic community. It’s good for the medical community, the integrative practitioners. So hopefully it was well received. We got some good feedback today, and we had a lot of fun, most importantly.
Dr. Chad Woolner: It was ironic, because right next door to us there was a Crohn’s Foundation medical seminar. And it was hilarious because they had all their cake and candies and cookies and junk food there. And, and their seminar lasted all of, maybe like two or three hours, it seemed like they were like.
Dr. Trevor Berry: They were gone.
Dr. Brandon Brock: They cut out like diarrhea.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So I thought that was hilarious because the drug companies were like, “Okay, here we go, here are the latest and greatest drugs, start prescribing. There you guys go.” And that was the end of it. Meanwhile, we’re still going on. We got a whole other day ahead of us tomorrow. And yeah, that was, that was kind of funny. Ironic. Next door to us.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Ironic. I mean, we talked about…Dr. Berry and I lecturing and together, here’s the greatest really part of it. On improv, we’re sign languaging to each other of what to do, how to do it, the content we’re going over. And it just works out in a beautiful flow. It’s not overlapping. It’s not redundancy, it’s just a continuation of what we’re doing. And it’s not a lot of pre meditative stuff. It’s just a beautiful flow of I guess experiences though you would say.
Dr. Trevor Berry: When we teach the how we practice and the great vendors and companies we work with, like you guys, it flows naturally, you know. It doesn’t take…you know, we can improv, we can pivot, we can do all the things we can yell across to our colitis people about taking vitamin D. I don’t know if they heard me, but I screamed at the top of my lungs, how important it was.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Yeah he was going for it.
Dr. Trevor Berry: But it was a great day and we appreciate SFM for being here because you guys are such an integral part about you know, trying to take that message and integrate it into a practice where doctors aren’t always comfortable with taking that full neurointegrative approach, but you guys do such a good job of bringing that to the field and natural translation to allow them to do it on Monday morning.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, we appreciate that. How long have you guys been teaching together like this in this team format fashion?
Dr. Brandon Brock: We’ve known each other for over a decade, I mean, but teaching together, I guess what about three years but you know, what’s funny is, we never really had to sit down and plan a whole lot of stuff, we just got our material, we sat down, and it just, it just kind of flowed. It was like a jam session. So I think that’s the best part of it. I mean, you know, when you’ve been lecturing for 20 years, and you know, kind of the people that you’re around, when you get to be with somebody that just can gel with you, and support you, and uplift you. And you don’t have to do a ton of like, really ritualistic planning. It is super. I mean, you leave from the seminar, and you’re on a high and not a low. And only that you feel like that you fulfilled all the cracks and crevices that people needed in order to get the information that they deserve. And, and I…just I don’t know, I just feel like there’s really like people like, of all the people on the earth, Trevor, Dr. Berry is one of the few that can do that. Or we can do that with each other. We just fill those cracks. And so it’s just really a natural kind of process.
Dr. Chad Woolner: It really is. I’ll be honest, it’s really impressive to hear both of you guys speak because you guys…it’s obvious that you cover a really, a huge breadth of information consistently. There’s not a whole lot that, from what I could see that really would catch you guys by surprise or anything in terms of questions that were asked in terms of pathways, in terms of all these different things. And it’s pretty important. seriously it’s impressive to see that because you guys really have a very…because, you Dr. Barry, you know, as a neurologist, you’re talking one minute neurology, than the next minute you’re talking, you know gastroenterology the next minute you’re talking, you know, in terms of…
Dr. Brandon Brock: …immunology?
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah.
Dr. Andrew Wells: It’s very conversational too. Just kind of for both of you, kind of rolls off your brain, it’s amazing that you guys are very conversational about topics that most doctors I don’t think understand at a very surface level.
Dr. Brandon Brock: We practice in front of our animals a lot.
Dr. Trevor Berry: But in all sincerity, like we…Dr. Brock and I, love to teach how we practice. You know, we, we want doctors to be empowered to get out of their comfort zone, for lack of a better term where…you know, we all have our specialties, we all have our niches, but there’s so much more that the integrative community can offer, the chiropractic community can offer.
We are wellness practitioners, we do it better than anyone on the planet. So why not get out of the comfort zone of just…and that’s not minimizing pain management, and that’s not minimizing some of the common conditions. But if we can start running labs and start doing…you know, integrative therapies and immunology, and leaky gut, and leaky gut, all those things we talked about today is that there’s no better group than your audience to handle and address those things.
So what Dr. Brock and I feel like is…that we want to empower those doctors and just give them even some stepping stones to get out of that comfort zone so that they’ll start running labs not just on their patients, but on themselves, on their family members, things like that. And when they do that, and they start to develop that confidence in those systems, then the way we can take that to the patient base, we’re going to affect changes in the neurodegenerative community in the you know, the autoimmune community and stuff that nobody else is doing on the planet. And so that’s what that’s what drives us. That’s what our passion is.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Yeah, I mean, we were doing depth of practitioner development. I mean, when you look at this, it’s an integrative practitioner. I mean, there’s so many, you know, titles that are put on people to practice in health care, there’s a functional neurologist, there’s a functional medicine. We’re really just trying to say, look, you know, people come in with so many different problems that you really, it’s difficult to identify as one person that can identify as somebody that will help that one person.
We’re just integrative, whatever you got going on, we want you to have at least a skill set to be able to deal with that issue. And there’s a little bit of cognitive dissonance that has gone into all of healthcare, meaning, if you’re in the medical system, you have to fit into that, if you’re in the chiropractic system, you have to fit into that if you’re in the functional medicine system.
And we’re kind of trying to break that paradigm I think that we would say and it’s like this, they’re all of them belong there. Just which portion do you belong in? And what is going to work? And it’s so foreign to some people who…their entire educational identity lives in that system. So if you break it, you just become some sort of an outcast. And it, we’re both this. We’re outcasts, but we’re actually in-cast. In other words, we are bringing the systems together, despite what people…their leaders and those individual systems think. And we’ve been around long enough, and we’re like, “You know what I really don’t, I really don’t care a whole lot about what people think we’re just going to bring this together so that the people who are learning from us can actually go away with what they need to do.” And that’s why I love working with Dr. Berry, because we have the same philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of what we’re doing.
Dr. Trevor Berry: And were founded on the basics of the chiropractic education, the neurology. Yeah, that’s, that’s our underpinnings, but you know, it, it allows us to have that foundation to jump off of that and go into, “Hey, chiropractors can be doing labs, they can be doing laser, they can be doing all the things that we teach.”
Because it really is based on the platforms that we’re taught from. It’s brain based, neurologically based stuff because everything comes back to neurological integration, neurological parameters, and there’s nobody better on the planet to deal with that than the chiropractic community. But what we know now, this is not undermining the chiropractic adjustment. That’s the most powerful neurological tool we have in our armament. But why not take that foundation and build from it, you know, just branch from it like a beautiful tree like a beautiful bonsai tree, and we just keep pruning and clipping and getting it and there’s always that evolution of our understanding. And you know, I daresay D.D. and B.J. (Daniel David Palmer and B.J. Palmer – Ed), if they were alive today, they would want to be, they were pioneers of this stuff, they were so cutting edge, why not take those cutting edge concepts and bring it to what we know today based on research and clinical applications?
Dr. Chad Woolner: Absolutely. Yeah, I remember, when I finished chiropractic college, I remember going through a period…there was a period of about five years where I kind of went through this kind of identity crisis. I went to University of Western States, which not surprisingly, is very, they, they pride themselves on being very evidence based, for whatever that means, you know, what I mean, in terms of, you know, philosophically, whatever that means. And, and I remember when I started there, heavily buying into that kind of mindset and philosophy and almost, you know, to the, to the point of, if you didn’t go to an evidence, quote on quote, evidence based school, then you were somehow inferior in terms of that. And I very much thought that. And, and I also bought into this idea that somehow going to an evidence based school was going to give me a certain level of an edge, so to speak, in terms of relationship with medical counterparts. And then I remember getting out of school, and realizing that the medical community has their own ideas regarding chiropractic.
And typically, at best my experience was, they were indifferent towards us at best. And then all of a sudden, I’m like, “Oh, man, that so this isn’t what I was thinking it was going to be” and then not feeling like I fit in with kind of more of the principled or philosophically based chiropractors. And it wasn’t until I started working with chiropractors across the country, in a marketing capacity slash consulting capacity, that I started to get exposed to some of these doctors and I started to realize school mattered very little, right? In terms of…in terms of the quality and caliber of the doctor.
What mattered more was, what I see with you guys, that’s very clearly reflected is, you see the end from the beginning, meaning it’s at the end of the day, it’s about the patient, right? The reason you guys are doing all the education that you’re doing isn’t so you can stack up a bunch of credentials, and, you know, alphabet soup behind your name, which is cool, that’s great, you know, but it’s very obvious that you’re doing these things with the end result in mind that…”Look, we need to have as many tools and skills and things that we can have at our disposal to help facilitate whatever is necessary to help the end patient.” And that’s I think what I’m hearing from you guys, which I could not agree more with, is I think that’s what hinders…at the end of the day the patient is when people get, so we Andrew and I we talk about this all the time, when docs get so deeply entrenched in their own dogma this to me, which was you that posed the question was “Which chiropractic technique is the best?”
Dr. Brandon Brock: Just lock the door, leave the room and watch- It’s like the, you know, the Will Ferrell movie with where he’s, you know, the Anchorman Ron Burgundy…the street fight!
Dr. Trevor Berry: What is best for the patient, right? And that’s all that matters. At the end of the day, Dr. Brock and I, and you guys as well, like it is about getting patient outcomes. However it gets there, whatever is the best medium you get there. That’s our duty and our job as healthcare providers. It’s not based on…”I’m an activator, expert…” That’s all great. We’d love every technique. Yes, chiropractic. Yeah, it is what’s going to get the patient the best result?
Dr. Chad Woolner: Well, and interestingly enough to what you’re talking about there, it was this very kind of almost paradoxical thing where I remember finishing school, and feeling like the diversity within the profession. I could not stand it. I wanted standardization. You know what I mean? There needs to be standardization, because you just never know what you’re gonna get.
Dr. Trevor Berry: Good luck.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, yeah, exactly. But since then, I’ve come full circle. And that’s the very thing that I do love about the profession is because now, you know, there’s something for everybody. Do you know what I mean, in terms of these various techniques and approaches wouldn’t be around if they weren’t getting some sort of result for patients? You know?
Dr. Brandon Brock: I mean, I went on a 15 year full circle journey. Went through the medical cycle and came back to the chiropractic cycle. And people look at me like the sort of the Wesley Snipes Day Walker. I’m sort of, I’m sort of both I’m like, half-vampire, half-not.
And it really is, it’s kind of a good thing. But it’s kind of also a double edged sword kind of thing. And I mean, you know, when you’re using medicine, and you love medicine and pharmacology, but you also love the philosophy and the belief of chiropractic, everybody sort of looks at you a little bit differently. But when we teach what we’re doing, we are looking again…I went on this full circle, but it’s no different than what Dr. Berry is talking about, we’re just looking at people and saying, what is going to work for somebody. I mean, so we’re not really a functional medicine, we’re not really functional neurology. We’re just sort of integrating ideas and trying to build on our experience.
If you couple us together, we’ve got close to 20, you know, our 50 years of experience, right? So we’ve seen a few things during that time, we’ve been through a few things. We know a little bit about what people think. And what people…I guess the biggest thing is what people expect, man. And so people expect this, they don’t really care about what your title is, they care about one thing; “What are you gonna do?”
And so we have to pull out all the stops. And we…and I think the biggest conviction that we have is we’re both clinicians, but honestly, we’re both teachers, right? We’re both lecturers, I’m gonna say teachers, because I think a lecturer is kind of looking for money. But we’re both teachers, we want the word to spread. So we want to sort of bring out the word of what it is that what we’re doing. And there’s no cognitive dissonance, we’re not putting ourselves in a box where we’re breaking out. And so we’re like, Hey, man, what works. I mean, we have acupuncture, we have nutrition, we have chiropractic, we have medicine. And it’s one of those things where it’s really an organic based growth, where we’re bringing a bunch of different things together. And it’s not that anybody’s a bad guy, or anybody’s the best guy. It’s what exactly is your patient paying for?
Dr. Andrew Wells: One of the things that we that you guys talked about today was, you go really deep into some of the research, but some of the, a lot of the clinical protocols you guys are talking about are pretty fundamental things. And this is an Erchonia seminar that we’re teaching at, and this is an Erchonia podcast that we’re talking about, and we talked a lot about lasers having a lot of…a lot of applications across a lot of different parts of the body and a lot of physiology. We’re talking about bioenergetics and how lasers can pretty much be applied to anything that pharmacology can be applied to without the side effects. And so I’m kind of curious, are there any other parts of what you guys are doing that have as many applications as low level laser therapy?
Dr. Brandon Brock: No.
Dr. Trevor Berry: It, you know, you heard me use the example I called the Jedi lightsaber of any kind of practitioner or whether you do musculoskeletal pain management, orthopedics, whether you’re doing immunology, whether you’re doing brain based rehab; low level laser with the Erchonia product is the great equalizer. It can overcome, no matter what your training is, no matter what your background is, when you have one of those devices in your hand, it will create inevitably, by getting that light on the patient’s head on the patient’s body, it creates the healing process that no matter what your training is, what your background is, its intrinsic to that device. So that’s why in our audience today, we had medical doctors, we had natural paths, we had chiropractors, we had massage, like we have every specialty in our audience, because it brings something to the table for every type of specialty. And that’s the beauty of it is just by being able to turn it on and shine it on the brain, shine it on the knee, shine it on whatever body part you’re doing, you’re going to do things in your particular specialty, and get results that that maybe you couldn’t have before wouldn’t have before.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Yeah, medication is something we try to use in lieu of this. I mean, listen, we all try to use it, supplements as well, lifestyle. But when you got a laser that doesn’t have, like a lot of side effects, and believe me, I was the most critical person. I mean, in just looking at the research, Dr. Berry, now we’ve known each other for years. And so just talking, going back and forth, there’s a long process of getting together to where we were both on the same page, and saying, you know, look, I trust this to the point where I can actually talk about it, say something about it, and show that it has efficacy. And that’s a big word, efficacy. You know, so we both been doing neurological rehabilitation, or the Pedic types of, you know, modalities. And it’s like this, look, if you’re a medical practitioner, it fits in, if you’re an acupuncturist, it fits in, if you’re a chiropractor, it fits in. In other words, it’s not, it’s not a congregational type of thing, if you will, it’s really nondenominational. Okay.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Universal.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Yeah, it’s universal, it fits in. And, you know, the thing that we continuously say is, it is something…it’s a modality that fits in, but doesn’t have the dire consequential side effects of some of the things that we see.
And by the way, we do all kinds of things that have the potential consequences that can happen with medicine or healthcare. You know, whether it be a surgical procedure or pharmacological procedure. I love lasers, because it’s either going to be good, or probably nothing. And so we see a lot of good. Patients like it, they don’t have to experience the downfall. And there’s research behind it. And really, the patients tell you, they feel better, it’s not you trying to convince them. So that’s what I love about it. And you know, some of the stuff that we do otherwise, you know, you go home at night worrying about it, I don’t go home at night worrying about a laser.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s a nice feeling. I was gonna say, kind of tying this in a little bit…kind of roundabout. There’s some interesting stuff that…that’s happening in Idaho right now, legally, I don’t know if you guys have heard, but right now there’s this very big push, or at least seems like it’s been a big push. They’re changing the, they’ve essentially created a new naturopathic board. They’re waiting on the governor to appoint the board, but the law has been approved. And it was actually, the new bill was called SB 1330, for anybody who wants to Google it, or whatever. But the whole bill was primarily pushed through by a medical doctor.
And basically, what he was wanting was kind of this new umbrella outside of the purview of the medical board. So that any and all practitioners who didn’t want to adhere to a rigid standard of care that was, that tends to be imposed in that medical world could basically flock too so to speak, to be able to use some of these kind of what would be considered in the medical model unconventional. You know, like laser therapy and things like that. As crazy as that is, right? And so what’s interesting, though, is what in essence it would do, and it’s getting a little bit of kickback from what I understand from kind of the quote on quote, conventional naturopaths, who have you know. Which is crazy to me, because you’ve got what like four naturopathic colleges now, I think Western University of Western States just started a naturopathic program. I heard that the National College in Portland is closing down. It may have already…have you guys heard that? I heard that. Yeah. Anyways. So anyway, anyhow. But the point is, you would think that this would be a… and this is the…I chatted with the medical doctor, who was championing this. And he was saying, he’s hoping that what this will be is kind of a standard that will then spread across the states. So that basically…because there’s always been this kind of within the chiropractic profession, this kind of if you want to call this stark divide, those who want to integrate more into the medical model of things, those who don’t and just want to completely…this seems like a very viable kind of happy medium compromise, if that’s what you want to call it. To where if you want to kind of practice more than model because what they did in Idaho, this bill was they he said he modeled directly off of the medical act so that this the scope of practice, in essence for the naturopaths would be virtually identical to a family practice physician.
Dr. Brandon Brock: I mean, think about it, it’ll open his empirical scope. So he, I mean, in a lot of states, there’s a very strict empirical code where you have to follow medical necessity, medical says, you know, the guidelines. And so, I mean, listen, naturopaths are some of the most trained practitioners really in the world. And they’re setting standards and all this stuff. So if they get brought into the scenario, it opens up the medical world to where you really can have sort of cross pollination between the two systems.
When you’re looking to somebody that’s like this, “I’m not going to get the medical board to change, but what I can do is get another board created.” That’s, and I mean, I come from Texas, there’s I mean, we’re so far from like, you know, legitimizing naturopaths. But some of the best stuff I’ve ever learned is from naturopathic practitioners. I mean, I’m like a non-discriminating learner. I mean, it’s like, what if you can teach me something that’s good. And I can share it? Let’s do it. But when we come to state politics and legislation, this individual that has this medical practitioner that’s doing this, he’s got the right idea in mind, because he realizes he can’t probl… and I’m just speculating, but he can’t do it through his own board. So if there’s another board, and they kind of connect, it allows like this significant leeway to go into traject.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That was…the surprising thing to me was, there was a period of time, many years ago, where I had contemplated the idea of going to medical school, in conjunction. And it was the idea of it was very appealing at first because it was like my scope would open up. And then I’d have my chiropractic skills, as well as the medical. And I chatted with a friend of mine who had done just that. And I was like, oh, man, this is gonna be so cool. And I chatted with him on the phone. And, and all of a sudden, it opened my eyes. He’s…I’m like, “So what do you do now? Do you just have like this massive, you know, expanded scope?” And he’s like, “No.” He said, “I just basically do medicine. I check meds for old people, and sick people. And I refill prescriptions.” And I’m like, “So do you, like, adjust people?” He’s like “Every now and again, I might do a thoracic adjustment.”
Dr. Brandon Brock: And it’s a lie. It’s extremely redundant.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, well, and he said, and that was the thing that was like eye opening to me. He’s like, he’s like, I was like, so you don’t like if somebody comes in with headache or neck pain, or you don’t adjust? He’s like, “Oh, heck no.” He said, “Because if heaven forbid, if something were to go wrong, you’re screwed.”
Yeah. And then and I’m like, and all of a sudden, my eyes where I was like, that’s crazy. Because now all of a sudden, you’re held to a different standard in the sense not even…I don’t even say a higher standard, just a different standard. And that you’rem you’re set in a very rigid scope of practice.
Chiropractors, if something were to adversely happen with a cervical adjustment, heaven forbid, or whatever. That’s the standard scope of practice, you’re expected to adjust people from head to toe, you know. And so to me, it was just like, so…anyways, long story short, I’d love to see more movements like this taking place. Because breaking down these barriers, and these walls, I’d love to see more things like lasers become more mainstream. And I feel like the way that that becomes more mainstream is it gets adopted by more than just chiropractors, you know,
Dr. Brandon Brock: If you’re a medical practitioner, and you’re a chiropractor, basically, what’s going to happen is this, you’re expected to be more medical over chiropractic. Which means this, you just don’t approve of it. I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I went through this loop, right. So you get…there’s no way you can get trained in the system and not start to appreciate medicine. I mean, I do.
But what’s happened to me is, I’ve realized the limitations and strength of both systems. And you end up coming all the way back around to where you began. So you start out with, you know, Harvey, right, getting his hearing back and you go through chiropractic. And then you want to know, like, I gotta go through medicine. So I went through medicine, and you’re like, I gotta go through research, you go through research. And at the end of the day, you’re like, back at chiropractic. But you’re just enriched with what exactly it is that you have. And it’s like this; you’ve got all of it and you realize there’s a place for all of it, but you realize, chiropractic is actually a little bit of a free spot. It’s not this, if you deviate from the straight line, like in medicine, man, I gotta be honest with you, if you deviate from the straight line, you’ve deviated from the straight line.
Dr. Chad Woolner: You see that these past two years with how many doctors who spoke based on evidence and their conscience and they’ve gotten crucified. Previously…two years…if we were to go back in a time machine and say Dr. Peter McColl, everbody would be like, “Oh, he’s a genius.” Dr. Robert Malone, and Brian Cole in Idaho, right? You talk about these guys two years ago, they were the best…brightest, you know, most decorated you know, most well researched, you know, respected. Now, all of a sudden they’re…they’re lunatics, their quacks their heritics…
Dr. Trevor Berry: They’re stigmatized.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Totally.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Listen, it’s that…that’s medicine. And you just, what you just described as this. You just mix scientific evidence with politics with big business, you know? And so yeah, it’s one of those things where it’s like, you can’t…you can’t have all of them. You’ve got to stay…and so what Dr. Berry and I tried to do is we just tried to stick with evidence and what works versus adhering to a system and so…
Dr. Chad Woolner: Well, and that’s the thing that I can appreciate about you guys, is you’re not stuck in some closet, looking on, you know, PubMed all day long. You’re actually doing these things. And so when we say evidence, when you say evidence, and this has been one of my biggest contentions, especially with that term, quote unquote, evidence based medicine, that means one thing and one thing only it means peer reviewed studies, period. You know, and it’s not that I don’t appreciate that I do. You know, and I know you guys could talk circles around us in terms of that lingo and that language.
However, you guys are also self aware enough, and intelligent enough and engaged enough to know that that’s only one piece of evidence. You know, that’s all great in theory…and I don’t want to say theory, right? Because, Dr. Berry, you’ve been doing these studies in your practice, like, so you’re in the trenches doing it, you’re not just, you know, again, looking at random data, that’s, that’s removed from you. And I know you are too as well. And so, you know, evidence also exists and you can’t, you can’t like…case in point for me is the big one that I always think about is; chiropractic adjustments and nocturnal enuresis, right? Everybody would say, the studies completely debunk that claim that chiropractic helps with nocturn…what do you say to the thousands, if not millions, of patients and their chiropractors who have experienced it firsthand? Like it’s all fake? It’s all placebo? Maybe I don’t know. But I mean, you can’t, you can’t dismiss that you can’t just be “It’s nonsense. It’s…” you know what I mean? Because the peer reviewed literature doesn’t support it. Well, okay. I understand that. But is there? Is there another form of evidence that…there clearly there is?
Dr. Brandon Brock: You know, the story of evidence based medicine? I mean, there was a couple, a married couple. And they were coming up with evidence based medicine, which was really supported, or it was a means of…to support what people were trying to progressively do. The medical establishment took it and used it as a way to limit what you can do, really. And this was a Harvard couple, of course, everything’s, you know, boils down to Harvard.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Do you know, you know, that doc in Texas, Dr. Ben? He, he was a big outspoken proponent at the beginning of the whole COVID thing. But he was talking about a study that was…he cited that there was this video that went fairly viral. And he said, when you look at like, the the paper that was written kind of defining what evidence based medicine was about. He said, there’s a hierarchy: patient values trump the peer reviewed literature. It goes in terms of the hierarchy, patient values first, then doctors personal clinical experience, then the papers. That’s like the hierarchy, you know, who I’m talking about, well, what’s his name?
Dr. Brandon Brock: I don’t know who it is. But it’s really interesting about this paper, these papers. And so when COVID and…without jumping in front of Dr. Berry, I mean, it’s really important that people kind of understand some of these statistics. Like, when you looked at the initial efficacy of like, let’s say vaccines and stuff like that, in regards to COVID. I mean, we started out with these things called RR values, the relative risk, and it’s very easy to calculate. But however, it has very little scientific value, because you can’t take an RR value, you have to turn it into an absolute value. And then you have to take that and statistically and mathematically, turn it into a need to vaccinate. And it’s really crazy that some of the greatest journals in the world published the RR values. And if you were to do that with any other journal on any other thing, you would get crucified, you can’t do it.
And it was like this vaccine is like 95%, effective against COVID. And you’re like, What do you mean against COVID? Like, against catching it, getting it dying from it? There was these numbers getting thrown out the media. So we went back and we’re like, look at these are the RR values, we want the AR values in the N&X? Well, they wouldn’t give us the absolute values. So we had to go back and we had to find those and we had to then calculate the N&X and so what we found out is this, maybe some things are not as cracked up as they are made up to be in regards to their efficacy, okay?
And it’s kind of a shame because you have to be somebody that can really actually go back and break down the stuff. And so we were told this is proprietary information, you can’t get an AR. For the like the New England Journal of Medicine or some other journal to say something like that is ludicrous. It’s all public information until it means something important. And I mean, I understand this is a very politically and actually personally sensitive matter. Which, and I don’t shame people for this, and I think that, I don’t have an opinion really on this in regards to vaccine, but I have an opinion on is science. And when I went through all of my statistical training like postdoctorate, I did secondary analysis and drug design. And to do a drug design in eight months, when it should take 10 years, and you look at the fact that maybe a couple if not a several steps were dismissed. And then you start going back and you look at the data that was over, sort of, like, almost kind of like just, I mean, not fabricated. I gotta be careful about that. But it was just sort of jumped over the mathematical steps and there were assumptions made.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Did you hear that doctor that was interviewed on Joe Rogan’s podcast, and he said that it is completely not only legal, but it’s standard operation for pharmaceutical companies to deliberately withhold data, and they give the data that they want to give to the doctors actually analyzing the data.
Dr. Brandon Brock: I was told this. It’s like, what’s the control of your study? And what is the experimental group of your study? They’re like, it’s the biggest experimental group in the world and like, “What are you talking about?” They’re like “Everybody that got the vaccine.” And I was like, “Well, listen, where’s the consent sheet?” And they’re like, “Doesn’t matter.”
So you gotta realize that we’re all in a big experiment. They’re collecting data. But I mean, if I was to do a prospective study, and I didn’t delineate very clearly the right inclusive and exclusive criteria, there would be a situation of all hell breaking loose. But it’s like this, there’s this dichotomy of rules. And I think that’s what people are, like, upset about, they’re not upset about the science, they’re not upset about right or wrong, they’re upset about this; the dichotomy of rules. There’s the little scientists out there, like Dr. Berry and I that are just questioning things. And there’s this big group of guys out there that are getting paid, and when I say not millions, but billions to go through the stats. And then when they collide, you know, it’s not always going to be a pretty picture. And I think that that’s the beauty of science. I mean, that…really what I’m talking about this, and I really want to talk through this and say my piece is…
Dr. Chad Woolner: And we’re not talking 2020 science, we’re talking science, science. The scientific method is what you’re talking about. The beauty of this word has been so destroyed, hasn’t it?
Dr. Brandon Brock: No, listen, the beauty of the scientific method is; A. I ask a question, I’m allowed as a scientific practitioner, which is what I am, to ask a question. Okay.
Dr. Trevor Berry: That’s where it starts.
Dr. Brandon Brock: And then you say, okay, look, there’s a scientific question. Is there any kind of validity? Is there any kind of research? Is there any systematic, you know, studies that can support exactly what I’m thinking? Or am I crazy? And then you look at that and say, okay, look, there’s room to go further than this. And then you set up some sort of like, small sort of like study that can kind of look at things. And then ultimately, you got a bunch of practitioners. They’re asking questions, legitimate questions. And they’re actually saying things to people who make decisions. And these people who make decisions are committees. And then these committees decide what is actually realistic and what is not.
And when you’re told that everything that you think is non realistic, and you shouldn’t say anything anymore, we all as a private community, here’s what we do, we retract, and we say nothing. And then nothing gets reported. And when that happens, the public is at danger, in spite of monetary gain, and this is not an anti-vax, or anti-disease or pro-this or pro-that. This is just strictly like, I love my patients. And we can no longer think that way. We’re being told…actually there’s a…I mean, I don’t want to get put in the group of those folks. But we’re in a bit, being censored. Our thoughts as scientists, if you’re a great mind, which I’m not saying I am, but I am a good questioner, and I do do good secondary analysis. And I can’t question what somebody says when the research might be at the highest level, at the highest impact journal deficient and I have every right in the world to ask that question as a health care provider without being criticized. And if it’s wrong, it’s wrong. If it’s right, it needs to be acknowledged. I mean, I don’t know Dr. Berry, what do you think about that?
Dr. Trevor Berry: Well, and, I, to dovetail off that commentary, because I’ve been doing laser neurology for 15 years, and they’re doing a lot more collaborative speaking. Like we…Erchonia has the most phenomenal speakers; Dan Murphy, Kirk Gair, Jerome Rerucha, Rob Silverman, Kristin Hieshetter, …all these phenomenal speakers but when they asked me, “Who do you want to collaborate with?” I went to Dr. Brandon Brock. And one of the reasons I did that is not only…he’s one of my mentors and teachers, but I knew everything I had in my mindset about what lasers can do. I’ve read, it doesn’t matter how many I’ve read over 3,000 papers on low level laser, there’s almost 12,000 papers on low level laser therapy. And I wanted to challenge my own belief system.
There’s nobody better on the planet that would challenge me than this guy sitting next to me, Dr. Brandon Brock, because he knows research. He’s done his Harvard stuff on it and that kind of thing. So what I wanted to do was put my own belief system to task because I knew if I brought him on board, that he was going to dissect everything that I believed, everything that I was teaching art and scrutinize…
Dr. Chad Woolner: Just for the record, you’re getting a doctorate in research, is that correct? Where’s that?
Dr. Brandon Brock: Well, I mean, this is…I feel like I’m talking to my kids right now. It’s like, “What does your dad do for a living?” You know? And they’re like, “I don’t know.” I mean, listen, I gotta make this really clear. It’s like, I started out as a chiropractor, and I’m proud of that. I mean, these are, this is a place to say it. I mean, I’m a chiropractor. There’s…you can’t take that away. I mean, once you become a chiropractor, you can’t take that essence away. And by the way, here’s what I’ll say. I learned anatomy and…I learned physiology better than anybody. It was beautiful. I know the biomechanics and the way the body interacts in a way that I really think that not a lot of people understand.
Well, then I wanted to go into the medical world. And I went into the nursing profession, because I really liked the way the nursing profession really loves people. And then I became a nurse practitioner, then I got a doctorate in nursing practice. And so I understood the leadership of really a family medical environment. And by the way, the ability to love people and see people from a nursing perspective is something you don’t get from medicine all the time. It’s really caring for people so I love that.
Dr. Chad Woolner: My dad’s a retired nurse so…
Dr. Brandon Brock: Yeah, and you can’t, listen, if you ask really dying patients about who their hero is, a lot of times the majority, the times they’ll say, my nurse, they took care of me, they loved me. And so I was like, you know what, I already know this physiology. I know the anatomy, I want to know how to like love people, because I was I got a doctor degree, I was like, 24, I didn’t really know anything. I was not mature enough to have a doctor degree, I’ll be real honest with you. When I went there in the nursing profession, I learned how to love and care for, and see people from a vulnerable, “I’m dying” perspective. And it’s not that medical providers don’t do that. But I…that’s just the path I chose.
Well, then after that, you know, there’s all these fellowships, there’s all these diplomates, and you’re learning all this functional medicine, all this integrative medicine, and you’re learning that you’re getting experienced. Well, then I’m like, let’s get a PhD because if you’re like me, I’ve got too many questions. And by the way, the worst thing you could ever do is ask questions, and then set up research in a way that’s just completely wrong. It’s not that it’s bad. But you have to know how to do it, in order for it to be worth your time.
And I have people every day that are kind of beating me up and saying, you cannot ask a question that way. Here’s the scientific method. Here’s the rigor behind the way you think. And I was 99%, clinician, 1% researcher. But what I learned how to be is 40% researcher, 60% clinician, and that researcher in me is not necessarily somebody that’s going to go off in academia. But I’ve learned how to know research what my patients need to know. And if there’s a valid research study out there, now you can kind of sit down and say, this is a way we can do it, where it’s not absolutely illogical. That’s all I bring to the table. And we…I look at Dr. Berry, I mean, it’s like, look, there’s no way I’m ever going to be able to catch him on the understanding of…of lasers. And by the way, we’re not even trying to do that. You got to understand something, we work together in a way where it’s like, wherever there’s a…and this is really honestly the truth. And I think this is the best way to explain it. Wherever there’s a gap. And either one of us we fill that gap. And it’s a little bit of a bromance. I’m sorry, but, but the thing is this, I love you man.
Dr. Trevor Berry: I love you too, man.
Dr. Brandon Brock: But it’s like we we actually intertwine we there’s not, we’re old enough to not have egos, because we’ve been through stuff where we’ve been just, you’ve been demolished a few times. And that kind of gets rid of it right?
Dr. Trevor Berry: The most important thing is bringing the fact that we challenge each other in a positive way to bring the newest information and the most cutting edge research and when, you know, just three of my papers today were literally published in the last week, you know. And that’s our job, to challenge each other so that we were never going to get complacent with this stuff because a lot of the the old school stuff it’s not…you know, that’s what we were founded on, but there’s such a continued…especially in the field of neurology, if you’re not constantly on the cutting edge of bringing new applications…
Dr. Brandon Brock: …you’re a dinosaur.
Dr. Trevor Berry: Yeah. And then to put it into our own practices, that’s why we both want to be in the trenches. I don’t want to retire, I don’t want to…you know, we want to be doing this stuff to see those outcomes with our patient base. And that’s why it’s so important for both of us to be in practice. We’ll finish speaking this week, and we both go to practice Monday morning, and implement exactly what we’re teaching for the weekend.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Yeah, and Dr. Berry will bring up research. And here’s the thing. I mean, when you go through PhD or research work, and he’s been a PI on studies, so I mean, it’s really, that’s, that’s a big thing. You realize this, your ego doesn’t mean a whole lot, the information that you know, is going to change. And so when he brings up research, or I bring up research, we just absorb it, and it’s not…listen, if it dings your, you know, your philosophical or theoretical belief system, it’s just the way it is, it’s going to always change so…
Dr. Trevor Berry: And it’s a beautiful thing. Our profession has always been on the forefront, the cutting edge, the, you know…we do things that, that the standard old school model doesn’t do. But that’s such…that’s what separates us from the other healthcare providers.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I think one unique thing about you guys that I’ve noticed that comes across really strongly, you guys are both very curious people. And one thing I wanted to ask, as you guys, were you always just curious, in life in general, or was there something about healthcare and taking care of patients that sparked that, and what and what continues to drive that?
Dr. Brandon Brock: You tell your story, I’ll tell mine, because we both have probably have very interesting stories as well.
Dr. Trevor Berry: And so for…I loved, you know, we both went to Park or we were there together at the same time. And, you know, I really appreciated the different techniques, the different, you know, our understanding, but there were so many questions in neurology that I’m like, “Well, they say this, but something didn’t quite jive for me.” So I wanted to understand the pathways and the, you know, the, the physiology, the neurology and that kind of stuff. And so that’s why we both came, became board certified neurologists, was to start to fill in some of those gaps. And that’s not taking away from the foundation of…if anything, it builds on what chiropractic was, is based on.
And so as we continue to do that, that’s it just keeps flourishing in a way that, like, you know, what we can do now with the nervous system and understanding with things like low level laser therapy, why…it’s based…it’s the fabric of what makes up the chiropractic community. It is such a beautiful symbiotic relationship, you know, what we bring to the table to the healthcare community. So it seemed obvious to me to branch into those areas and say, “Okay, if I can change brain with a chiropractic adjustment, what else can I do to change the brain and improve and if there’s other tools to do that, whether it’s a nutrition product, a laser, you know, that kind of thing.” But then it became very important to me to, I knew low level laser was one of the biggest game changers in the field of brain based rehab very early on, and you know, over…I’ve been doing it now for over 15 years. But it was…I’m going to do it in the…with the device that was the safest number one, and the most efficacious. And again, I’m careful to say that word in front of my research buddy, right here…
Dr. Brandon Brock: Efficacious is a deadly word.
Dr. Trevor Berry: Yeah, it’s a deadly word in research, you know. But that was why I attached my cart to the Erchonia horse. Is that they nailed. It all the parameters, and it keeps being validated study after study after study is what Erchonia brings to the table. They nailed it, they were on the, on the forefront of that.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Well, you know, when I was a kid, here’s what happened to me, and this is kind of a silly story, but it’s actually worth telling. I mean, I had a pecan tree and a pear tree in my backyard. And we all know that in order for these things to bear appropriate fruit, you need to have something to cross pollinate with, right? And so we never got really good fruit. We never got really good pecans. And we always got broken trees. And I would…as a child, I was bewildered by this. I mean, I was questioning nature. I was always questioning nature, just like I’m always questioning research right now. And I’ll question Dr. Berry, and I will allow him to question me.
You gotta understand something, the people that don’t allow you to question them, they need to be released from the system. And so I used to, I mean, literally, like, like portions of the tree would break and it would be like, “Why can’t I like, tape this together?” Or “why can I sew this together? Can I do this in a way that’s going to make this thing heal.” And I didn’t understand why I didn’t…there was not a yield of a crop or a fruit or a nut. There was not the right way. So the scientific process in me, and the questioning started from a very young age. And I realized that I wanted to learn about brains when I was probably about 10 years old.
But you know what I was told? “You’re really not smart enough to learn about brains.” And so I think I think that screwed me up so bad. I mean, well, what my poor wife who’s actually in the room right now she’s like, “Oh, my God, can you please stop getting degrees?” But what happened is this, man, you can’t do all these systems without clinical curiosity. So all that clinical, all that curiosity as a child turned into an adult, and you look at things and you’re like, “Why? Why is this happening?” And you start getting to a point where like, I don’t really care what the answer is anymore. I need to research it. And I need to read papers. And Dr. Berry, he sends me something. He challenges my entire ideological and theoretical and philosophical components of something that I’ve been entrenched in. And when he does that, you’re just, I think we’re at the age, you know, our Red Bull challenge, we’re getting close to 50. But as you get to that age, you’re just ready to receive it. You know, you’re just like, look, he’s got some cool stuff. How am I going to grow the understanding of these, this pecan tree, this pear tree? For me, as a child, my inner child comes out like, “How…why is this growing fruit? Why is this not growing a pecan? Why is there not cross pollination? Why do things not grow back together?” It’s the “whys.” And when we actually give each other information, and we understand the “whys,” it’s like, man, and it’s like, “dude, I cannot believe I missed that. Or thank you so much.” It’s not a matter of “this is my system. You don’t belong in it.” It’s, “this is our system. We’re building it together.” And I got to tell you in the world of chiropractic medicine, or any other profession, that is almost absolutely unheard of.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, I think what you’re talking about…I’ve said before, at some point, like I think one of the most underrated superpowers…I was in fact we were when were we talking about this? The…you know what the official…I want to make sure I don’t misquote this.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Google this man. Google.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, here we go. Do you guys know what the official jack of all trades quote?
Dr. Andrew Wells: Master of nothing?
Dr. Trevor Berry: The functional neurology?
Dr. Chad Woolner: No, no, no, no. It’s not what people think it is. It’s, it says, jack of all, the actual jack of all trades, quote is “Jack of all trades, master of none, though, often better than a master of one.”
Dr. Trevor Berry: Yeah. And that’s nice.
Dr. Chad Woolner: And so the thing is this, what you’re talking about there. I look at my dad, my dad’s probably i…he’s like a hero of mine in so many ways. He’s probably one of the smartest men I’ve ever met or known in my life. And I know a lot of people say that about their dads, which is awesome. That’s fantastic. But one of the things that I can identify very clearly about my dad, very similar to you, and what you’re saying is, my dad’s a very curious person. And he’s very well read in a diverse manner. I mean, the coolest thing about my dad that I could say, as a compliment, but just factually, what I’ve seen firsthand is you could literally drop him into just about any type of social situation, pick a topic, and he’d be able to hold his own with that topic, because he’s just so well read in such a far…and it’s because of that just kind of inquisitive curiosity. He’s just genuinely curious. He’s very concerned and interested in people, in things in life, you know. And so I think being curious and being well read in a wide range of different things, is the type of mindset that many should have. But like you said, for biases, for ego for any number of reasons. A lot of people don’t have that.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Dr. Berry, curiosity might have killed the cat. Well, that curiosity. I mean, we’re asking questions that some people don’t really like.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Oh, totally.
Dr. Brandon Brock: But however, patients demand. So there’s a difference between patient demand and the capacity of the doctor to participate.
Dr. Trevor Berry: And I think everyone listening would agree with this. If your heart is in the right place as a health care provider, it’s not about your ego, it’s not about your dogma, it’s not about your belief system. It’s what’s the best thing for the patient outcomes? That’s what Dr. Brock and I, we try and bring just as much information to the table as possible, so that your patient base gets the best outcomes.
Dr. Chad Woolner: I think, regardless of where you sit on this, we’ll call it spectrum, right in terms of what’s taking place.
Dr. Andrew Wells: We’re on the spectrum. We’re not quite autistic. But I mean.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Is idiot savant the correct term? No, what I was gonna say is, the thing I would say is, regardless of where you sit, the thing I would ask people to pay attention to or see is this, this is the, this is the thing I would point out. The fact that two years ago, we were not even…there’s no way we could have published this episode of this podcast two years ago. Because of the things we’re …we’re not even like, jumping into it. We’re just like hinting and alluding at certain things that are like “hey, something’s wrong here.” The fact that we can now publish this no problem, it’s, we’re saying we’re in the clear zone. That in and of itself should be concerning to people as as like, you know, you know what I’m saying?
Dr. Brandon Brock: And I know Dr. Berry is gonna chime in on this, but it’s like we have, legit…as a researcher…and listen, I was told that I can’t ask any questions about COVID. And I’m in a PhD program and listen, a PhD program, if you don’t, if you can’t ask questions, you’re screwed, man. Right? There’s, I mean, it’s, it’s not like that’s a bragatorius thing. It’s actually a beating kind of action in a way. But it’s like, you have to be able to ask very difficult questions, because PhDs are the people that are going to solve the basic problems of what we have in science and the world in some, some regard, right? And so all of a sudden, you get this message where it’s like, you can’t ask this question.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Who’s telling you that, by the way?
Dr. Brandon Brock: It’s not a good idea to say.
Dr. Andrew Wells: So basically, whatever authority was there is saying you can’t ask a question.
Dr. Brandon Brock: It’s like this. It’s like, you got to understand this. And it’s not at all a bad thing. I don’t want to be all negative. But it’s like, the medical establishment is trying to set up a system where it’s like, look, the population in general needs to be dealt with. Now, I will say one thing about statistics, there is no such thing as one thing that’s good for everybody, except for maybe oxygen and food, right?
To say that something man made is good for everyone is a statistical misnomer. And I’m not, I don’t want to argue that because that’s just the fact. But in order to stop from allowing people that are intelligent…and this is really how I feel, and this is not anti science, or anti board or anti medicine or pro chiropractic. You know, when you say, “Look, man, this is, to the point, to where you need to quit thinking, and you can’t ask a question, and you can’t quit, you can’t question the statistics. And you can’t buck the system.”
What it does is it brings out the cowboys. And it brings out the people who are just going to say, “You know what, I didn’t grow up…with I grew up with one pear tree and one pecan tree. And it didn’t add up, and neither does this.” And by the way, I don’t think this is all bad. I just think this; studies that typically take 10 years, you did it in seven months. And I understand the need, and the hurry, and the rationale. But it’s just like this, if it happens that way, why can’t we question the system? And why can’t we look at this system and say, this population of people may not be so good, this population of people may respond well, the side effects are this. In other words, do real science instead of just being not centered, yet corner pinned into a perspective of understanding where it’s like, this is the only thing you can project. If you project something different, you’re a heretic. And now you’re just a complete douchebag.
Dr. Trevor Berry: Yes, yeah, I don’t think it was…censorship was the issue. I think I think that media has a really good way of controlling opinion by keeping things arguments, A or B, and there’s no C, D, E, F, or G. And we’re actually, we’re a part of the problem right now, because we’re still talking about is the vaccine effective or not? And, and we’re not asking questions. I think we’re also the solution, the fact that providers like us have been talking about option C, D, E, F, G, and there is some, definitely some censorship happening there. But the problem is, I think most general public isn’t doesn’t have the, the intellectual capability to even think outside. And there may be other options, not just in healthcare, but in anything, politics, we have A or B, religion, very, very binary.
Dr. Brandon Brock: I saw a great interview that was done by a, you know, a Nobel Prize winning immunologist. And he was sitting there…he’s like, in his 80s, okay, and I’m not gonna say names. And he was talking with an interviewer, and there was another immunologist there that was in his late 30s. Okay, and so obviously, one had a career and one didn’t; one was retired. And so they were asking all these questions about this virus and all these things. And this, you know, higher level immunologist, has been there for like 50 or 60 years, he’s saying all these controversial things, and this other immunologist is saying the exact opposite and so the, the person that’s actually doing the interview says, “How can you say these things?” And he goes, “Because I don’t have a career to protect and I got a Nobel Prize. What do you think?”
And this guy just straight up said it. I mean, he didn’t have a single repressive bone in his body and everybody in the room freaked out. And what I thought is; there’s no…free thought is…and I’m really anti censorship, I can just say that part as far as like my own denomination okay? I’m really…I believe in free thought, and if somebody comes across as dumb then this…you know, society in the research community will say this is not correct. But why can’t I ask a question? And he said it brilliantly. He was like…he said it in a way that nobody could really argue he’s like, “I’m a Nobel Prize winner. And I’ve been doing this for 50 years. And I don’t have to worry about my job. What’s your excuses?”
And the guy just melted into his seat. And nobody had, really, a comeback. And so I’m like, ”Why can’t some of us who are just questioning?” It’s not that we’re bucking the system about any of this, lasers, vaccines, disease, it’s all of medicine, medicine is made. Here’s what makes it beautiful. We get to ask a question. And even Dr. Berry, now, we get to challenge each other. It’s not about left versus right, blue versus red, anything. It’s the scientific method, we’re meant to argue, to an extent and that’s the beautification of it. And when you can’t do that anymore, now science has become political. It’s no longer that beautiful argument that is a little bit of a punch in the face, but not enough to really destroy you. And that’s what makes it so great.
Dr. Chad Woolner: On that, note COVID and lasers? Let’s go there.
Dr. Brandon Brock: That’s yours, Dr. Berry.
Dr. Chad Woolner: COVID and lasers, what’s been your experience personally?
Dr. Trevor Berry: Personally, and in the literature supported. The interesting thing, one of the things I love about this topic with low level laser therapy is that it’s been often stated that the violet end of the spectrum is the big antimicrobial part. And without a doubt, that was shown in COVID studies as well. But there are COVID studies with red laser being very effective with in acute phase resolution.
Dr. Chad Woolner: And I’m assuming that those are…those are laser companies in addition to Erchonia, not just Erchonia.
Dr. Trevor Berry: Yes, they are peer reviewed studies, you’ll publish stuff, PubMed stuff. And so I saw it in practice. So it was a big game changer for you know, some of my patients that…my mom was a good example. She was going downhill in a hurry and I got the EVRL Erchonia laser in her hands, and it was a light…My office manager Janelle, same thing, light switch turned on. It was…and I tried the…all the nutrients, zinc and NAC and we, you know, we’re trying all those other methods. But quite often in practice, it was the…the laser that was the thing that got them over the hump.
And the studies show, like, you know, keeping them out of end stage, hospitalization stuff, all the long term things you would think in acute phase stuff, but also now we’re seeing it in long COVID. Like about probably a good 20% of my practice right now is long COVID stuff. And the lasers are the game changer when you look at the the downstream, you know, inflammation process and the central nervous system, you know, gliosis and interleukin activity, and you know, we’re talking today about some of the brainstem dysautonomia, there’s so much of that it’s an inflammation based process. That was one of the big issues with COVID was the cytokine storm, that overshoot of the inflammation process. And lasers, there’s no better tool on the planet designed to knock down or tamp down inflammation and you know, with the T-Ray immuno-resolution process, so that your immune system can react appropriately to that particular pathogen.
Dr. Chad Woolner: You know, it’s interesting, because I think sometimes, especially if a practitioner is and or a patient is new to laser therapy, they…again, speaking of binary, they expect one of two kinds of outcomes in terms of using laser. So I come in with complaint XYZ, you know, let’s just say COVID, for instance, right? And I laser and I don’t notice…my symptoms immediately gone away or whatever, right? So it’s this very binary, well, that didn’t work for me, right, A or B.
I was at a continuing ed seminar two months ago, three months ago with Dr. Rerucha, in Salt Lake. And he said something that just…was like a little pearl that I stuck in the back of my brain. He said, “If you have a patient who’s getting ready to go into surgery,” he said “you will miss a massive opportunity for them to get exponentially better outcomes in their healing. If you don’t laser them first, right before they go to surgery on that body part, whatever.” And he said, in essence, though, and you guys can clarify this in terms of the specific scientific jargon, but in essence, you’re pre loading the cells to be optimally charged, if you will, for the best possible outcome
Dr. Brandon Brock: …to tolerate torture.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, and so what happened was, we had a patient of ours who’s going in for a knee replacement. It was just…he was…he was ready, he was there, and he was going to do it. And, and I just pulled him aside and I said, “you know, I was at this seminar, I know you’re going to do your knee surgery, this is not for the intent that we’re going to magically fix your knee and prevent the surgery, which would be amazing. That’d be incredible, right?”
But I’m like, “just knowing that you’re going to go through with that. Let’s…let’s do this, just to see if this might possibly improve your outcomes.” And that was it. I really didn’t talk it up much. I’m just like, let’s just give it a shot, you know. And again, in terms of this, A B binary outcome…again, we assume oh, he gets up and “It’s gone. My pain’s gone.” Yeah, that’s what people are expecting. Or the…you know, nothing changed. Well, it didn’t work.
Well what wound up happening was he went through the surgery as…as expected. But what wasn’t expected for him and for his doctor, and for his physical therapist that he was seeing afterwards. He said, “I have beaten all of their projections.” And he said “the only thing that I can point to and all of it” because he’s…he’s overweight, which we’re using the Zerona on him. And he’s lost a ton of weight from that, which has just been super cool too. Which is no doubt helping systemically as well, beyond just the fat loss side of things. But his recovery has just been so incredibly rapid. And he’s doing the other knee and a few…in a month or two. And he’s like, “I’m going to do that way more than just once before because I know that that’ll help.”
And so my whole point in bringing that up, is with COVID, even if it…you know…may or may not kill COVID, right in its tracks or whatever, you know. Which I’m not making that claim here, obviously on this podcast. But I think in a very similar way, no doubt, you can only improve and give your body a much better chance to become a higher level of resilience.
Dr. Brandon Brock: I was gonna say resilience. I don’t know what you have to think about. Resilience is such a broad term. I mean, like, optimizing physiology, giving tissue integrity, we can’t sit here and say that we’re curing COVID any more than we say, can say that we understand everything about COVID vaccines, or COVID disease, or COVID infection, right? We just have to help people live.
And really honestly, that’s what it’s boiled down to, in regards to practitioners, we just want people to live. And when you boil it down even further, you put practitioners in a corner. And most clinicians, when you put their back against the wall, will put their patients in front of themselves. And so everybody’s sitting there saying, “How am I going to help this person live? And what am I going to do?” It doesn’t matter anymore what you do. The statistics disappear, the politics disappear, and you start doing things to keep people alive. Then the questions come afterwards in regards to why what I saw did, why did it work? Or why did it not work? It’s the scientific process that’s been happening since the dawn of drugs, penicillin, vitamins.
Dr. Andrew Wells: We have this thing in our group that healthcare providers should be what we call solutions curators. Meaning not to be so boxed into what this sort of linear thinking of, you know, thinking outside the box of “what else can I do to help patients?”
And I saw you guys do this today, when you’re talking about stacking therapies. Like when you’re using a laser therapy, you can do other things while you’re doing laser therapy, which I thought is really innovative, to even improve the outcomes of what you’re doing, as you know…not that laser therapy alone is bad, but there’s other ways that you can even more ways that you can help your patients.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Well, and even Erchonia, in the training that they give they say like in terms of lasers, there’s kind of a good, better, best in terms of general protocol. They say good if you just laser the area; set it and forget it. Better is involving some type of, you know, motion, or some type of input, that’s where…
Dr. Trevor Berry: …activating the system.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah. And then best would be like, against resist…a little bit of resistance included to really kind of further amp up or further engage at a higher level.
Dr. Brandon Brock: And this is a Canadian term; “the bestest.”
Dr. Trevor Berry: We are a central nervous system system. And so why not use lasers in transcranial vagal all those applications we’re talking about today.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I told Dr. Woolner today, I was going to laser his brain while calling him dummy repeatedly over and over again, and see what happened.
Dr. Chad Woolner: We had a practitioner who just got the FX 405, and he was dealing with some reticular symptoms down shoulder and arm. And I was like, “I’m so excited for you to do it.” And so he did it just kind of a point and shoot I’m like, “and what happened?” And he said, “I’ve done it three times. And I haven’t noticed any difference.” And so immediately I’m thinking and maybe you guys can chime in on this, we can use this as kind of an impromptu little case here. But I told him active…get some active motion. I said laser the brain and or the brain stem area. Activate that by just getting some motion in there and or a little bit of resistance. Your thoughts on that?
Dr. Brandon Brock: Well, we’ll circle around Dr. Berry, He’ll have good information about this. But I mean, my first thought is, “Okay, look, we do our top down approach.” Maybe it’s brain, maybe it’s functional. But maybe, just maybe there’s a disc herniation that is so bad that…I mean we have to go in conventional medicine say this, people get radiculopathies. They get active denervation. Their EMG is positive, you know, for active denervation, fibrillations, and you know, you know positive you know…look, it just comes down to the point where it’s not a good deal at the segmental level, right?
Dr. Trevor Berry: But even with that said, you’d be amazed at how many of these cases we have are discogenic, that kind of thing. That even with that, that obvious sign on MRI, you still do those upstream and downstream things we were teaching today’s them and it saves them they don’t have to go in their surgery. A good example…we brought a doctor up on stage today with her shoulder situation. She had more signs of dystonia based shoulder dysfunction and things like that.
We were teaching all the way from brain downstream to the shoulder tissue, but we could have stopped at parietal and cerebellar laser applications and she probably would have been almost good to go based on that without even touching the shoulder. So to your case that you were talking about so many these things are centrally mediated, you know, situations that the brain has maladapted.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So for…because this has been somewhat of a surprising turn of events with The Laser Light Show podcast is I’ve been getting a lot of patients and/or I’ve heard from other practitioners, their patients are listening to this. So you’ve thrown out some terms there, that…and I’ll be honest to some of the terms are above me too. Anyway, so…
Dr. Brandon Brock: Above us too.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Because the laser dummy therapy is working
Dr. Trevor Berry: Well, I’m just…I say it with a Canadian accent with conviction, so they have to believe me.
Dr. Brandon Brock: And I say it with a Texan accent so it can be completely wrong.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So for patients who are listening to this, what would that look like in layman’s terms in terms of what that therapy would look like? And then the practitioner’s like, “okay, I can do that.” And the rationale in terms of…because you talked about…did you see neuroplastic changes that have taken place in the brain, maladaptive?
Dr. Brandon Brock: So say, I have a shoulder injury? Yeah, you’ve got local tissue damage or inflammation, things like that, but what really makes the situation, say chronic and not responsive to typical therapies, is that the central nervous system starts to adapt to that injury and makes changes in how the muscles move at the muscles may contract…
Dr. Chad Woolner: And you’re talking physical map…remapping of the brain territory?
Dr. Brandon Brock: It’ll do it. It’s very plastic. Now screwed up, now screwed up, man. And so you have your your body will show it and Dr. Berry….
Dr. Chad Woolner: I don’t want to take you off track. But real quick. Have you guys read that book by David Eagleman, Livewired?
Dr. Trevor Berry: Yeah.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Great.
Dr. Brandon Brock: I have not. I don’t read a whole lot of books.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, I know you’re you’re you’ve got a fair excuse as to why you’re…
Dr. Trevor Berry: Not enough time on his hands.
Dr. Brandon Brock: I read the The Cat and the Hat when I’m in the corner, crying.
Dr. Trevor Berry: So I think for the…all levels of the audience listening is that, yeah, you can do some amazing things, you might be seeing the best physical therapist, the best chiropractor on the planet doing awesome work on the shoulder. But if that brain has maladapted to compensate for that, just like a bad golf swing, or something that becomes ingrained in the central nervous system. Until you change your brain firing…in the brain patterns. That’s what can sometimes get those patients over the hump, when it’s…when it’s beyond just the point and shoot, set it and forget it. Usually it’s because of a brain maladaptation. So that’s why we teach doctors to do brain based laser exposure. Combine that with the physical therapy, with the range of motion, the stretching and things like that. And quite often, that’s what gets them over that final hurdle.
Dr. Andrew Wells: And because have you guys started to dabble in the world of virtual reality as a therapy?
Dr. Trevor Berry: Yes, we have.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Because that’s kind of like, that’s where my mind went with this is is is that…
Dr. Brandon Brock: There will…eventually will be artificial intelligence, brain implants. And basically, there’ll be people like us looking at neuroplasticity and saying, “Look, this is incorrect. Let’s use a chip that my neighbor’s 10 year old can hack into.” I mean, it’s all very scary, man. I gotta be honest with you.
Every time we say that can’t happen. We exceed that. And so I mean, let me let me go back to the dystonia, our possible dystonia patient today. I mean, she didn’t present with a clear shoulder injury, she didn’t present with a clear neck injury. She had multiple accidents, God knows where the problem is. She doesn’t have a positive MRI, she doesn’t have a clear dermatomal or, you know, cutaneous distribution of sensory loss. So you’re sitting there, and you’re like, “this may be cortical.”
And then when you watch her move, you see movement patterns that just aren’t in line with normal movement. The scapular rotation versus the glenohumeral joint. And if you are trained in biomechanics, you look at and you’re like, “This isn’t right. And if it flares up, it’s going to be even really not right.” So what did we do? I mean, did we change? What do we do? Do we retrain her movement patterns? Did we just decrease pain? Was it a placebo saying you’re gonna be better? I really think that we activated the brain to understand where that joint is, and we moved it in patterns, where her brain now understands, this is the new pattern, not the basal ganglia.
Dr. Trevor Berry:“Oh, this is how I’m supposed to move. This is how I’m supposed to be positioned. This is how the muscles are supposed to be contracting and relaxing and that kind of stuff.”
Dr. Chad Woolner: I think anybody can understand that.
Dr. Trevor Berry: Yeah, you know, you have to change central nervous system beyond the…you know, she, yeah, for sure. She may have had some rotator cuff, you know, inflammation, those kind of things. But that was not the big picture in this case.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Yeah. And you say anybody can understand that and I agree with you, but no. I mean, the theory, the theory is great. However, the practice of medicine is, is this efficiency and monetary? We spent, we spent 15 minutes on her? 15 minutes. But you have to be efficient. Nobody else is going to I mean, not say nobody very few people in medicine, they’re going to do this. They’re gonna look at her and say, “You know what? You need a muscle relaxer, you need an NSAID, you might need an antidepressant. If this is going on, you know, we’ll maybe even get crazy and send you to some acupuncture.”
But we look at and we’re like, “this is just a bad movement pattern. The brain is not that great if we just reestablish that. We can make a big…” We did it in 10 minutes today. Yeah. And I think that, again, how many times have we asked questions? How many times have we answered questions from a clinical perspective, and just moved forward with application.
Dr. Trevor Berry: All healthcare providers…there’s nothing stopping…whether you’re doing massage therapy, whether you’re doing acupuncture, naturopath. Every one of us can be doing what we were talking about today. And she talked about how the whole…not just her shoulder movement, but the whole, the whole left side of her body, her thorax, everything, felt better, felt more relaxed, and that thing. Because you take a neuro centric brain based approach to that. And that’s why every…that’s why I say it half jokingly, but half serious is that even if you’re not a board certified neurologist, don’t worry about it. Everyone can turn a laser on and point it at the brain. I don’t care what your level of training is, you don’t have to be…have a doctor in front of your name, you can point a laser at different areas of the brain, they’re gonna facilitate the well being of that joint function.
Dr. Brandon Brock: It’s not neurosurgery, it’s neural activation without an inappropriate dose.
Dr. Trevor Berry: That’s the key, you got to have the right device. And when you’re treating brain, you cannot be using high powered lasers. That’s why you were attached to the Erchonia horse. You guys have attached yourself. Like the scientific evidence that goes back to this is why, you know, brought Dr. Brock on board is that the evidence backs low dose, low level, lower wavelength, higher energy with lower wavelength lasers. That’s where the magic happens. And that’s why we’re here today.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Yeah, I wasn’t fooled by the heat. I wasn’t fooled by the…I mean, initially, like my, my mom had a dupuytren’s contracture, and I used a, like a class 4, like the kind of laser that could burn a hole in the wall. And I treated her with it and literally all the tissue started to make this liquefactive, like exudate into the area. And I was like, now that I look back on it, I’m like, “Oh, my God!” Like the fact that something can change tissue that quickly, and she didn’t get any better. And it was so profoundly impacting the tissue. And the fact that basically, a team from NASA had to come out and teach me how to use this thing without destroying the world. I mean, it was just crazy. And I think back to them, like it didn’t, it didn’t do anything different other than just over- and I hate to use the word dose, but I mean, I’m gonna use it, it just overdosed the patient, they didn’t need that amount of photonic energy to get the job done.
Dr. Trevor Berry: There’s a time and a place for a blade of lasers that are high powered, lasering in your brain is not that time.
Dr. Brandon Brock: So if I’m getting LASIK surgery, that’s a different laser than musculoskeletal. And the people that develop, you know, really good laser researchers, they understand laser physiology. And they’ll sit…they’ll tell you, “what you guys are trying to achieve with the mitochondria and the electron transport chain is not what we’re trying to do with cauterizing soft tissue or blowing up somebody…you know, a satellite in space.” That, there’s a gigantic range between laser physiology. And it just, it cracks…Dr. Berry, we sit down and we’re like “man, the laser that causes the most symptoms and if they can survive through it, that’s the best laser right?”
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, and we caught that on the questions after today’s seminar. Even though you guys talked about it’s not about power, it’s not about penetration. Yet you still get from our profession even though like it’s been said 100,000 times it’s not about power imprint, its wavelength.
Dr. Trevor Berry: Yeah. Wavelength, low dose, it’s the energy of the photon, and it doesn’t take many photons to create that energy and get those that you know the atomic, the electrons to go to higher levels of Valence activity that creates that energy model.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Was it you that had said like when you step out into the sun, you don’t want your kidneys and liver and everything else getting sunburned…
Dr. Trevor Berry: The liver’s not gonna get sunburned.
Dr. Brandon Brock: I mean, you got to look at it and say, “Okay, what is the sun doing?” I mean, it, it’s at a certain wavelength, it’s at a certain power, it’s going to be very superficial. It’s again, vibrating that superficial water component, and it’s…it lowers the depth of penetration, which is why my white skin gets burned and my liver doesn’t. Thank goodness. That’s the way it is. We have to change what we’re doing with low level laser therapy so that it actually does create a superficial component, which changes the subcutaneous components, which gets to the mitochondria, and changes the energy production in the cells and the tissues that we’re trying to make healthy. And that’s not an easy process that took…when you look at the Shanks family, it took years to get to the point to where they were actually satisfied with where we’re at today. And this…
Dr. Trevor Berry: …they tried the high powered models and it didn’t work. That’s why they backed off of that. We want photochemical, not photo thermal reaction. The whole point of any other 3B and 4 laser is to heat tissue topically. Because those types of wavelengths, the longer wavelengths with higher power, all it does is vibrate molecules, the water molecules in the dermis area. Yeah. And to create that topical, that’s why they have their FDA clearance.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Well, and it’s interesting you say that because we had prior to getting the Erchonia lasers in our clinic, we had a class 4 laser. We loved it, it was it was awesome. I thought it was the coolest thing ever
Dr. Andrew Wells: Can blow satellites. The thing is, you cut off arms.
Dr. Chad Woolner: And the thing is, now though is is that the thing now that I look at it is there are times when I still want to use it, but it’s times when I want some warmth. That’s really the…
Dr. Brandon Brock: Just get a hot pack.
Dr. Trevor Berry: A very expensive hotpack. A $40,000 hotpack.
It’s really, I mean, people are so stuck on sensation rather than function. I mean, in that time, though, to be quite honest, we…the only problem we run into is this: “I’m not I’m not feeling a whole lot of what you’re doing. But you see the end results.” But yes, patients have to be patient, right?
Dr. Andrew Wells: We interviewed a veterinarian. And that was one of the cool thing you said about animals is there’s no placebo effect. The animals can’t feel it. And there’s no they don’t know that anything’s even happening, but they get better. And humans know they have that, that thought like, “not feeling it. It’s not tingling.”
Dr. Brandon Brock: Yeah, it’s all fun games till you liquefy a parakeet’s liver, you know.
Dr. Trevor Berry: We just went off the rails. We’re probably getting to the end of the podcast.
Dr. Brandon Brock: I mean, it’s been but seriously, it’s like, and I will say, you know, I mean, we are trying to get into the veterinarian world, my brother’s a vet, right. And he’s really good horse surgeon. And they they’re doing everything I can to keep things sterile, to keep things healthy to heal. And it’s very easy to come in and say, “look, the animal is going to experience this.” The great thing about veterinary lasers is this. They’re not going to go…the dogs not gonna look at you and go, “I can’t feel the-“. I mean, you just need to understand the physiology and the photo chemistry behind it.
Dr. Chad Woolner: I want to hear how the dog sounds again.
Dr. Brandon Brock: I don’t know if I drink enough to do that. But and it’s like this, really seriously. Living organisms are living organisms. Let’s not burn them. Let’s not denature proteins, and let’s give them the right…
Dr. Trevor Berry: Do no harm. Our number one job.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Quote on quote, dose.
Dr. Andrew Wells: So as we’re I know, this podcast is probably going along, which is great.
Dr. Brandon Brock: That’s awesome.
Dr. Andrew Wells: One thing I want to ask and I’m always curious about I think our docs will be curious about; we’re talking about brain health. We talked a lot about neurology today. What do you guys do at home? I…just looking at you guys, I can tell that you that you’re living the way you preach, and what you preach. But what, what are you guys doing at home in terms of like morning routines, evening routines, to maintain brain health so that you don’t end up like most Americans?
Dr. Chad Woolner: But before we go even into that, can you share with them this statistic that you started off with that, like got everybody’s attention? Right out the gates?
Dr. Brandon Brock: Yeah. A scary…Yeah, it’s…
Dr. Trevor Berry: It’s pretty alarming that the statistics show that we’re now breaching that 50% of Americans are going to die with some sort of neurodegenerative dementia type of diagnosis.
Dr. Brandon Brock: And what if you’re born…50% are autistic. So then who’s in the middle? I mean, you got to look at this and say, “really, who’s going to actually pay for all that?” And I’m, this is not an insensitive thing. Who’s gonna pay for all this shit? who’s gonna be left? And it’s, it’s, I mean, I got daughters, and he’s got daughters, and they’re gonna have kids and we’re looking at this and we’re like, “What the hell, man? I mean, literally, what the hell is gonna happen to us and them?
Dr. Chad Woolner: I felt very much like when you said that you could feel a sense of urgency, a sense of mission and purpose. Like somebody needs to seriously like…without sounding overly dramatic, sound an alarm on this because like, this needs to become like…
Dr. Trevor Berry: Of the causes of death. Yeah, it’s the one that skyrockets. And and if you said to me, Dr. Berry, “What would be your number one monotherapy that you’re going to attack neurodegeneration with?” Without a doubt it’s low level laser therapy. You do not take that out of my practice. You can take anything else out of my repertoire, do not take my Erchonia low level laser…
Dr. Chad Woolner: I didn’t want to sidetrack against Andrew’s question there. But I just wanted to kind of frame that around why that…why what you’re doing to protect your brains? What are the things you’re doing?
Dr. Andrew Wells: Actually, Chad, you brought up a good point. And this I was thinking about this in the seminar today, there was a doctor there who had a young family. She had some of her kids running in, and I have young boys at home. And I’m thinking, when I heard that stat, I’m like, one of the things I’m thinking of as a parent, for my boys, is whoever they decide to marry at a certain point, one of the big things I think they have to think about is how healthy are they like, 20 years old? Yeah. 25-30 years old?
Dr. Brandon Brock: Those are my patients. Yeah, that…like they showed up and it was hard to recognize them. I mean, I mean, to kind of bring this to a conclusion. I mean, you talk about laser, you talk about…I mean…we talk about so much stuff. I mean, it’s like what do we do to get our brains in the right mindset? You know, we have relationships, I’ve got a good relationship with Dr. Berry, I’ve got a good relationship at work, I have a beautiful, wonderful wife that puts me in the right mindset. So there’s so many metrics to this thing. I mean, we look at lasers is one component of…I mean… And I said today you can’t out nutrition, a bad diet, like supplement wise, right?
It’s all about balance. You got some exercise, you got some supplements, you got some nutrition, you have a laser. Maybe if you need medication, you have it, you have a good relationship. And what you’re trying to do…and we we use the word hormesis, flippantly. But in all reality, your your world is balanced man. And we you hear people say this all the time from Tony Robbins all the way down to us, right? Your life has to be balanced.
And so I would say this; have good relationships, don’t have stress. Have something that can activate your brain, and not deactivate it. Find out what your weak spots are, and fulfill them in nutrition. Look at your weak spots and diet, have somebody that can help you. If you’re not exercising, get off your ass and do something. If you don’t have relationships, make some friends with people that you can actually adhere to and relate to. And if you do those things, you know what you’re doing your best. And that’s all we can do. Because there’s a Z for everybody, right? A to Z. It’s what is your journey from A to Z gonna be like?
Dr. Chad Woolner: Well, and I think in all of that everything you’re saying I think makes perfect sense to people and that’s all stuff that’s fairly attainable. I think that kind of ace up the sleeve that we’re talking about is that laser. You know, that, that’s that kind of…
Dr. Trevor Berry: And that’s what I was gonna answer like, I do live a fairly healthy lifestyle. I do yoga, I do…I exercise high intensity interval training, I do shunt stabilization exercises. I’ve…I’ve gotten out of bad relationships. You know, I’ve done a lot of this stuff.
I do fasting, I eat mostly a paleo keto type diet, Mediterranean modified, you’ll…I call it the Mother Nature, diet, things like that. But I also eat more bacon than anyone I know, in the planet. I’ll have a glass of red wine, that kind of stuff. So I have to do certain things to offset that. And that’s one of the things that I’m a good test subject for why I take a laser home every night. I have one in my hotel room right now. I have my EVRL because we had some wine and I know our steak at dinner tonight was a lot of grass fed grass finished.
Dr. Brandon Brock: He’s going to open his clothes right now you just can’t see.
Dr. Trevor Berry: So what I do, that’s my great equalizer. Nobody is perfect on this planet. Nobody in the United States is going to live the cleanest diet, exercise. You know, I get it. There’s a few people, you know, there’s the exceptions, but most Americans are not living that lifestyle. So what I like about the laser, it’s the great equalizer.
Dr. Brandon Brock: That’s a good, that’s a good, that’s a good way of saying it, man.
Dr. Trevor Berry: And that’s that’s how I’m gonna you know, when you ask that question about what I do. Yeah, I do meditation and stress reduction and prayer and like all these other things that that that are going to be beneficial. But I also am going to beat myself up once in a while. And that’s where the laser comes in to offset that.
Dr. Brandon Brock: And we’re all going to listen…here’s success. And then this is a true stat. If your patients doing 80% of what you asked, that is extremely successful, which means this. That laser and a few other things help pick up the damage from that 20, or 10, or 30%
Dr. Trevor Berry: …or in some Americans 90%
Dr. Brandon Brock: Yes. Like, if I tried to treat Trevor, he tried to treat me it’s like we built we’d be like “okay, whatever, yeah.” But I mean, we’ve…we’ve both realized through hard knocks, we have to do something or else we’re going to become extinct on this planet faster than we should be. And so we both have girls, which is…you know, for us, more important than ourselves. We both…you know, have people that are important in our lives. And for some reason whenever you…got I don’t know this may sound wrong, but we got daughters. We have to be around for them. We have to be role models. We have to protect them. It’s not that if we didn’t have son….you know, I don’t know if you have any boys but it’s like…
Dr. Trevor Berry: Not that I know of.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Yeah, no, no franchises that he knows of. But it’s like, you have to be there and support and be healthy and be…be able to have some sort of resilience and retention and, and strength to actually be able to do things that you need to do. And but we all have that. We’re just all trying to get through this race.
But it’s like, you have to be there and support and be healthy and be…be able to have some sort of resilience and retention and, and strength to actually be able to do things that you need to do. And but we all have that. We’re just all trying to get through this race.
Dr. Trevor Berry: And that’s the last statement I think that Dr. Brock and I would agree on in this is that you invest in a low level laser with Erchonia, for your loved ones, your benefactors. And yourselves, you invest in your own brain so that we can all be the best health care providers, because we have so many people that were put on this planet to help. And so here we are. Low level laser is one of the best ways that I’m going to maintain and protect my brain, so I can be doing the best I can for not just my daughters, but for my patient base, for my loved ones.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Well and the thing that I would end with…kind of full circle on all of this is going back to kind of how you opened today’s seminar. This, this idea that that’s the alarm that’s being sounded and those who are listening to this podcast right now, something so stupidly simple that each one of them can do to help in this process is share this podcast with as far and wide as you can truly share this podcast. Because, Because…
Dr. Trevor Berry: Go Viral.
Dr. Chad Woolner: I know seriously, because here’s the deal. This is how this becomes mainstream, if this tool is as powerful as we’re claiming it is, which it is. This needs to become mainstream, it needs to become something that is not this obscure, like “Oh, I heard that there’s this doctor that has one of these. And maybe if I searched the zip code, I can drive 50 miles to go see this, you know, random,” or that you feel like you’ve got to like fly out to Dr. Berry, which I’m sure he’d love to see…he gets people flying out, or Dr. Brock, you guys get people flying out from all over the country to see you guys. That’s awesome. But you guys are only two doctors, right? And we’re talking about a country with…
Dr. Trevor Berry: And that’s why we’re here.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, exactly. And so, so for those listening, that is the kind of plea that we would have with you is, share this as far and wide on social media as you can if you’re, if you’re listening to this, if this has resonated with you, share this with other practitioners, share this with your patients. And for those practitioners who are listening, get to an Erchonia seminar. Like, seriously, like, when you, when you come like it’s, it’s so compelling is so so compelling. Like, it’s just the coolest that we’ve connected with Erchonia.
Dr. Brandon Brock: Well, I would just add this, there’s a you know, you talk about finding a laser practitioner, but there’s so many people that are just disenfranchised. And so many people that are chronically ill, and so many people that have been to the Mayo Clinic, or the Cleveland Clinic, or they’ve spent $100,000, and doctors. And there’s just nobody that can help them. I mean, I see these people all the time. And it is difficult for us as practitioners because there’s a lot of stress to help people out. But you know, look, man, there’s a hierarchy. And we have to be able to do something for people that are at the end of their rope, or people that are at the beginning of their rope. And we’re just trying to get to the point to where we can keep, listen, science and treatment can keep up with pathological progression. And if we can do that, we’re better off as a civilization. If we can’t do it, we’re gonna get swallowed.
And look, the reason why I love Dr. Berry so much is because he pushes me to keep up with pathological progression. Pathological progression is my therapeutic modalities, keeping up with how sick we’re becoming. And we’re becoming sick as a society with stress and with infectious disease, and with deterioration. And with you name it. Can we keep up with it and become integrated? And can we get along and we can talk about theoretical advancement in research, and get over ourselves and collaborate and I hope that’s what gets through. I hope that’s what makes this podcast go viral.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, no. I agree. 100%
Dr. Andrew Wells: We have to do more Late Night with Dr. Berry and Dr. Brock. This was fun. Truly enjoyed it you guys.
Dr. Trevor Berry: We’re honored to be here with you and you guys to get that message out. You guys are doing such a service to humankind and we’re very blessed to have you here.
Dr. Brandon Brock: And nobody knows we’re in our underwear right now.
Dr. Andrew Wells: This podcast happened by the way, Chad and I are laying our beds. I was getting ready to go to bed. Oh, you heard a (knocking sounds) “You ready to do a podcast?”
Dr. Chad Woolner: Funny. So while while Chad and Andrew are in their jammies. Trevor and Brandon are in suits and ties. Yeah, for the record.
Dr. Brandon Brock: The shoes hurt. They’re on my feet for so long.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So we’ll let these fellas get to bed. We got another day of exciting instruction tomorrow that we’re really looking forward to. Again, docs and patients alike who have been listening to this. Share this with those that you feel could benefit. We sure appreciate Dr. Trevor Berry and Dr. Brandon Brock being here with us.
We appreciate your guys’ time, we appreciate everything you’re doing in teaching everything that Erchonia is doing and how you guys are fitting into all this. It’s just absolutely incredible. And it’s been really exciting to see this and really looking forward to you…know how this particular episode ages a year from now, five years from now. You know, and what advancements are around the corner. Because I know that Erchonia is much like you guys, which is why I think you guys are so integrated with them. They’re constantly keeping their finger on the pulse of research and constantly investing so much time and energy and resources and money into, into advanced research.
Dr. Trevor Berry: No other company, no other company is doing what’s they are.
Dr. Brandon Brock: So exciting. And you got us wrong.
We walked in, and we listened. We didn’t have a script. I mean, yeah, we just walked in to start talking, which is a little bit unusual, because I mean, we have to be scripted to an extent. But yeah, it’s like this you got us and what we really think and I don’t know. It’s kind of, it’s kind of a beautiful
Dr. Trevor Berry: Long form things are beautiful. Thank you guys, for…
Dr. Brandon Brock: You guys are great. We appreciate it.
Dr. Trevor Berry: Now we’ll see you first thing tomorrow.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Bright and early. All right. We’re off to bed, everybody. And yeah, we’re looking forward to more. So look forward to sharing more with you guys on the next podcast. We’ll talk to you guys later. Rock’n’roll.
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.
In this episode, we talk with rising boxing star Eli Garcia and Dr. Marc Burdorf on how lasers have become an integral part of Eli’s training protocol. Some have questioned whether or not laser therapy should be banned in professional sports due to its performance-enhancing effects. Dr. Burdorf discusses the main reasons behind why Eli gets laser therapy and why Eli considers it a must-have part of his routine.
https://instagram.com/_elijahgarcia_?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Dr. Chad Woolner: What’s going on everybody? Dr. Chad Woolner here with Dr. Andrew Wells. And this is Episode 21 of The Laser Light Show and on today’s episode we have with us, Dr. Marc Burdorf and Elijah Garcia, an up-and-coming incredible boxer. We’re going to be talking with him about his career about the role that low level laser has been playing in his experiences. So we’re really excited to get into this one. 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.
All right, everybody. Welcome to the show. We are so excited. This is gonna be an awesome episode, because we have the opportunity to chat with our good friend Dr. Marc Burdorf and Elijah Garcia. Thank you guys both so much for taking time out of your schedule to be here with us. We’re super excited to chat. And for those who can’t see, we also have another guest with us again. Name again, Dr. Marc.
Dr. Marc Burdorf: This is Dr. Duke.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Dr. Duke. we have Dr. Duke with us.
Dr. Andrew Wells: And Duke is a I don’t know of born that way, but as a cat with no hair.You think of Austin Powers and Dr. Evil that’s what that looks like which actually makes Dr. Marc Dr. Evil.
Dr. Marc Burdorf: That’s one way of looking at it. He is a Canadian Sphinx and he will be two years old this October 11. Actually, not only has all my professional athletes like Eli benefited from laser but Duke decided to eat a couple year plugs last December 7 to celebrate Pearl Harbor and he cost me about five grand to an emergency surgery. And we lasered him six times in the first 24 hours after the surgery. And his incisions were completely healed in five days for any veterinarians out there that are considering getting lasers in their practice. It’s a game changer.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Wow. We actually just interviewed a veterinarian. It’s such a cool story. And actually we have slated at some point not on the calendar yet but an interview with Duke and you to talk about his healing process. But today, more importantly, we have an awesome opportunity to interview Eli Garcia. And Eli, you’ve been described as the next Oscar De La Hoya. How does that make you feel to hear that?
Eli Garcia: It’s cool. You know Oscar De La Hoya is a multi- world champion, and an Olympian, and he’s one of the best ever. But they kinda mean something different. It’s good. You have all the best.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I remember him. I was not a big boxing fan. But back when they’d had boxing on TV. I was I don’t know how old I was. I was young. But I remember. I remember seeing Oscar De La Jolla and my dad watching the fights and not knowing much about boxing. I just knew that he was amazing. And always won. And yeah, so that’s got to be humbling. And if it were me, I think that would make me feel a little bit nervous. But what an honor, what an honor to be compared to somebody who’s done amazing things in boxing, so maybe, maybe a good place to start. Can you tell us a little bit about your family history and how you actually got into boxing?
Eli Garcia: Yeah, so it or so on both sides of the family, you know, there’s been boxing. And my grandpa, he grew up in Soledad, California more like, you know, it’s kind of out there. And so where he grew up, you know, there’s lots of lots of boxing around. So he started fighting. And then he had my dad. My dad had about 150 amateur fights. He fought for the US Olympic team. He fought for the Mexico Olympic team. And then on my mom’s side of the family, my you know, my other grandpa he also fought and then my mom’s brother, his name’s Jesus Gonzales. You know he’s a familiar name out here. He was on the US Olympic team as well, the same year as my dad. And so you know, like, he’s won a couple of titles, Pro. And then you know, now it’s my turn. It’s my turn to carry on legacy.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I’m just picturing. I’m picturing your dad’s family and your mom’s family, like plotting to get together and have a marriage and create the greatest boxer of all time. Apparently, you! This is a purely genetic experience, and it’s working apparently. That’s awesome. Now, so was this with your dad, and your mom, were they training you in boxing when you were a little? Like I do this. I have two young boys and I have no idea how to boxer train, but we like to punch each other’s hands and things like that. Were you guys doing that at a young age?
Eli Garcia: My dad didn’t want me to fight at all. He tried to keep me away from boxing. So I grew up playing like, since I was like four years old, three years old, I played T ball. I played baseball, football. I played soccer, played basketball. But I was mostly good at…I wrestled for a little bit too. But I was mostly good at you know, football and baseball. And then, you know, I started boxing. I was 12 years old. For my first fight, I was 13. And then, you know, I won nationals a couple times 14, 15 and 16. So, you know, know why he didn’t want me to fight. It was clearly not for everybody.
Dr. Andrew Wells: So yeah, what do you mean? What do you mean by that? Yeah. When you say, now, you know why he didn’t want that. Tell us about that.
Eli Garcia: That’s hard work. You know, you have to dedicate your life to it. You know, I didn’t I didn’t graduate high school. You know, I don’t have a Gantt like, I don’t have a backup plan. And you know, that’s all I got full time. I workout three times, twice, three times, maybe two times a day, you know, every day. You know, this is my job. You know? I work out every day. You know, I stay in shape. I eat good. What we’re here at the doctor’s with Dr. Marc is a lifestyle. You have to make it a lifestyle. You want to go somewhere with it.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I gotta imagine, like, yeah, I have to imagine saying that. Like, obviously, you’re rising to the, to that pressure you put on yourself and I’m sure external pressure that you feel not having a plan B. And it’s interesting you say that? Having known a lot of successful people in the business world, in the health space, in athletics. It’s interesting that across that spectrum, you find a lot of people who achieve success never had a B plan and they had it like, burn the boats. This is what I’m doing. No one’s gonna stop me from reaching my goal and that’s typically the people who become like Oscar De La Hoya.
Eli Garcia: Yes, that’s the way it is, man. Like if you have to be like mentally mentally you know, Dr. Marc’s helped a lot with it. But mentally you have to be strong. Mentally you have to see yourself and that’s what I do. And it’s worked for me and I’m not going to quit so I feel like people will say oh, I needed a backup, I need a backup plan well, that’s that’s cool. You know, maybe you do but, I’m determined.
Dr. Chad Woolner: And your and your record so far, you’re 11 and 0, and 0. And you…all of those wins have been all by knockout correct?
Eli Garcia: No, I’m 11 and 0, but nine knockouts. You know, the fights I didn’t knock the people, or the fights that I didn’t knock the guys out, you know, weren’t my best camps. Like the last fight, you know, last fight is kind of tough. I was a little heavy coming into camp, you know, so I lose a couple pounds, I was more focused on losing weight. I didn’t get the knockout in that fight. And then the other fight I didn’t get a knockout and I fought the guy who was about 12 pounds heavier than me. So it is what it is. It’s still a learning experience. You know, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t change it, you know? Yeah.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I’m just curious about how your dad feels now that you are where you are? Has he? Do you feel like he’s his opinion of you, wanting to be a boxer has changed.
Eli Garcia: You know, he always tells me like, we’ve gone so far, it’ll have gone so far, you know, every day, for years, every day, you know, we spend time together and he says, you know, like, the end of the day, like if you don’t want to do this, you know, like, I’m not going to be mad because the goal is time we spent together all these memories we have you know. And but but yeah, I’m sure he’d want these things. Of course, he wants to see me become successful in boxing, you know, so you want to see me do something he’s never done before.
Dr. Andrew Wells: You know, as long as your dad sounds like an incredible guy, I’m sure it’s I’m sure that makes you feel good to have support either way, that’s not many. Not everybody gets that opportunity. And that’s, that’s pretty cool, man.
Eli Garcia: Yeah, very lucky.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So I’m, I’m curious in this whole process to…this is kind of a two part question. What are these fight camps look like? Kind of gives us an insight as to what the preparation looks like. And then kind of along those lines, how have lasers kind of fit into this whole model? Because I’m assuming that lasers are definitely a part of both pre fight preparation as well as post fight. Maybe give us a rundown of that. And then we can kind of dive a little bit deeper into the laser side of things.
Eli Garcia: Yeah, all right. So you know camps…we usually want our camps to be five, five to six weeks long. You know, so my dad’s my nutritionist. He writes my meals down. I eat like, every two hours, right. So I have a very strict diet. I’m working out three days, three days a week, I’m doing strength conditioning Monday, Wednesday, Fridays. And right after strength conditioning, I’m over here with Dr. Marc, either Mondays, and Fridays, or just Mondays.
And, you know, I lift my weights, I do my cardio or whatever I do. And then I’m over here immediately right afterwards, so you’re treated, whether it’s I know, he’s popping my backs, or he’s treating me with lasers to help me get rid of my soreness or, or whatever, whatever the case may be. And, you know, I do that for six weeks straight. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Saturdays, those are my sparring days and my sprint team days. You know, and, you know, it’s been a long process, but over the five, six fights, we’ve done it, we’ve, we’ve had no problems like mentally and physically. I mean, my dad, you will see, you know, like, Dr. Marc is a game changer, a hundred percent, you know, like mentally and physically. It just helps me out way more.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, I would imagine that that is a really kind of almost like Razor’s Edge type balancing act that you’ve got to kind of accomplish in terms of training at the highest possible level without overtraining, right. And I’m assuming that that can sometimes be a hard balance to find. And I can only assume that kind of Dr. Marc’s role, and particularly since we’re talking about lasers, here, the lasers can really help with some of that balancing act, whether it be that perhaps maybe you’re trained a little bit too hard, and maybe push the envelope a little bit too much. Lasers can help maybe, you know, assist in some of that, and or, obviously, boxing being a fairly heavy contact sport, injuries happen, things like that, I’m assuming that lasers can kind of help in that, maybe talk a little bit about some of your experiences, in terms of how the lasers have kind of assisted in some of these areas.
Eli Garcia: You know, it’s the lasers, and the brain exercises that he helps with, you know, mentally it clears it out, you know, mentally it keeps me strong, like, you know. I spar three days a week, you know, I try not to get hit. Last thing I want to know, on the days to get hit, you know, it’s good to come in here and get the laser check out on my head, because mentally just helps me feel the difference. And, you know, I come in sore afternoons and hard sprints.
Dr. Marc Burdorf: One of the things we do as we like to call it stacking therapies together. So well, sometimes you haven’t done an eye exercise. Or a memory exercise of some sort while we’re doing brain laser with them. And, you know, it’s just like you said, I mean, it’s anything you can do, especially, we use something called Focus Builder app and give accolades to Cedric Manuel, he’s a cardiologist in North Carolina that’s been around for about a decade with this therapy. And I’ve been using it quite extensively the last five years. And it’s just these eye exercises, it’s, it’s kind of like you put dots on the wall and do it. But if you use the Focus Builder app… those dots in the wall are like a Model T and the Focus Builder app is kind of like a McLaren or Ferrari, it turbo charges you. And that’s a big thing. There’s a little app on there, too. We can measure hand-eye coordination. Obviously, this guy can destroy anybody just because he’s that good. And it says practice makes perfect. And that’s why he is as great as he is and will continue to get better.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So this is like that’s, that’s a hold on one second, I was just gonna ask. So this Focus Builder is both not only kind of a therapy tool, but also kind of a somewhat diagnostic end or or objective tracking tool. Correct. Am I understanding that correctly?
Dr. Marc Burdorf: Actually, no, I use something called Right Eye which is actually an eye tracking software. And I’ll have had it for four years in October and I use it on everybody but especially for my combat athletes like Eli. The Right Eye measures your eye speeds as far as pursuits to COD’s, fixations. And as well as I hand-eye coordination, and then the Focus Builder app is…we put it on iPads. And actually I have, I’ve got a dozen iPads I rent out to all my patients for the first month. And that sells them on them buying the product app itself to put on their own iPads moving forward. Okay, but it’s just it’s, it’s a big game changing thing is we have to stack everything together, you gotta make this stuff quick and fun. Otherwise, people don’t do it. So we can be doing laser while we’re doing an eye exercise just to get it done faster.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I’ve always wanted to ask this question of a pro boxer. When I watch boxing or fighting on TV, I can’t see what’s going on. It’s kind of like when I watch hockey, my eye isn’t fast enough to see where the puck is going. Like, if I remember, years ago, they added that little tracking light when you win for hockey games so that people like me can see where the pucks are going. And well, boxing like, I don’t know, anything’s happened until the crowd is yelling and cheering because I can’t see it that fast. And so I’ve always wondered, like from a pro boxer, what does it mean, what are you see when you’re boxing? Is it like, is it all like peripheral vision and an instinct? Is it more like, what did they just tell me? Kind of? I don’t know if you can articulate that? Or can I describe what that looks like?
Eli Garcia: So like, alright, so before I tell you what it’s like before Dr. Marc and after don’t?
Yeah. So before Dr. Marc, go in the ring, like, I was more focused on who’s in the crowd watching. Who’s in the crowd, right? And then you hop in the ring. And it’s just you and the guy, right, you guys make eye contact, and it’s like, Alright, whatever. But then I’m like, I’m worried about what I’m doing for the fans, and they’re like, you know, I wanna make you proud of me, right? So then, like, not only that, like, you know, even when we’re in there fighting, whatever the case may be, like, I’ll be fighting him. And then I look at the crowd, you know, like, I look at the crowd, and we either like, even if I dropped the opponent, and he’s down, I’m not worried about finishing him, I’m more like, what’s the crowd, you know, that was me.
Even sparring or so then, you know, we, my dad, my dad noticed that my manager noticed that. So then they’re like, we have to do something different, you know, like, something’s not right here. So then we came to Dr. Marc, and started doing these eye exercises, doing these doing his brain lasers, everything.
Now when I’m in the back room warming up, mentally, I’m just worried about my opponent. Like, I don’t care about anything else besides my opponent, because mentally it’s all I’m focused on. I hop on the ring. I don’t care about who’s in the crowd, you know, I’m looking at my opponent the whole time to keep my eyes on, you know, like, that’s, that’s all I’m worried about. Because, you know, like, it’s, it’s either him or me, you know, I’m saying, I’m just, I’m just focused on him. Even when the fight starts, you know, like, it’s the guy’s trying to… he wants to fight me. He wants to knock me out. Like he wants me to be embarrassed, you know. So mentally that changed. Like, I’m not gonna get knocked down in front of my kids. And I think and I come in front of my lady. I’m looking to whup this guy’s ass, you know? That’s what I’m focused on. And so this is a mental game changer. It’s something you’ve never experienced before. And you have to do it, you know.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s, that, to me, I think is a really fascinating answer that you share there. Because, for me, I would have just assumed that okay, yeah, we’re using lasers on the brain. And the assumption I would have thought was, it helps to speed up brain healing, which we know that it does that. It helps to maybe improve hand eye coordination, and or speed and or power and all of that.
But the angle that you took the first thing that you noticed in terms of the outcome, and I’m sure you notice those things, too, but what you shared with us there is that it helps your mental state, you know, in terms of your ability to focus and to stay focused on the task at hand. And that kind of caught me off guard a little bit in terms of that answer, which is really fascinating, right? Because it just goes to show you the diversity of the things that these lasers and therapies that you’re doing, can can have the outcome, the positive outcomes is not only can it help with performance and help with recovery and all of that, but also just from that simple standpoint of your mental state being in the right headspace to be able to to engage in that and no doubt that that is going to help give you a really powerful advantage moving forward and all of your fights especially if you’d previously had…I could have I guess I can’t even imagine what that would be like number one to be standing in a ring. I’d be pissing my pants more or less more than likely. But number two…exactly that I hadn’t even thought about. That’s like a holy cow. Like what? What’s an average fight attendance look like for you in terms of crowd size? What is it? What do those look like?
Eli Garcia: Most of it’s like around 10,000…
Dr. Marc Burdorf: I mean, well, It’s kind of like UFC, all roads lead to UFC. So you started out with the Thunderbolt boxing. And that was at the Dutch…little Dutch theater downtown outside the Federal Reserve, whatever.
And, I mean, you know, he’s kind of when I first met him, he was like being the headliner. And now that he’s going in now, he’s at the Footprint where the Phoenix Suns play. And so it’s kind of like he’s working his way back down. But when everything’s going on at the flight, I mean, the lower…there’s 18,000 people, you know, the capacity and for the, for the basketball games, when you got to realize boxing, a whole floor filled, and that whole lower level spilled. So it’s gotta be, like, you know, he’s used to it now. But I mean, you know, he’s a celebrity. He’s the main liner, he’s sure, you know, people see him. So he’s got a fan base.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that has got to be a potential distraction, no doubt, you know, what I mean, how to stay focused in terms of that. And so I hadn’t even considered that aspect of it. You know, let alone the, the, again, the jitters the nerves ahead of time in terms of that, that’s got to be something that requires a certain level of mental headspace conditioning and preparation and all that stuff. And so it’s cool to hear you share that lasers and the therapies you’ve been doing have helped. In that regard. That wouldn’t have been what I would have thought your answer would have been, I would have thought like, oh, yeah, I can notice my speeds improved and my coordination with the speed bag and that which I’m assuming also has been helpful as well. Correct?
Eli Garcia: Yep. So like, another another thing, right? Like, when the crowd…right? Whether it’s his crowd, or my crowd, like if someone gets hit, you know, the crowd goes crazy. If I hit him, and I know I’m gonna finish him like, I’m just worried about the fight. I’m not worried about the crowd going crazy, because I know I’m gonna knock him out. I’m worried about like, Alright, I got him hurt, but even in the end, a hurt man’s the most dangerous man in the ring. And, so… even the jitters? Like you said, the jitters? I figured out like, if you’re not nervous, or you don’t got the jitters, then you got nothing to fight for.
Dr. Marc Burdorf: I think one of the things that’s really been kind of fun for me in this last year working with Eli is, you know, different therapies and stuff that we’ve done with him. And one of the things is, you know, yes, this guy’s got massive muscles and strength and hidden potential, but it’s kind of like Tom Brady. And one of the gifts they have is rendering a lot of these boxers you need professional combat athletes, as they literally see things unfold like a second before the rest of the world does.
Just like Tom Brady can walk in, come up to the line, do a bunch of audibles, read the defense. And that’s what Eli’s gift is he’s given me he just keeps getting better at it, which I’m gonna take the accolade I think the laser is helping reduce inflammation and obviously improving cognitive function. But the big thing is, we sat there with a different eye and balance and eye-hand coordination stuff and that’s why it’s like, it’s kind of fun. And I’m his dad even made the comment to me, it’s like he just is punching. It’s just his style. It’s changed. We’re just like, he’s like laser. He’s like, he’s he’s an assassin.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, right now. Yeah, I can’t help but think there’s a book called Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Have you guys heard of that book before?
Dr. Marc Burdorf: I read all of Malcolm Gladwell. Yeah, Outliers…
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, he talks about that whole idea of like, decision making in split seconds. And this whole idea of this intuitive nature of things. And he was specifically talking about baseball players in the major leagues to where the ball was moving so fast that so much of the hitting process batting process is this instinctive process, it becomes instinctive. And my guess is it has to be the same in boxing as well. You know, in high school, I studied martial arts. I still do jiu jitsu, but back then I did Kempo karate, and I remember a lot of the techniques we learned at the time were so just quite frankly, unrealistic, you know, especially with like, okay, the guy’s gonna punch and your block looks like this. And it’s this perfect, pristine block.
And my guess is that in boxing, especially if you’re dealing with for crying out loud, that’s we’re assuming this is somebody who doesn’t know how to box if you’re going up against a boxer. These have got to be some crazy fast punches that are being thrown there. And so my guess is yes, technique plays a role in this whole process, but also, what it sounds like you’re alluding to as well as there’s got to be this certain level of like, almost like Sixth Sense intuition that’s taking place in this whole process. Is that correct as well?
Eli Garcia: 100% It’s 100%. Yeah. Because you got to be if you’re going to be a step ahead, yeah. See, ya got to be a step ahead. To be better, you know, you have to, otherwise you’re just an average guy, you know, and these brain exercises are no joke, you know, that whatever Dr. Marc has been doing no joke. 100% Like, I go, even these local fighters, like, they can’t compete with me, because, you know, it’s I don’t wanna sound cocky, but it’s true.
Dr. Chad Woolner: No, no, that’s no, that’s it’s a very honest, very self aware statement. That thing, the question that I was going to ask is, do you feel at times, like, when you watch those movies, where you’ve got like, the hero who is like, you know, watching everything, like, I think it’s like The Matrix where everything is unfolding in slow motion. Have you been in fights like that? Where it feels like they’re going in slow mo, and you are just, like, not just one step ahead, but 10 steps ahead of them in terms of the process?
Eli Garcia: 100%.
Dr. Marc: Yeah, like, that’s why he’s 11 and 0.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, you don’t get you don’t get records without having some serious skill under your belt. And in terms of that, so yeah, that’s incredible.
Eli Garcia: Obviously, nighttime, nighttime, generally, I can break them down, you know, once I break them down, like, I can break, I can break them down mentally, I breaked them down physically and once they start going down, like everything just is can’t compete, you know, maybe compete for a couple seconds. But, you know, mentally I’m just stronger. You know, like, they might, they might be stronger than me. They could be faster than me, they get more skilled and the road gets really wet. You know, once I figured them out once I break them down, I could see, I could just se…I’m a step ahead.
Dr. Chad Woolner: They talk about in jiu jitsu in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, specifically, it being they like, and oftentimes when you get to these high levels, it being like a chess match. Right? And kinda like what Andrew was saying, for somebody who doesn’t know anything about grappling or jiu jitsu, watching a match can probably be pretty boring. And I would say that there’s probably a lot of misunderstanding surrounding boxing that people who don’t know about boxing, probably might think of it as almost like this very caveman esque you know, archaic, okay, it’s just these two idiots that step in the ring and just trade blows and bludgeoned each other.
But I would have to imagine that very similarly, when you get to the levels that you’re at, it’s every bit as much, if not more, so a chess match. In terms of the mental game, like you were saying, like, you got definite strategy in terms of the way you’re going in with your opponents in terms of the way that you’re planning on breaking a particular opponent down. You gotta know what he’s thinking or assume what he’s thinking you’re thinking or, or that sort of thing. And so, you know, kind of what you’ve been saying here, a lot of it, do you find that a chess match is also a good comparison in terms of this whole process when you go into these fights?
Eli Garcia: Yeah, 100% it’s, it’s a chess match, because one punch can change the fight, right? So if I have one game plan, and I’m going in there to put pressure right, and I get caught, and I have to fight, I have to fight in a different style. You know, I gotta be adaptable, right? I can, I can fight one way, you know, I can’t be one dimensional. That’s where I see a lot of fighters lose, because, like the beat the beat mentally they get outsmarted.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah. Yeah, I don’t have a whole lot of experience in boxing, but some of the best UFC fights that you see, aside from like, the spectacular knockouts that everybody’s always looking for. Besides those, some of the best fights that you see, and I’ve seen it in boxing, too, right. But just not as much as UFC are the ones where a particular opponent gets forced into playing the other opponent’s game, right where all of a sudden they’re like crap, and that was I think that was a big theme behind the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight right that everybody saw that everybody was like, kind of sort of quasi rooting for Conor McGregor, they wanted him to beat Floyd Mayweather. And yet, the reason Floyd Mayweather largely won is he forced Conor McGregor to fight his fight rather than…and that should kind of go without saying, right, Conor McGregor is an MMA fighter first, you know, and so props to him obviously, for stepping in the ring in the first place. But you know, so much of that…and my question to you would be, do you find that that tends to be kind of your your kind of general we’ll call it a general strategy is when you get into the ring forcing the other opponent to fight your kind of version of the fight and and or do you find that they’re trying to, obviously vice versa do the same with you and how do you how do you kind of approach that?
Eric Garcia: A lot of our game plan is to fight our fight, you know, whether that’s boxing… you hear it all the time in the boxing gym, going to fight your fight, you know, and because honestly, you know, you can’t fight. Like if you can’t fight your fight, you’re not gonna win at all, you’re like, or even, even if you can’t fight and fight, then you have to mentally you just have to figure it out, you know, like mentally you have to go in there, you gotta do what you got to do to win. And I don’t think a lot of people have what it takes to do that. But you see the greatest, the greatest can come back from adversity than they can come back and win. And I’ve seen it happen multiple times. So I know it’s possible.
Dr. Marc Burdorf: Yeah, I like one thing Eli said early in our interview here is, it’s about fear. And the thing is, the whole definition of fear and hope…this kind of applies to war, and I see combat warfare, but you know, people hope that things are gonna get better and stick their head in the sand. But you have to have fear. And just like you said earlier, it’s like, you got to fear that you’re gonna die. So you’ve got to do something to prevent that from happening. And same difference, you said, you know, the most dangerous person is the injured boxer fighting in the ring.
And the gift that Eli has is these two words called executive function. And so that means when you have your frontal lobe working really well, and that’s where it ties back into all the therapies, he trains heart out for all this stuff. He trains like his camp and all this stuff, you know, not just here on… not just six weeks here on. I mean, he’s so dedicated to his trade. And that’s what makes him way better than anyone else. He gets that way.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Dr. Marc, that is amazing advice. And Eli, another reason why we appreciate you doing this interview is because it’s a lot of…when you see people competing at your level and talking like Marc said about like when you engage in in in fear and just like operating at a hundred percent it’s very inspirational to a lot of people. And that’s one of the cool things about sports is when you see people doing these things that are are almost superhuman it captures our imagination.
We appreciate you doing this interview because there are a lot of doctors who are going to listen to this interview and they may not be taking care of professional athletes, but they’re also taking care of patients who have been hit in the head from baseball bats or car accidents or they fall and hit their head. And we’re talking here in terms of performance and becoming the next world champion boxer but the same principles also apply to brain health also work the same way. And I really appreciate you taking the time to do this because I hope it inspires other doctors and other chiropractors to take a look at low-level laser therapy on the effect that it has on the human body and the brain. That’s why we do this podcast, is to inspire other people and other doctors. So thank you for that. Also a question for you. You’re a young father now, at some point you’re going to be a former world champion 65-year-old Eli Garcia watching his grandkids box. Does it make you feel good to know that laser therapy not only has a performance benefit, but has a protective benefit on your brain?
Eli Garcia: 100%. I don’t want to fight forever, that’s something I don’t want to do. I don’t want to fight forever. Because I don’t want my brain to go to sleep. I know after I’m done fighting, I know what I gotta do in order to keep me mentally strong. I feel like a lot of people have mental health issues and that’s not something you can play with. If everyone had something like what I have, maybe it could help some of the issues they have.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s a great point. And you have another fight coming up in October? It’s August as we record this. So we’re two months, a little less than two.
Eli Garcia: 43 days away.
Dr. Chad Woolner: 43 days.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That rolled off your tongue.
Eli Garcia: I told my manager, told my promoter. Listen, if I can fight on this day, let’s make it happen. We are waiting today to see whether I can or whatever. I know mentally I have 43 days to get ready. 43 days to get better.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So we’re about ready to get into high gear for camp mode huh?
Eli Garcia: Mentally I’m ready. Physically I can improve.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing. Well, Eli and Dr. Marc, we certainly appreciate you guys taking time out of your schedule. We know that you guys have a lot going on right now and Eli, we’re incredibly excited for you. You have such an amazing bright future ahead of you and again Dr. Marc that’s got to be such a fascinating and rewarding thing to be participating in and kind of seeing front row seats this whole evolution take place in this whole process of his career literally blossoming right in front of you. And so it’s exciting because I I know that you know a year from now, 5 years from now we’re going to look back on this podcast and and get to really see where things are at in no doubt I am confident that that that 11 and 0 record is going to grow in terms of those wins and those knockouts and so yeah it’s it’s exciting. Congratulations. And even more so than that, I do want to say congratulations on your family. Two kids, two little ones now and a house that you’re taking care of. Got you on your toes probably more than boxing does. And so congratulations on that as well.
Eli Garcia: Thank you, I like to say that two and through, you know?
Dr. Chad Woolner: There you go. Amazing. Well anything else you wanted to add Dr. Wells?
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah I just, congrats so far on your career, keep focused. We’re happy for you, we’re happy for your family. We’re happy that Dr. Marc and Eli, you’ve found each other. You seem like an awesome pair. And we wish you nothing but the best in your future fights and everything you do beyond that.
Eli Garcia: Thank you very much – we appreciate that.
Dr. Woolner: Alright. That is it for this episode we certainly appreciate Eli and Dr. Marc being here with us. And if you found this valuable share this with others that you think could benefit regardless of whether you’re a high elite level athlete or if you’re just a regular person who is looking to just enhance brain health and overall health and function check out what Erchonia is doing to have some amazing lasers and we hope that you found this valuable. We will talk to you guys on the next episode.
Thanks for listening to The Laser Light Show. Be sure to subscribe and give us a review. If you’re interested in learning more about 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.
Inflammation is one of the top causes behind the chronic pain many U.S. citizens struggle with in their daily lives. Whether it be from injury, infection, or an overreaction by the immune system, finding non-invasive treatment methods could be of interest to medical professionals across a multitude of different practice areas.
In today’s blog post, we’ll dive into how low-level laser therapy (3LT®) could be a solution to inflammation problems and why you should consider investing in a 3LT® device for your practice.
As physicians and practitioners know, inflammation is a natural immune response to injury or infection. The swelling is caused by a fluid containing extra white blood cells which can remove debris and other infection-causing bacteria. The process is meant to protect your body from re-injury.
When inflammation triggers and then later reduces, it is known as acute inflammation. When inflammation does not dissipate after healing is complete, it can lead to other serious health concerns.
Defined as inflammation lasting three months or more, chronic inflammation is behind much of the chronic pain that as many as 50 million U.S. adults experience in their daily lives.
In addition to the discomfort brought on by the swelling, the prolonged immune response also means an excess of white blood cells remains at the site of infection or injury. These white blood cells can throw off free radicals, which can damage healthy blood cells.
From minor injuries and post-surgery recovery to chronic inflammation and pain, there is no shortage of opportunities for laser therapy treatment for pain and inflammation. This treatment method is also known as phototherapy or photobiomodulation.
The science behind laser therapy hinges on providing energy to your cells, specifically the mitochondria. By providing your cells with energy from the laser light, the cells become more active. This takes advantage of the natural healing power of the human body. By simply enhancing the natural healing process, there are little to no side effects of laser light therapy. This, in addition to its non-invasive nature, makes laser therapy treatment a perfect tool to treat inflammation and pain.
The science behind laser therapy hinges on providing energy to your cells, specifically the mitochondria.
While laser therapy can be used in place of invasive surgeries, sometimes surgery is unavoidable. Laser treatment can be a useful tool in aiding the recovery process. Much of the recovery time for surgery is managing inflammation as it dissipates. The reason for surgery plus the surgery itself can aggravate the immune system.
Using laser therapy following surgery can speed up this process, allowing patients to restore their range of motion and reduce any pain they may feel following their operation.
Outside of surgery, another short-term inflammation problem 3LT® can help with is reducing pain post-injury.
Similar to what was said above, keeping inflammation to a minimum can aid in the recovery process. In the case of physical therapists, building strength after injury (to prevent injury from reoccurring) is vital, but can be hindered if there is excess inflammation.
According to the National Institute of Health, roughly 80% of people will experience back pain at some point in their life. There are a variety of methods to treat back pain without surgery. However, 3LT® has shown to have some of the strongest, drug-free results. In addition to being non-invasive and drug-free, laser therapy treatment for pain and inflammation has also been shown to have long-lasting results. This is an ideal outcome for those with chronic back pain.
According to the National Institute of Health, roughly 80% of people will experience back pain at some point in their life.
Arthritis and tendonitis are other common instances of inflammation. Affecting the joints and tendons respectively, arthritis and tendonitis can severely limit the range of motion and fine motor skills of those afflicted. Common treatments heavily rely on prescriptions or over-the-counter treatment in order to manage pain. For those interested in reducing their medicine intake or those who do not find relief in medications, laser therapy is a promising solution.
As we’ve shown, laser therapy can be an excellent treatment option for those experiencing pain and inflammation. However, these patients can only access this type of treatment if their doctors or physical therapist carries a laser therapy device at their practice. Here is a summary of some of the top benefits your practice can provide with a laser therapy device:
Inflammation is a natural immune response to infection or injury. If left unchecked, inflammation can cause other serious health problems such as chronic pain. Laser light therapy offers a non-invasive, alternative treatment to drugs and surgery, and can be used to treat a wide variety of conditions. If you regularly treat patients struggling with chronic pain and inflammation such as those with chronic back pain, arthritis, or tendonitis among other conditions, then providing laser light therapy will greatly benefit them. As a practice, you can leverage laser light therapy as a treatment for pain and inflammation to better treat a greater number of patients.
Contact Erchonia today to learn more about how our low-level laser therapy treatment can transform your practice.
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Dr. Huff has been using Erchonia lasers to treat his patients with a wide range of inflammatory conditions, pre and post-operative procedures, infections, arthritis, and a host of other clinical conditions. Discover what Dr. has learned over the last 15 years using low-level laser therapy to deliver superior results for his patients and their owners.
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https://www.erchonia.com/products/vls-laser/
Dr. Chad Woolner: Have you heard of veterinary low-level lasers? The Erchonia veterinary lasers are the most researched and validated veterinary lasers in the market. These are non-thermal lasers with absolutely no side effects or adverse events. No other laser systems can produce the outcomes of the Erchonia lasers for acute and chronic pain, pre-operative and post-operative applications, wound healing, and countless other therapeutic benefits.
All the laser protocols are quick and effective, and average treatment time is around 3-5 minutes. All the lasers are fully automated and pre-programed with your veterinary protocols for ease of use. Just push the start button and treat the desired area. That’s it. Erchonia hosts several webinars and seminars each year to provide personalized training, as well as keeping you up-to-date with all the latest developments with laser healthcare. You can go to their website erchoniavetlasers.com for more information on the #1 veterinary laser system today.
Dr. Chad Woolner: What’s going on everybody? Dr. Chad Woolner here with Dr. Andrew Wells and today we have with us our special guest Dr. Dave Huff and we’re going to be talking about lasers in veterinary medicine. 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: Alright, welcome to the show everybody and a special welcome to Dr. Dave Huff. Dr. Dave, great to have you on the show with us, thanks for being here.
Dr. Dave Huff: No problem, glad to do it. Thanks for having me on!
Dr. Chad Woolner: So Dr. Huff is a veterinarian. And I have to admit there’s a certain level of awe that comes to mind whenever I think of veterinarians because with us as the various respective doctors we are, we have one species that we focus on. And more often than not, we are only focused on one specific area because of specialization and departmentalization. Not only do you have to focus on head-to-toe everything, or I should say – head to tail, everything, but you have multiple species across the spectrum in terms of what you have to be knowledgeable about. I can’t even wrap my head around that. So hats off to you – tons of respect to veterinarians out there. Where do you practice?
Dr. Dave Huff: I’m just outside of Raleigh in Clayton, NC
Dr. Chad Woolner: How long have you been practicing?
Dr. Dave Huff: Longer than I care to admit. About 33 years.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing. The other thing I have to tell you is everytime I think of veterinarians I think of that Far Side comic. The Gary Larson one where he says “yet again another student breezes through equine medicine. Where it was like “what’s the symptom of the problem: broken leg, what’s the solution: Shoot. Appendicitis. Shoot
Dr. Dave Huff: Larson was actually pre-vet if you look him back up
Dr. Chad Woolner: Oh really
Dr. Dave Huff: I’m a huge huge fan. I have the complete gallery, I have every cartoon he’s ever done. I have the complete three book series. That’s why he has so many animal=related items.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That makes tons of sense. We have a calendar every year in the other doc that I work with. Dr. Allen gets a Far Side calendar so everyday that we’re in the office we get to peel it off so we can see what the next cartoon is that he does. But now that you say that, that makes so much sense because so much of his world in terms of his comics revolves around animals. So that makes a ton of sense.
Dr. Dave Huff: Yep, he chose wisely. He chose a more profitable path for sure.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s hilarious. So I guess maybe a good starting off point is to tell us a little about your practice. What does a typical day look like for you?
Dr. Dave Huff: Well, we are a small animal practice so we do probably 70% dog, 30% cat. And then there’s a spattering of pocket pets – gerbils, things like that. But they are very very rare for us for sure. And I have done equine, cattle, done all that in the past but I got smart enough to get out of that. Dogs might bite you but horses and cows might kill you. It’s a little bit safer realm. We are a five doctor practice right now. I started this business with just me, myself about 17 years ago. And we are definitely busy everyday we’re using lasers as well as other things. I have some other specialties I do. I do chiropractic veterinary practice.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Oh wow
Dr. Dave Huff: I do a lot of canine reproduction as well. I have other niches so to speak beyond the laser that keep us busy everyday for sure.
Dr. Chad Woolner: As a veterinary chiropractor, is that an additional specialization in terms of schooling? Or is that an elective within your standard curriculum.
Dr. Dave Huff: It’s definitely outside of the curriculum. It is something I did when I got out. Acupuncture and chiropractic were some things that I did once I got out of school. They are not traditionally taught in the schools. I have gone to the schools and taught some of it – more than taught, exposed the students in some classes to the alternative therapies. As a general rule, they are something you would do outside of graduation.
Dr. Chad Woolner: How did you get started with the lasers?
Dr. Dave Huff: Well, honestly though the chiropractic and a little bit of acupuncture. I started looking at alternative medicine. To be honest, I always thought acupuncture was a bit of a placebo effect, you don’t learn this kind of stuff in the real world. I watched dogs and they’re getting stuck by the needle. There’s no placebo effect. If it works it works. And that’s what got me interested in it. The laser therapy to me was a bit of Western medicine acupuncture in the sense that manipulating things at the cellular level and doing that. Certainly my chiropractic and alternative therapy got me looking into other therapies and that’s how I ended up doing laser therapy.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s something to me that I think is really fascinating when we go into the realm of animals. Is that whole idea of placebo, to some degree, thrown out the window a little bit? With humans, obviously there’s that question being all the time when we talk to patients there’s always that question “Did I just think myself better in terms of this” and we know that’s a very real thing – both placebo and nocebo. With animals when you have that obvious and inherent communication barrier that’s there what you see is what you get to a certain extent is my understanding.
Dr. Dave Huff: Animals just don’t feel sorry for themselves. So they are ready to heal and get better no matter what situation. You know – it helps us tremendously when you realize that the animal is doing its thing and not bringing any baggage.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Right, that’s incredible.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I have to imagine in veterinary medicine one of the challenges is your patients can’t speak to you. THey can’t tell you it hurts here. This isn’t working. Whereas we have the luxury of being able to communicate like that verbally with our patients. I have to imagine not only from a diagnostic standpoint, but from a treatment standpoint that it must be challenging and sometimes frustrating to know what the problem is. And also actually working other than just tracking symptoms and I’m sure you have objective measurements and things like that. That’s certainly have to be a challenge in veterinary medicine
Dr. Dave Huff: Well – I think it is a unique aspect, I suppose pediatricians who work on the very young would have a similar game so to speak. I’ve yet to have a dog walk in with its own leash by itself – so you always have an owner giving you some information. Sometimes good, sometimes bad information. But it is a unique challenge. I think that it’s what makes veterinarians so good at problem solving and getting things through. I think the laser has really been a great component to that because I can evaluate patients. What am I trying to do here? What am I trying to deal with? Then find an application for the laser or any therapy that you would have. For sure the laser has been a good tool to take that information that you gain from the exam and history and then apply it to what you are trying to accomplish.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I saw this in action and I mentioned this in our previous podcast and I thought this was really – I kinda laughed when I saw it. Afterwards I thought “this is really powerful.” I think it was maybe Dr. Varuka’s wife who had posted this Facebook video where a bird flew into their window and hit the ground and was laying on its side. They went outside, lasered it for 15 min and at the end the bird popped up on its feet, flew off, as if seemingly nothing happened. How amazing is this tool? I have to imagine it was not just the bird was dizzy for 15 min and just happened to fly off. I think 15 min for a bird to be laying on its side has to be a significant amount of time. But what a really cool tool to be able to pick up not knowing anything but this bird has hit a window. So maybe that’s a good segue into what got you interested in using lasers as a treatment protocol for your patients?
Dr. Dave Huff: Well I think for sure I was looking for something to add another another bullet in the gun so to speak or treatments and and diseases and things that don’t have great benefits and the laser and especially the Erchonia low level laser provided a do no harm option for me to use on so many conditions without the worry of complications, without worries of contraindications, without worries to the pet without worries to the owner. Those were some really big factors in what drove me there to start utilizing the technology. I truly believe the first adage to medicine is “Do no harm” and so if we can start from there and we have a product that will provide that “Do no harm” it gives us so much more flexibility it gives us so much more confidence that what we’re doing is the thing that will offer benefit while minimizing risk in this case for the most part without risk. In some 15 years I’ve yet to see an untoward event utilizing this laser in literally thousands of applications.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s pretty incredible.The question I would have is what are some of the most common applications, things that you’re using it for with the pets that you’re seeing?
Dr. Dave Huff: Well to put in a bad pun the laser shines when we use it for therapy. For sure pre- and post-operative Pain Management, when you’re dealing with either arthritic pain, or back pain these are some areas. For sure I’m going to use it in pretty much any itis I treat, whether it’s gastritis, or pancreatitis, or uveitis. You can list an itis and and there’s an application for the laser to try to reduce that inflammation so it is extremely valuable across the board.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So it’s like a Swiss army knife of sorts in terms of tools that you use in your tool bag.
Dr. Dave Huff: It is. I mean it provides us with so many options. There’s always an application – I mean I probably don’t use it as much as I should. There probably isn’t a patient who walks in the door that couldn’t benefit from it. But of course you are balancing other things, and traditional medicine. One of the things I love about the laser is you don’t have to forget your traditional medicine. You don’t have to back out. If I’m treating, just as an example, pancreatitis, I’m still going to treat the dog with IV fluids. I’m still going to give the things that are traditional medicine but I can add this without concern to further my treatment options, speed the healing and make the dog feel better. That’s really one of the places it really shine in. An adjunct, you can add it to anything.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Dr. Huff, I’m just curious, you mentioned benefiting the patient with side effects. Have you found when using lasers not only as an adjunct. But have you found that this has replaced certain therapies that you are using?
Dr. Dave Huff: Oh yeah. A hundred per cent. I mean the biggest place probably that I have replaced surgery is non-surgical use of the laser to treat cranial cruciate ligament injuries.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I’m sure the owners are thrilled about not having to operate on their pets. You brought up an interesting point Dr. Huff that I want to talk about. I want to talk about the economics and I had a conversation with the orthopedic surgeon years ago. We were talking about using regenerative medicine for knees. And this doctor, this surgeon, got into regenerative medicine back in the 90s when nobody knew about it, and he got phenomenal results with patients. And he kind of took a leave from that. He stopped using it for like 15 years and then I was trying to bring it back and I asked him “Why did you ever stop using regenerative medicine? He looks at me and goes “Andrew – I have 5 kids. I would be lying if I said I didn’t have some financial incentive to do more invasive procedures.” Like arthroscopic surgery, to do knee replacements.
And I’m like “wow, did you really say that?” And the Doc was a super nice guy. I mean, his bedside manner with patients, he just seems like a very honest, ethical person, he was telling me the truth. He said “Listen, they pay me well to do knee operations. I do a great job with knee operations, and I get my patients better. Is it more risky doing surgery than regenerative medicine? Absolutely. But there’s a time and a place that has and I really don’t have a whole lot of time to try to convince people to spend money on regenerative medicine. When I can just use their insurance and then get them to the operating room.”
I was kind of blown away by that. I knew that that was true but that’s some of what he told me truth..
Dr. Dave Huff: Well what I’ve always said is if you go to a surgeon expect the surgeon to answer.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah that’s exactly right. So maybe I gotta imagine there’s some vets listening to this podcast, and they’re thinking, I gotta imagine, it’s the same thing in veterinary medicine. And if you’re doing an operation, it’s probably am I assuming it’s more lucrative to do an operation than to do laser therapy? Or?
Dr. Dave Huff: Well, I mean, it’s all a balance, right? I mean, because your costs are just dramatically less doing laser compared to what your cost would be with surgery. For most of us in the veterinary world, we’re not looking for more to do, we’re trying to streamline our day, we’re trying to find ways to maximize our day. And, you know, laser therapy, one of the beauties of it is after I do the initial diagnosis, for example, on a cruise ship, there’ll be a series of 13 lasers over four months.
Well, after I do the initial exam, and an evaluation, the technicians do the next 12 lasers. So the only involvement for me, I’ll have a couple of rechecks in there. But my time is very limited compared to what I would do. If I was a surgeon, I would be me, I would have techs, I would have the surgical suite. So you know, it’s never going to obviously take you out of surgery, and you’re never doing surgery again, because I have the laser, but it is a benefit. And I’ve never really done a critical cost analysis, you know, to say, okay, exactly how much time would I have spent on this procedure versus this? But I know, I do way more cruciates than I would have done surgeries, because of the economics, the owners. I mean, you look at $4-500 versus $2,000. That’s not That’s not a difficult decision for most owners. And of course, we deal with very little insurance. On the veterinary side, it does exist, but it’s still probably one to 2% of our patients that have insurance. And truth be told, if they really, really want surgery, there are better surgical options, you know, go into an orthopedic specialist. Anyway, so we’re not really hurting ourselves in that vein.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I was gonna say I get the impression that you’re unlike traditional medicine in our healthcare industry, that you’re making these decisions for the benefit of the pet, not necessarily for the benefit, financial gain that you get from the practice. Is that, because we were finding this especially this is a huge, huge issue in, in healthcare in the US is that most, I think a lot of procedures are recommended, not because it’s necessarily the best, safest recommendation for the patient, but it’s the best thing because it fits the model, fits the business model.
Dr. Dave Huff: Yeah, I mean, I’ve always, I’ve always kidded and said, you know, as a private practitioner, I had my own health insurance, I had to do it. Now. I said, I had been hit by car insurance. You know, I had a big deductible, and getting hit by a car was okay. But what I learned and experienced in that as well, I would go to the doctor and just have a cold or whatever, they do a strep test in there. And then they say, well, we’re gonna send it out to confirm it. I said, “How’s it gonna change what you do? Because I’m the one paying for that, I’m not, it’s not just insurance going down the street. You know, you’re still giving me antibiotics, you’re still treating it?” “Well, it’s the standard of care.” I said, “Well, it’s not the standard of care in my life, because I’m not going to, I have to pay for it.” And so in veterinary medicine, I think we do have, it’s a delicate balance, to be sure. But I think we have a little bit more luxury. And there’s the downside, of course, is there are certain patients that can’t afford to do certain things. And, and obviously, that’s true on the human side, too. But overall, I think it is a positive and, and we take economics into it. But mostly fortunately, it’s where we are at for this pet.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So my question now, now that we’re kind of getting into this is, I’m curious as to what the landscape currently looks like in terms of veterinarians using lasers, is this becoming mainstream? Is it still kind of relatively unknown? Is it viewed with a certain level of skepticism within the profession? Where are things currently and then where do you see things moving forward within the next five to ten years?
Dr. Dave Huff: Yeah, the simple answer is yes. All those things exist. Yeah. Lasers in veterinary medicine, but I think it’s fairly mainstream. I think the biggest confusion, which frustrates me, is that not all lasers are the same, right? And laser doesn’t mean laser. And it’s just across the board, I do believe Erchonia’s laser, being a cold therapy laser, photochemical, not photo thermal, not involving heat is just apples and oranges technology. And it’s what makes it work so well. And what makes it so safe. So I think, you know, I don’t want to bash lasers, right? Other lasers have their place. They have some function, but I don’t think there’s anything I can’t do with my laser. And I can do it safer and better. The only thing I can’t do with it is produce heat. And that’s because I don’t want to produce heat.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Right. You know, that was you, I was I would still consider myself relatively new to this realm. I mean, prior to us getting involved with Erchonia. I had seen them and I had heard about it before. But I was very much in that camp that I think so many often are, of that there’s a direct correlation with how much power is being put out to the efficacy of the laser, right?
More equals better is kind of, I think, a very common sentiment amongst the ignorant. And I don’t mean that to be insulting, I just think that’s a fairly common sentiment amongst people. And so again, I think that probably has to be to some degree prevalent in your profession as well, that there’s just this assumption that in order to get results, this thing has to just penetrate really, really deep. And the key to penetration, again, is going to be power, you know, and and that was I think one of the most revealing things to me and I would speak for Dr. Wells as well, is that when you start to learn the science behind it, you start to see that, that that’s not the case that there’s so much more to this story than just cranking up the dial as high as it can go and trying to just nuke, you know, the patient with these lasers, and you start to really see the science behind it is pretty, pretty compelling, you know, with what Erchonia has shown us.
Dr. Dave Huff: Yeah, and I mean, when I first started looking at it, it was the thing that drew me to Erchonia is I went to the other veterinary lasers, literally was at a conference, going from booth to booth talking to people trying to make my decision. And, you know, I kept coming back to three things.
One was safety for patients and owners. Two were the FDA clearances and approvals. Erchonia, back then, I was doing this for a long time. I think they had four FDA clearances on the human side at that time, they’re over 20 now. And to this day, they’re still class four lasers that just don’t have those clearances. And they were double blind FDA studies, they weren’t just the IP, they showed safety and efficacy. And that was really a selling point for me. Because it’s, that’s, that’s ultimately what I want to do for my patients is benefit them.
And I want to have confidence, telling my patients that yes, this technology is safe, and it’s proven. That’s a combination that’s important for sure. So it is absolutely the power, I always tell my children growing up, you know, the best lies are founded in truth, right. And the power laser, it’s true, if you’re trying to heat the tissues, you need power. If you heat, you know, we don’t think microwaves as a light technology. But the microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation or LightWave. Just like the laser, or the non visible Infrared, well, you put enough wattage, you can heat tissue in a microwave, right? It’s the same principle.
And we’re not trying to do that, we’re not trying to deal with a photochemical reaction much closer to photosynthesis, we’re trying to communicate at the cellular level, and get the body to heal or get the body to respond. It’s a very elegant way to communicate using those photons of light. And then we can initiate all kinds of cascades and all kinds of anti-inflammatory aspects, things that the body can do, not unlike a drug. If we give a drug, it goes to a receptor, and it stimulates a response. Well photons of light go to receptors and stimulate a response to.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s a great way of putting it. My question for you, because I don’t think I know this; what FDA clearances are there currently in the veterinary side of things? Because I’m familiar with what Erchonia has on the human side, but tell us a little bit about that.
Dr. Dave Huff: Well, the biggest thing is unfortunately, the FDA doesn’t get involved in the veterinary side. That’s what’s driven, so many of them on the human side, there are a couple of applications but for the most part, good, bad or indifferent, the veterinary medicine is, is part of the blessing and the curse in our industry is because the veterinary lasers don’t have to prove safety or efficacy.
They just have to say what they’re going to do. And then they get FDA clearance. As a perfect example, I mean, well, certainly, I won’t name the laser, but there is a prominent laser company out there, and they’re FDA clearance is for a heat lamp, right? That’s what their FDA clearance is. And so it is what it is, right? That’s all they have to prove is can this body produce? Can this device produce heat? And if it can, it’s FDA approved in the veterinary world. So it is a double edged sword, to be sure. But the FDA approvals that I spoke of back when I did it, they were all on the human side. And that’s where it’s driven. So, but the point is, the class IV lasers aren’t on the human side.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So does that make your realm a little bit kind of Wild West in terms of, do you see a lot of various types of tools and technologies and therapies being kind of sold to your colleagues and whatnot?
Dr. Dave Huff: Yeah, unfortunately. And that’s why I mentioned earlier, lasers gets dumped into a million different packages. And it’s just not appropriate because there are variabilities in the laser, how it works, why it works, proof that it works. And Erchonia low level therapy laser just knocks it out of the park compared to any of the others out there. For those three factors safety, efficacy, and cost for that matter. The three that I was thinking but be that as it may. Yeah, it is a bit of a wild west, for sure.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I was gonna mention too, with veterinary medicine, you gotta find some satisfaction knowing that your pets can’t feel what’s happening to them, right? Like with other lasers, you have to worry about burning them or is it too hot? Is it too cold? The nice thing about Erchonia lasers is you don’t feel it. And then on the human side, that can be sometimes a negative because like I can’t feel it working. Is it really a working doc? But on the animal side, it’s like they don’t want to feel it working. And they just don’t know. You don’t have to have your techs working on it on an animal. They don’t have to worry about harming the animal. And the animal doesn’t feel it. So that’s got to be, I’m just picturing like a dog laying on a therapy table or a table, not squirming around knowing that it’s getting, you know, feeling heat in the area doesn’t feel heat. That’s got to be pretty comforting knowing that your techs don’t have to worry about that.
Dr. Dave Huff: Well, absolutely. And in fact, I mean, I will say there’s no doubt that there is not a sensation perhaps over the area, but what I do see absolutely with the veterinary medicine is when we do lasers on pets, it’s almost always calming. And the pets usually after just a minute or two of the, are laying down and relax. And I have a lot of techs that have come from other practices that we’re using the other types of lasers and every one of them says, I just can’t believe the difference when I used to treat the other pets, they get anxious, they get nervous, they’d be uncomfortable. And you do have to be careful because, for example, on a black dog, a dark, dark colored dog, that laser energy, or that infrared energy is absorbed in a much more rapid and intense way. So you had to be careful about certain colors of dogs and where you did it and you had to move it around, you couldn’t leave it in one place.
And, you know, when the veterinarian label started getting into lasers years ago, one of the first laser companies that had surgical lasers, they were cutting surgical lasers. Their first attempt would simply be focusing on cutting laser. And so it was a cutting laser, they just deep focused it to make it bigger, and it produced heat and it did things but it was a defocus surgical laser. So you know, it’s like, you wonder about it.
And when you get into the FDA clearances, you know, there’s FDA, 123 and 4, and there’s a couple of AB categories in there. But the FDA categorizes lasers simply on whether or not they do harm. And you know, the Erchonia laser is a do no harm product. If you were to look at the light through binoculars or through a telescope, yes, that might injure your eye. That’s what the class two laser says. Right. But if you’re looking with a binocular, I think you cull the species and you get what you deserve. You know, what the class four lasers labeled a class four laser, because the FDA says that the moment that laser touches the skin, it causes damage, or it impacts the retina negatively if it touches it at all. And, and that’s all FDA clearances are talking about. They’re not talking about safety. They’re not talking well, they are talking about safety, apologize, they’re not talking about efficacy. They’re simply saying, what does this laser do to the body when it impacts it? And Erchonia is laser is, again, pretty much due to harm and the class four lasers absolutely do harm immediately. So that’s why you have to move it around. That’s why you have to be careful with certain colored dogs. Because it does have a negative impact, potentially right. But as far as the FDA is concerned immediately upon impact.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So in your, how many years would you say you’ve been using lasers? Did you say 17? Yeah, 15 years? In your 15 years – and obviously this is going to be a little bit of a challenging question. Maybe it will be. Are there a handful of experiences that you’ve seen that stand out to you in terms of like, incredible, miraculous stories that you share? Typically, whenever you think of lasers, you’re like, oh, man like these? This stands out.
Dr. Dave Huff: I mean, I definitely have several that stand out. One of which was a patent. It’s too complicated but if you go to some of my webinars or seminars, I presented the case, so you get to see it, but I had a dog who had a myriad of problems and pain and had been to the veterinary schools. And basically the vet schools told the owner, we can’t get a response. We’ve thrown everything we can think of it this dog, we recommend euthanasia. And so they came to me because they were a client. I’d referred him to the vet school because he had really amazing, significant problems. He had just a few things: he had bone, fungal bone infection, and bacterial heart infection, extreme pain because he had spondylitis, which is an infection in the vertebral bodies of the spine. And he came in to me and could not walk. I mean, he was basically on eggshells and couldn’t walk.
And within 30 days, we had that dog wagging his tail and getting around. And I kept that dog alive for about a year and a half, and did great and without any other meds except we kept them on a thromboembolic medication because he had a severe valvular heart problem.
And eventually he threw a major clot from that and passed away. But this was a pet that, you know, modern medicine had given up. Modern medicine had thrown everything you can think at it and gave up. And the laser was able to relieve that pain and get it around. So I mean, that one definitely stands out. I have others.
I have a patient that came to me and had slough about 70% of its back off. Maybe it had been a brown recluse spider bite, I don’t know for sure. And we lasered that dog and got it healed. And it was an area that was probably, was a golden retriever. It was an area that was probably 20 inches long by about eight inches wide of area of skin and it just slumped and died. And I did traditional medicine. I’m gonna scrap some traditional therapies right? No doubt about. But we used the laser extensively, and we got that dog to heal. And it had a scar that was about two centimeters by one centimeter in the center. And that was it. Everything else healed completely epithelialization we got hair growth. You could not, I mean, again, you had a tiny area. And that was in about 87 days, we were down to just that tiny area left.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Wow. That’s amazing. That’s impressive. So I got to ask a question, Dr. Huff. Most doctors, I think, get into laser therapy to help patients but I think for the primary reason is they want to help themselves and want to help their family. Do you ever take these lasers home and use them on yourself or use them on your family?
Dr. Dave Huff: You can’t see behind me because this is a podcast, but I could show you the two lasers I have right here at home that we use. And it’s funny over the years, because you have so many clients that have come in with the dog and we’re treating something with inflammation. I have one that I recall on the lease, I have a terrible tennis elbow. And I told him to “Look, I can’t stop you from getting your elbow in the beam while I’m treating your dog.” And sure enough, you know, she came back about two or three times. Later she goes, “Oh my gosh, my elbow is so much better. I can’t believe that I gotta find a doctor to help me with this.”
So yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s one of the beauties of the tech. It’s one of the beauties of the technology because it’s so proven on the human side, right. And, so there’s no question that we use it. There’s not a person in my office that has not been lasered. An interesting aside, we talked about this, when I started doing post-op, and pre-op laser treatments for our pets, for all our surgeries. And I’ll tell you a little bit about this, just because this is why I tell veterinarians it is a great way to get started if you bring a laser in, just add it as a post surgical pain management game, right? Simple to do.
Well, as I’m closing, I’m older, right? And this even 15 years ago, I was older, but I had arthritis in my fingers. Because just you know, normal arthritis of doing surgeries and doing all that stuff. And the techs would start to laser the patient for post operative pain, as I was closing, so my hands would be in the laser. And I noticed my hands felt so much better. You know, just doing surgeries, and keeping my hands in there while they were while I was closing, they will be doing the laser. And so yeah, there’s no doubt. There’s not a person in my office that hasn’t been lasered.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s amazing. That’s the exact opposite. I think of Marie Curie, right, getting your hands and in the x-ray beams. And yeah, yeah, that didn’t help her though different types of different types of wavelength. Right. That’s amazing, though.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So doctor, have you mentioned that you do seminars for dogs? Who are listening for veterinarians who might be interested in kind of getting a bit more involved? Where would you send them?
Dr. Dave Huff: Well, I think for sure, Erchonia would be the best place because they have some of mine that are recorded. I go to certain conferences around the US. Now with COVID it has kind of faded a little bit. I don’t know what to claim. But people are getting back to in person seminars. We do some webinars for sure. And so for me, personally, I am not a social media guru by any stretch. So I don’t have my own podcast, I don’t have my own YouTube channel or anything like that. So I would just refer people to Erchonia. And they would be able to put them in touch with the way to get that information.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Awesome. Well, we’ll make sure to get a link here in the show notes. So that docs who are listening who are interested in maybe diving a little bit deeper with what you’re doing, can get access to that. But Dr. Huff, we certainly appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to be here with us today. This has been really fascinating.
Again, I would just echo the same kind of sentiments that we started with it’s incredible to hear kind of your experiences there working with your your patients and and just the great work that you’re doing we really appreciate it and no doubt your pet owners certainly appreciate what you’re doing as well because you hear these stories about that dog that you helped, you know, that extra year and a half that you gave his owners no doubt was probably an extremely meaningful year and a half in their life no doubt. My parents just had to put down their their dog that had been with him for years and years and years and I can’t help but think about what wonderful memories they had with this with this pet and my children who whenever they would go and visit grandma and grandpa loved love this dog and so anyways, it’s it’s great work that you’re doing we really appreciate it and again, we appreciate you being here with us. So thank you so much.
Dr. Dave Huff: No Problem.Glad to do it.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Docs we hope that this has been valuable for you as well. And yeah, we this is a better really, really fun episode than anything you wanted to add Dr. Wells?
Dr. Andrew Wells: No.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Okay. All right Doc’s. Well, we look forward to sharing more with you guys on upcoming episodes. Have an amazing day, we’ll talk to you later.
Thanks for listening to the laser light show, be sure to subscribe and give us a review. If you’re interested in learning more about Erchonia lasers, just head on over to Erchonia.com. There you’ll find a ton of useful resources including research news and links to upcoming live events, as well 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.
Join Dr. Jarosz and Harish as they are helping pave the way for low-level laser therapy to impact patients in Australia. Erchonia is in the final stages of approval as they expand its footprint as the preeminent therapeutic laser company in the World. If you are a health care provider in Australia, please feel free to contact Harish Mitter for updates on product availability, or contact Erchonia for upcoming lecture dates.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/harish-mitter-10a30920/
https://www.erchonia.com/seminars/
Dr. Chad Woolner: What’s going on everybody? Dr. Chad Waller here with Dr. Andrew Wells and this is episode 19 of the laser light show. And on today’s episode we have our good friends Dr. Brett Jarosz and Harish Mitter from Australia and we’re going to be talking about lasers in Australia. So let’s get started.
[INTRO]
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 everybody and a special welcome to Dr. Brett Jarosz and Harish Mitter. Dr. Brett is a chiropractic physician down in Australia and Harish is the director, I believe if that’s the right title for Rehacare, which is Australia’s distributor or is or coccineus distributor in Australia. Did I get that? Correct? Both parties?
Dr. Brett Jarosz and Harish Mitter: Yep, that’s correct.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Awesome. Yeah. Well, welcome. And we’re, we’re super excited to have you guys on the podcast. I know. You guys are a day ahead of us. So it is bright and early Monday morning for you guys. So we appreciate you guys taking time out of your schedule to be here. And we look forward to chatting with you guys for a few minutes.
Dr. Brett Jarosz and Harish Mitter: Appreciate you guys doing this on a Sunday evening given up your free time.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Oh, no, no worries at all. So I think maybe a good place to start is you know what’s happening in Australia right now with regard to recording. Because I think sometimes we just assume that Erchonia is US based. We’ve We’ve spoken with folks over in England we spoke with Simon and talked about all the cool stuff that’s happening in England and over in Europe. And you guys are like literally right on the beginning of really cool things happening in Australia. So maybe that might be a good starting point is talking about what’s going on there in Australia right now with Erchonia.
Dr. Brett Jarosz: I’ll leave that one with Harrish just because of that relationship with CGA.
Harish Mitter: Yeah, that’s correct. Yeah. So just to give you a background, we’ve been working with Erchonia. Since 2015, we have the product for the trading panel led to the laser, working with a podiatrist. It’s been seven years, very consistent in terms of performance in terms of selling and integrating these products across the country and New Zealand, by the way. And we attend conferences, we organize webinars, all those educational activities, making clinicians aware of the benefits of the device of low level lasers. And it’s been going great. And so recently, we know that Kony has been working on amazing products, pain trading pain, and another one is patch reduction. So obviously, we have to follow those regulatory processes, which we are waiting on. Currently, we expect TGA approvals to go through in next three months, then we will be looking forward to introducing pay lasers in Australia and New Zealand.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I just wanted to say one thing, before we get a little bit deeper into the podcast, if you’re if you’re a healthcare provider, if you’re a chiropractor, or somebody’s interested in lasers in Australia, I would really encourage you to go back to some of the previous podcast episodes and listen to some of the those episodes for the different applications for laser therapy and some of the things are going to be available in Australia once that TGA approval comes through because there are some amazing amazing clinical benefits and and lots of different health conditions that these lasers can be used for. Obviously right now, we can treat toenail fungus in Australia, which is a great starting point but there’s so much more. And so if you’re interested if you’re in Australia, and you’re wondering okay, when Why should I use the laser? Why should I consider getting one to go back and listen to some of those episodes and I think You’ll be as excited as we are for this to be available for Ozzy physicians. And we’re gonna dive into that a little bit more in this episode.
Dr. Chad Woolner: My question right out the gates is can you really briefly tell us a little bit about the TGA? I’m assuming that’s like Australia’s equivalent of the FDA, is that a correct assumption?
Harish Mitter: That’s correct. Yeah, they are the regulatory authorities. FDA approval is done that helps TGA to take the process forward. So the Erchonia regulatory team is putting all the documents together. And we’re going to submit an application with TGA TDA will obviously go through make sure it complies with local regulations, and all the documents and information is correct. And once they go through that process, the TGA we don’t use the word approval. So we call it CD registration, approval and all the clinical studies, everything is done by manufacturer, mainly FDA side, besides the TGA will verify everything and then they will say TGA listed products are safe, based on TGS guidelines.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Okay. Well, that’s got to be both kind of exciting. And also maybe even I can imagine to some degree frustrating because here you’re seeing and hearing all these cool, exciting things that Erchonia is doing in the US and elsewhere. And you’re like, I’m guessing you guys are just chomping at the bit to start getting these things rolling there in Australia. And it sounds like you guys are pretty close, correct?
Harish Mitter: Yes, correct. We feel like we are not far and the wait is almost over. And we do get a lot of clinicians who are in touch with Erchonia through various activities, as you’ve been doing, like fun other activities, podcasts. So we’re still in, clinicians know what’s going on day to come to us through directly and why Erchonia and ask for the questions when can we get our hands on these devices? So obviously, we have to guide them through the process. And there’s many excited people that that’s awesome.
Dr. Andrew Wells: And then we’re so we’re recording this podcast in July of 2022. And from what it sounds like Dr. Brett was saying that we’re maybe a couple a few months out to this FDA. me having asked for FDA registration, potentially TGA sorry, TGA registration, yes. How will Doc’s know about this process once this technology is registered?
Harish Mitter: So then the next process will be we have been working with allied health professionals, that includes physios but arteries, chiropractors, occupational therapists, and so on. So we’ve been in this space for the last 780s. So the first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to have a newsletter sending out all the clinicians saying this product is available with obviously all the clinical benefits. So that’s the information side. And in parallel, we will be running webinars with Brett and will be assisting us in that activity. And then we’ll open up ourselves for attending conferences. So that means we can go out to the market and start to present our product.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s awesome. So it sounds like Dr. Brett, again, you’re kind of in somewhat of a holding pattern, in that you’ve got all the stuff that you’re behind the scenes preparing and you’re kind of just waiting for the green light. Is that kind of a correct way of putting it?
Dr. Brett Jarosz: Yeah, it’s pretty correct. So at the moment, it’s accumulating the literature and the science, the research, putting all that together. So hopefully, we’ve got very much evidence base sites supported collection of information that we’re going to be able to deliver to healthcare professionals to be able to put laser into their, I guess, clinical armamentarium to be able to try and help us assist patients with other conditions to be able to maybe further enhance conditions they’re already treating and to be able to speed up recovery processes. Lots of different things there. But yeah, it’s right now sitting there, having that information waiting for the TGA accreditation. And then once we’ve got that, as we said, it’ll be a matter of then just getting that information out. My colleagues, my network, delivering that information to say hey, the device is TGA accredited and we are ready to go and start to deliver that information so people can further understand how they can use these devices but also to understanding how the devices actually work and hopefully start to get a cut parison between different types of laser devices also.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, very good. And that brings me to kind of a question for those listening. Can you maybe give us a quick outline of what the current landscape in Australia looks like? In terms of lasers? Are Doc’s using lasers right now in practices? And if so, what does that typically look like?
Dr. Brett Jarosz: So from the clinician perspective, hemorrhage might be able to give a different perspective from obvious distributions. But the main sort of lasers that are being used right now in Australia, and speaking in my profession, in particular, the chiropractic profession, would be more of the class four types of lasers. So there are a number of different companies already in Australia, using classical type lasers, obviously, with currently being the low level laser therapy, a class two or cold laser or three LT, just the different acronyms that people might see how these lasers, they’re referred to. Most of the lasers that people are using are more or less a class for lasers. And very simplistically, the classes really got to do with the potential damage it can do to someone’s eye, okay, very simple way to look at it in the literature. So, the higher the classing, the greater the risk of damage to the eye. So a class two laser has less risk than a class three, and then the class for those very simple, okay.
Dr. Chad Woolner: And class four is when we start getting into like thermal, right, that has a heat to it, correct?
Dr. Brett Jarosz: Correct. So and then that’s got to do with the wavelengths basically. So the wavelength has, that number starts to increase, and we start to see this idea of, you know, 800, nanometers, 900, nanometers, 1000, etc. As those wavelengths start to get higher, longer, then we’re starting to see more of these thermal effects. So basically, it becomes more of a heating device.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Okay. And so, right now, you would say that most of the docs if they’re using I mean, I guess a question I would say is, do many doctors use lasers right now as is in Australia? And if so, is it mostly chiropractors? Do physical therapists do medical doctors? What’s that look like?
Dr. Brett Jarosz: So again, I’ll let her expand on this one, I think but from my perspective within my colleagues, and that works, there’s not too many people within my network of colleagues that actually have lasers themselves. There are a few Chiropractic Clinics around that do have lasers. There are a couple of what we’ll call pain clinics around the Melbourne area where I am based, that use lasers and they’re actually more medical clinics. So there are some laser clinics already around from the different professions, medical physiotherapy chiropractic, but speaking on behalf of my personal networks within the chiropractic, there’s not too many clinics around that actually have lasers around they are there, but not to the extent of state where America would be in terms of use of laser. Arish? Have you got anything further from your knowledge?
Harish Mitter: Yeah, I agree with you, Brett. My mind, in my experience, I will say if we just talk about lasers, there’s not much application, except the hot places that Mitch obviously just mentioned with a class full of lasers with a wavelength of 1094, which is to heat. And again, it’s highly penetrating, and obviously, all these safety regulations are involved. So they, in some states, like Queensland, ask why you can’t buy hot lasers authentically without getting radiation. Authorities approval besides TGA is a few years wondering, that’s another thing.
Dr. Brett Jarosz: I’ll go so I saw her. So I just feel like the clinicians that are out there that would listen to this. If you were in Queensland or what’s in Australia, you have to go through a process of getting a radiation license to be able to use one of those lasers in those states.
Harish Mitter: Okay, that’s great. Yeah, that’s great. And again, obviously, for all the safety, you have to have a separate room patiently to be aware of all those risks, which again, so hot lasers are the traditional lasers. And as I said, That’s laser application at the moment. And the second most people use modality is shockwave therapy, for treating pain. And there’s a lot of electrotherapy devices I’ve dropped on the device. It’s been used by therapists as well. But in terms of low level aids, Here’s where Erchonia comes in. To my knowledge, I don’t think there’s anything which teaches it to be a TGA approved low level laser with such a vast clinical evidence and studies done on those devices.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So I’m curious, you know, what this means, or what you guys can speak to in terms of the current demand amongst consumers right now, do you guys foresee this being such that there’s sufficient awareness amongst consumers about this? Or is this going to be like a kind of a brand new concept for the lay public in Australia? What’s that look like? Are you guys aware of what that looks like?
Harish Mitter: Probably all exercising in my experience, again, is from the consumers point of view. Now, things have changed. I’ve seen people and patients, they try to Google things, which are non drug therapies, anything which will cause less side effects. So they are the ones who drive all this and they are vulnerable. The clinician said, Oh, I don’t want to take drugs. ” I want to get but treat my pain with modalities like these loads of low level lasers. Tell me more about it, and how it works on me. So they are the ones who are driving the increase of these devices. So yeah, that’s. So that’s what I’m saying? It’s, I think, happening.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, the reason I asked is, that’s got to be exciting, because it sounds like, you know, this is one of those moments in time, where if there’s a substantial amount of demand, but there’s not a whole lot of supply, the minute that that clearance or that accreditation occurs, it’s going to be a really exciting opportunity for you guys to really see some exciting things happening in clinics across Australia, you know, my guess is, you’re gonna have a lot of dogs who are going to want to get their hands on these to start, you know, helping supply some of that demand that’s there with these consumers. Is that kind of what you’re thinking or seeing, Dr. Brett.
Dr. Brett Jarosz: So yeah, just to echo a little bit of Irish, but also from a different perspective, I guess you could look at the world of social media, for sure the internet has made the world very small, right. And there are different regulatory aspects for health professionals in Australia, and how we’re registered under what’s called APRA. For Australia, the Australian Health Professionals regulation agency. So we have certain rules as being a health care provider as to what we can and can’t do. So for advertising. Sure. But when it comes to America, a little bit more, you can almost do what you want. Sure, whereas we have a lot more restrictions in place. And that’s for the safety of the public. So you don’t mislead the public. That being said, just a little background, you start to think about the fact that now what people can see so easily, I can see someone getting treated on Instagram or on Twitter or on Facebook, and they’re watching laser replication being used and they’re hearing about it or they’re seeing all of these stories from people testimonials, etc. And it’s made the world very small. And as a result, practitioners, people who have got conditions themselves and want I guess some further answers. They’re just very easily picking up their phone and they jump on Instagram, oh, where can I potentially go and find this for myself? And then as Harish said, it’s then the ones who tend to drive this information themselves.
Dr. Chad Woolner: And so the first laser that’s getting the accreditation for Australia is the VRL correct? This is or colonias violet red laser combo handheld. Is that correct?
Dr. Brett Jarosz: Yes, that’s correct.
Dr. Chad Woolner: And then, once that has been accredited, do you foresee the accreditation process for additional lasers being a little bit smoother, faster, easier, or is it not just gonna be the next kind of series of hoops to jump through?
Harish Mitter: Look, I think it’s a spoke to regulatory team and Erchonia they have already done regulatory on London or laser which is a TGA listed product now. So they have done one thing and they will not EBR RL and their feedback is they know the process now it’s just about putting a pause for different products thinking an application through.
Dr. Andrew Wells: The doctor drills maybe you can help us understand some of the physiology behind how low level laser therapy works, what it does, and specifically, what you can do to help your patients suffering with musculoskeletal pain.
Dr. Brett Jarosz: So, again, this is hopefully where we’re going to be going in the coming months, especially for Australia with the introduction of, say, the webinars that we’ll try and build upon. So initially, what we’ll start to look at doing is creating, say, a three, one hour webinar series where we try to start to build and actually develop that understanding a little bit further. So in a very simplistic point of view, from a list of Cisco with a research perspective, we’ve got low level laser therapy, being sort of shown therapeutically, to do three main things, which is basically reducing inflammation, or Dima helping with healing of wounds of deep tissues, etc. And obviously treating some of these nervous system things in pain. Now, when we look at a cornea, and I’ve heard you in the introduction before there, Chad, talking about how of the, I think it’s the 25 FDA clearances, now that exists for low level laser therapy, the coatings got 20 of them. And so when we start to look at, they’re currently being the ones who have been driving the research, to show how these devices work and pen work and supported by the literature, it’s really nice to be able to be affiliated with something that’s got that evidence. So we’ve gone, obviously, pain in terms of neck and shoulder pain has been obviously, FDA cleared with a cornea showing that they can do that better than placebo. And then you’ve got back pain, we’ve got obviously newer laser therapies coming out. So with body sculpting and fat loss, we’ve obviously got the lasers that already exist within Australia, the lamella for always forgetting how to say that properly there Harish but we’ve got the lightest laser now. Yeah, perfect. And then we’ve got that one already existing. So there’s a lot of things that are starting to be supported. But that big background, one is obviously pain, and inflammation. And so when we started to go through some of the physiology, and before we got onto that, we started discussing that my bias is to try and understand the physiology of how conditions may work or how therapies may work. Because if we have a better understanding of that physiology, we hopefully have a greater probability of being successful in achieving what the patient’s outcomes were, what they want their outcomes to be. So we were talking originally about the idea of how we could use medications, off label or physiological processes. And so the idea of as laser the evidence for the science accumulates, but the more we understand how it works, then you have chances of being able to use it off label to just look like medicine will use a drug off label. So if we just give the listeners that example of saying, Well, if you have back pain, you might start off with anti inflammatories or some form of what just pain medication. And as you go through the process of maybe not getting better, or the results that you’re after those medications might change, we might get to a point that says an example they may use antidepressants, and a lot of people might without a lack of understanding of the physiology might turn around and say, Why am I being put on antidepressants, I’m not depressed. And it’s by understanding that the medications for any depressants as an example, an SSRI is all about serotonin, and it’s trying to stimulate serotonin in the brainstem, which is part of the pain modulation process. So if we then have that understanding of physiology, and we can start to understand how the laser is working with the stimulation of light, or photobiomodulation, and how light is actually been stimulating our cells, and the various cellular processes, and it’s basically, simplistically, it’s enhancing your own cellular processes to allow your cells to do their jobs properly. And the main product that seems to be behind that is the actual wavelength of the actual laser. So the color of the light, and the different influences those wavelengths and colors are imparting on yourself. Somewhere summary of high points.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, that’s a great summary. And one of the things I think that’s important for doctors to know, when they’re thinking about using laser therapy, they have all these options, right? They have manual therapies of chiropractic care, they have acupuncture, they have medications, they have physiotherapy, they have stretching, exercise, lots of different nutrition, and a lot of ways to address pain. And one of the nice things maybe you can say to this: When you’re using an Erchonia laser, to look class to laser, that there are no known contraindications and no known side effects to using light or using lasers to treat these issues. Whereas, you know, some maybe worst case scenarios with medication you have, maybe side effects are you have a non-wanted effect on the body, maybe if you go to your chiropractor, you get adjusted, maybe you feel a little bit. So there are, you know, unwanted effects from other types of therapies. But with laser therapy, there are no, I should say, low level laser therapy, there are no known side effects, is that correct.
Dr. Brett Jarosz: So, it all comes down basically, to what we understand so far with wavelengths and then like power, so as the amount of energy that’s being imparted from that laser, so the wavelength and the amount of what watts that that laser is actually using, so most of the literature is all coming about this amount of spare like, half a joule to like up to four joules per centimeter squared, or going into the fancy science, this seems to be the therapeutic range of power. And then as we start to move into higher wattage, lasers, then those lasers are imparting more power. And that’s where issues of say, look, let’s go to the complete end of the spectrum here and polarize it say, with medical, surgical devices, where we’ll use lasers to burn hair, to laser treatment for actual hair removal. So we’re using these higher powered lasers to try and actually ablate cellular processes to stop that, then we go to the other end of the spectrum, the lower end of the spectrum, which is about the lower energy than stimulating and enhancing your cellular process to so when it comes to the contraindications there, does not appear for the class to lasers to be any sort of contraindications with the exception of most things, which would be inside pregnancy, or pacemakers, because we don’t usually put those types of populations into research studies. So as a result, we always have to say with those types of groups of people, we don’t know if there’s a contraindication in there, or not. So we’ve generally said that this is just because we can’t do studies on those groups of people ethically. So outside of that, there doesn’t appear in literature to be any of those risks with the class too. But as we start to move up into these class four style lasers, then we can have some of these issues, obviously, with wood burning and heating, etc. tissues.
Dr. Chad Woolner: I think this is a good point that you’re making . I think doctors need to understand that there’s a difference in the class of lasers. And it has, it’s not, when we’re talking about the therapeutic effects of laser therapy, we’re not so much talking about power penetration. Some of the things that I think are spoken a lot when you’re referring to lasers, it has more to do with the wavelength, it’s the wavelength that’s important. And the unique thing about this particular wavelength that we’re using in this, for these types of therapies for pain for healing, or decrease inflammation are not the types of wavelengths that would harm somebody, but they’re also lower wavelengths. And so sometimes Doxon glows more, we need more power, we need more penetration, especially if you’re thinking you’re going to do something in a deeper part, deeper region of the body that needs to be high power, it needs to be penetrating, but that’s not the case.
Dr. Brett Jarosz: Correct. That’s for us. But the literature is starting to accumulate more and more that the wavelength actually can create some of that penetration also. So there’s even some studies being done, say, in the let’s say liposuction area that have been showing that using laser in conjunction with liposuction, they’ve been able to show that the 635 wavelength, which is the red wavelength that the Erchonia uses, that 635 nanometer wavelength can actually penetrate up to six centimeters through abdominal tissue. So they’ve been able to show that. And so when we start to look at some of that data of, as you said, penetration versus power, most of the literature as we start to accumulate it, the majority of it was suggested the therapeutic effects, it’s got to do with the wavelength. And so the color of the light at a specific wavelength, so those nanometer wavelength, that number appears to be the thing that it’s showing where the therapy’s occurring, and for pain, inflammation, and so RAM is 635 nanometer wavelength where most of the data has been accumulated.
Dr. Chad Woolner: I want to shift topics just ever so slightly based off of something you said that was, I thought, kind of intriguing in terms of a topic that maybe we can dive into a little bit more And it might be a little bit on the speculative side. But it’s still kind of interesting and fascinating. And I’d like to go there. And I think it would be entertaining for us if nothing else. But you made mention of something that I think is really important, a very, very insightful observation you made. And that is this idea that the more that we understand the mechanism, or you use the term physiology, the more we have the ability to make clinical decisions and judgments. Potentially, we’ll call this tangentially, because of an understanding of the mechanism, not necessarily because of something that maybe has been sufficiently researched with, you know, ballistic, because I mean, let’s face it, like, there are inherent constraints with reality due to costs and logistics associated with studies, studies are not good, well, designed studies are not cheap. They’re time consuming. They require a lot of moving parts and a lot of logistics. And so we can’t base everything we do in the real world, you have a patient in front of you, you have to make decisions for the benefit of the patient. And so as much as we would love to, in a theoretical sense, have peer reviewed, double blind, placebo controlled studies for every single thing and every single intervention that we do for patients. That’s not realistic. And so what we can do, though, to that point that you said is, we can use good clinical judgment based on a thorough understanding of mechanisms of physiology and those sorts of things. So to that end, my question and or maybe the conversation we could steer is, where do you see things going moving forward? In terms of maybe some of those applications right now with our understanding? Because clearly, we have a pretty decent understanding, but my guess is twos. We’re just beginning to scratch the surface. On some level two, hypothetically speaking, what are maybe some of these applications based on our current understanding and potential understanding moving forward, and I’ll leave that to both of you.
Dr. Brett Jarosz: Clinically, the personal one that I’m very interested to see where it’s going is transcranial application. We start to look at the idea of, obviously, things that are very, with us, America, as an example, very costly from the healthcare systems. So your Alzheimer’s dementia is a neurodegenerative disease, right? And so understanding therapeutic effects of various wavelengths. And then understanding from previous studies, this is the evidence that we’re starting to see if accumulated, just like we see with pharmaceuticals to probably lead the way in understanding how to do RCTs and double blind studies. So they put their drugs to the test, and they do all those comparisons that you said, which takes a lot of money and a lot of time. But when we’ve got those bits of information, we understand how it works, and we understand the risks, etc. We can take that data, and we can apply it to other things. And that basically becomes a hypothesis for the next clinical study. Right? Literally, that’s what it is. It’s basically philosophy, until you put it in a written word in a document to put a research application in, and now it becomes a hypothesis. And then the scientific process then shows, yes, that did work on No, it didn’t. That’s true, false. Now, it’s into the realm of science. And now we can be philosophical about that and pose my next question, which then can become the hypothesis with the next study. So until we get to that point, we are then taking the data that we know as you said, and then trying to use that physiology. I keep using that word physiology. But in this we’ve got photobiomodulation that’s having cellular effects, changing biochemistry, physiological processes at the cellular level. And with our understanding of that, coming back to the thing that I’m very interested in is, and there are some studies that are taking place right now, I don’t know how much I can disclose. But there is some transcranial work being done, in particular, what’s called neurological disorders. And that’s the area that I’m really interested to see how we can start to use this and let’s use one of the most, I guess, highly topical condition has been concussion, sure, and persistence symptoms. So it’s high prevalence in the media, obviously, without collegian sport and combat sport athletes in particular. But then understanding that concussion is a topic that is happening the majority of times off the sporting field, right. And then if we’ve got an understanding of the neuro metabolic cascade of concussion, from animal models, that most of these things start before they can get to humans. We understand how that chemistry works. We understand how laser chemistry works, then we could potentially be able to implement strategies to then influence that to better serve people in the community.
Harish Mitter: She got a look I would like to add something to it Brett, we as I said based on but it is a using low level laser for treating personnel or learning or laser. So they have understood over the years how hard working and what’s happening inside in all the chemical reactions happening. So they are applying not only for fingernails, they are applying with a nail former nail surgery, nail psoriasis. I have people who said they have treated osteomyelitis bone infections in two areas. Wow. So basically they understood how it works and what were any side effects if there’s anything, but they think now they know how it works. The quarterback modulation height working, let us apply another thing. The only limitation is they think, again, I don’t know if you have seen that or a laser. The foot goes into a little compartment and the lasers on the top. The only limitation is they’re saying hang on how do we get the lasers out? We want to feed on other products.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, yeah. So all the more reason to get the aprl?
Harish Mitter: Yeah, yeah. All the more reason to get these other ones out there for sure. So those podiatrists, they just said they’ve been using this for five, seven years. Once we have the TGA approval, Brett, I’m sure those guys will say come on one.
Dr. Brett Jarosz: Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, and I think that’s the very exciting part of the evolution of low level laser therapy or photobiomodulation, whatever group sort of how we want to turn this, but the case studies that I’ve been able to witness myself through this application has had me very, very excited. So to share a case study of use was a young adolescent 11 year old who had fractured their lateral femoral condyle. playing sport, and obviously with a fracture such as that. So significant bone bruising with a fracture spread through the middle of it. And naturally, you’re gonna be non weight bearing for weeks, obviously been going through the process of building up your rehab to get back to sport. Now I saw Erchonia ways of being used twice a day on that fracture. And I watched that adolescent back claim this sport, three and a half weeks now, that’s a case study N equals one. But it’s when you see those things with your own eyes, it starts to make you go, well, like that, based on physiological processes that we understand that just enhanced those rapidly. And that to me is very, very exciting.
Dr. Andrew Wells: You said, you said three and a half weeks. That’s amazing.
Dr. Brett Jarosz: That’s amazing what basketball was, three and a half weeks back playing basketball. So they were literally non weight bearing for about a week and a half, they were starting some of their non weight bearing rehab at that time, being laser twice a day. And in three and a half weeks, we’re already back to the point of being able to play basketball again. That’s incredibly one stands out in my mind and absolutely blows me away.
Dr. Chad Woolner: No, and I hear I hear what you’re saying there in terms of, you know, the case studies. And the thing that I would just say is that just in the short period of time that we’ve been on this podcast, we have just heard some really incredible stories just like that for a whole wide range of different things. And so it’s really cool to hear these, these stories and these examples of how lasers are being used. And some quite frankly, we’ll just claim it or we’ll just term it as miraculous things that are happening. It’s really incredible.
Dr. Andrew Wells: And really, guys, what we’re talking about is healing, you know, we’re looking for clearance and registration here in Australia to start using some of this technology. But I think sometimes that these sort of therapies and, and technologies and whatever the, you know, whatever the modality we’re using, tends to kind of get siloed into a certain specific thing. Like we’re gonna use this pill for this one thing. We’re gonna use this adjustment for this one thing, but the interesting thing about using what we’re hearing from not only the research but from clinicians who are using this therapy is that when you’re using it on the body, it helps the body heal, period, it rapidly speeds up healing and I’ll give you an example. Paris you kind of brought this idea up. In the US there’s a lot of patients coming in for body sculpting. So they’re using this laser on their belly on their thighs, areas they want to lose weight, and what the patients are reporting as a side effect is they’re also feeling better, they’re digesting food better. They’re there, their intestines work better. So the side effect of losing weight, so they’re shrinking fat cells, but the side effect is that their body starts to work better. And I think that’s one of the amazing things about this, this therapy, not only from a patient perspective, but a research perspective, it just enhances the body’s ability to do what it already does better. And I don’t know too many therapies that do that, and that offer that. And I think that’s one of the interesting things as this technology emerges in Australia, is that doctors are going to find this as a tool that can be used across lots of different professions, but also across a lot of different conditions. And that’s going to be exciting for you guys as well, especially since there’s a huge runway here in Australia for dogs to embrace this type of therapy.
Dr. Brett Jarosz: Oh, absolutely already. Between pain, musculoskeletal things that, you know, I guess, let’s say gets categorized into some of the most prevalent presentations in allied health presentation into those clinics, physios, cars, Astilleros, OTs, etc. Those pain, inflammation presentations, great, but then obviously from your nerve, peripheral neuropathy is etc, etc, you know, from nerve injuries, those types of things, too, then we may look at some of your carpal tunnel, maybe it was one of the more polarized things sciatica, diabetic neuropathy, things such as that that are presenting healing, what you’ve had a surgery and healing of scar tissue, those types of things that all these different little subtleties you think pain and inflammation they are as a surgery, scar tissue healing, the recovery of the inflammation and the pain post surgery, helping those cellular tissues, sorry, the cellular processes to enhance the healing of the tissues, etc. So it’s just that’s so exciting to have another modality that you could use as an adjunct or as a primary, to be able to help certain presentations. I mean, you think that I know some of the things that are happening in the US alone, where we’re in a situation with COVID. And people weren’t allowed in Australia and Melbourne, in particular, people weren’t allowed to attend their practitioners, unless it was basically an absolute emergency where it was a life or death situation. So people were only allowed to come to see us. Very, basically, if it stopped them from having to go to hospital when it wasn’t a hospital required situation. Now, if you’ve got a situation where we can’t see people, and in America, they’re using laser rental programs, right, where practitioners have gotten multiple lasers, multiple handheld DVRs. And as a result, a patient can pay a whatever the fee is, I can pay a daily fee or weekly fee, whatever it is to take that laser home and be trained to how to do that laser therapy for themselves because it is one of these things that is going to be relatively safe with the exception of what your eyes so we can provide glasses to protect the eyes, running through those processes and people can laser themselves at home. And how that in a time when telemedicine was so important, can serve as an important therapeutic approach for people when they couldn’t see anyone face to face.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Right. Yeah, it’s exciting to see all you know, again, I think we’re just barely scratching the surface as to the potential of what’s available there. I’m curious if you guys are planning on heading up to the US for our colonias event in November. I’m just curious if you guys will be there because we will most definitely be there.
Dr. Brett Jarosz: Very fortunate that I got the opportunity that I’ll be presenting there at the ammonia meeting on that first weekend in November. So myself and Trevor Barea putting together, sort of a six hour presentation divided up between the two of us. Fantastic. I’m really, really looking forward to that. Very, very good.
Harish Mitter: Look, I have left late for me. I’ll talk to you more tomorrow. And more likely, I’ll join you as well.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s awesome. Fantastic. Cool. Well, dogs will, Dr. Brett and Harish we really appreciate you guys taking time out of your schedule to be here with us. And for those Doc’s, particularly Doc’s in Australia who might be interested in kind of staying in the loop, is there a place that you would recommend they go to kind of connect with you to kind of again stay informed as to what’s going on?
Harish Mitter: Also just said at the moment, they have a coney Contact or rehab case contacts, put their additional interest on those websites, or call us. And we are making our own list of people who we need to get in touch with once. Once we have the product available.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Perfect, awesome. Well, we’ll make sure that in the notes, we have all the links and everything. So any dogs who are in your neck of the woods will definitely have the ability to reach out to you guys. With Andrew, was there anything else you wanted to bring up? No. So awesome. Any final parting words of wisdom for colleagues in Australia or us up here in the US or anywhere else in the world for that matter?
Dr. Brett Jarosz: For Australia, specifically, I’m going to say be patiently excited for the next couple of months. So I am really looking forward to this, the next couple of months. And once we get that TGA accreditation, it should be some pretty exciting times as this starts to roll out in Australia.
Harish Mitter: Yeah, that’s gotta be looking forward, it will continue. As a distributor of the product, we will be looking forward to serving and providing all the services that are needed including, you know, buying, renting all those and obviously, your clinical education will be looking forward to those that supply their services.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s cool. Yeah, it’s gonna be really cool. And it’s gonna be exciting, I can tell that you guys are just, like, ready to be unleashed. And so that’s gonna be a really, really exciting opportunity, when all that takes place. And what’s exciting about it is it’s just around the corner. It’s just, you know, I can tell that it’s not too far distant and so it’s gonna be we’re looking forward to that for sure. So, Doc’s, we hope this has been really valuable for you. We hope it’s exciting to hear all the cool things that are happening in the world and particularly in Australia, and we look forward to sharing more with you guys on upcoming episodes. Have an amazing day. We’ll talk to you guys later. 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 or codea.com There you’ll find a ton of useful resources including research news and links to upcoming live events, as well as are CONUS 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.
[OUTRO]
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 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.
We sit down with Diana DaGrosa to talk about the profound impact Erchonia Lasers have had on Diana’s patients and practice. By combining low-level lasers with traditional Chinese medicine, Diana has found a unique way to remove interference in the body and offer better clinical outcomes.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brightpathwellness/
https://brightpathwellness.com/
Dr. Chad Woolner: All right everybody, welcome to the show. This is episode 8 of the laser light show and on today’s episode we have special guest Dr. Trevor Barry, he’s gonna be talking about low level laser therapy for back pain, 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: All right, welcome to the show everybody and a special welcome to Diana DeGrosa. Thank you so much for being here with us. We sure appreciate you being on the show.
Diana DaGrosa: Oh, you’re welcome! I’m so excited to be here today with you guys.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah. So, when we first heard we were gonna be talking about Qi and the realms of traditional Chinese medicine, I kind of perked up and got excited because this is kind of a new topic for the podcast and quite frankly my experience with traditional Chinese medicine is somewhat limited. I understand that you have a really kind of unique blend of both, functional medicine and traditional Chinese medicine woven into your practice. So, maybe it’s a good jumping off point to tell us a little bit about yourself, about your practice, kind of what you do and kind of what unique approach you have.
Diana DaGrosa: Yes, absolutely. You know, here in Brightpath Wellness, we can find Eastern and Western medicine. When we think of Chinese medicine, which is herbal therapy, we think of acupuncture. When we think of the Western therapies as clinical nutrition, functional medicine, laboratory assessments, this kind of thing. Now, our practice, we’ve noticed, oh gosh, for many many years now a lot of people originally came in for pain. They think of acupuncture, they think of pain. But, in our study, we know Chinese medicine. We know that ultimately, every single thing studying starts with an emotion. So developing into this topic with patients has become something of, well, a huge interest of mine. And, as a blade, especially since I posted, what I have found is that I am treating more patients that come in with mental emotional challenges or especially anxiety and fear. I think I’ve been treating more back than pain.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, yeah, that’s not surprising. It’s fascinating because of all the experts that we have interviewed on the show, I don’t think we have yet had one episode where Covid’s somehow, someway, has woven itself into the conversation in terms of the way in which practitioners now practice. Adapting to the new landscape of what’s going on and you’re no exception to that as well and what’s cool is my guess, is you’re probably providing solutions and/or approaches for your patients that probably not many else out there are providing and so that probably sets you in a unique position to solve a lot of problems in ways others can’t is my guess.
Diana DaGrosa: Well, I would say that’s absolutely correct because a lot of referrals that we’re getting now in new patients is they’re coming because somebody that they know told them, hey, why don’t you try Brightpath to start to help with this condition because the answer really is not just keeping you know people on pharmaceuticals for anxiety. It’s just not, it’s about looking at the root of what’s going on and helping them help the person right in front of you right here. Now, giving them some tools and helping them during the treatment and we can certainly do that. I mean, you should see what patients look like when they first come in and when they leave. It’s like, I wish you could take a video of every single patient. You can just see that deep sense of relaxation and hope behind their eyes.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s gotta be really rewarding.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Diana, wait. When I think about traditional Chinese medicine, maybe the last thing that comes to my mind is laser therapy. It seems like there’s this [INAUDIBLE]. There’s the yin and yang there. We have like east versus west technology versus old school principles now. It makes sense to me this connection here, but maybe you can explain how you came across the idea of integrating laser therapy into your functional medicine and traditional Chinese practice. I wanted this to all come about, you know.
Diana DaGrosa: What an excellent question, and I so agree with you, what you just said. Because you know, usually, I was not like a gadget person or I was a little bit slow maybe to technology and in fact not that it’s gender specific, but a lot people think always since there’s something that a lot of times of men do better than women. And, you know, my patients when they heard I was using laser therapy thought it was very interesting. They’re like, you know Diana, thank you so much for welcoming technology, especially because I’m doing it for them. I came across this when my father died of vascular dementia about five years ago and to what would occur and to see the brain degenerate. Oh my gosh, I mean, it just stays with you. It’s just, it’s like you can’t get it out of your head and I remember saying to myself, what else can I do? What else can I learn? What else can I implement? I was like asking the heavens you know for some guidance and boom, an email came through that was talking about helping brain neurological conditionals and I thought, okay this seminar just happens to be right where I live. I said I’m going to the seminar now, I had no idea what to expect. They were teaching a lot about functional medicine, I was already doing that in my practice. But, what I wasn’t doing was work with laser therapy and that was the therapy they were talking about. You know, you have that moment in time and space and time that’s this open. I wasn’t really planning on, you know, investing in a piece of equipment and then the other part of you says, wait a minute, this is what you were really asking for. So, I just said I have to keep looking at this. This doctor came over to me and said, excuse me I noticed that you keep looking at this one particular laser which is called the EVRL the violet red from our collection. I’m just so intrigued by it and as soon as the representatives put it in my hand I could instantly feel my sheet or my vital force, he put his hand on my arm and he said let me tell you a quick story. He said, my mother has Parkinson’s. She has tremors so severe she cannot bring water to her lips. He said she lives with us and I bought this laser as my first laser. I lasered her brain one time for three minutes and her tremor stopped for three days. When he said that I was about to cry. I’m thinking of my dad and could I have helped him right? And I said, I called my business manager who’s also my honey and I said, I know I left my credit cards at home on purpose but I must buy this laser and I’m not kidding you as soon as I brought it home I started to laser myself which is key and I encourage all practitioners to do so. I started to laser my brain, my legs, my back, all of my places that were injuries that would just not heal. Totally changed my life and as soon as I brought it into the clinic I was ecstatic talking to the patient’s about it. The next thing you know that patient would leave the treatment room and is claiming how good they felt that whoever was waiting said, Diana, can you please use that on me too and that’s how it started for me.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s an incredible story.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Just the podcast right there. That’s all I needed to know. We hear so many stories about this and I think a lot of practitioners like us start their journey and you know they find laser therapy. They find Erchonia because of a personal issue and you seem to be connected to that one event that was local because you just happen to be in that spot in life with your father and we’re drawn to that for some reason. And, here you are now helping lots of people with laser therapy for all kinds of different issues. It’s funny how these things start like that.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Thank you for sharing that story with us.
Diana DaGrosa: Absolutely!
Dr. Chad Woolner: I’m interested, you kind of include it and kind of open the door. I guess there is a little bit of suspense maybe. You mentioned how when you used it you felt your chi or your life force. You know we’ve been talking to a lot of experts here in terms of the mechanisms behind lasers and we’ve been getting at it from a very kind of western, you know, traditional scientific lens. But I’m interested to hear what you mean by that and maybe explain to listeners what the rationale is behind when you use the lasers associated with chi. What’s that all about? What does that mean? Maybe dive a little bit deeper.
Diana DaGrosa: Yes, and that is a very very good question. I feel that when we are in the healing field the longer that we are in the field we start to tap into energy at a very subtle level so hence we always think, okay, somebody comes into the room and they’re negative. Oh my gosh, you can feel their energy right away. So, it’s all about energy. It’s all about when you get into it so that you can literally add a source of energy to your body. Whether it’s as I mentioned, my hand, you can feel that energy that is going into the cells that travel up the channels. You can feel that when you have developed that sensitivity now, even if you at first don’t feel that immediately, it is going on because we know that it feels conditional and patients will often say that; while Diana I wasn’t feeling the laser but I certainly felt the effect of the laser. In fact, when we started to do the immune balancing sessions, especially during COVID, patients would come in feeling awful even though it didn’t necessarily have to do with COVID they just weren’t feeling so great. Even if it was mentally, emotionally, we would shine that onto your brain, on their whole peripheral system, on their organ system, and they said; how is this possible that I literally came in feeling bad and I’m leaving feeling good? So it’s energy going into the cells. We know that the mitochondria setup creates creative innocent triphosphate, and you start to have the healing process. It can be enhanced by food and water, but it’s also enhanced by light as well. When we go into the sun, we start to feel good. This is concentrated energy and that is what I believe is starting to connect with the patients so that they feel much better.
Dr. Andrew Wells: You mentioned something with the patients feeling better and I think when, and I don’t mean what I’m going to say in a negative way at all, but I think for a lot of Americans when you start talking about things like chi or life force that people kind of take that like, oh yeah okay, and kind of gloss over that. Especially when it’s something that you can’t necessarily measure but you can feel. Yes, one of the complicated things about laser therapy is like people want to know we talked about this a lot on podcasts. Actually, like, they want to know, is it working? Can I feel it working? And you can’t really necessarily sometimes feel it when it’s happening like you mentioned. If you’re not clued into your energy levels, your chi, your life force, you may not feel it. You feel the effects of that and I’m just kind of curious for you, are you seeing anything measurable from that? Let’s say from a functional medicinal standpoint, an objective measurement that you can attribute to low level laser therapy that is maybe a little different from the objective. Are you seeing any of that in your practice?
Diana DaGrosa: I would say that I do see reactive protein start to go lower now. However, patients are coming for acupuncture also because we combine it sometimes. Also, they are my functional medicinal patients so I may have to put them on a healing protocol. I believe, though, we have to have ample nutrients too in order to enhance the mitochondria. So, if somebody has a terrible terrible diet, and this is how often many of my acupuncture patients become functional medicinal patients because if you don’t have those keystone minerals, if you don’t have enough magnesium and be sick, and you want all of these things, then it’s going to make it much more difficult for your brain to operate your whole body, to create that mitochondria. So, I think I feel as though it goes hand-in-hand. However, you know something to think about is, and I’ll often say to other clinicians, did the condition get better or did the patients get better? Because ultimately, if somebody is and this is just awareness, there’s no judgment here, but if a person is coming constantly for neck pain, oh I have neck pain, okay, so you just do treatment and send them on their merry way. Oh okay, but what if we wanted it to happen to the vital force, the idea of every emotion ultimately starts with an organ system, we can say; hey Susie, I noticed that you have neck pain lately but you have it this week as well. Could you tell me a little bit about your thoughts on why you have this neck pain? Oh well, I don’t know Diana, I just hold onto the stress in my neck. Oh, did you know that stress affects the liver channel delivering organs and preparation channel is the gallbladder and did you know that just happens to relate to that upper neck, back and shoulder. And they’re like oh really? Oh, that’s interesting. How do you know that? We’re interpreting our life. Can we shift that into a way that is more favorable towards our thoughts in the day? If we collect them all more positive or are they negative from here? We can create a whole, just a whole way of having a person become aware so that they can then try it out in shifts. Because, I say, did you know that the liver is the command in life? Gallbladder is the decision making. We must have both balance and imbalance and that is what gets them. They’re usually like oh my gosh, that makes so much sense. I can never make a decision once they start to understand this shift and empower themselves. They no longer have so many episodes of neck pain anymore.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s a really unique and refreshing way of looking at these issues and I would say, regardless of what kind of philosophy a doctor subscribes to, I have to appreciate from that it’s far more upstream thinking that something we talk a lot about what doctors is rather than looking at the basics and you know I think far too often. What winds up happening is doctors will look at a patient complaining they’ll run a labor and then they’ll end there. That’s the issue, that’s the root cause and not realizing that even with the labs. You’re still looking at some type of symptomatic manifestation of other things that are driving these issues that patients are dealing with and I think exactly what you’re talking about is something for me that I can completely get on board with and appreciate the whole idea of, like you said, Chinese medicine of everything being rooted in some type of emotion that’s driving a lot of these issues. So, I would wholeheartedly agree and my guess is that you get to see a lot of incredible results and/or experiences with patients approaching things in this manner a year.
Diana DeGrosa: It’s mind blowing. It’s absolutely mind blowing. I think the youngest that we did, they mentioned from a mental and emotional work with the laser six years old and the oldest I believe was about 90-95 years of age. And what I mean by that is often, I’ll say to myself, yeah there’s a tendency when you’re an active clinician to be very busy and on the go. I don’t have time for this button. No, I talked to myself, no Diana, this is something that you must do and you can do this all in five minutes. So, I said hey, would you like an emotional kind of reboot and they’re like, yeah, what is that? It’s okay, you’re going to lay down and you’re gonna put your hand on your forehead. I’m gonna laser your brain and we need to feel it to heal it. So, all the junk you said is going on, put your hand to your forehead and feel it laser the brain for about 30 seconds. I do not speak to them because it’s about them and then we take the hand away. I give them essential oils, I use essential oils like crazy in my practice, we give them one that they like because we know that it connects to the just sealed system of emotions. Okay, you’re gonna bring this cotton ball with this essential oil to your nose and then away from your nose. Wire the brain while you input exactly what you want all in the important permit to meaning zero negative words no noise, nothing, only in the affirmative and if you don’t know you’re stuck and you have no idea what you want to do or what you would want to say to yourself, then picture yourself in the light of what you desire. So, you’re seeing yourself with a smile on your face, no pain, relaxed, calm, and this is when we laser the brain again. And, I then often will go into a chakra balancing session from there before I even stick in the needles, and this is all within five minutes. Five minutes can dramatically change the outcome of their session.
Dr. Chad Woolner: It’s amazing. You know the thing that I think both Dr. Wells and I are noticing a theme amongst all practitioners, regardless of their discipline, their education, their training, I think the one thing that everybody on some level or another is kind of gravitating towards or all kind of simultaneously realizing is you get a much more beneficial effect with the lasers when the patients is actively engaged in some activity of some sort. Right? rather than it being this entirely passive process which I’m sure there’s a place for that no doubt, but the thing that I’m hearing you say is that the patient is actively engaged in something to engage various regions or areas of the brain. To engage certain thoughts, engage certain, you know movement patterns. Whatever that might be. That’s the common denominator that seems to be yielding a lot of really powerful results for practitioners in their patients is what it sounds like.
Diana DaGrosa: Oh my gosh, absolutely! Because when we think about, I mean, all of the mechanisms when we have fight or flight. We know that we’re constantly going to increase these cortisols, we’re going to tear down the gut lining. We’re going to, you know, when their cortisol goes high, it’s going to interfere with the T4 to C3 connection. So, we now have a thyroid issue and now the thyroid can’t talk to the parietal cells and now you’re going to have an issue not being able to secrete enough hydrochloric acid. You’re going to have digestive issues. We know all of this right, so this is all physical. However, if we see the Chinese medical model, we see the base of beginning young as your battery. How much juice do you have in that battery right below your belly button? I try to have patience to kind of imagine this picture, and then we see excessive emotions spider flight. We see the heart as fire well. The fire is blazing so much as constantly sucking the water out of the battery. That’s your adrenal giving energy so you can see how you’re left, depleted constantly. So, yes, we can then lead into some vagus, you calm down. We do that with the laser but ultimately we can say if you’re using labs, this could be a good one. If you’re using say the wheat sewer and they’re constantly having leaky gut and in spite of your nice gut killing protocol, and in spite of getting rid of wheat, they’re constantly having this opportunity to say; okay, are we still in fight or flight constantly? Let’s calm this down. One of the stimuli, easy things that we can do. Sure, you’re gonna give them big ole toning. You’re gonna then put the laser on the adrenal gland, you’re gonna put it on the gut setting, absolutely. But simply, you can say okay, put your hands around your waist, okay can you breathe? Can you breathe right into your waist, right into the kidney energy? And, they’re like, well? Oh like what do you mean? You know they breathe right, they’re breathing shallow, that’s the energy showing you they’re in fight or flight mode. Still, we need to get that breath. All the way down into the kidney to fill the battery, so you leave them with a little pool like that. They’re just super mediate. Sometimes, you’re too amped to meditate, but you can get them to breathe into their hands and that is akin to. If you imagine this, you’re a kid, you’re making a fire, right? A campfire. What do you do when you have the kindling started and you band the fire and the flame comes up right? You’re creating that energy in the body, but it’s rooting and grounding instead of flying up into your head and just putting you, spinning you out of control.
Dr. Chad Woolner: I’m finding myself breathing in and out as you’re doing this, finding myself like putting my hand on my stomach and all that, so sorry, continue Andrew.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, no worries. Yeah, I was doing the exact same thing. Diana, you mentioned that you use lasers to help balance chakras for the first time I’ve heard this in any of the interviews. Maybe, can you explain what that means and how you actually do that?
Diana DaGrosa: Sure, absolutely. So, we think of the seven energy centers of the body. The main energy centers of the body. Well, we also can think of the endocrine system. I try to speak to a patient in the words that they’re going to connect with because it’s chakra that seems so out there. I usually will sense that and use the word endocrine system. So, I can test that simply by using a little pendulum. You know? It’s just like when you’re a kid right and you go to another little kid and you see how close you get your hands and so you feel the heat right. So, we just use a teeny little pendulum starting at the crown and then you go all the way down to all the different chakras, all the way to the root and you see that the pendulum spinning is there’s enough energy in that endocrine gland, it will be spinning. If there isn’t, it will be stopped and so you should say, oh well, I noticed that stop, I’m in trouble. I’m like no darling, not at all. We’re gonna get that balanced with the laser, I have the frequencies for the different chakras or the endocrine systems all in the laser. We shine it then on the chakra, that energy center that is not spinning, and we then retest until we shine the laser until it does spin. This is how I see it because then we go into an acupuncture session. So, this is how I see it. Hey guys, we found that all four of these centers were not spinning now. What if I had just launched right into my acupuncture session, would the needles and the movement of your chakra, your vital force? It would be trying to open up the centers the whole time, which is great, but instead we just balanced you before you put the needles in which means that we can get further in your session. This is how I use the lasers to get further faster. This is what I tell my colleagues. You guys, if you see someone two, three times a week what if you thought that once a week out of the laser and they didn’t need to come back for another week. They love you but they don’t want to spend their whole paycheck and the whole time in your office, right? And this has been miraculous. I’m not kidding you, absolutely miracles. Now, they come in and say, oh you know, can we take a shower again.
Dr. Andrew Wells: So, if I’m hearing you right, you’re kind of using this as kind of like a prep phase for acupuncture, you’re certainly getting a sort of like fertilizing the ground before you do your acupuncture work is more effective is what I’m hearing.
Diana DaGrosa: Absolutely, 100%
Dr. Andrew Wells: So, I decided to go in and I didn’t have any health complaints or things like that. I didn’t have anything that I wanted to fix or resolve things like I just wanted to experience what that looked like and so I went into the session. The practitioner who worked up on me asked me, you know, do you have any health issues that I know of and I said no and he said okay, I’ll just put you through just kind of a standard like, I don’t even know what an energy building, protocol or energy balancing protocol or whatever it was. I remember laying down on the table and he started putting the needles in and left the room and after five minutes, I fell asleep. And then, I woke up, I don’t know how much later but I woke up and as he came back in the room, you know I felt great. I felt fine and he’s like okay, I need you to come back two more times this week. I said okay I can do that. So, I cam in a second time that week and the third time I was in full-time practice of the time I missed my third appointment and I’m like sort of saw like wow if I really had something that I was suffering with, coming in three times a week and laying on this table for an extended period of time, that’s gonna be a pretty rough thing for me to swallow. So, I found it really burdensome from a time perspective and there’s a value of understanding what he was doing and not to say it wasn’t worth my time, but it certainly was an inconvenience and if you’re saying you can get similar or better results in less time and lessen the burden for the patient, timewise or financially, that’s huge.
Diana DaGrosa: It is enormous and I just see it. As you know, I remember years ago having you know just multiple accidents and having to see a chiropractor three times a week and it derives there. There’s the waiting, there’s this of course there is value. It was amazing but it really took a toll as far as that’s over two and a half hours for one session really, right? So that’s six, seven hours of my whole week. That’s rough. So, if we can get patients back in the game faster, it’s phenomenal. And, what I always tell patients when we do this emotional reset is when we do the structural balance. It’s kind of one of the things I say, oh allow for 72 hours of integration and I meet them with it. You know, a couple of those thoughts based on what we’re, you know, what they’ve finished saying about what was going on so that they couldn’t work on it and inevitably the next time they come, they’ve said; oh my gosh Diana, within 72 hours X, Y & Z occurred and they’re loving it. So, if you give them something to do to observe, the more you end up observing in your body and the outcome. The more you empower yourself to do it again. Get the patient better, not just the condition.
Dr. Chad Woolner: I think that’s extremely wise and insightful for a variety of reasons, but if for no other reason we have both, Dr. Wells and myself. We have taught for a long time to practitioners this idea that one of the biggest culprits behind many of the chronic health issues on some level or another, is this kind of collective disconnect that we see between people’s mind and body. You know, that we have collectively become so numb and disconnected as a society for a variety of reasons right? We overmedicate ourselves through, and when I say overmedicate, it’s not just medication, we use all sorts of things to overmedicate right and so the fact that you’re really trying to in essence, if I’m hearing this correctly, help patients become more attuned to their own bodies and look for more than just the superficial. But instead, dig a little bit deeper in terms of understanding and familiarizing themselves. You know with that kind of communication can oftentimes be when we’re not looking for it. So subtle, right, and so the fact that you’re helping to clue people into that, I think makes a huge difference for the patient and can really address a lot of underlying issues.
Diana DaGrosa: No doubt. You know, I find it to be really fun. So, when a person comes in for their first session, you may ask a very general question. Now, you already have their intake in front of you and need to ask them, well, how’s your digestion? How is your digestion elimination and gastro blur. They say no no no I’m good, I’m good, and then you look at the forearm and it’s not a judgment observation, they are not aware, they think they’re totally fine. If you were totally fine, you wouldn’t need any of these items. So, we try to educate them about that and then we say, you know, this whole center part. And you know, often, there is some weight accumulation so we call that you know any weight gain. We call that accumulation there and we said this is how you digest your world. Let’s work on this and you know once you start working on it you lose their stagnation. Again, think shout this, we’re manning the fire like the example lime before, right. You’re manning the fire inspired by your breathing all the way down into the kidney energy. Well, what is in between the kidneys and the lungs? your digestive variants, and where is their manifestation? in the digestive areas. You see, so we have to disconnect. We’ve got to get some chi moving and ask them how they digest their world again. You can plant these little seeds so that they start to look at their world. You know, somebody cut them off on the road, are they meeting at the mouths throughout the hospital? Well, yes. So, how about if we just you know, let that go to the hospital because she’s pregnant you just don’t know. But my point is in letting that go. You’re creating movements and in creating movements you’re ultimately gonna have feeling, because if you react or respond in that way to a person cutting you off, trust that you are doing it on all levels. How you do one thing is how you do everything. So, we’ve got a lot of cool things to work on, right?
Dr. Andrew Wells: Where do you see this now, Diana? We’re, you know, this is the first time I’ve talked about any expert using laser therapy for things like balancing chi in traditional Chinese medicine. Where do you see this type of therapy and technology integrating into what you do in the future? Not only for your practice but also for your profession.
Diana DaGrosa: Oh my goodness! I want it to become just as common as the needle. [INAUDIBLE] Are so fast, and you know what our whole thing at Brightpath is the name. We want to help the patient, well, remove interferences so that they can be profound. You cannot be profound when you have all of these things in the way and when you help empower them each time so that they can choose a better path. There’s just nothing like that, and my wish for all practitioners of acupuncture and Chinese medicine is to see that and know that they can get their five minutes before their session because I hear from some; Oh my gosh, that session was two hours because it ended up turning into a, you know, a psychotherapist type of session as well. Most of us don’t have two hours and not that the [INAUDIBLE] is not working. That’s not what I mean, but did you really get anywhere? Were you allowing the person to only replace the tape? We know that the answers come from within so if we help them go within immediately. That’s why I say I don’t talk when I’m lasering the brain while they’re feeling it, to heal it, and then they put what they want from this alone. In a sense, they put in two hours of psychotherapy sessions. They’re getting the mind and the body integrated so that they can help to dissolve that tissue memory and change it.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That is so profound. [INAUDIBLE] I think this is making my life miserable in that the provider, the clinician, the doctor, are like yeah, I get that and I want to help with that but I can’t like we’re not providing some kind of mental health support. We’re not so much mental health care providers but also there’s only so much that you can do to kind of counsel them and support them and make them feel like they’re loved. Without that, you know, forgetting that you also have other patients and other clients and other people who are coming in and running a business. There can be a really frustrating dynamic there, and I think oftentimes patients lean on providers like us for help because they’re not getting this help anywhere else. What you just said there was helping sort of mirror that back to the patient and saying no, lean into that and focus on it, feel it and your body has the power to redirect that incorrectness that’s not me. I think that’s such a profound thing because when our patients and people in general can tap into that feeling of resourcefulness and that feeling of being empowered, that your body has everything it needs to correct itself. We’re just going to help facilitate that process, and that ends up solving a lot of problems for a lot of people, especially when a lot of these conditions that we’re helping solve are relatively uncomplicated things that we’re solving for the most part, right? People aren’t coming in here, into our offices and clinics, with emergency situations. There are no gunshot wounds and stabbings and car accidents and things like that. These are chronic health issues that are rooted in either mind, body or spirit, and I really like the way that you’re integrating these different areas of the body to help someone sort of self-correct and redirect that you know.
Diana DaGrosa: Thank you for saying that because the thing is, though as a clinician, yes it can push it in a different, difficult direction, you know, position. Just sometimes because we do care about them but really, again, is it really helping them to replay the tape? Oh my gosh, now you guys, you know what she did now and like okay, let’s reopen a little bit and let’s go within because in a sense we could become their enabler. We’re around for that whole tape to be played. Not to say there’s never an opportunity, maybe to listen to what, a few minutes, but you know, very well that if you give an inch sometimes it will be a mile. That’s when we have to say, does this really help the patient? And the more they’re talking (x2) this is wearing out the spleen energy thinking (x5) which is then going to wear out this center. We’re going to now have more digestive issues, so it’s like a cat chasing its tail. You know? So, by helping the to understand this, and I encourage them so everybody checks these days, nobody ever posts me on the phone yet. I thought, well, because they don’t have the hours to talk to you. So, they’re avoiding you and you don’t want to say that. But, you can say hey, is it possible for you to have a two-minute conversation with Katie. Hey (x2) just calling to say hey, hope you’re fabulous, that’s it! Oh, goodbye. You know? You’ll be able to have a connection instead of oh everybody’s against me, you see this happen and we don’t want to play into that.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, it’s so cool that you’ve found not only a way to create and guide patients that way, but you’re also using a laser to help facilitate part of that process. I just think that’s really fascinating. It’s kind of like, I’ve heard lasers be described like them, magic wands that help facilitate some of these things and so I find that’s really interesting that you’re doing this.
Diana DaGrosa: Absolutely! Yeah, it’s so fun because we can then go on the kidney, on the bottom of the foot, right, and laser while they’re on the table and shine three minutes of energy right into the kidney. One root and ground so that their energy is not into fight or flight, so there’s many ways to treat it.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Are you looking at minds or in minds? Do you look at using a laser kind of like using a needle in acupuncture only just with a different modality, is that how you, I’m just curious, is that how you look at it?
Diana DaGrosa: You know, I use the laser and that way, for some points like the kidney or the bottom of the foot. Sometimes I’ll go to the stomach because it gives some energy or spleen six, these types of things, the belly button absolutely helps that again and again. I see it more as working. The organs might work a lot. Of course, we work with pain. You know the philosophical structure of acupuncture, that’s a given. But, for me, as far as the emotions and all of this, I go right to their organ systems. I’m putting the laser on their liver to help move their liver energy hugely. We all know what detoxification is, also really impaired right, so we do that extensively. I’m thinking more about the organ systems in Chinese medicine.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s really cool. It’s interesting who you talk to and how they’re using lasers. For example, when we talk to chiropractors, they’re often using lasers on different nerve pathways. We just had a recording with a dermatologist, Dr. Adlin, and she’s using one for skin conditions. She’s using this for gut health, so that’s one of the areas that she wants to influence and then you’re saying that you’re using this to influence directly on organ functions so your lasering organs. That’s so cool.
Diana DaGrosa: It’s so fun! it’s fun. It’s endless what we can do.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, I’m really curious. I hope that I anticipate we’ll have laser light show episode 200 and I’m kind of curious if we go back and have you hopefully, Diana, as a guest maybe a couple years from now? How you’re going to be using this laser technology any differently than you are right now and also, I would love to see this as a tool that a lot more people use Chinese medicine, practitioners and functional medicine practitioners in general using it.
Diana DaGrosa: Yes, absolutely! I look forward to talking to you in a few years and giving you all the updates.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Is there any wisdom or nuggets piece of advice you want to leave us with before we wrap up?
Diana DaGrosa: I would say that don’t forget to use the laser on the biggest nerve that is a huge one. I’m just, I could talk to you forever, but one of the things too is dental. We know that dental can break your bank account so use it on the mouth.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I’ve never heard of that, how are you using it in the mouth?
Diana DaGrosa: Oh my gosh, extensive listening on any bone. We had a person who had 50% bone loss, we totally helped her within three months to regenerate the bone. We have before and after x-rays, people come in before and after dental surgery and they are recovering exponentially even after having races, you know, they’re in so much pain. We shine five minutes on the mouth, you name it, infection like crazy, dental (x3).
Dr. Andrew Wells: Wow, that’s so cool. I’ve never heard of that before, you’re the first person that mentioned it but all makes total sense. It’s just not a body part area we’ve explored. That makes a lot of sense and I have to imagine for like cavitations and for these sort of subacute infections that people have in their mouth, that has a systemic effect. I imagine that obviously that’s very detrimental to your overall mental health, but I never never considered laser therapy as a way to resolve that.
Diana DaGrosa: Oh amazing, blow you away!
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s so incredible, awesome. Well, Diana, we sure appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to be here with us. This has been really fascinating and really enjoyable to hear kind of your experiences and your expertise. And for docs, we hope likewise that this has been incredibly valuable for you as well and we look forward to sharing more with you guys on upcoming episodes. Have an amazing day! We’ll talk to you guys later.
[OUTRO]
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.
In today’s episode, we sit down with Dr. Glynis Ablon, sought-after speaker and researcher, to discuss how Erchonia’s 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/
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Dr. Chad Woolner: What’s going on everybody? Dr. Chad Woolner here with Dr. Andrew Wells and this is Episode 17 of the laser light show and on today’s episode, we have with us our good friend and special guest, Dr. Glynis Ablon, and we’re going to be talking about lasers in dermatology. So let’s get to it.
[INTRO]
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, everybody to the show, and a special welcome to Dr. Ablon. Good to have you here with us. Thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to be on the show with us.
Of course. So you are a dermatologist in Manhattan Beach, California, correct? That is correct. And you were just saying before the show that you’re literally on a movie studio lot. Is that where you’re where you said your app?
Dr. Glynis Ablon:That is my office has been here now for about 21-22 years on the Manhattan Beach studio lot. Yeah.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So you’ve seen a lot of movie stars, a lot of movies and or movie stars. I should say.
Dr. Glynis Ablon: We do see our fair share of crap.
Dr. Chad Woolner: How fun is that? That’s cool.
Dr. Glynis Ablon: So people are interesting during the day? Yeah, no
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, no doubt, I bet.
Dr. Andrew Wells: So this podcast is about lasers in dermatology. And when I think of not being a dermatologist, I’m a chiropractor. When I think of lasers in dermatology, I think of automatically like burning, cutting, removing, like some of like surgical applications for potential applications for laser therapy. And obviously, that’s not what we’re talking about today. But maybe if you can give us kind of a little bit of a background on, on who you are, what you do. And then we’ll kind of segue into how we’re using lasers and how you’re using lasers to help your patients.
Dr. Glynis Ablon: Of course, I am a board certified dermatologist. I do my training at Baylor College of Medicine. I actually got into lasers back in 1993 with my mentor, Dr. Ted Rosen, over at Baylor, in Houston, Texas. And we had the good old fashioned co2 Laser back then in 93. And we had, I think, one type two laser. And then Dr. Leonard Goldberg, taught me about a pulsed dye laser. And that was pretty much it at that time. And I just thought it was fascinating. I think that we should have so many applications. After graduating in dermatology, I opened my practice here in the Manhattan Beach chapter, I actually worked in some other offices for a while and then opened my own office. And I have a medical dermatology cosmetic dermatology circle dermatology and Research Center here in the city a lot. And lasers are one big part of what I do. And I think it’s fascinating. It’s exciting. It’s ever evolving. And there’s so much information out there.
Dr. Andrew Wells: What was it that worked? So you worked with some mentors that use lasers, but what was it that you mentioned that this is a big part of your practice integrating your practice? Why is it such an important role? using lasers with what you do?
Dr. Glynis Ablon: So lasers, again, you mentioned, you know, you imagine it for surgery, it’s used for many different things. So we can use it in surgery, we can use it for different kinds of birthmarks that people have that can be, you know, very traumatic, we can use it for vascular malformations, we can you know, there’s many different different things again, starting with the basics. So Laser Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. That’s what it is. That’s what lasers, it’s an acronym. And if you think black people talk about lasers that pay a little to do a little history, please. Yeah, please. Okay, so back to really I want to say like Einstein and 1970 would be the first person to really lay the foundation of lasers and that’s the concept of that stimulated emission. And then the first thing that came before lasers was actually called a major which was a microwave application of stimulated emission of radiation. And those were done in Columbia University by I think it was LB and Gordon and then some Russian guys. That’s off and Cobra, something like that. And they did amazing And they actually got a Nobel Prize in 1964. for that. Then you go into Dr. Theodore maiman, who was at the Hughes research lab and basically took that laser and then became intubate the laser field and demonstrate the first working laser in about 1960s. So it’s been around since 1960s, just before I was born, and has evolved on so many levels. And we are talking about you know, we went from things that were like a millisecond round, which is 1/1000 of a second pulse, to where now we have the, the picosecond and a lot of lasers now are picoseconds, and those are 1,000,000,000,000th of a second. And now what they’re come out with the femtosecond, which is one quadrillions of seconds. So the lasers just keep getting more and more advanced. When we use a laser, it’s important that you understand kind of how a laser works and what you’re dealing with. But I think what’s interesting for me is that I think a lot of people have the idea that no pain, no gain. So if it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t really. And I don’t think that’s just lasers. I think a lot of people think, Well, I do something and it doesn’t I don’t feel it. And it doesn’t either hurt me or feel a little bit uncomfortable. I’m not getting any effect. And I think what is remarkable, the devices in what are called low level laser technology, and that is what is coming is low level laser technology is something where you can have no pain, and you can see dramatic effects.
Dr. Chad Woolner: My brother has one of his favorite sayings is no pain, no pain. That’s his. And so you’re saying no pain, no gain here but with our Erchonia their motto should be no pain. No pain is what is so absolutely incredible.
Dr. Glynis Ablon: And that and that’s really essentially important thing because again, we now understand whenever I’m speaking about low level lasers, I always talked about the fact that whether it’s electrical ultrasound, whatever it is, you we had the skepticism, which I think sort of Erchonia, really, to me was the one that the foundation that really kind of broke through the mold. You know, they start I think they’ve been doing this for 26 years now. And they really broke the mold. And you know, we had three of their devices, using it from you know, for I use it for pain, I have a device that we initially bought for, for fat reduction, and I tore my Achilles out now I tore my gastroc. So I had a tear, and I was in a boot. And I was supposed to be in my boot for six weeks, as we all know. And I was limping around the office, I did my red low level laser from Erchonia or virtually was the name of it. And I did it every other day. Nine days later, I was at my academy meeting in dermatology in Washington, DC. I attended a lecture, and I went dancing that night.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Wow. You did that in high heels as well.
Dr. Glynis Ablon: I did it? I don’t know. But they were. Yeah. That’s cool. Yeah. And so nine days, I mean, that’s unheard of, you know, to be able to do that is really remarkable. And so, for me, it has kind of changed the way I think about lasers and how I approach things with my patients on a regular basis.
Dr. Andrew Wells: No, it’s a funny thing with their Erchonia because you don’t feel it. It’s like dandruff shampoo, like you can really feel it working. It can be frustrating sometimes I think for patients to ask the question, is it working? Is it on? Is it doing what it’s supposed to be doing? And if it weren’t, if it weren’t for all the research that Erchonia has done and with the FDA clearances. I think a lot of practitioners as well have some skepticism like how do we know it’s actually doing what it says on the box that it’s going to do? And fortunately for all of us Erchonia has done the hard work and the labor necessary to prove it’s doing what it’s doing. And you can take that confidence with the patient knowing okay, you may not feel it right now. But wait, wait till your body starts to heal. And it has the effect that it’s supposed to have on the body and you’ll feel you’ll feel the results that way.
Dr. Glynis Ablon: Absolutely. You know, one of their devices is for toenails. It’s for toenail fungus. And I will tell you that a ton of points is one of the hardest things to treat Dr. Rosen. I did 100 patient studies that we published the data on topical use for toenail fungus, which was quite dicey. A lot of toenails. But there is no great treatment for toenails. And the success rate is very low on everything we do even the oral medication is not great. But I’ve had wonderful stuff with this violet and red light to kill fungus. And I’ve also killed bacteria like I just had dramatic improvements where my patients are thrilled. And there is zero pain. I mean, that is a really big deal. And I have two other devices that haven’t been used in years. I won’t even say the name But they were so painful, they would come and go, I don’t care what you do, I am not doing that device that leads to absolutely not. So to be able to provide great results, and have that no pain issue is wonderful.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So you have the lunula laser, you have the excuse me, Lulu. And then what other lasers do you have?
Dr. Glynis Ablon: I had originally which is a red, which initially was used for fat reduction. Okay. And then we now have the new emerald that FDA cleared for obesity, BMI as a 30 to 40. And I think the biggest thing is that, you know, we see a lot of patients post COVID, people are really unhappy, they have been stuck in their houses, they have not exercised, they’ve gotten into these eating binges. And so a lot of people have gained a lot of weight that were otherwise in good shape, and they’re very unhappy. And for us, the device becomes a really good motivator to get these patients seeing some results and working on their health and nutrition. You know, when I see patients, whatever I’m doing, whether it’s, you know, fat reduction, things like that, I think everything we talk about stars in the gut. Whether it’s rashes, acne, I really do think everything starts in the gut. And I think that when we can talk about our patients, to be honest, and to be upright, and upfront, and really go through, it’s not just what I’m looking at that rash, or that infection, or that fungus, or that, you know, fatty part, it’s kind of looking at that patient as an overall whole what’s going on in their gut, what’s going also on in their life, you know, are they depressed? Are they having issues? are they dealing with these issues, are they stressed, you know, cortisol levels go up, everything else goes wrong, and people are stressed. And so really to address the patient as a whole, starting with a gut going over mental, you know, issues that are happening. distressing, I always talked about meditation. I actually wrote a book on this called What stress in your face, before the pandemic is talking about stress and how it affects your body. And I really tried to talk to my patients about meditation. So fish may come in for a cosmetic console for fat reduction, we’re talking diet, nutrition, stress, meditation, yoga, you know, we’re kind of going over the whole gamut of what else we can do to help the body as a whole. And my patients that really do take this in as not just, oh, just do this machine and nothing else, and everything will be fine. These are the patients that are coming back and saying, I literally got into my pants that were a full size, four inches smaller, in, you know, six weeks. And they’re feeling good, they’re motivated. And you know, you can continue down the path, especially again, if you’re addressing this as an entire, you know, system as opposed to just this one little part.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, there’s two things that I want to kind of clue into, or kind of point out that you mentioned there that I think are really worth kind of focusing on there. The first thing is, how incredibly forward thinking of you, and or holistic have you to look at the whole person that way, because far too often, all doctors, not just medical doctors, chiropractors, naturopaths, all of them, a lot of times we’ll get very focused on, you know, one system one problem, you know, type type thinking, whereas you’re looking at this from a much broader standpoint, looking back. And to that end, I thought it was really incredible and insightful of you to look at the lasers as a catalyst of sorts, right, that you’re talking about that? I think sometimes we think that these lasers are the end itself. And as great and as amazing as they are, because they are incredible tools. But you’re missing the mark, I think if we don’t plug them in, in the right appropriate way. And what I mean by that is, we see in our practice, a lot of times patients who come in, and they’ll they’ll be frustrated because they’ll talk to their doctor and their doctors, like the answer to your problems is you just need to exercise and eat right is their answer to them. And they’re like, Well, duh, I get that. But either way I’m not motivated to do that because it hurts to do that. And so I continue to not do those things. And so the spiral continues. And so anytime you can introduce something that can act like a catalyst like you’re saying there, you can use that as a gateway or an entry point to then begin the conversations that might be a little bit more challenging. Before that catalyst is introduced right. Now the patient’s motivated by this, they start seeing some positive changes that are happening, they’re probably going to be far more apt to hear you out when you say okay, we need to start talking about diet and exercise and all those other cool things. And so I just wanted to kind of connect some of those dots there that you mentioned inherent. I think that’s so incredible. And no doubt, I’m guessing that as a result of that, you probably see some pretty remarkable results with your patients, because you’re doing more than just, you know, a single modality thinking that that’s going to be this magic bullet magic wand type solution for patients.
Dr. Glynis Ablon: Yeah. And I think that I think people appreciate it. I think that it’s, I think we are doing a disservice if we don’t do don’t do that. And, you know, I think it’s so interesting, because you know, what, what we call it, it’s called the SAD diet. That’s the standard American diet, like, how sad is that? Like, I mean, I think you live up to your name. And obviously, it’s lived up to its name. And so I am a big proponent of kind of, again, doing everything you can and so and to have a tool again, that, that I don’t cause pain, you know, I see a lot of kids in the office, and I see younger individuals. Now, again, obesity is on the rise. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s traumatic when you see this, and you know, that it’s not just about the physical that you’re seeing, it’s about the entire body, and organs being compromised, and diabetes and hypertension, and all these other factors. So I think the more we can look and help our patients in any way that is, and low, again, low level license, this one of them
Dr. Andrew Wells: I’m really curious, you mentioned that a lot of health issues started in the gut. Now you’re a dermatologist. And what you’re saying makes total sense to me. I’m just curious, do you use laser level laser therapy on the gut? Is that part of your protocol?
Dr. Glynis Ablon: I understand that one of the things that happens with the laser that we’re talking about this low level laser, the MO laser, what we’re finding is that these low level lasers actually go six centimeters into the tissue. So you’re going deeper in than we ever imagined we could get with certain lasers. And when you get deep in there, you go back, and I’ll just explain all that. So when we’re specifically talking about the AMR laser, it takes a fat cell. And that low level laser, which is a laser in low energy, so there’s no heat generated, it doesn’t blow anything up, it doesn’t destroy anything, it actually creates a core in the fat cell. And that poor bit to the transitory score, where actually it allows the fats to come out of the fat cells. So you’re excreting fat, you’re then digesting it and sending it out of the body and getting rid of it. And so in that way, that’s how you’re reducing the fat cells that die. With the gut, you are talking about, typically things that are coming into the body. So we’re not actually destroying anything through that laser. But to me, it is, we know how the microbiome of the gut works. More and more, we are getting more information on that. So it is a matter of like, for instance, sugar, when we put sugar in our body, sugar is more addictive than heroin. Sugar is something that bad things like to feed off of whether it’s Syria, that’s not the bread, whether it’s cancer cells. And so when we are putting sugar in our body, whether it’s natural sugar, or not, whether it’s carbohydrates that turn into sugar, whether it’s alcohol, or sugar and alcohol, but the idea, again, is that you are putting things in your body that will not be healthy and helpful for your body. So for me, it’s not about the laser doing anything to the gut, but about us being one portion of our overall self and thinking okay, what am I putting in my body? And how is that going to affect all of the different parts of my body from my joints, you know, we know that different kinds of rheumatoid, rheumatoid arthritis and different kinds of like lupus, all these different kinds of connective tissue diseases are made worse by poor nutrition, and excess weight, they all are, are worsened by that we have other skin conditions in dermatology that we see like I dread medicine for fever, that is also worsened by excess weight or exacerbated by it. So for me, it’s again, it’s addressing all of these issues and talking about the different aspects of how we can make your body the best it can be, so that you can feel the best that you can be and everybody is different, you know, everyone’s not going to be excited to know that you know, they’re eating you could be the healthy cedar, and maybe for you, that’s the size 10 And as long as your you know, your labs was good and your heart and your lungs and your your gut and your poop and all that good stuff is working Right, you’re okay.
Dr. Andrew Wells: This is this by the way, this is very refreshing and not the direction I thought that this podcast will certainly go in. And I say this with total respect. But so I had an inkling that you’d be a forward thinking physician just because of the fact that user Erchonia lasers, we find that a lot of Doc’s using this type of technology are almost always forward thinking but you know, we commonly in dermatology, this is just pop health dermatology, we hear, stay away from the sun, use sunscreen, drink water, get sleep. And it’s sort of like sometimes kind of an outside in approach to you, your skin will be healthy if you avoid certain toxins or threats, like radiation or certain things that will interfere with the health of your skin cells. But rarely do you ever hear. At least I haven’t a lot of dermatologists talking about skin health or overall health, starting in the gut or the foods that you eat. And it’s like common sense stuff. But sometimes I don’t think dermatologists are putting these things together like yes, it may be helpful to avoid strong radiation from the sun on your skin. It may be helpful to us, sometimes sunscreens especially ones that don’t have a lot of chemicals and things in them. But what about what you eat? And like I’ve never heard a dermatologist talk about nutrition. So my hat’s off to you.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, I was gonna follow up with that I was simply going to pose the question to you, do you find that you’re seeing a positive shift in that direction with the profession? Or do you find that you’re kind of still somewhat on the outskirts beating a drum that is taking some time to kind of take hold?
Dr. Glynis Ablon: Well, you know, we live in a world where people have money, and they can kind of guide the direction of our country. And you know, whether that’s sodas, and by the way, as you can see, I’m drinking, I’m actually drinking revive, which is my favorite kombucha. But, we live in a world where, you know, sodas and chips, candies and things like that that we know really aren’t good for us are showing up in our kids’ schools. And it’s so sad to me that it’s not a bigger conversation. But lobbyists have more control than I do. I think that as medical students, we have very little information on nutrition. And I will tell you that my parents both passed away last year. And my mother was in an ICU. And she had a she was intubated, and she was getting fed through nutrition through a bag. And I asked to see the ingredients in that bag. And it was sugar. Basically, that’s all she was getting. And when I asked at least put vitamins in the answer was well, we don’t have any here. And, of course, if we’re not taking care of the nutrition of our sickest patients, how can you? How can you take care of patients? My dad went into brain surgery post surgery he was given the jello. What jello sugar water. So I ran out and I bought green juice. Like all the grandkids, your dad talks to the shades of green, and gave him that and these people looked at me in the ICU like I was out of my mind. And I’m like, this is going to be way better for a 91 year old, I post automated.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So telling the fact that it is absolutely insane to me that what you’re talking about there was viewed as somehow strange or odd or unusual. And yet pumping somebody full of a bag of sugar is like yeah, this is standard protocol. This is mainstream, absolutely incredible. I’ll never forget there was this doctor who was poking fun at various functional medicine, health care professionals and practitioners. And he said in the most straight faced and yet insulting, condescending tones, he said, these doctors somehow think that food is medicine is what he said and he said it with a straight face. And I’m like, you he really believes that that food isn’t medicine and I’m like, absolutely incredible to hear. That level of ignorance being spoken and yet what you’re talking about here is, you know, fairly pervasive and so kind of, you know, back back to kind of this whole idea of of your realm, obviously, in dermatology, you’re you’re focusing far more holistically I would I would gather than many of if not most of your counterparts there. How are lasers helping you in that kind of hole holding stick approach? We’ve talked a little bit about some of the ways. But maybe let’s talk about shifting gears a little bit, because I’m guessing you’re seeing a lot of autoimmune type conditions that will present with various skin issues, rashes and things like that. Do you use lasers for things like that? And does that help what? What happens there?
Dr. Glynis Ablon: So the whole low level laser, we see a lot of hair loss, we see. And that can be seen with thyroid diseases with many different kinds of conditions. So low level lasers were great for hair loss. We grow hair with that, stimulating nitrous oxide. I mean, there’s so many different factors. We use it for exactly rashes. So I have people that come in all the time, I have low level lasers and also LED technology that runs throughout the day, treating redness and rashes and things that can come up from acne to rashes related to different kinds of again, diseases, I have a lot of COVID rashes that I see that I can treat with low level lasers in the red category. Again, I use it for injuries that we’re seeing more. So again, it’s kind of across the board, it really isn’t just dermatology. And I mean I take care of a lot of pro basketball players. And they all have injuries. And so we’re going to be doing Erchonia study on lower back injuries for chronic pain. And so again, we look at not just dermatology, and for me, it’s really important that I’m not. I really do treat the patient as a whole. You mentioned something about, you know, sunscreen and things like that. So I do have that conversation. But it’s important for me to, for my patients to understand that you know, vitamin D levels are very important for our body. So it’s not just wearing sunscreen, have a nice day, it’s when you use sunscreen, make sure it’s the one that’s appropriate for your skin type. I prefer minerals and chemicals because you’re not absorbing them. And then understand that it’s really the sunburn that turns into the breakdown of the oxygen free radicals and things like that, or the singlet that you want to prevent that burn. The issue with tanning is really more about damaging your skin and causing wrinkles and making your skin look older, which most people do not like. So I’m always like, skin cancer wrinkles like that kind of your choice if you’re gonna get a lot of sun. But again, wearing sunscreen prevents the burns getting checked regularly. That’s the other thing. I just had a lovely woman the other day who came in to see me with her daughter and she had melanoma because she had never been taught. And so we know that a lot of these skin cancers are very treatable. And if you catch them early, the success rate is phenomenal. But I also had a girl in my residency who was 39, she had two kids. She came in and she showed me a little spot on her abdomen. And I said, Well, what did it look like before it looked like this giant, you know, gross, it was like a mushroom coming out of her stomach. And she said it looks like a little milk. And she died about six months later of malignant melanoma that was everywhere. Wow. And her answer was, she didn’t want to wait in line at the free clinic to get to see. So access, that’s another big one: access to health care access to dermatologists access to the people that you need. And I think, retraining the doctors of tomorrow to understand that we really are a whole system and addressing all the parts of that system, and not letting the lobbyists kind of take over what we can and can’t do. I mean, it’s just like, we need electric cars. So we aren’t using as much gas that’s here in LA, it’s fixed. I just think I just paid $6.75 for the gallon. tank of gas. So you know, I’m gonna go electric next time. But I think just like we want to go electric cars, I think we also want to look at our bodies and figure out what else we can do. And you know, we got pollution. And I mean, I was hoping when COVID hit and everything changed in the environment. And we saw the canals of Venice had dolphins again, and we saw the skies were blue, and we had no smog. And they showed that in that first few months of COVID. And people off the streets and cars not driving, that not only did the murder rate go down, but we had our world back and that we really could do something about climate change and pollution and all that. And I was really hoping that people would wake up and it seems like we’re kind of back to where we were.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So my question would be sorry to interrupt the answer. I was just gonna say you’ve been in practice for 20 years now.
Dr. Glynis Ablon: Let’s see I became a dermatologist in 1996. So 26 years,
Dr. Chad Woolner: 26 years. So in that 26 year period, specifically with the low level lasers. Tell us about some of the coolest Maybe incredible miraculous stories that you’ve seen, some of the just the coolest examples of what you’ve seen. And this could literally be anything. It doesn’t have to be anything specific. I’m just interested to hear some of the cool success stories and or miracles that you’ve seen.
Dr. Glynis Ablon: Well, my dad when he was alive, I just lost him a few months ago when he was alive. And I got my first laser, my first virtue. He was my guinea pig. He always liked to try things. And he was not row 10. But he had gotten a little bit lazy about working out and he had some health issues and some hypertension and was on all these different medications. And I said, Dad, we’re gonna try something new on you. And he’d come in, and he was so excited, because he had no pain. And you tried that later. By the way, it was a pain all the love the linear loss, but he did not like the old ones. And he did the versus you and he lost six inches. He was hearing, yes, like he was just super excited to come in the office, he’d come for lunch, when we meet our drug reps, and he would tell everybody about it. And so it was really nice. And it was just he, he felt better. And again, he had no pain, it was nothing, it was no big deal, we literally would come in twice a week. So the sessions are twice a week, they just relax, we make it feel like there’s music going on, they can just relax, listen to headphones if they want. And he just was beyond excited, because he was able to wear those pants and, and feel good. And his blood pressure had dropped as well to the point where we could take them off two of the six medications he was on. Wow, that was a big deal for me. Yeah, and it’s personal too. As I said, with my emerald right now, I’ve had patients come back and we’ve only had it for, you know, six months. But we’ve had patients come back now and they are just so excited. And, they’re seeing such good results in one area. That’s because again, this is gonna be a total body. So we’re doing you know, they might love the way their abdomen is doing well now. So now they’re like, Okay, I’m gonna go into my thighs and buttocks and things like that. So not everyone wants to have giant backs, a lot of people want to have smaller ones. Again, we can reduce that. And I actually have a few patients that have come back and seen their primary doctors, and brought me back their lab work to show that their cholesterol had gone down as well.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing.
Dr. Andrew Wells: And that’s the fascinating thing about laser therapy is when you compare this against traditional letter Western medicine, sometimes you’ll take a medication or a drug that gets you the desired effect in the symptom that you’re trying to treat. But it also comes with other adverse effects that we don’t want. And that’s what I find so fascinating about laser level laser therapy in laser light is that you can get the intended outcome, but the side effect is better health, right? Whether it’s reduced hypertension or lower cholesterol levels, you’re feeling better, they look better. And there’s no side effects. And that’s one of the things that I really like about Erchonia is they have the research to back it up and the FDA clearance all show that there’s zero contraindications, zero side effects when you’re using this with patients. And so that must be comforting for you. And also, I imagine your staff Dr. Ablon, about when we’re using lasers, is probably pretty easy for your staff to pick up and use and to help patients.
Dr. Glynis Ablon: With low level lasers,I don’t have to put a patient under that machine, my staff can do it, a medical assistant can do it, my RN can do it. All other lasers, at least in California, must be run by nurses or doctors and any kind of invasive laser is run only by me. And the reality is we don’t see complications often but every laser that I do, has a list of publications and they can’t happen and I have a lot of patients they do a lot of expert testimonies on behalf of doctors that have had problems and complications and so I you know have to review records and go over and are these reasonable complications that have happened but that is not the case with low level lasers you are exactly right. There are literally no side effects there are no complications other than you didn’t have to something worked fast enough or as fast as you were hoping but yeah to be able to do that is pretty remarkable and are cut yeah are plenty of goes for the big guns I mean to go for obesity, this is the only laser period that we have to treat obesity. And I think again, making it a conversation and and here’s one of the things we have in the armamentarium is it is great to offer patients and and go down that road from there.
Dr. Andrew Wells: We had an interesting podcast interview with Jamie. She has weight loss and cosmetic, I think type practice in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. And she mentioned that she’s using the lasers for helping people aesthetically with tattoos so they have a tattoo and then your laser the tattoos to help speed up the recovery time whereas typically I think it’s like four weeks or so. One thing that you want to protect it we’re now is that cuts it in, I think like half or something like that. I imagine you do some of your practice, do you do tattoo removal?
Dr. Glynis Ablon
We do. We don’t have a lot of tattoo patients around here in Southern California. But there are some that want their touches moved to yellow properly now to get those that have not taken off our boat years, it will be I did for a while. I actually work with the LA Youth Network, which was a group of kids that were on the streets. Most of them had HIV. And I was doing pre tattoo removals on those kids at the time. And I think that, again, anything that can speed up the healing is great.
Dr. Andrew Wells: What are some of the topics you were talking about about weight loss? What are some of the other things that you’re using these lasers for?
Dr. Glynis Ablon: So a big one for me is injury, pain, trauma. I also again use it for rashes, I use it for any kind of feeling. I’ve had patients that come in post operatively from other surgeries that have nothing to do with dermatology that come in and are still having pain and like hip replacement, things like that. And post surgically, I find it works dramatically, I use it on a lot of my shingles patients. I’m trying to promote people getting the shingles vaccine, because getting shingles at an older age is not fun. And the older you are, the worse it is because the post herpetic neuralgia is a higher percentage the older you are. And so I use that on patients who do have shingles and have post herpetic neuralgia, it really can reduce that pain, because that pain can be devastating for lots of different things in dermatology and then outside the realm of dermatology as well.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Amazing. What Do you do? Do you talk to your colleagues, other dermatologists about laser therapy? Is the profession open and receptive to this? Or is it? Is it something you kind of like very much an outlier and a pioneer?
Dr. Glynis Ablon: I think that more and more people are becoming receptive. I think there’s been a lot of skepticism, as I said, against things that don’t hurt. But I think now we have the data to show that it really does work. And that’s really what the dermatologist in my field wants. They want to see the data. So I’m an associate professor at UCLA, and I teach the dermatology residents there. So I’m always talking about devices. Again, they are something easy to add to your craft, and patients just really love it because of that lack of discomfort.
Dr. Chad Woolner: You know, I think that’s so nice. That’s a nice thing. I was just gonna say I think that’s such a nice thing to know that, that the future doctors are getting that mindset at an early stage in their training, you know, that’s really refreshing to hear that these are the types of things that they’re being taught knowing full well that at the end of the day, the result of that is going to be better outcomes for patients right at the end of the day. That’s the and it’s unfortunate when you see sometimes various individuals cling to dogma for the sake of clinging to dogma, you know, in terms of ego and whatnot. And what you’re talking about here is really ensuring that, again, patients are going to be the ones that benefit from this in the end. So that’s awesome.
Dr. Glynis Ablon: Yeah, I agree. I agree.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So Dr,. Ablon for those who might be interested in maybe learning a little bit more about what you’re doing obviously you teach at UCLA Do you do any other sorts of continuing ed training or anything like that?
Dr. Glynis Ablon: I am all over the place. In fact I fly out tonight after patients to Vegas to lecture has a cousin via Aesthetic Show this weekend. Over there. If you go on my website I try to post all of my videos and talk so I talk guys there’s a whole video on the Emerald laser there and and I do post all the different things I do on the news and so you can always go to my website which is Avalon institute.com and and watch a video and see things and get questions answered. We have sign up for people that are interested in research because we’re always trying new devices like I said we’re doing the chronic thing. And I put your name on the list if you’re interested in doing that. But I think just I what I say is take care of yourself you know you are what you eat take care of yourself. If you don’t take put yourself first no one’s gonna do it. It’s kind of like the whole story with the airplane where you say put your oxygen mask on first and then your child you know you have to take care of yourself and in a time of COVID and and zoom calls and we have dysmorphia now and it’s so important to really make time for yourself take care of yourself my kids know that I come home and I meditate for 20 minutes and in the past they would say we need you and I say okay and I dropped everything in and now they know I 20 minutes is mine I go meditate and then I can do a lot more for them and help Bam, then I said before, it’s been 20 minutes.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Great advice. Great advice. This has been incredible. Thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to be here with us. It sounds as though you’ve got your hands in a lot of really exciting things between your practice, your speaking, your research, all of those things. And so we’ll make sure that we have notes for doctors in terms of learning more about the cool things that you’re doing and in terms of the research, will send some folks your way to have them learn about some of these cool things. So, Doc’s, we hope that this has been an incredibly enlightening podcast episode. Again, I would reiterate the same thing Andrew said, I didn’t foresee this going into some of these realms. And so we appreciate you sharing some of these really unique insights and experiences that you’ve had. And more importantly, if we really appreciate it again, I would reiterate that kind of forward thinking mentality that you have no doubt you have over your career. Probably a lot of lives in very powerful ways. And so that’s absolutely incredible. And docks, we hope again, you’ve had a ton of value from this episode, and we look forward to sharing more with you on the next episode. Have an amazing day. We’ll talk to you guys later.
[OUTRO]
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 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.
In this episode, we interview functional medicine expert Dr. Robert Silverman. Dr. Silverman highlights how he uses low-level laser therapy to help establish healthy gut-brain connections. He teaches his cutting-edge protocols on the national and international speaking circuit and we cover some of his protocols in this episode. Also, connect with Dr. Silverman on Facebook for notifications about his upcoming speaking events and books: https://www.facebook.com/DrRobertSilverman
https://www.linkedin.com/in/drrobertsilverman/
https://www.erchonia.com/seminars/
Dr. Chad Woolnder: This episode of The Laser Light Show is brought to you by Dr. Robert Silverman’s Erchonia continuing education seminars. Erchonia laser is the worldwide leader in low level laser technology and education for physicians, chiropractors, physical therapists and veterinarians. Erchonia Education utilizes Dr. Silverman both nationally and internationally in Seminar presentations at the introductory and advanced levels. These laser presentations include cutting edge protocols with hands on applications to learn about Dr. Silverman’s next presentations and to see a seminar listing near your area. Go to Erchonia.com/seminars.
Dr. Chad Woolner: What’s going on everybody, Dr. Chad Woolner here with Dr. Andrew Wells. And this is episode 16 of The Laser Light show on today’s episode, we’re going to kind of do this as an unofficial part two. We’re gonna pick up with Dr. Rob Silverman again and we’re going to be talking…last episode we talked about lasers for musculoskeletal. On this episode we’re gonna be talking about lasers for gut and photobiomimics. So let’s get started.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Growing up in Portland, Oregon, I used to love going to laser light shows at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. They would put on these amazing light shows with incredible designs synced up to some of my favorite music. From the Beatles to Pink Floyd to Jimmy Hendrix and Metallica; they were awesome. Little did I know then that lasers would have such a profound effect on my life decades later. As a chiropractic physician, I have seen first-hand just how powerful laser therapy is in helping patients struggling with a wide range of health problems. As the leader in laser therapy, Erchonia has pioneered the field in obtaining 20 of the 23 total FDA clearances for therapeutic application of lasers. On this podcast, we’ll explore the science and technology and physiology behind what makes these tools so powerful. Join me as we explore low-level laser therapy. I’m Dr. Chad Woolner along with my good friend Dr. Andrew Wells and welcome to The Laser Light Show.
Dr. Chad Woolner: All right, welcome to the show, everybody. This is again, an unofficial part two is what we’ll call it with Dr. Silverman. Dr. Silverman, welcome back again to the show, we had such a blast with you on the last episode, it was a ton of fun getting to chat with you. And I could just tell that you, like so many other brilliant doctors that we chat with, wanted so desperately to go off of the reservation outside the realm of musculoskeletal and start diving into some of these other areas. And so now it’s our opportunity to kind of allow you free rein to just go wherever you want to go and go and talk about some of these other really, really cool topics. And so yeah, we’re going to be talking about gut and photo biometrics. And so I gotta be honest and say in saying that term, I’m just going to be honest and say, I’m not really sure what that means photo, I can kind of break it down, but maybe, maybe you can kind of start there and tell us what you mean by gut and photobiomimics?
Dr. Robert Silverman: Absolutely, thanks for having me back. That was great. And I definitely wanted to go off the reservation without question. 2,500 years ago, Socrates said “all disease begins in the gut.” 20 years ago, Alessio Fasano said, “all disease begins in the leaky gut.” We took that big jump. Some gut factoids. For me, the gut is the epicenter of health. 80% of immune cells are in your gut. It’s where your macro and micro nutrients are absorbed. 90% of the scientific literature describing the microbiome has been published in the last five years.
Factoid: 100 trillion bacteria cells outnumber human cells in a ratio of 10 to one. So humans; we’re 90% bacteria at a cellular level. Yet, most physicians look at the 10%. For me, they’re extremely myopic. And that poses a major issue, even when you look at genetics. 99% of DNA in human bodies is bacteria.
Some more factoids, critical things for all of our doctors out there. 72% of the US adults say they have experienced the GI symptoms a few times a month or more. 74% of participants have lived with their GI symptoms more than six months. What does that mean? Ladies and gentlemen, everybody sitting in front of you to the tune of about three quarters of them have a gut problem. If you don’t ask, they’re not gonna let you know.
So, off the reservation, I pulled myself back into the reservation, I made something I call the Dr. Rob’s Gut Matrix. So if I could vivify it for everybody, again, your gut is the epicenter of your health. It’s your bullseye. When we say our gut, what are we talking about? Our small and our large intestine. Our small intestine is a misnomer. It’s really long. It’s an average of 22 feet, and varies in most humans from 20 to 52 feet. It’s small because it’s diameter is an inch. It’s sole purpose is to allow micronutrients, vitamins, minerals in small digestive food particles to go through. It has been postulated that the outside of the body and the outside world meets the inside world when something gets digested to the small intestine into the bloodstream. That said, what is more important to our overall immune health than to keep a pristine small Intestine or a gut?
Let’s avoid that proverbial leaky gut. You know, if we did a PubMed search, and you did leaky gut and conditions, it would populate. Interestingly enough, if you did a PubMed search for laser, you would have over 11,140 searches for low level laser and a multitude of articles would populate between laser and gut.
Having said all that, leaky gut increased intestinal permeability leads you down a track of failing health, can damage your liver because your liver and your gut are bi directional. Also, you have a higher incidence of blood issues like diabetes, blood sugar, insulin, body composition, auto immunity. It has been shown that people that have a leaky gut have a higher incidence of thyroid problems, and chiropractors and I hope we get to cover this chiropractors. Leaky Gut leads you to an overexpression of cytokines, which can lead you down a path of arthritis and joint pain, and a release of MMPs (it’s matrix metalloproteinases). All that leads to soft tissue injuries.
Your discs are made out of fibrocartilage, which can be damaged by MMPs matrix metalloproteinases and what I call the superhighway to help the gut to brain access. Whenever you do the gut, you do the brain. Whatever you do to your brain, you do to your gut, and you do it in a millisecond. So if you read a piece of gluten, which we all know is damaging to one’s gut, your brain will respond in a millisecond. So let’s really dig into the idea and let’s answer the question if you did photobiomimics. For me it’s a look to the future combining laser and nutritional therapies. Integrating nutritional protocols and laser therapies, photobiomimics, the effect of the microbiome, is opening up new avenues for effective patient treatment.
So in addition to widely accepted use between low back pain, low level laser or photobiomodulation, can be a valuable adjunctive treatment for metabolic and inflammatory diseases. When laser modulates the gut microbiome in combination with targeted nutritional therapy, that’s the sync of the laser chiropractic and functional medicine. The word photobiomimics comes to light. Laser therapy for these diseases become even more effective. The value is evident in treating gut issues and those that have and I know we’ll get to a low vagal tone and even autoimmunity. So research strongly suggests that photobiomodulation of the low level laser of the microbiome can help sharply improve the gut’s microbial diversity. We want biodiversity, we don’t want Alpha diversity. Maintaining diversity in the gut microbiota is the key to sustaining healthy production of numerous vital metabolites, such as a short chain fatty acid called butyrate that produce bacteria. It’s critical for keeping pathogens from gaining a foothold in the gut. Diversity actually crowds out those harmful bacteria. Therefore, using laser therapy to rebalance the gut microbiome has a theoretical therapeutic potential that is off the charts for alternative therapies that we offer today. Sorry about the pontification. But when you talk gut you turn Rob on and he just wants to go
Dr. Chad Woolner: No, that’s evident. And that’s exciting. I was gonna say to perhaps tie this back to the previous episode, I’m gonna get really pragmatic and practical here. Real world. I had a patient literally just yesterday who came in to see us. He has psoriatic arthritis, and he was complaining of lower back pain. And up until now, his rheumatologist that he had seen…the strategy that they are employing with him, if that’s what you want to call it, is ongoing long term NSAIDS. That’s the strategy, “we’re going to put you on non-steroidal anti-inflammatories.”
And I told him…I asked him like, “so this is like, this is the strategy like, this is their plan?” And he’s like, “yeah, basically like, I’m going to just take this forever.” And I’m like, you know. And so when we talk about something like psoriatic arthritis, there is so much that can be done. No doubt nutritionally and with lasers to assist, and to help in that whole process. And yet, the only solution that patients are hearing apparently, is drugs, medication. Whether it be, you know, over the counter or prescription. You know, and so I think this maybe is a really practical jumping off point because of the fact that here, you’ve got kind of the musculoskeletal world, which we’re talking about in…that which we spoke on in the previous episode. And now all of a sudden, it’s intersecting with kind of the gut world and the, you know, kind of autoimmune world all together. So you see, you know, understandably so…why, why last episode, it was kind of hard to stay in that lane, because it all merges together to some degree. We’re talking about this is a classic example here, you know. So, in a situation like that, you can see how these things kind of literally bleed together, you know, gut health, you know, musculoskeletal health all that together.
Dr. Robert Silverman: Absolutely. So I always say, if people could see me, my left hand is the chiropractic hand. My right hand is a functional nutrition, functional medicine hand. When, as you said, you bleed them together. If you can simplify your functional medicine protocols, your laser protocols, you really got something strong to base your treatment on. Now, what’s most interesting, as you said, NSAIDs; non steroidal anti inflammatory disease, ibuprofen, Advil, they do decrease pain, but they impair healing.
Lasers therapy, decreases pain and promotes healing. Which do you want? Supplemental lifestyle changes, decrease pain and promote healing. What’s the better option? Now, in addition to that, now you’re talking about the gut level and the laser, you talked about psoriatic arthritis. I too, when people come in with low back pain, I say, “Listen, I can put a BandAid on a bullet wound, and I can help your lower back. But if I don’t look at your gut, I’m not able to help you long term.” And that’s what it is to being a holistic practitioner. It’s looking inside the body, not just on the outside of the body. Incidentally, if you have psoriatic arthritis, and you have a little psoriasis, let’s say on your skin; your skin is the second way your body will tell you something’s going wrong inside your gut. The first is gas and bloating. One B is brain fog and then you’ll have some skin but psoriatic arthritis. Hey guys, autoimmunity, no doubt about it.
By the way, musculoskeletal conditions, when they start to damage, are typically under the autoimmune like osteoarthritis genre and umbrella. So if you’re a chiropractor, and you don’t look at the gut, I’m going to suggest strongly that we start to look at the gut, because it fits in everybody’s toolbox to analyze gut health. Now, in addition to that, laser therapy is shown…I use it in my office all the time, I’ve created a multitude of laser protocols to help the gut. The combination of violet, and the red laser is the critical element because remember, as Dr. Alessio Fasano once said, “The gut is not Vegas, what happens in the gut doesn’t stay in the gut.”
Dr. Chad Woolner: Because of the vagus nerve, largely.
Dr. Robert Silverman: Right, and your j… I love it. I love that. You mentioned the vagus nerve, you’re really trying to get me to start doing some jumping jacks and burpees.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Dr. Silverman, you mentioned something that the gut affects the brain, brain affects the gut. And we have these conversations inside of functional medicine circles and doctors talking about how upstream you’re thinking can you get? Does the problem start in the gut? Or is there something above that that’s the initial cause? Or is it? Is it a nerve related issue? Is it a nervous system problem that affects the gut or vice versa? Is it kind of the chicken or the egg type of discussions? In your opinion, is there anything more upstream than gut health in terms of the cause of a lot of these chronic issues that we’re trying to help patients with?
Dr. Robert Silverman: You know, I think if we got 10 people to sit down, the kind of experts that you would put on your podcast or in person and I think that would be some people would say the brain and some people would say the gut. And I do believe it is as I said before the superhighway to health, but I think the key component and I think you’re soft balling this for me, I appreciate that. So strap on, let’s go. We’re gonna racecar it, and I’m ready to go…is without question…not the only thing; but the big player is the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve, cranial nerve number 10. The longest cranial nerve in the body goes from the medulla oblongata down to the transverse colon. It is anywhere between 80-90% [inaudible]. So when you think about [inaudible] going from the gut up to the brain. Whereas when it’s about 10 to 20%, instead of going from the brain down.
The interesting thing is people always ask me anatomically okay, how does it know what’s going on in the gut? And in 2020, they found out that anatomically, there’s something called a neural pod. The neural pod is something that connects to the vagus nerve and senses what’s going on inside the gut. So let’s stop for a moment. Let’s not get too technical. The bacteria in the gut, communicate with the vagus nerve attaching to outside the gut through a neural pod. And that vagus nerve now communicates with the brain. That’s going in reverse the brain now communicates via the efferent with the vagus nerve, to the transverse colon inside the gut.
So now we’ve just opened up some ideas on how we can communicate. So that neural pod was great vagus nerve that communicates with the heart, with the lung, with the kidneys, with the liver. It has primary functions. It’s parasympathetic, its special sensory. It’s sensory, and its motor. So obviously, you want to have an appropriate tone and vagus nerve, you want to up regulate it.
We talked about concussions in the last part, if you will. Well, the vagus nerve is referred to the rest and digest; the wine and dine nerve. So when you talk about vagus nerve and talking about the parasympathetic system, the one that calms you down, the one that I’m not utilizing enough right now, the sympathetic is fight or flight. The problem with them is that they’re not. They’re seesaws, they have to be balanced, so they can’t be dominant at the same time. So after injury after any kind of brain injury, you’re actually shut down on your parasympathetic nervous system and most Americans are sympathetic oriented. So you will find a lot of benefits in your chiropractic practice to stimulate the vagus nerve, trance continuously.
And we’re going to go over in this diatribe if you will, on how to do it appropriately. Also, when the vagus nerve decreases, you also have decreased digestion through something called the migrating motor complex Peristaltic contractions, which move the food bolus from the stomach to the small to the large intestine. Forget all that, when you have low vagal tone, like you would see in IBS or IBD. You have a decreased secretion of hydrochloric acid, pancreatic enzymes, parietal cells, and bile. Anybody in the functional medicine world, bile is the hidden gem, we need the appropriate file. So you just start digesting well. So we want to stimulate the vagus nerve.
And again, I will talk about how to do it with lasers. You want to stimulate the vagus nerve because it reduces inflammation, it improves outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis and actually inhibits those inflammatory cytokine production by 30%. And one little factoid as we know, since this size is a little bit less vagus nerve is vastly different than the right, to left nerve is all about satiety. The right nerve is about morning behavior. And lastly, before I turn it over to my great host. What’s most interesting about the bacteria and vagus nerve in the brain is they did a study with mice and the mice had autism. Never knew mice could have autism. But in this study they did. They gave him a probiotic called El root Tierra. Great probiotic probiotic gave him the probiotic, and the ASD went away. Unfortunately, they did veganotomy, took out the vagus nerve, filled him with El root Tierra and they went back to their ASD normal. So another takeaway is you can give all the supplements in the world you want. If you don’t have the communication of that vagus nerve between the gut and the brain, they’re not going to optimize your nutritional protocols. And there is one great example of the mesh of functional medicine with low level laser therapy.
Dr. Andrew Wells: We talked about in the last episode that it was kind of a no-brainer that laser therapy was used for musculoskeletal problems. And I don’t think most doctors are even aware that you can use light therapy, laser therapy for these chronic conditions. And so, maybe Dr. Silverman, you can speak to the actual practical protocols of how you are using a laser? Are you lasering the vagus nerve? Are you lasering the gut? How does it actually work when you’re stimulating these areas transcutaneously with light?
Dr. Robert Silverman: That’s a great lead in thank you so much. So all the guys that work for Erchonia had the baby step. We all do this very similarly. And I’m not gonna say one is better than the other. I was very early. I was an early adopter to it and what I found out was when I used the Erchonia laser and predominantly the EVRL Erchonia violet red laser. The protocol was based on this robust literature and also on heart rate variability. So when I saw that heart rate variability change, I knew I was in the secret sauce spot, the sweet spot, if you will. So from me, and this is a little different than others, but hear me out. I use the violet light as I go over the medulla oblongata down through the transverse column. And that’s the only time I use the violet light. I then switched both the red and violet on by the way, with the violet light, I just used the acne setting. I then, with the EVRL, switch to violet and red. And I use a setting of the vagus nerve, the perfect 10 10 10 10. I laser in the right quadrant, the migrating motor complex in the ileocecal valve. So pretty like…
Dr. Chad Woolner: Can I interrupt real quick? Yeah, when you say 10 for Docs, we’re listening. They’re like 1010 10. That’s the frequency, correct? 10 hertz, 10 hertz, 10 hertz, is that correct?
Dr. Robert Silverman: That’s right. That is the frequency, the frequency, the amount of time the light hits the skin per second.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Okay, perfect. Yeah, I just wanted to clarify, continue on, sorry.
Dr. Robert Silverman: Oh, thank you so much. So then I go back up to the cervical region where the jugular foramen is, and I use the red and violet in that area. So I do three to five sweeps on the right and the left side over the thoracic region. I then laser the migrating motor complex and the ileocecal valve with the red and violet. I go to the cervical region on each side for 30 to 60 seconds, same frequency. Then, and here’s the big takeaway, I go into auricular area, the data is coming out now. That’s pushing everybody that…”you know that we may just be able to stimulate the vagus nerve from the auricular area” certainly stimulating the vagus nerve and auricular area is great for ASD, both sides. And as I said in the last podcast, nobody else is doing this. This is new. You want to also laser, the trigeminal nerve at the origin. And the reason you want to do it is the trigeminal nerve through the nucleus communicates in the brain with the vagus nerve. Some of the trigeminal nerves are stressed or static. The vagus nerve goes down. When you laser the trigeminal nerve, you’ll balance the two systems that are the parasympathetic and the sympathetic system. So that is new data on that. And I have to tell you, we just two years ago, three years ago, we’re just running off the legs up and down the chest region. Now, we’re talking about preciseness, we’re talking about other cranial nerves. We’re talking about a plethora of different things that we can do because the vagus nerve is so important in overall health, in that it’s shown to decrease triglyceride levels and fat. It’s critical for musculoskeletal diseases. To speak to what you were talking about doc, decreases systemic lupus. It shows a decrease in pain and fibromyalgia which incidentally, is an autoimmune condition, because the dorsal root ganglia has good adverse effects backing and helps with hand osteoarthritis. So we’re seeing overwhelming evidence that vagus nerve stimulation is a component for musculoskeletal and helps with an immune response.
Dr. Chad Woolner: A couple of couple things real quick, left side again, of the vagus nerve is satiety, correct? Right side is mood and behavior. Is that what you said?
Dr. Robert Silverman: That’s correct. Okay. Right. They are different. Okay.
Dr. Chad Woolner: And then and then ASD, can you define that again for us?
Dr. Robert Silverman: So, autism, you’re on the spectrum disorder. So they showed that symptomatology has decreased by stimulating the vagus nerve at its auricular branch, inside the ear and slightly behind the ear. As a matter of fact, some interesting things about stimulating the vagus nerve. What I do when I laser and the auricular region, I also apply a little pressure to the ear. And one thing that I forgot to mention, the physiological side. So Dr. Andrew Huberman shared this on some of his podcasts. So the side works really well to stimulate the vagus nerve, I do the side in conjunction with lasering, the vase vagus nerve in the thoracic region, and the physiological side is a double inhale on the way down as I sweep down, and a long exhale to stimulate the vagus nerve and shift towards a parasympathetic state and your times of stress. So we’ve heard you know, you can sing, you can doggerel, they’re great. I just found this to be even more effective to affect the breathing during the laser and you know what, I’m happy to do a video. I know this is a podcast and audio. I’m happy to follow up with a video and everything in that five minute video thing that we talked about, I think that would be critical for our listeners.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So when you want say- real quick, sorry, when you say sigh like a yawn, is that what you’re saying? Like, you know, so that people can hear it. I know they can’t see it. But like a yawn is what you’re in essence saying?
Dr. Robert Silverman: You know, it’s not truly a yawn that the sigh is. Um, hopefully you guys can hear me. *blows into mic* And I hold and then *blows into mic* So they call it a physiological sigh.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Okay. All right, perfect. Sorry. Sorry, Andrew, continue.
Dr. Andrew Wells: No, that’s okay. I want to point out something that as Dr. Silverman is going through these, these, these protocols, you may be trying to scribble them down and write them down. I just want to point out one of the nice things about Erchonia. Not only do they make amazing lasers and technology, but they have an amazing set of resources and support for doctors who buy their lasers and are integrating these things into their practice. If you need to get training on these protocols, they have tons and tons and tons of training so that you can actually feel confident when you pick up a laser for different conditions that you’re using it properly.
You’re following these protocols that Dr. Silverman has created and is developing and working with other doctors to implement. There’s tons and tons of support for that. So don’t feel like this is your like, this is your one and only opportunity. Like man, I’m working off these notes from this podcast. There’s tons of support there for you. And also, I wanted to mention too, I think it’s interesting that you’re combining these physical actions while the patient’s being lasered. We mentioned in the last episode, we were talking about concussion and TBI protocols, you’re having the patients… as their brains are being lasered, you’re having them read, do crossword puzzles. And you’re saying these functional medicine applications, you’re having them do breathing exercises to stimulate these different different parts of your nervous system that I don’t necessarily understand the physiology of it, but it intuitively makes sense that you sort of activate these parts of your nervous system as you’re doing this, this therapy on them.
Dr. Robert Silverman: Correct. So that physiological side is new. Some people will have them gargle things. You want to use in a multitude of ways to activate that vagus nerve because the vagus nerve does get stimulated by the laser. But, it works better in synergy with the laser and these other type of activations. And, you know, again, I do want to reiterate, we were in rudimentary stage three years ago when we were lasering, the vagus nerve, and I saw the HRV.
Now look what we’re talking about auricular in the neck, migrating motor complex. We’re talking about a physiological side, we’re talking about gargling, we’re talking about during the year, we’re talking about trigeminal nerve. I mean, and the data is growing daily, because vagus nerve stimulation is a critical element because it activates the inflammatory reflex. Do you know this study in 2021 to speak about a 50% decrease in Crohn’s disease, a 43% decrease in ulcerative colitis, and when they say a decrease, they achieved clinical remission.
Vagus nerve has also been used in stroke rehab now. Vagus nerve stimulation is also targeting that inflammatory reflex which modulates the TNF alpha production, reducing inflammation in humans and the severity of rheumatoid arthritis. Here’s one for you. In those functional medicine, let’s keep it simple. Human Vagus Nerve Stimulation produces specialized pro-resolving mediators. Specialized pro-resolving mediators allow for the resolution of inflammation. It is converting Omega-3 pathways to allow them to respond in the resolution of inflammation. Now again, I use the term…my mantra is to manage and modulate inflammation. I always want to supplement with SPMs. Now, I can create the conversion by using laser therapy to Vagus Nerve Stimulation. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m stoked. I wanna go grab some patients.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s, that’s incredible. I hope docs are picking up on something. There’s a shift happening in functional medicine, a big shift happening, where we’re elevating what we’ve done over the last 20-30 years in supplementation and lab testing. So the biochemical aspect of functional medicine or functional nutrition and we’re getting now into bioenergetics. And I think this is where the puck is heading in functional medicine, is some very fundamental applications, or very fundamental therapies that are being used for a lot of these chronic conditions, gut health being one of them that I think most docs and even a lot of functional medicine docs, very smart docs aren’t aware of, you know, they, I think we realized that there’s a major shift happening towards bioenergetics and I think this is one of those things that is, it’s a no brainer for most functional medicine docs but I think it’s one that often gets overlooked or even isn’t isn’t- most docs aren’t even aware of this, which is surprising. I wasn’t aware of this a year ago.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Quick quick question for you, Dr. Silverman. For some docs who are listening, because for me, I’m listening to this and I’m like, okay, this is awesome. Obviously, in order to do this, you need a laser. So the doctor, like, okay, I gotta get an Erchonia laser. But the other thing you’d mentioned, too, is measuring heart rate variability. What do you use for that in terms of measuring pre and post heart rate variability and or any other tools that you use for pre and post measurement? What do you typically- what does that look like?
Dr. Robert Silverman: Excellent query. You have a couple of options. I happen to use a company called “The League.” It’s inexpensive. A little device that goes on one of the fingers. Goes into your cell phone. Some people use our point. I’m sending it to you guys to see if we’re talking better or rain (?), I’m fine if you use that. But you do want to use something that documents the heart rate variability because, One: if you want to talk to a medical doctor, and you say heart rate variability, then they’re going to give you a thumbs up. Two: it is standard in what we refer to to know that the Transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation is working.
And I know that I gave a lot to unpack. So let me make it easy and tangible for everybody. You know, it sounded like a lot was going on in my vagus nerve protocol. So let’s take it, dial it back one step. You can simply point and shoot the laser at the gut area to get the photobiomimics, you can even leave the room. So you don’t have to worry, like standing up tall and doing the back step. That’s number one. Number two, running it up and down the thoracic region is pretty easy. You’re able to do that with a handheld, just point it in the neck region, you’re gonna get it, point it in the ear region. I don’t want everybody to get intimidated by the explanation and the amount of steps. There’s really only three or four very easy steps. So again, I teach it at seminars, everybody’s able to adapt to it. Again, laser is very easy to implement in your practice, because you start with what I call the point and shoot.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s great. And that’s- that’s one of the points I was hoping docs would get. Like, if you- we were hoping that this podcast is educational but also a catalyst to get you guys to look into using this therapy for your patients. And I want to I want to shift. We seem to be going- we’re talking about the concept of gut health and we seem to be going up the body, right? We’re talking about gut, we’re talking about fibers going up to the brain to the vagus nerve. But I want to talk about something that’s kind of a very much emerging topic in functional medicine, which is brain health. Most functional medicine docs have their ears open to brain health. Most docs have heard of leaky gut. Most docs haven’t heard of leaky brain or the blood brain barrier and how this affects health, maybe we can start talking about functional medicine applications with laser on the blood brain barrier.
Dr. Robert Silverman: No doubt, you know, it’s great you said upstream and downstream. So the blood brain barrier. The blood brain barrier protects the brain. It actually filters 400 miles of blood vessels into the brain. When you think about it, I never realized we had that many vessels. The blood brain barrier encapsulates the bulk of the brain material and just doesn’t encapsulate the pituitary, because the pituitary needs to communicate with the blood directly. The blood brain barrier, there’s a lot of examples. I call it the doorway or the bouncer to the brain. Unfortunately, once you’re able to get or a pathogen can get past the blood brain barrier, and into the brain, it’s a bad day. So breakage or damage to the blood brain barrier can portend 16 years in advance, neurodegenerative disease, so I purport to everybody, if you want to treat the brain, you have to understand the blood brain barrier. You also have to test for the blood brain barrier and new treatment protocols for that blood brain barrier.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Are there some simple things that you can assemble, nuggets you can give to docs on what you’re doing to, to assess these, this potential.
Dr. Robert Silverman: There’s multiple labs that have markers that will let you know that the blood brain barrier may be compromised. Whatever you do, your gut again, you do your brain, whatever you do to your brain, you do your gut. And typically what will damage the prime, which will damage the brain and the blood brain barrier is typically concussion, believe it or not, so you get a primary injury mechanism. Then you stimulate these things called micro grids, they become prime, they’re overactivated following mechanical injury.
Now, as you said, ether communicates on the way down. So you get structural and functional damage to gut tissue. That neural trauma induces increased intestinal permeability and now you have a change in the gut microbiota, you get something called dysbiosis. And a leveling of the good and bad bacteria, you get the gut to communicate backup eighths currently in the superhighway to help this systemic immune response to intestinal dysfunction, leading to pro-inflammatory cytokines influencing the central nervous system. And you get an ongoing secondary injury mechanism, microglial mediated persistent neuroinflammation.
So let’s break that down, there was a lot there. You hit your head, you damage your brain, it communicates with your gut, it damages your gut, and you get a secondary attack from your gut to your brain, and you have this circle going on. So the real question is, that a lot of docs ask me and patients- do I treat the brain or do I treat the gut? Because that’s what you asked me. My answer is, you gotta treat both because you can’t get optimum outcomes without treating both because they’re a highway. You can’t complete the highway unless you pave both roads.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s a fascinating concept, you know, this whole idea of, of this kind of like negative feedback loop that happens. We see that so often, in various ways, in terms of these, and this is something we teach a lot of our doctors is this whole idea of various types of like, chronic stress loops, that tend to happen. And in essence, that’s what you’re talking about, right? It is a type of chronic stress loop, right? You know, being in a sympathetic dominant state doesn’t help that, the fact that people are also dealing with other forms of stress. So we talked about a head injury is obviously a very obvious type of stressor on the body, but in essence, what you’re talking about the strategy from, you know, 10 miles up is, is in essence trying to break some of these negative feedback loops, right, by treating the gut and treating the brain you know, and then that’s, it’s an interesting idea that you bring up there because I think many doctors would not even connect those dots, you know.
A head injury is a head injury, you know? Very much like different…and we tend to do that. I think some doctors tend to do that where they look at the body as different parts in a vacuum. You know, your finger isn’t connected to your shoulder or you know what I mean? Your foot isn’t connected really to your low back or you know, those sorts of things and what you’re in essence saying, you know, is that if we’re really going to help patients with these outcomes, number one, we gotta break those loops, those negative feedback…same goes with pain, like we were talking about this in a pain episode, right? Where if pain persists long enough, it creates this, in essence, this permanent new loop where the brain will literally change its structure. And so you got the same sort of idea, right? The lasers can kind of help break up some of those negative loops, and reprogram, so to speak, some of those areas. So maybe talk about that for a second too, in terms of how that’s used to break up that loop, treating the gut and the brain.
Dr. Robert Silverman: I mean, you’re speaking my language. I mean, I’m, wow. I’m at a loss of words, I’m so excited.
So those loops. You know, you’re talking about traumatic brain injury. Let’s use that example in intestinal dysfunction. Brown University found out that in six hours after trauma, there is damage to brain cells. They also found out that tight junctions into the gut wall and the brain will also open in six hours. LPS Lipopolysaccharide endotoxin, which holds gram negative bacteria inside of the gut, you do not want this guy released into your bloodstream. It’s released in three hours. And when LPS is released, it decreases the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factors, the Miracle Gro for the brain, which actually comes from the gut to the brain.
So, what do you do? What’s one of your options? Again, we’re getting right back, stimulating the vagus nerve to prevent intestinal dysfunction after a traumatic brain injury. If you can stimulate the vagus nerve, get that laser in there, within 90 minutes, there is no damage to the gut. There’s not going to be any damage to the brain. Data indicates that from 2010 and 2011. They also did studies with mice, they did sheets of mice, and in that they had a sham and added TBI. And man if you could see the sham, obviously, everything’s perfect. If you could see the TBI. It looks like a nuclear bomb was dropped on somebody’s intestinal track.
However, they also did vagus nerve on some of these mice, stimulation, and TBI. And the epithelial cells look like they’re in pristine untouched condition. So the takeaway there is vagus nerve decreases brand edema, it decreases specific interleukins. And the data truly suggests that Vagus Nerve Stimulation exerts a neuroprotective effect against any kind of brain explosive injury. So the vagus nerve is a critical element for the treatment of TBI, and vagus nerve was shown to reduce the blood brain barrier disruption. So breaking that negative feedback loop, stimulate that vagus nerve as that communicator, and then get to the gut, and then get to the brain. So in essence, we talked about lasering the brain last podcast, we talked about lasering in the gut, we want to laser them both, and they want out of communication. You know, the circuitry of the vagus nerve, and I can tell you, that’s what I do in my office.
Now, I suffered from a concussion. I know everybody says it’s no surprise by the way I act and all that. But I had a concussion in high school- excuse me, a college basketball game, I got knocked out cold. My teammates said it was the only time they ever saw me quiet. As they say you’ve been talking basically. I was out. And I had some gastrointestinal problems. The moment I lasered them, within a week or two, my gastrointestinal problems went away, I was able to start to put some muscle on. So here’s a beaming symptom. If you hit your head, did you follow with any gastrointestinal problems after? If you did, you got to look at it when you hit your head. So let me make it a little clearer. Those people who suffer from concussion usually have gastrointestinal issues. So I just served up for you guys to chew on a little bit now.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Well, the first thought that I couldn’t help but think is, and this is more so for patients than for doctors- if your doctor is recommending after a concussion to watch and wait or just to rest and just chill out and just kind of hope that things get better on their own, I would think that that’s probably a telltale sign that you need to find a different doctor. That is what I would suggest you know, if we’re talking about this based on what you’re saying really time is of the essence. But that next follow up question for me that I’m thinking is okay, for those patients who are listening to this who are like well crap, you know, I had a concussion a week ago or two weeks ago or a year ago or five years ago, is all lost? You know what, what, what to do for those people who didn’t have the advantage of knowing this information that you’re now sharing in terms of time being of the essence? What do they do?
Dr. Robert Silverman: All is not lost, we’ve got the answer. We’ve got functional medicine, nutritional protocols. We’ve got laser therapy. We’ve got Functional Neurology protocols. We’re sitting in the catbird seat to help people, they just need to seek us out. They need to listen to more of your podcasts where you’re putting experts on, and I’m not considering myself an expert, but all these other people that are experts, the data is robust. You know. That being discussed, let’s really talk about it, you know, you can help the gut let’s start with the gut let’s use that. Let’s say bottoms up today. Talk about bottoms up. Let’s talk about the gut. I have a seven hour action plan. That seven hour action plan is real simple.
We’re going to reset your lifestyle, we’re going to put you on a good quality diet, we’re probably gonna take your dairy out, we’re probably going to tell you to decrease your added sugars and food allergies and food sensitivities. We’re going to replace, excuse me, we’re going to remove- we’re going to remove pathogens, we’re going to remove the bad bacteria, we’re going to move the viruses, we use specific nutrients like serum bovine immunoglobulin, Berberine, oregano, we’re going to replace we’re going to replace digestive enzymes, stomach acid and bile. We’re going to regenerate where we’re using a litany of nutrients needed to help do two things inside the gut- create anti-inflammation and also heal and feel the gut lining. We’re also going to reinoculate with pre- when I say prebiotics. they’re probably more important now than probiotics to create a postbiotic. Then we’re going to reintroduce things that we took away. Because you guys practice like I do. If you take something away from a patient, you don’t give it back to them, they leave.
And lastly, you’re going to retain- you’re gonna retain health with a great lifestyle. You add laser therapy to that, now you’ve got a very synergistic approach. You do your vagus nerve stimulation. And then your vagus nerve stimulation, you also have the opportunity to use certain nutrients. The vagus nerve- specific probiotics like a reuteri, β-lactam, B. longum, short chain fatty acids, fiber, increased bile acids, omega three fatty acids.
Intermittent fasting to work with circadian rhythm will get your Vagus Nerve Stimulation to go. Then you can adhere to a brain protocol, which we talked about in the last podcast, and use some specific nutrients that have pointed at blood brain barrier health, like L carnitine, magnesium L-threonate, omega three fatty acids, pro resolving mediators, vitamin D. So you take this composite and you start piece by piece, putting them all together, you now got a real strong protocol that is gonna change people’s lives. I can tell you when people come in and they can start chatting, remembering, not having to go to the bathroom six or eight times, you made an indelible mark on their everyday life.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s incredible.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I think this, you know, this might be a good place to start tying some things together. Dr. Silverman, this has been amazing. I always like functional medicine discussions that don’t just revolve around testing and supplements. And I think you’ve given some, a lot of docs and things to chew on and some things to think about. Where would you direct doctors who want to learn more about implementing some of these protocols into a functional medicine type program? Or if you’re new to functional medicine and want to start, where would you direct them?
Dr. Robert Silverman: Well, don’t we have an XFM? Can we talk about that a little bit? Just fill in the blank.
Dr. Andrew Wells: This by the way, this was not a softball plug for our program.
Dr. Silverman: Oh, no, no. You guys were great. And we were talking about this off air, if you will. And, you know, I’m excited about getting involved. And I think everybody needs to know about it. So go for it.
Dr. Andrew Wells: : Go ahead. If any of you know, Dr. Woolner and I are functional medicine flunkies from back in the day. We, we understand the idea of functional medicine to the benefits of the patient and the benefit to your practice. And, Chad and I both went through functional medicine training programs. And at the end of those programs were at a loss for how to actually implement the things that we learned to implement the protocols to implement the science, and we got really frustrated with it and scrapped the idea of adding functional medicine.
And I always, you know, I was always upset about that, that we didn’t have, you know, some really streamlined protocols and really a good jumping off point and starting point to get into the world of functional medicine. So one day, Chad called me. And this was a handful of years ago, he said, “Hey, Andrew, I’ve got this great idea for a functional medicine program.” Like, thanks, man. But if you forgot we failed at functional medicine, what other great ideas do you have. And he goes, he said, No, no, no, he’s goes, “I think I figured it out. What if we designed some streamlined, streamlined protocols, just around the common conditions that we see in our practice?” Things like gut dysbiosis, things like weight loss resistance, anxiety, depression, fatigue, brain fog, a lot of these really common symptoms that Americans have, but don’t have very good solutions for.
Chad said, “I developed a protocol to help that specific person.” And so what we did was we developed these protocols that doctors can very easily implement in their practice that doesn’t require years of training diplomate, diplomate-level training programs and expertise to launch and so it’s a very much a functional medicine program where it’s rubber hits the road, we always ask the question what not what’s possible with patients, but what’s probable. And if you start from a position of what’s probable in terms of causing these problems, then we can very easily and confidently move forward and address and help solve those issues. And so if functional medicine seems confusing to you, if it makes you feel stupid, it’s not that you’re stupid, it’s just the you don’t have a good starting point. And so if you’re interested in integrating some of these protocols, we’ve done all it for you, a simple place to go is to go to simplifiedfunctionalmedicine.com. And we just kind of, we have training there, and some really simple steps you can follow to learn more about our approach to functional medicine.
Dr. Chad Woolner: And I would just simply add to that what’s been really cool, especially as of late is the program has evolved in such a way that we have incorporated a lot of expertise outside of ourselves. People like Dr. Silverman, Dr. Trevor Berry, Erchonia as a whole, have, have really been influential in helping us evolve a lot of these protocols to ensure that really, our doctors that are coming into this program know that it’s not just….the point that I would simply point out is that the protocols that we’ve developed are not because of my genius, or Andrew’s genius or anything like that.
I don’t think we’re dummies by any means. But we recognize that there are a lot of really intelligent, incredible doctors out there. And so we want to, we want our docs to know that the protocols we’re using are extremely sound. And these are based on, you know, the best available evidence. And that’s one of the reasons why we’ve really woven into a lot of our protocols, things like Erchonia lasers, because it really ensures that we can really get incredible results. And from a mile up, the thing that I would say is this- if you’re going to make an impact on patients’ lives, which is really what this is all about, three things have to be in place, in order for that to happen.
Number one, you have to drive good clinical outcomes, you have to get a result for the patients, because obviously, it doesn’t matter how good your marketing is, or anything else, if you’re not actually delivering a tangible real result, it doesn’t really matter. So that’s the first thing, ensuring there’s good clinical results. The second thing is that you do have to have good marketing and business systems in place for this to move forward and progress and be successful. You can be the best doctor in the world and drive the best results in the world, but if you can’t get people to come into your clinic, it really doesn’t matter, right? So business and marketing systems need to be in place, which is what we provide as well. And then the third is effective and proper patient communication for education and enrollment. And so the whole idea is this look, even if you have incredible, great marketing, and business systems, and even if you can get a good result for the patient, if you can’t effectively convey that value to them to the point that they’re going to sign up and enroll, it doesn’t matter.
And so really from a mile up, that’s what Simplified Functional Medicine has been designed to do is really address all three of those core competencies or areas and we do that in a really simple way so that doctors can literally plug it right in. And this is based off of, you know, proven systems that we use in our own practice. I’m a full time practicing doc. These are the same systems and tools that I use with my patients, doctors all across the country. At this point of time, we’ve had nearly over 100 doctors in nearly all 50 states who have gone through this program and so yeah, so that’s that and, and moving forward, what we see is ongoing continuing education through Erchonia. So like the other thing that I would say is Dr. Silverman, you’re speaking how frequently with Erchonia? How often are you there with them?
Dr. Robert Silverman: Oh, every month, both nationally, internationally. You know, the international speaking has grown. And I have been in the UK, Amsterdam and going to Switzerland. To see the growth amongst the practitioners throughout the world, you know, guys I just like to share a little, you know, when you stand up there, and you see it, it is a surreal feeling to know that we’re making that kind of mark on the practitioners, which are exponentially touching the world’s population.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing. Absolutely amazing. So, docs to kind of tie this all together, I would say, look, if you’re if you’re interested in learning more about these things, definitely check us out. And that’s awesome. But if you’re like, hey, you know what, I just want to kind of maybe dip, dabble my feet in the water, so to speak, I would say the best place to start would be looking at the next upcoming event with Erchonia, whether that be in person or virtual, guaranteed, you’re going to find Dr. Silverman there at one of those events and or they even have archives on their site of previous ones too.
So even at the very least, if you’re like, I’m just going to kind of dabble a little bit deeper, those are all great starting points for you to really kind of take some of the next steps there. But Dr. Silverman, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule. We appreciate it again. You did a great job, really over delivering in terms of sharing with docs in a very transparent way exactly what it is that you’re doing there. And we appreciate all the great things you’re doing not only for practitioners but also for patients alike, and really looking forward to future conversations for sure with you. It’s been an absolute pleasure. And docs, we hope that this has been valuable for you as well, and we’re excited to share more with you on upcoming episodes. Have an amazing day, and we’ll talk to you guys later.
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.
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