On today’s episode we interview Jamie Thayer of Glow Sculpting Spa, a medical asthetics spa that focuses on using the Zerona and Emeral lasers for body contouring along with several other services as well. To learn more about Jamie and what she is doing you can check out her private Zerona Facebook group, Zerona Glow Your Business:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/270636598173073
To contact her directly you can email her at:
Dr. Chad Woolner: What’s going on everybody? Dr. Chad Woolner here with Dr. Andrew Wells and today we have a special guest with us for Episode seven, Jamie Thayer and e’re going to be talking about how lasers can fund your retirement. 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 to the show. Jamie. We are super excited to have you on this episode with us.
Jamie Thayer: Thank you so much for having me. This is awesome.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah. So Jamie, you run an aesthetic spa clinic. Am I phrasing that correctly? Glow sculpting spa out in Michigan? Two locations? Correct?
Jamie Thayer: Yep. So we’re considered a mat in an aesthetic medical spa.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Okay. Awesome. And we were talking just briefly before the show started, you’ve got kind of an interesting background. A pretty diverse background in terms of your experience. So maybe let’s start there. Tell us a little bit about what got you into this world in the first place.
Jamie Thayer: Okay. Well, my best friend and I actually started and about three years ago is Dr. Stephanie watched here. She’s an amazing chiropractor. We decided to combine our forces, so to speak. So with her background with chiropractic and nutrition and wellness. And then I’ve been working as basically an exercise physiologist and nutrition coach for the past 25 years. And exercise science is what I went to college for and actually own a Anytime Fitness franchise location as well. But about three years ago, she came to me and she had been to inner Erchonia events, and they discussed Erchonia. And she thought, it would be a really great way we could both kind of go off of our experience, our expertise, and really develop a great program with the Erchonia. And we actually found that we loved it so much that we actually built a practice around it with additional lasers. So we now scale and do everything from Botox and filler to laser body contouring with both those Arona and the Emerald. We also have the FX 635 that we utilize in our practice. And then other things like hair removal, tattoo removal things, laser facelift, all the things that you would expect in a full service Med Spa.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s awesome.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I want to brag on you guys for a minute, Jamie and you guys Andrew told me you were top three.
Jamie Thayer: Yeah, we scaled pretty fast to be able to achieve in the top three of Erchonia providers. And now that we have the Emerald as well, where we’re doing a lot with that. To where now we do consulting for Verona and Emerald because of the program that we’ve built around it.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing. Really impressive.
Dr. Andrew Wells: But I also want to point out the fact that this is not to sound disparaging about the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but this is where you guys are operating. And so it’s not like this is an aesthetic spot. Not in Beverly Hills, not in Manhattan, right as in the part of Michigan that people think are attached to Wisconsin, right or Canada or is that part of the US?
Jamie Thayer: Yeah, I think that’s really remarkable because when I think of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I don’t think of spa aesthetics, I think of right lumberjacks, fishing and snowmobiles. And really, you know, the challenge that we first started in in Marquette, you know, the population of roughly I believe it’s around 30,000 people, so we’re really not in a huge area and there are there med spas in our direct region. But none of them are doing body contouring with the same type of technology that we have with the Erchonia and the Emerald. And really, when you look at, you know, the sciences there, these devices are incredible. It’s just a matter of how we built it, you have to get the word out on what you have going on, and then offer results. You know, that kind of speaks for itself.
Dr. Andrew Wells: In this episode, we’re gonna get into some of the financial and business aspects of it. But I’m just curious, did you guys? Did you investigate some of the other body contouring technologies like the LED lights? CoolSculpting? Do you guys? Did you investigate that? And if so, what did you find there?
Jamie Thayer: Yes. So we both researched at length, all the other options, because we went into this very calculated, we didn’t just decide on a whim just to bias Erchonia and set up shots. We really, really investigated this. And really, how, how are we going to be set apart? And how does it compare, because it is important to know what your competition is. I am a really big fan of just knowing the competition, being aware of what they have, but not fixating on it, more focusing on what you’re doing. But when we compared obviously, you know, the actual science behind it hands down is healthier, safer. The long term outcome was far above the other device. So it was really a slam dunk.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, cuz I know, I know, in body sculpting, I think sometimes that patients can’t tell the difference between these different technologies. And oftentimes I find it I’ve talked to a lot of people who walked away from using other devices and other products feeling that they didn’t get their money’s worth, or they didn’t get the result that they’re wanting. And I think I’m saying that and I think that’s really important, especially in an area where you guys are where it’s a town of 30,000 people, if you’re not getting good results with patients, it takes about like two or three years before those types of clinics shut down. Because you because it’s just bad PR, it’s bad marketing. Right? And, the opposite is true. If you’re getting good results. And you’re doing good by your patients and your clients. The word also gets out about that as well. So have you found it in your business model? Has there been? Have you had some traction just with word of mouth and referrals?
Jamie Thayer: Oh, absolutely. And that’s a little bit of what we’re going to talk about. Today, too, because we developed an intentional business model to be sure that we are getting referrals, word of mouth. Because in addition to marketing, which, you know, I have my own philosophy and marketing that you’re never too busy with a practice to do marketing. But on the whole, like, a huge piece of the pie with that is to earn those referrals. You know, there’s a big part of planning the way you’re going to do business, and how consistent you’re going to stay with it to ensure you’re earning the right to ask for and receive those referrals.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, that’s so that’s so important. So maybe, let’s just kind of dive into the, into your business model, because I think that’s what doctors want to get out of this episode is how do you actually make money with, with lasers and i i probably like a lot of doctors have purchased a lot of junk for our clinics over the years. And it’d be expected some great things, that these pieces of technology are these pieces of junk that I bought, to somehow bring patients in and do amazing things for our clinic. And that never happened. But I like I like that we’re talking about having an intentional business model because that at the end of the day, if you if you if you match your planning up with your with, like a strategic plan of action with the technology that you buy, and the human resources that you have, in the mix, you’re gonna get good results. So yeah, so maybe walk us through what this business model looks like and start wherever you want to start.
Jamie Thayer: Okay. Okay, so, first of all, you know, when we go into business, essentially, you know, we do this because we have a poll and a calling and a drive and especially when you choose, I feel like something in the health care wellness from that comes from a place of like feeling like you have a calling, right. I mean, yeah, we go into this because we want to help people. And it’s our interest to do this where we’re not just through Going pharmaceutical awesome and calling it good, you know, you want to help to set them up for lifelong health. But essentially, though, the only way you can do that is you have to worry about the money side of it, you have a kind of a duty to then have a viable business. That is the vehicle that you do these things for lasting health and wellness, and just overall improving everyone that you touch. So when you think about it like that, you know, starting with a very clearly defined vision and values that are your why, you know, starting there really helps to lay a foundation of future decisions you’re going to make. And that’s the purpose.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Jamie, if you don’t mind briefly sharing with us, I’d be interested to know what kind of what your why has been when you guys got started? What was kind of your reason, I mean, obviously, I know what’s to help people. But can you put maybe a finer point on that in terms of what was really at the core of what, what motivates and drives you guys with your business?
Jamie Thayer: Right. So Dr. Seth and I both are very passionate about, you know, helping out in our community. And we saw this as a vehicle to do good work in our community, because really, essentially, you know, if you think about like, what your elevator pitch is, right now an elevator pitches us you are in an elevator for 90 seconds was someone they turned to you and said, What do you do and why? And you had 90 seconds to tell them. That’s kind of how to get to the nuts and bolts of what exactly you want to do. So for us, you know, we’re full service laser men. But we specialize in helping people feel amazing and look amazing. from the inside out. We’re passionate about building the competence of our community by helping every person we reach to feel their best. So that is what we always come back to when we’re getting pitched a new supplement line, a new device, a new opportunity, someone applies and they seem amazing and charismatic. We go back to are they going to help us do our work of building the confidence of our community, while still continuing to make money.
Dr. Chad Woolner: I want to point something out real quick that I want to kind of connect some dots for Docs that I don’t know if this often gets connected, that you’re saying here real quick if I can. I think sometimes people can gloss over this mission and visions part of things for fear of maybe them thinking it’s a bit cliche. You know, like everybody says that it’s it’s, you know, it’s it sounds too fluffy for them. But there’s a really, really powerful strategy behind this, that they need to see that you just said there. And it’s, this becomes the filter, or the lens through which all business decisions get made through. And that really helps, I would imagine to prevent chaos, prevent your focus from becoming diluted, prevent poor decisions that could be made for things, you know, this becomes king of the litmus test or the ruler or whatever you want to call it, that really ultimately helps guide and direct strategic decision making for the business, which is at that core and that foundation, is that a correct way of putting that 100% because life happens to all of us.
Jamie Thayer: You know, I call it the static it’s when you get a little stressed a little busy life personal issues come up a team member leaves, you might have drama, you might have issues with you know, a patient’s health is declining, I mean, all these all these things, you have kids, you’ve got everything going on. So yeah, exactly. You have that that guide is basically it’s kind of like having a GPS, how far off course are we getting here? Always go back to your initial intention and your values because really, that is the why and you can change that as you go. But be intentional about it, though, what is more fluid? Right, you know, so it’s the modalities, the offerings, you know, that type of thing, right? Um, that is a lot more fluid, but you can be a lot more sure about choosing those fluid options. Yes, when you have a very strong path that you’re on Yeah, very defined.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, I’m reminded of a That book by Simon Sinek start with why, you know, that’s one of the things that he he the common denominator amongst the best businesses out there, as he says that exactly what you said the what isn’t nearly as important as the why. And that’s not to say that in terms of what we’re talking about today, lasers are not important. But technology does evolve, things do improve and get better new enhancements and new new approaches and things like that. And so, so long is that as that reason remains kind of steady and true, it allows for you to adapt and grow and evolve according to all of the various things that inevitably change in business and in life. And so that’s really, really important, I just wanted to connect those dots for Docs, because I think that’s such an essential part of why we start with that whole idea of why what you’re talking about there in terms of that. So I think that’s just a really, really. Yeah, I think that’s something you’ll find with the most successful businesses is they all start with why, you know right.
Jamie Thayer: And another thing I want to add with that as well. So when you are the doctor, or you’re the owner of the practice, in you or your partner, and my sense has to be what you truly want. This isn’t a I mean, this isn’t a democracy among your team members that you have there already. Right is about truly what you want. Because you’re the one who, who has everything on the line, really. And people can come and go and when it’s your business, and it’s your I mean, being a business owner, and being an independent practitioner that is not for wimps. Yeah. Right. So we have to have a fortitude that employees who come and go, they don’t really have a responsibility to. So when you establish this, and you could be in practice for 20 years, and finally be like, You know what, I need to get these really solid, it’s never too late to basically paint the lines on the parking lot, so to speak. But I really feel it should be yours, not someone else’s, it should be 100% Yours. And the people who are responsible for the practice that the end of the day was named are on the liability and everything. I think that’s really important, you know, to really, and it’s okay to take a while to decide what I really want out of this? And what really do I stand for? You know, there’s no right or wrong answers. As long as it’s your answer.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s a great point.
Dr. Andrew Wells: So obviously, Erchonia made the cut in terms of your, your mission and vision statement, and that has passed muster. So where did you go from there? So you decided, okay, we want to focus on body sculpting. We’re going to do it with our Erchonia, you’ve got your values in place. And you mentioned in the beginning of the podcast, you scaled pretty quickly. So what did that look like in the first let’s say, like three to six months of getting your laser in the clinic now? Like, what? How did that happen? How did that go?
Jamie Thayer: Um, well, the program that we put together to go along with the treatment, it has nutrition coaching components and supplements, lymphatic support and a few other things. Because we got out of the gate so strong, just being completely frank with you. You know, as the money came in, we were able to scale quickly. But the money was coming in because the program worked. And our clients were, you know, losing inches, keeping it off. Everything was working great. And as far as the referral component, that’s really huge. That just kind of took off as well. We average the rope, I went back to really do the math on this, we average consistently six treatments a day, we have zero on at one location, the Emerald at the other. And you know, so if you look at just doing that, we charged $250 roughly per Erchonia treatment and 350 for an emerald treatment. And then adding the effects as well. We utilize that in our clinic as well. And we average about a week of those meters 75 A session. But when you look at and if you do the math with just that modality you can scale pretty fast. You know, you can if you want to to add on and again going back to does that fit in your business to other aesthetic things or whatever you want to do with your business obviously Jamie, that’s really in a nutshell how we scale so fast. What do you really get out of the gate?
Dr. Chad Woolner: If I can ask real quick, what sorts of things? Are you using the FX laser in conjunction with this? Or are you using it for pain based stuff? Or is there a different rationale behind it?
Jamie Thayer: So, we Dr. Stephanie does utilize the effects in her practice, we’re in the same building. So we do share this treatment room. So we utilize this for rapid tactual healing.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Oh, okay.
Jamie Thayer: So we, since we do a lot of laser tattoo removal, and we work with a lot of tattoo shops, because just a side note about tattoo removal, oftentimes, to get a cover up tattoo, that tattoo has to be faded quite a bit for the artists to really be able to do a really nice cover up, right. So we work with a lot of test shots in that capacity. And, you know, really got thinking like, Well, I wonder, and I spoke with a few other practitioners that had tried this. And they shared, you know, some different settings, and basically, the inflammation setting is very effective on tattoos. Really, yeah. So if someone was interested in learning more about that, obviously, you know, I’d be happy to share. But really, what it does is, it feels attached to a fresh cat shoe within 48 hours about 90%.
Dr. Chad Woolner: The thing that I really love when you’re talking about this is I can tell that you guys are extremely creative in your thought process. You know what I mean? Like, and this is something we encourage so Dr. Wells and I, we have a program where we train a lot of dogs. And these are the same types of or this is the same type of mindset that we encourage with our doctors, the term we use is we tell them to become solutions curator’s to where you’re looking at the problem. And you’re constantly looking at how we can better create solutions for that particular problem. And so the fact that you because that was kind of an interesting thing, when I heard you say, Okay, we’re using this aroma and the Emerald laser that makes sense for an aesthetic spa. But then all of a sudden you say an FX laser, and I think for most Doc’s listening, they’re like, wait a minute, and FX laser that’s for musculoskeletal pain that’s for, you know, more functional type stuff, health related brain based or you know, those types of problems. And so when you said that, I’m like, all of a sudden, the light went off like, oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense that you would want to do that to help speed up or accelerate healing after a tattoo removal or tattoo healing? It’s perfect. Yeah, that’s really creative.
Jamie Thayer: Do you have tattoos?
Dr. Chad Woolner: No, I don’t.
Jamie Thayer: Not a single one?
Dr. Chad Woolner: No.
Jamie Thayer: Well, the process when you get a tattoo is quite daunting for about two weeks, you’re babysitting this, you know, open wound on your body. Yeah. So to have something like that heal within about 48 hours is about 90%. And really, you’ll just have a little bit of itchiness and sensitivity. That’s huge. And not only is this totally like, a niche that someone could, I mean, I believe could even build kind of a business around it. If you have enough tattoo shops in your area, when you go for one, you’re less likely to have a poor outcome with a tattoo if it doesn’t feel right. Because you just don’t know what people are going to do when they walk out your door no matter what you’re doing to them, right. I mean, you could just be someone and they can go and you know, be lifting bags of soil over their head. And there you go, you’re not adjusted and you’re out of alignment again, right, you know, if you just don’t know what they do.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Sorry to keep interrupting, but I just want to ask what’s the normal time frame you say about two weeks for an IV, like if a person gets a tattoo, and they didn’t do the FX treatments. I’m looking at about a two week span of time that I’ve got to hopefully hope that this thing healed and and I’m assuming also not get infected, because I’m assuming that infection is a potential risk and a very, I would assume a sufficiently common concern for people.
Jamie Thayer: If it doesn’t heal correctly, the artwork doesn’t look the way it should. And then there’s the other factor, okay, so, you know, what if they’re working on a larger tattoo key, and instead of going, you know, three to six months between your sessions to complete this large piece of art If you’re going, you know, every couple of weeks, you know, that’s where you show a benefit to these tattoo shops, as well, it’s faster turnover on these larger pieces that are multisession.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Well, and my guess too, is that you probably have a lot of tattoo shops and again, this is speaking from somebody who’s never had a tattoo in his life, I have friends who have tattoos. But I would imagine that there’s a certain form from the psychology or the buying psychology standpoint, the faster that a tattoo shop can get the process done, the less likely that you’ve got people who have uncompleted tattoos that that priority for them becomes less of a priority with time, right? I’ll finish that later. And over time, whereas if they could speed that process up, the more likely they’re going to be to complete the project. I guess that’s just my assumption. So yeah, that’s interesting, really, you know, to be honest, you’re blowing my mind here, because I’m thinking we’re getting an FX laser in our clinic, and I’m like, holy cow, we could totally reach out to these tattoo shops, and make a relationship with them. Because no doubt, they wouldn’t want to send people your way to help. That’s only going to help their business. That’s incredible.
Jamie Thayer: Definitely. So what I do is we reach out to these tattoo shops, and the owners, especially the most tattoo shops, are owned by an artist that is there, at least in my experience. And we offer that for them and their team, when they get new, fresh tattoos, I treat them for free, Oh, wow. I treat them for free. Because when you think of the sheer volume of clients that they see, and I made up, I went on Canva. And I made up these little postcards that show because we do tattoo removal as well for fading, that show what we do for tattoos and the rapid healing. And then the person gets, you know, a little discount off of being referred by them, you know, and because we treat them for free, and tattoo artists are always getting work done. So, I love that we’ll have a couple of filters in throughout the week. And I know we’re getting referrals from them left and right, either on tattoo removal to say, and then when they do their tattoo, they’re telling the person Okay, here’s what I recommend. So we feel it really fast, right? So kind of is, is like one hand, you know, washes the other type type thing. And then that’s another thing too, about going back to our values, with, you know, just losing self esteem of our community. And that includes knowing when to when to get a little. Yeah, for sure. And the big picture, so, so yeah, when we’re dealing with these shots, we’re more than happy to come on some services for those people. That will be a direct stream of referral.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Do you have a sorry to interrupt Dr. Wells, I’m just gonna ask one more question here. Do you have a standard protocol in terms of number one timeframe per treatment session? And then number of sessions that you recommend for somebody who’s getting a tattoo? And does that vary based on the size of the tattoo.
Jamie Thayer: So obviously, if someone has a full back done versus a forearm, that would require, you know, multiple sessions, but what we do is to do 20 minute cycles on the tattoo at different angles. Okay, one time, okay, within 48 hours of them getting a tattoo.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Okay. And that seems to get pretty, pretty great results.
Jamie Thayer: Yeah, instantly, it’s almost within about five minutes. Most people say oh my gosh, it doesn’t even hurt anymore. Oh, wow. Within it’s about five minutes, usually. And here’s another thing again, to take it even a step further. Anything you would do like this, that because again marketing is huge. And I did a whole webinar on marketing and you know everything from social media to radio and everything in between but use these opportunities as marketing opportunities. You know, people especially in social media, they love to see other people when these touch orders come in oftentimes will snap a picture of them under the effects given a thumbs up or if you sign or something right put it up on social media. People see them and they know them in the community. They’re in their shop. They saw it and they asked about, you know, it’s kind of like feeding the machine.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Oh absolutely. Literally, what a great strategy. Yeah, that’s fantastic.
Jamie Thayer: You know, having your antennas up for opportunities to get the word out and promote yourself. You know, that’s huge.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, that’s crazy. I want to point out , I had no idea we’re gonna be talking about today. But I’m so Jamie, I’m so glad you brought up these points. And so two things I want to point out number one, this points to the like, how versatile or Erchonia lasers are, you can their use for or just in general the the healing power of light, focus blades laser light, you can use it for brain health, you can use it for musculoskeletal problems, you can use it for weight loss, use it for tattoos, I had no idea. I’m always gonna like blown away every time we talk to you. We use it for this. And I’m like, Well, I didn’t know that was possible. But we’re talking about the power of light, the therapeutic power of light. And I think you’re so smart to have these multiple feeder lines into your business. And no doubt I can almost guarantee this has probably happened to you people are coming in for like, for tattoo healing or wound healing. And they probably ask questions like, Hey, can you use this for back pain? Or could you use this for weight loss versus other things that you’re doing? And so I want dogs to not miss this point of, well, I don’t do tattoo removal. That could sound ridiculous. But they’re coming. It’s an opportunity to educate somebody on other things that you do or how their laser therapy benefits them. And that’s like, that’s the key. And so, and you’re kind of deep dive or like, share it on social media, because the thing that’s cool about laser therapy iPhone, is that it looks really cool. Oh, yeah. It’s a curiosity hook. Yeah. Right. So if you’re like, what is that that you’re doing? And it starts conversations. And that’s the best way to grow a market. I’m not not surprised now hearing what you’re saying that you guys are like the top three in the country. Because as you’re thinking outside the box, and you’re helping people in ways that I think most chiropractors wouldn’t even think of.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So, Jamie we’re seven episodes into this podcast. And my biggest frustration with the podcast thus far, is I get all these good ideas. And I want to stop the show abruptly and just can we put this on pause because I’m gonna start implementing because I’m here, here I am. I’m at my clinic as we’re recording this. And I’m like, I’m literally like, Okay, I’m gonna make up some cards here. I’m gonna start running over to various local tattoo shops and start making relationships with them, like I’m ready to go. So I’m going to have Andrew finish out the podcast here. And oh, it’s really cool, though. Because exactly, I would just echo exactly what Andrew said. The same thoughts to me, it’s it’s been, I feel like this has been like he and I are so lucky to get these kind of front row seats into talking with, you know, some of the brightest minds that are using these tools in such incredible and I would just say with you, especially creative ways, not just in terms of the application, but obviously, in the marketing as well. These are all just brilliant ideas. And so I’d love to kind of steer the conversation back to kind of the general business side of things. And keep kind of going where we were going with that before we got me and Andrew got sidetracked into the realm. It’s good. It’s good. I love it. So keep going. Yeah.
Jamie Thayer: Okay. Okay, so to go back to structuring like an intentional kind of roadmap for your business, you know, where are you going? What do you want to do? We basically came down to our realization that generally you can kind of boil down to three basic things that most of us want. Okay. And in addition to building confidence, this is now kind of like, how are we going to do it? So the three things that myself and Dr. Stuff have boiled down to is, for one, we all want to feel included and important. Okay. So everyone truly wants to belong, right? Absolutely. So that’s one. The next is we want to feel good. You know what it’s our you know, most people don’t realize just how rotten they’re feeling because they’ve never truly felt good. You know, you help someone to improve that and even move this move that scale over just a little bit to feeling just a little better. It’s just amazing. You know, you see these flowers bloom, essentially, when you help someone just feel good. And that leads to also we want to look good. And even the person who says I don’t care what I look like, well, if you improve just a little bit you probably you You’d probably be happy about that. All right. So when when we think about those three things being included, to feel good to look good, you know, that leads us to if we help others get what they want, then we get what we want, which is for one satisfaction and feeling like we’re actually making a difference in doing something. But we also want a profitable business. Yeah, you know, so. So always going through there. So the way we deliver this is, you know, to address that feeling included feeling important. You know, we’re very, we’re fanatical about delivering excellent customer service, every single time. This is the way we train our entire team, this is the way we conduct ourselves, from the time they walk in and are greeted the treatment process, the conclusion, the follow up, it is the same type of service every time because we were really big on a replicatable process to have this consistent experience.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s an important aspect of any, any business, especially if you’re looking to grow and scale.
Jamie Thayer: It’s consistency, you know, when you I mean, think about even a restaurant, if the food is inconsistent. How often are you going back, you know, you found something you love, and you’re like, Yeah, I want that again. And then it’s like, oh, that was totally different. I mean, that’s, that’s where you know, consistency in your business and your treatment style. And the treatment process is so important. Also, over delivering, even to where the space, the aesthetics of the space, basically make someone feel, you know, like, pretty just locking in, you know, they make them feel relaxed. And you don’t have to spend a whole bunch of money and do a whole buildup, but there are things you can do to really just make it a more pleasing aesthetic space. So yeah, when we decorate, we’re like, does this make me feel pretty? That’s the goal, really. And that’s great. I mean, still being, you can give people what they need, by delivering what they truly want, you know, it’s like, they want to feel special, they want to be special.
Dr. Chad Woolner: The thing that I would say to Doc’s listening to this, because we may have some Doc’s who are like, I’m not an aesthetic spa. And so what does this have to do with me, my patients don’t want to look or feel pretty when they walk through the door, or whatever, or that might be their assumption, the thing that I would say is, look at the principle of what’s being said here, not necessarily the specifics, although the specifics are important, what you’re saying is, I couldn’t agree more. But I would say the whole idea is that you’re approaching this through the lens of the customer or the patient. And that’s critical, rather than what you’re thinking, you’re far more concerned with what they’re thinking and what they feel. And so that’s, that’s critical, whether that’s they and again, they don’t look at the surface value of feeling pretty, or feeling lovely, or whatever that is, it’s the underlying, it’s the deeper than that that matters, right? It’s, they want to feel good, everybody that’s universal. Everybody wants to feel good. Everybody wants an environment, that is an inviting environment, that it’s a comfortable environment that brings them a sense of peace and assurance and or comfort. And so Exactly, this applies to any business, regardless of whether you’re in the medical esthetics, chiropractic, medical office, whatever that your office is, these are all universal principles to any business.
Jamie Thayer: Most definitely. And just I know, doctors best practice and our Med Spa share a lobby. And so when people walk in, it doesn’t matter if they are an insurance patient who is on Medicaid, or someone who was walking in to get, you know, a high end service from the Med Spa. We want people to walk in and be like, Okay, this is really nice.
Dr. Chad Woolner: And I deserve to be here, right?
Jamie Thayer: Yeah, that’s important regardless. And so that’s one of the things too, you know, and it’s in the aesthetic. I mean, we could go down the rabbit hole with this stuff. But really, the point is, having pride in what you’re delivering and respecting your patience. Not that anyone’s not respecting their patients, but it just conveys that in the overall first impression.
Dr. Andrew Wells: You know, what I’m hearing from you, Jamie was really refreshing is that we’re talking about the financial benefits of using laser therapy, but we’re not talking about or like specific, like, Hey, give me the magic Protocol, or give me the magic care plan that you guys have given this magic thing. You’re talking about? Taking care of people, right, that’s the message I’m getting and when you do that, like Are there are tactical things you can talk about, there’s certain procedural things you can talk about. But all of those things when I found fall in line when you have your ethics, and your mission dialed in, and all those other things are side effects of that, because if you’re really caring about your staff, if you really caring about the people walking in the door, that won’t help, all these other things sort of fall in line, including your how you communicate with patients, what you’re delivering in terms of care plans for patients recommendations, how you market yourself, how you’re connecting in the community. And so I hope Doc’s are connecting the dots with these things, that’s so often the overlooked thing, or like, I’ll get to the, I’ll get to my mission statement next year. But first, I need to make some money. And I need, I need to pay off this laser already to pay rent, or these things like those are all those are all secondary to exactly what you’re talking about.
Jamie Thayer: Right. And, you know, and with you seen that as well, at least my you know, another point that even with these somewhat hands off services, like those Arona, the Emerald, the FX, that you’re not doing the entire service on the person the whole time, you know, more than anything choose this, this really is where you never want to put, you know, patients in this like, kind of self serve mode with that as well. You know, delivering that, that service, the hand holding through it, you know that, so to speak, like white glove service, you never want to just throw them in a room, tell them oh, what turns it off, reach around and hit this and then get yourself off it and you know, that type of thing. Because really, if you’re just doing that you’re not, you’re not going to succeed, you’re not going to get your your ROI that you’re looking for, you know, charging a premium is not going to happen if you’re not offering a premium customer service and a closed premium experience with the ads. And then I’m going off of also what I hear in the zero and I have a Erchonia Facebook page about building your Erchonia business around a program that we specifically designed. And so many would say, Well, I just have our secretary, put them on it when we’re so busy. And all this well. If you use it as an afterthought, it’s going to give you the return of an afterthought.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s kind of like a double edged sword with things that can be automated, right? Because of the Erchonia laser, you can kind of set it and forget it right away. And you can do that with all the lasers that are sort of the stand up, the lasers stand up and handheld ones. And so that doesn’t mean that we can be lazy with our clients either. I like the fact that this can be delegated. But personally, if I’m paying $250 for $350 for a session, even if that’s a 10 minute session, or 20 minute session, yeah, like I would expect somebody to be there. At the very least, to pre frame things. And to be there when I’m on the table. So I should know what to expect. And then yeah, if I had to, like, clean up after myself, it’s not like attending a tanning salon. Right. Like, I would expect that from a $20 tanning salon session. But yeah, and and again, like those, it’s not only good customer service, but it’s good marketing, right? Because we’re getting white glove service, or people are much more likely to talk about their experience and what they did share it on Facebook, and it makes them feel like they’re being taken care of, but they’re also much more likely to come back.
Jamie Thayer: Absolutely. And you’re controlling outcomes, as well. Right? Right. Yeah, oh, if someone’s doing their own thing, and, you know, with with our team, because this comes back to also like properly training your team, don’t just say, Oh, we’re so busy, but I’m just gonna have Sally just learn how to flip people on these and hit the button. And, you know, that’s, oh, you’re doing a disservice. You’re, you’re shortchanging your business yourself and your patients, along with your team, you know, empower your team, then, but really take the time to learn it inside and out. Have this plan, whether it’s our plan or something that you think of and train the team effectively, and it will pay dividends. You only have to really do it one time as far as deciding how you’re going to do this. But you have to be consistent on training everyone in having, you know, protocols that everyone follows every time like no deviation, because really, you know, and I call it
Dr. Andrew Wells: Well, sorry, Jamie, I’m kind of curious about something we were talking about. Do you have any? Is it you and Dr. Stuff who are putting the patients in the sessions or do you have staff that will do this for you once you’re on board?
Jamie Thayer: Yeah, we have staff. Now, you know, sometimes it is me. Is that there, but primarily I have support? Yes, I have laser technicians that we’ve actually put them through some training. And they actually have like a credential and you don’t have to do that with them. But it’s also again, investing in your team giving them some consult confidence, just trusting them, but also, they have a very set protocol that they follow in with them to, you know, I, this is a Jamie ism to my, my staff will laugh about it, but I call it the Nordstrom effect. Okay. So, when I want to buy something like a shirt or a pair of jeans, I prefer to go to Nordstrom. That’s where they’re so nice. You get a personal shopper that follows you around like a puppy dog. Yes, I’m buying a shirt or a pair of jeans that are probably made in the same country as some stuff that’s in Walmart, right? I would not want a Walmart not because I’m a snob. But because it’s not personalized. You know, you walk in and they’re, they’re cordial enough, you get greeted, right? That person says Hi, they say bye. And then you’re on your phone. And it’s like, what, what do you want to be if you want to be the Nordstrom of providers or the Walmart? You know? Yeah, it’s all in the details and how you make someone feel?
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s right. Yeah. So important. So yeah, I just went shopping at Kohl’s yesterday for some shirts, and T-shirts, and I got none of that customer service at all. But I would have been in a rush too. So I’m like, I need to go to church really quickly. So I ran in. And I asked this lady like, Hey, do you have linen shirts going somewhere really hot? She’s like, well, I don’t know, if you have linen shirts. And like, she’s like, maybe check back in a month. And like, Wow, no, I don’t live here. So I started looking on my own. And what I found was something really similar. That was kinda like a linen shirt or something really cool. But she could have easily done that for me. And I would have, I wouldn’t have bought the shirt. But I did. I ran out of time. And so I left the store without buying anything. And that would have been such an easy sell for them. And she was, so instead of actually showing me and helping me she just continued to fold clothes on the folding rack. so these are other little, you know, glances into a successful clinic. So Sox are listening to this, like, I want you guys, the doctors to think about how you can integrate these types of customer service touchpoints when new patients or new clients come in? Do you give a tour of your office? When clients come in? Are you explaining all the different things that you do? Are you going over awards, accolades, certifications, diplomas, extra training? Are you doing that thing? Are you doing those things? Are you making sure that somebody is watching and listening to your patients and clients? Do you offer them water? Do you offer to show them where the bathroom is? Or do you tell them where the bathroom is? All these little things? I’ve known I’ve been to a lot of successful clinics, I’ve also been in a lot of struggling clinics. And it’s almost you can I mean, this is like it’s not a rule of thumb. It’s almost certain that successful clinics are doing all these things that Jamie is talking about. And no surprise, a lot of clinics that struggle aren’t doing these things. And they wonder why they never get referrals. They wonder why people don’t want to come back. And it’s like, well, they must hate chiropractic, or they must hate body contouring or whatever, but it’s not bad. It’s how you’re, it’s how you’re treating people. Again, going back to your values.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, I was just gonna say that same thing, Andrew is my whole point with that is these are all symptoms of something else that’s driving these symptoms for good or for bad, right? When you talk about a lot of little things, it’s almost like death by 1000 cuts for the people who are struggling or, or growth by a lot of little small and simple things that result in massive growth. And those small and simple things are all if you really truly peel away why you know what’s actually happening there. It’s because there is a very strong sense of purpose and vision and culture exactly what you started off with, we kind of have come full circle here. So you know, we could talk for hours and hours about all these different avenues and I’ve there’s plenty of food for thought here. Any final thoughts? Jamie, from any advice you would give clinics moving forward any kind of final parting words of wisdom from you?
Jamie Thayer: You know, and again, we could go down a rabbit hole. This could be like a four hour podcast, because I feel like we’re just scratching the surface with really what it takes, you know, to be, you know, really successful. Because really, you have the amazing tools that Erchonia has provided. So, you know, when you have these great tools, that’s usually half the battle, we will have that done for us. Right? So my point then would be to take the time to properly establish these processes. It’s not going to be as daunting as you think when you truly ask yourself, what is my ideal practice look like? And what do people that work in the ideal practice? Do you think so? What did it mean? How do they conduct themselves and work from there even in dreams a little, it’s okay to be like, dreaming outside the box. And you know, and that’s a whole other rabbit hole, we could go down as well. But you know, this is your business. This is your business, never be too busy to like, totally pay attention and intentionally direct it. Don’t let someone else jump in the driver’s seat just because you’re feeling overwhelmed, or that you’re kind of, you know, trying to fit everything in and be everything to everyone.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah. All great advice. The last question I would ask you, Jamie, is for dogs who are listening who would like you to have mentioned that you do some consulting and they’d like to maybe reach out to you, what would you recommend for them in terms of getting in touch with you? Or maybe some other resources to direct them? Where would you take them?
Jamie Thayer: Yeah, so absolutely, I’m, I’m definitely available to chat. I do have a private Facebook page for doctors called Erchonia. Blow your business. Slow, as well as cutting back. A lot of the things that we do on they’re interchangeable with emeralds as well. Okay. Yeah. And then they can contact me as well, by email. And it’s glow copies@yahoo.com
Dr. Chad Woolner: We’ll make sure that we put all of these links in the show notes so that Doc’s who hear this and want to reach out to you do but Jamie, thank you so much for your time, we really, really appreciate you being here it is, if there’s one thing that I can tell from you, it’s that your passion and your sense of purpose with what you do really, really bleeds through. In talking with you, you can just tell that you’re super passionate and excited about these things, which is contagious. It’s awesome. It’s really exciting. Wonderful to hear and it’s no doubt that you guys. It’s no wonder I should say that you guys are having the success that you’re having. No doubt you guys are changing a lot of people’s lives for the better, which is just fantastic. And so we appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to be here with us and Doc’s. Hopefully you have found this exciting, enlightening, inspiring and highly valuable. We appreciate you listening in and we will talk to you guys on the next episode. Have a good one.
[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.
On today’s episode we sit down with Dr. Dan Murphy to discuss a frequently discussed and debated aspect of low level laser therapy: Power vs. Penetration. Does power matter? Does it make a difference with regard to clinical outcomes? Listen in as Dr. Murphy shares some powerful insights.
To connect with Dr. Murphy and learn more about his work check out his website at:
References from this episode:
Check out Zapped by Bob Berman
Learn more about the Arndt-Shulz Rule
850nm Study Published in Molecular Neurobiology in 2018
Check Out Dr. Mercola’s Book The Ketofast
Check Out Dr. Steven Gundry’s Book The Keto Code
Check Out Sam Apple’s Book on Otto Warburg
Check Out Painful Cervical Trauma by Dr. David Tollison
Check Out Erchonia’s Studies here
Trevor Marshall’s study on Electrosmog and Automimmune Disease
Watch the 60 Minutes Segment on “Havana Syndrome”
Check out Dr. Amy Yasko’s book on Nutrigenomics here
Dr. Chad Woolner: All right, welcome to the show everybody Dr. Chad Warner here with Dr. Andrew Wells and our special guest, Dr. Dan Murphy. On today’s episode six, we are going to be talking about power versus penetration. 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 to the show. Dr. Murphy. We are super excited to have you here with us today. Thank you. So today’s episode, we were going to be talking about power versus penetration, a pretty common kind of hot button topic, I think when it comes to things like lasers and those sorts of things. So you’re going to kind of throw us a little bit of a curveball here when it comes to this topic. So I’m gonna kind of hand it over to you and let you kind of set the stage for what we’re gonna be talking about and throw your curveball. So pitch away.
Dr. Dan Murphy: Well, I would just start with a rhetorical question, the sun has a certain amount of power. Some of the waves that come off of the Sun penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere, some do not get the same power. It’s the same power, what is different is the wavelength. So a lot of times practitioners lay people, they think that somehow if you increase the power it increases the penetration, when in fact it appears that penetration is more linked to wavelength than power. The best book hands down to understand this if anyone wants to get into this and get it down. Read Bob Berman’s book from 2017 called zapped. Berman’s an interesting character and that he is not a healthcare provider. He’s an astronomer. But all of a sudden, all of these confused ideas that practice people have got straightened out. So just as an example, we know that the Sun generates gamma rays. Gamma rays ever hit the surface of the Earth, it’ll kill us all. It’s not survivable with gamma rays. You can’t survive very many of them because they have way too much energy. But the good news is they don’t penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere. X rays also do not penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere. And ultraviolet kind of doesn’t. Ultraviolet rays are A, B and C. Ultraviolet C do not penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere, ultraviolet B and ultraviolet a do. The difference in all of those things gamma x ray and ultraviolet is the wavelength. The key is the wavelength. If you read Bob Berman’s book you get an understanding that there is an amalgamation of two Nobel Prizes, the 1980 Nobel Prize by Max Planck, a German and another Nobel Prize by another German we probably heard more often. Albert Einstein 1921. When you amalgamate their Nobel Prizes, you come up with a very simple Junior High mathematical formula. That’s the key, the key is the mathematical formula. The mathematical formula is that the wavelength, multiplied by the frequency, always equals the speed of light. So the wavelength, all laser devices, all of them, they’ll tell you the wavelength, so that you start understanding that if the wavelength goes up, the frequency meaning the number of times the wave goes through at a second has to go down because because when you multiply the two, they’re inverse, they always have to equal the speed of light, which is what 186 280 miles per hour round 186,000 miles per hour. In per hour, I said they’re wrong miles per second. That’s the speed of light. So when you look at these, these these issues, that as the wavelength goes to the left, meaning you get a shorter wavelength, it doesn’t penetrate as much, but it has higher levels of energy. The wave forms that people should think about is the wave form that has high energy, but still has appreciable penetration. And that’s, again, it’s based upon the wavelength, it’s not based upon the power. So when I advise, I’ve rarely looked at power at all other than just sort of understanding. If you get a longer wavelength, it penetrates so poorly that they have to have the power to get anything at all to happen. But if you ever look at healing energy, what happens is, when you have a longer wavelength, you sacrifice the healing energy, so that even when they say this wavelength penetrates better, it often only penetrates better, because it’s sacrifice, sacrifice healing energy. So the key is trying to make sure you have appreciable amounts of healing energy in the wavelength. And then the big curveball, the big curveball is called the Art Schultz law. Look it up, anyone can look it up google it, essentially, what Schultz says and aren’t Schultz, another couple Germans from the late 1800s. So they predate Einstein and Max Planck. If you look at what those guys come up with, everything that is good for you, will become bad for you. If you overdo it, there is an attitude that is that more is better, you think like money more money is better, or you know, more chocolate is better, whatever. And anything that is good for you, will become bad for you. And this includes lasers. So to claim that a laser is superior because it is more than a competitor. I completely reject that. Because I think it violates the artificial slot of biology. And so consequently, what you have to look at is certain mathematical principles that will optimize the healing energy. Because if you go beyond that, it’s not linear, you don’t get more healing energy, it starts to drop off. In fact, there are studies that have said that it’ll drop off to the point where the benefit is negligible. It’s essentially a race. There’s also some studies, not best studies, but interesting studies that say, if you do too much of these waveforms, it can actually damage the cell membrane and damage the cellular DNA. And so that is somewhat concerning. Now, the reason those things are not completely fair, they’re interesting, not completely fair. They are human cell studies fibroblast, but they’re in a petri dish. So in other words, they’re not in vivo in life. They’re in vitro, meaning in a lab. And they can take human cells to expose them to this same wavelength, and they can expose it for longer periods of time. Or they can up the energy with a call joules per centimeter squared. And they can show that at that there’s a peak, and then it starts to go downhill. And then there’s actually some damage. So the result is I when we asked about penetration versus wavelength, my whole thought is I, I think that the key is the wavelength. And then a lot of curveballs start coming out and they make people mad, and I don’t blame them. Because if you suddenly have to question almost everything you learn. Studies start coming out in a wide range of publications, claiming that exposure to longer wavelengths, the wavelengths that penetrate better, longer wavelengths can actually cause damage, because they are flipping open the voltage gated calcium ion channel and altering the shape of the vitamin D receptor. If you look at that article from molecule of neurobiology in 2018. They say that it’s somewhere around 850 nanometers, because of the 850 thing we are, we read the work of Martin Paul from Washington State University. We just came out with another new study. We read the work of Li Li from Children’s Hospital in Oakland, California, published in Science reports, in 2017. We started to read Joe Mercola, his book called Keto fast 2019. And he has a section on infrared saunas, all of them have similar claims, and that is, longer wavelengths can actually cause damage. What is really interesting to me personally, is about nine weeks ago, 60 Minutes did a section on Havana syndrome. Havana syndrome is a conciliation of signs and symptoms that are unexplainable in the fact that all diagnostic assessments are normal, and they are starting to believe that they are pulsed waveforms that are longer than 850 nanometers. The result is I am very skeptical that 850 nanometers is a good therapeutic range. I like less than 850. In fact, I like the visible range primarily. I like you know, somewhere between 407 100 nanometers, because I think that those waveforms do not have enough energy to ionize like gamma x ray ultraviolet rays, but they do have enough energy to create a healing cascade. That is so awesome. And by the way, if anybody wants to read about it most recently, read the Keto code book by cardiologist Steven Gundry which is a 2022 copyrighted book. This is his fourth book, if you read that he talks about the eight things that one must do if they want to go the distance mentally and physically. It’s interesting how he talks about the applications of the red wave form, which is part of what we therapeutically do, we do the wave form that has appreciable energy. And it is below the levels of the aren’t Schultz bell shaped curve, which is technically called hormesis. It’s called the harm meeting, the hormetic curve, which is really important for us as clinicians, what I reject as a chiropractor, and again, I’ve been doing this probably longer than most probably because I’m older than most and been practicing for longer than most, I reject the concept in laser therapy. In light therapy, I reject the concept that more is better. It appears to me that more starts to fall off and actually cause harm, I collect the studies that would make that claim. And then I also reject the claim that a longer wavelength is better because it penetrates better. Even though that is a true statement. It sacrifices healing energy, and they don’t heal as well, which is why they tend to have to crank up the power on the device. I like lower amounts of power or lower wavelengths that are still not ionizing, but are proven to cause. healings specifically said since the wavelengths that we’re using in the 635. They target the rate limiting protein enzyme for energy production. It’s called cytochrome c oxidase, it’s number four or five and the electron transport chain. I like that concept a lot, particularly since I’m a big fan of the of the cancer work of Otto Warburg, if you read about his Nobel Prize in 1931, if you read the book on on his life that came out last year 2021 by a guy named Sam apple, and you realize that that Otto Warburg discovered the mitochondria and he discovered cytochrome c oxidase which is the fourth out of five enzymes in the electron transport chain. And the result is you can influence that noncontroversial red light and red light has good healing energy and good depth of penetration. And if you learn how to use the device, right or if you put it on a motor, you realize you can’t exceed the hormetic threshold you get really good outcomes with with no side effects. So you asked me a question. I kind of like death all wrapped up but in essence that’s what I would say unless you guys want to explore more and ask me some more questions.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah. So this man, this brings me back to some of my physics classes and things that I haven’t really looked at in a long time. But the question that I have for you is how do doctors know if they’re considering using laser therapy in their practice? And on patients? How do they know? What is especially if they’re not research inclined? They just want to know, hey, how do I pick a good laser? How do I know if it’s doing the things that I wanted to do? How would doctors know the difference between research and good claims versus marketing and hype? Because I think there’s a lot of that out there. And I think some of these conversations, this conversation we’re having may come across as confusing. What would you say to that?
Dr. Dan Murphy: Well, I think that there’s a lot of propaganda out there. And it’s mostly used for marketing. For me, the decision was through the school of hard knocks. And my personal story on it is that I did PII. And I’m good at it. And I’ve just done it this year, my 35th PII. 2022 Because I was using a laser, I picked up that book by David Tolleson called painful cervical trauma. And he’s kind of a section in there. It’s a 1992 copyright. So he’s got a section there about how you can accelerate the healing with a red laser of whiplash, injured peso, so I get a red laser. And it cost me You know, I don’t know, $800 or something like that back in 1992. A long time ago. I don’t know much about it, but I’m using it. And my observation is, it’s making a difference. It’s helping people, it’s accelerating healing, it’s dropping their pain and doing everything that I want it to do. And the case went to a trial, and I lost it, because it did not have FDA market clearance. And so I thought, okay, from the Wizard trial, when I realized that there’s got to be a device out there with FDA MARKET CLARITY, and that’s why I did my due diligence, and figured out that there is one and it got the FDA market claims that your juicer to or Erchonia, it was the at the time the only laser to have FDA market colors for pinion the author’s neck shoulder study that actually got the the FDA market clearance. So I started using these devices. And then I just realized that maybe I don’t know, and some others can tell you more than me, let’s say and this is me just rounding it. Let’s say there’s 23 ft market clearances for laser therapy, Erchonia, has 20 of the 23. So I’m going to include that they now have aftermarket clinics that are paying anywhere in the body. They’ve got aftermarket clearance for chronic low back pain. So just looking at who’s actually doing the research and getting it published, and actually making the applications to the Food and Drug Administration submitting primary work. To me, that means a lot if a company doesn’t have that I’m a lot more skeptical about it. So that’s the first thing I would look at. The other thing is that often, the studies have to be done by someone who is independent. And so for example, I would look at a study out of the University of Illinois, find kidney fibrosis. And they just mentioned, hey, we use intercolonial lasers, we have nothing to do with them. I look at a study that came out of a veterinarian journal treating dog cancer, and they quickly say we don’t have anything to do with our company, but we use an accumulation in other words, they’re independent from the company to me that that means a lot because so many studies are are messed up if you want to know how messed up we are. Read the 2022 copyrighted book, sickening by John Abramson from Harvard, you realize he says that, essentially all this debt is by the pharmaceutical companies to our agenda, and that they’re doing their own research, and that their their their doctrine, their own data, and they’re getting it through the editorial boards of the different journals. And he talks about it in a way that’s very elegant and very disturbing. And I think that any device can fall into those same categories if you’re not careful. So I like to see independent research. I like to see research that is replicated. And I like to see who’s actually submitting the real studies to the Food and Drug Administration and not just applying for a same or similar Work device and getting an approval versus actually doing the real research and getting the approval. That’s why when the world that I live in, in the medical world, I need real company because I have to justify, I’ve been talking about anyone that’s been listening to me recently has I’ve been showing people a 2018 pie case that I did. And lizard was a part of it, and how I would introduce the laser to the jars as part of the core presentation, and how would I do it? What are the questions, it asks me what studies what I would what I say influenced me and see if we can get them marked as exhibits for the trial and try one perfect, by the way, but just because I have the opportunity to do that with the leisure that I’m using, they went really, really well. And so just if our company didn’t go through the jumps of doing the research and getting those studies submitted to the Food and Drug Administration, they would make my presentation very, very different and very, very, very much more difficult.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Going back to Dr. Murphy, the art Schultz lot. So, and I’ve heard this from other manufacturers claiming, hey, we use the same wavelength. Right? It’s the same wavelength as Erchonia, it’s the same. So they’re kind of piggybacking off the research they’ve done. Are there any of these you talked about, there are some other variables that open up in terms of the length of time, potentially the power that the device is using? What are the variables that we’re seeing out there that would differentiate or that are out there that could skew the results for the patient? And I think the art Schultz was one of those, can you can you speak to that?
Dr. Dan Murphy: Yeah, I think I can maybe in a little bit different fashion than your question in that. It’s as far as I can tell, the wavelength has nothing to do with art shouldst law, the art art show slot is based upon joules per centimeter squared, which is basically the milliwatts multiplied by time in seconds. Sure. So that a lot of companies can have the exact same wavelength. I mean, red is red, it’s the same wavelength. What matters then is how do you get to the five jobs percentage square? Well, you multiply the power of the device, watts, or milli watts, times seconds. And it’s really easy. It’s like a junior high math problem. It’s really easy to do. So you start thinking, Okay, I’m going to use this device for how long? And that gives you the joules per centimeter squared. Let me share with you one of the real cases, here’s a real case. An attorney calls me and he goes, Hey, I’m defending a chiropractor in a malpractice case, and I go, okay, and he goes, your name came up as a potential expert. And I was wondering if I could have you looked at the case? I go, Sure, he goes, the allegation is that the patient is claiming an entry from a low level as a therapist, and I go, okay, so he sends me a file. So I go through the thing, and I remember I call him back when he goes, so what do you think? And I go, Well, I go, let me just start on your terminology. I go, have you just answered his questions? Do you have $17 in your wallet? He goes, Yes, I go, do you consider $17 to be a low amount of money? He goes, Yes, I go, do you have $25,000 in your wallet? He goes, No, I go, do you consider $25,000 to be a low amount of money? He goes, No, I go. You gave me this case telling me that it was low level laser therapy, and yet just changed the word dollars to milliwatts. The laser I use is 17 milliwatts per diode. The laser use in your case is 25,000 milliwatts. Does that say that? It says 25 Watts. Well, 25 Watts is 25,000 milliwatts that I go. It will take them zero time to do a lit search and show that anything over 500 milliwatts is not considered to be low level, you have 25,000. The result is even if the wavelength is the same to hit someone with that much power has problems because by the time you turn it on and turn it off, you’ve already exceeded the power threshold hormetic threshold, you’ve exceeded the art Schultz law. And you’ve gone up and down the belt, the bell shaped curve. I think that because this is what I thought was the most genius thing I saw with Erchonia, the archtops law, joules per centimeter squared per centimeter squared, as soon as you move the diode, it resets the clock. So Erchonia ended up putting their diodes on a motor. And the result is they slowly turn the diode so that every fraction of a second, it’s a different Joel per centimeter squared is a different centimeter squared. The result is you cannot exceed the hormetic threshold, even if you put it on all day long every day, which is not really necessary. Anyway, our typical protocol is a 10 Minute approach. But we use the F x and the F x has the rotating diodes, which you could always have staff do it, my partner, Michelle would often have staff do it. But once you make the investment in buying the device that has the motor, you don’t have to have a staff person to do it, it’s unattended, and you just put it on the spot of your concern. And you put in the pulses that are best for that syndrome. And you just hit the button and walk away. And so even today we did patients even today prior to me getting on to this, this, I don’t know what to call this podcast. And it’s just it’s so awesome because it’s unintended. And you can flood the system with the photons without ever worrying about exceeding the hormetic threshold. And without generating any heat. And without because our waveform is less than 850 nanometers. I am increasingly concerned that waveforms over 850 nanometers are biologically problematic. I collect the data on that including as I said this last week, I got yet another study by Martin Paul from Washington State University. And I think there’s a lot of concerns about electro smog or electro pollution. Electro smog would be the 2017 article from neurological research by Trevor Marshall. Electro pollution would be the subtitle of the book by Robert Becker in his 1990 book cross currents. When you start to look at this and you look at the Avada syndrome, but 60 minutes profile nine weeks ago, and you start thinking oh my gosh, is anyone anyone Google Havanna syndrome. These are waveforms that are really being kind of in this zone that a lot of devices that are used for therapy therapy are in those wedges.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I think there’s a downside to it. I think that our doctor, we need to talk about no problem. We talked about her Vontaze, her vana syndrome, Havana, Cuba, Cuba, they’re using like they were, I guess accused of using sound with sound waves to effect. It wasn’t causing people to become deaf. Is that right?
Dr. Dan Murphy: Well, it’s a syndrome that has a constellation of signs and symptoms, which includes tinnitus, but also brain fog, confusion, fatigue, sleep disturbance, cognitive problems, the list is actually quite long. It first appeared in Embassy personnel in Havana, Cuba, and hence the name Havana syndrome. But they’ve now isolated it around the world profile and 60 minutes, nine weeks ago, it will scare you. But it’s not so much sound. It’s pulsed electromagnetic wave forms that they are not using, as far as I can tell with the intention of harming people. They’re using it as a part of espionage to lift data off of devices, but they can’t target it close enough. If you’re in the area, you’re being hit by these waveforms. And the evidence is that it flips open the voltage gated calcium ion channel and alters the shape of the vitamin D receptor, both of which are incredibly problematic for people. When you just do a Google search on avana syndrome or a PubMed search on it, you’ll see there’s a lot of data out there. And the fact that of all the things that 60 minutes could do, they would give it a double segment about nine weeks ago. Very scary, very disturbing. And as clinicians were clinicians, we see people every day who I believe in my heart have a vana syndrome, and they’re getting it because they have a genetic or an infant Our mental sensitivity to certain waveforms, well, when that stuff starts coming out that if you go over 850 nanometers, you’re flipping open the voltage gated calcium ion channels. This is very problematic, as Amy Jasco says in her book on, on her second book on epigenetics. Glutamate is the gun. Calcium is the bullet that takes out the neuron. Calcium is a boat. So if you open the voltage gated calcium ion channel, historically, though, from the work of Russell Blaylock and others, you flip it open with the with the amino acid neurotransmitter glutamate, but they realize you can also flip it open with certain waveforms and these waveforms are rounded greater than 850 nanometers, which a lot of devices have them. And I am very skeptical that that is good for people. We have a brand protocol where big brain practitioners do a lot of brain trauma and stuff. And we’ve already seen, I believe seven cases where people come into us saying that they believe their brain has been damaged by a different device that they thought would be therapeutic. But actually, people believe it harms them. And this is why you look okay, what are the common denominators, too much energy and too long of a wavelength. That’s what we see as the common denominator. So we have tricks that we tried to get to reset the brain. And that’s a big part of our clinical approach, but we have less energy, we move it so that it doesn’t hit the hormetic threshold. And we use the wavelength that is less penetrating, because lasers work through, you know, primarily through second messengers anyway, depth, that depth of penetration isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be there when when I was dating Michelle and watching her work in her open adjusting down there in Arizona, I would see her treat stroke patients. And I was just amazed by the outcomes that she was getting treating the stroke patients within her Erchonia laser, and so I did a little search on it. And I see a bunch of studies where they’re claiming that it’s not putting the laser over where the stroke is, it’s putting the laser anywhere up there that base the cerebral spinal fluid, and then it kind of gets everything. It’s a systemic effect rather than a local effect, even though you have both local and systemic effects, but the systemic effects are really important. I mean, even if you read tuner and Hodes book, I mean, just pick up there, what do we got it I got four Desinger three editions of the book now, they actually talk about animals that they will purposely injure, on their on their forearms, that the injuries can be burns or cuts or crutch, and then they divide the animal group in half, half get no treatment at all, that would be the control group, the other half gets laser treatment. And as expected, the laser treatments significantly out heels, the controls are not not treated at all. But here’s the curveball. They always injured the animals bilaterally. Yet, they only lay them on one side, to their amazement, that the arm that was not laid significantly out healed the controls and the depth of penetration was zero. It’s a second messenger that goes through the lymphatics and it goes through the the vascular system never undervalue the lymphatic drainage of the brain, they call it the glymphatic with the G, the letter G. If you’re looking at the studies, it’s sort of popping up starting with Scientific American and 2015 on the glymphatic thing. And if you look at the laser literature, lasers accelerate the glymphatic exchange of the brain, which is basically you’re accelerating the washing of the brain. This is some of the reasons we get really great outcomes on a wide variety of things, including things that aren’t even syndromes. A lot of people, a lot of my friends, including me, including our family, use lasers for cognitive enhancement. We know the protocols, we know what to do. We are familiar with the literature, we do cognitive enhancement, and if anything, as we get older, our brains get even better. And this is why I think it is so interesting that Steven Gundry the cardiologist in his most recent book of 2022 plugs it because this is just the way that the literature is going. Anyone that adds risk factors for any sort of future life cognitive decline should learn the protocols but don’t overdo it. more is not better, more say more is better is propaganda. It is not the truth. I remember what I did at conventions that were very interesting Convention had to go to the bathroom. And there’s all these exhibitors and someone’s got a laser and they have Deuter notes 2014 book sitting there, and I go yeah I got a nice lady, you know, yeah, most powerful on the market. He quickly says the most powerful laser out there. And I thought, great. And I go, great book. And he goes, yep, that’s the Bible. And I go, did you read the Bible? He goes, Yeah, read the whole book. And I go, Really? I go, What do you think about this part right here where it says buy brand name, the laser you sell is purposeful deception, because it’s bogus, and even potentially dangerous. What do you say about that? In the book that you have right next to the laser, the guy did, why does the cheat sheet and I go dude, I know you’re commissioned. I eat and go to work for different covers to get rid of the book. Next time I had to go to the bathroom, the book was gone. But it’s weird that in history someone had told him that more is better. And I reject that. More than if you want to just I mean, just look at this one who started the world exercising, Ken Cooper cardiologists still alive isn’t like 90 years old now. cardiologist in a day down in Dallas, Texas. He actually invented the word aerobics, he got America exercising. He wrote it in his book 1968, the height of the Vietnam War, aerobics, people don’t know that 26 years later, in 1994, he writes a second book and he essentially says, Oops, he goes, we got America exercising, but now we realize that our best exerciser our earliest dyers of heart disease, cancer and stroke, because more is not better. More exercise is not better exercise is formatic. Read Scientific American, July of 2015. There’s an article about eating fruits and vegetables that are just rhetorical. Hey, are eating fruits and vegetables good for you? Everyone says yeah, sure what, of course. And they go with that so fast. As soon as you start eating fruits and vegetables, there’s the benefits of your app and all of the major parameters in your blood, your blood. But if that’s all you do, and you just go crazy on doing nothing but fruits and vegetables, you start to go down the backside of a bell shaped curve, do you eventually harm yourself, even fruits and vegetables are hormetic everything is hormetic. That’s just the way biology is. Everything that is good for you will become bad for you if you overdo it. And to say that one device is better than another because it’s more, I’m thinking yeah, but that violates the laws of biology and that is published, that is to say this is not to read the article on Alzheimer’s disease in 2012. On lasers, who come out of the University of Texas read that they say far for being a superior, it’s resolved for me CES is for real, more is not better, and you would lose the benefit if you overdo it. That’s a direct quote, by the way.
Dr. Chad Woolner: And towards the end of that article, I can’t help but think as you’ve been talking about this, the book that keeps coming to mind for me is if you’ve read the book, dopamine nation by Dr. Anna Lemke, this is exactly what she’s she makes the argument that in essence, many if not most of the chronic health issues that people are dealing with, especially mental health issues are this result of an imbalance of too much pleasure, right, that we’ve overloaded the pleasure centers of the brain through various different things like that. And so that’s what her argument is that various types of hormetic practices, the right dose, can really help reset that balance, so to speak. And she talks about, you know, things like intermittent fasting, cold immersion, therapy, heat exposure, you know, all these different types of tools. And so, very, very similar, fascinating concept here that we’re talking about, you know, this idea of hormesis. And to that, your example: too much chocolate, too much anything you know, at the beginning, can make the difference between something being therapeutic or, or detrimental to your health.
Dr. Dan Murphy: And Anna Lemke, who runs Stanford’s medical school school of addiction, if you also Chapter Four is her best chapter because there’s parts of her book that are super disturbing, because it shows you just how screwed up people can get when they exceed the hormetic threshold, right? If you don’t have any dopamine in her book, dopamine nation, then you don’t have sexual intercourse, and you don’t perpetuate your species. But if you can, if it’s dopaminergic, it is exploitable. And if they exploit it, they always exceed the hormetic threshold. And the result is a mental health crisis. Who are her patients? A lot of them are students at Stanford Medical School, read the first page of the book, read the first line of the book. It literally says this is a book about pleasure. Pleasure is dopamine. But when you wrap up the dopamine you drop the serotonin and that in serotonin is part of the suprasegmental descending pain inhibitory control apparatus. So the result is the second sentence of the book. This is also a book about pain, in which you look at these balances in you’re truly unbalancing it with an idea that more is better because every one exploiting you has figured out how to exploit dopamine and dopamine is over the hormone threshold. You are a smart guy. You’ve figured that out. You’ve read her book. And my gosh, her book only came out last August.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, it’s definitely a fascinating read for sure. And yeah, and you’re, you’re correct. She talks about some very interesting characters that she works with. So yeah, fascinating subject for sure. So, in terms of this, you know, so we’ve talked kind of about looking at the research, any other recommendations you would make for Doc’s that are exploring lasers in terms of applying them into their clinic?
Dr. Dan Murphy: You know, I believe in my heart that, like anything, you can be sold on anything by anyone these days. And the propaganda if you’ve read Sebastian youngers book from 2016, called tribe, you can convince anyone of anything in so I would just say that whatever device people are looking at, do your due diligence, look at other devices, so that you don’t get cycles chlorotic by some slick sales pitch, I think that you have to be aware of hormesis, you have to look at published studies on the topic. And you have to, you know, then deal with people, see if they will even you know, show you how to work it and use it on some of your tough patients even before you spring. And I think our conium makes a lot of those options. I’m quite available. All of their sales reps are exceptionally well versed in the public status and the epi market clearances. And they are very, very helpful. I think that you should demand as much from any company that you’re thinking about purchasing a device from.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, yeah, that’s a great point. Dr. Wells, anything else you want to ask?
Dr. Andrew Wells: I think this is a really good jumping off point for dogs interested in not only in the subject of, you know, the power versus penetration. This is a Dr. Murphy, first of all, this is an excellent, excellent dive into why that question is somewhat irrelevant, or actually the wrong question load. makes a ton of questions. Yeah, it’s a loaded question. Right. It’s yeah, it starts from a marketing perspective. Right. So really appreciate your sort of detangling that for doctors who are interested in using this for their patients. And yeah, is there any other direction you would point Doc’s in terms of looking at research? Or whereas besides published studies, is there any other good place as a jumping off point to do their homework?
Dr. Dan Murphy: Well, I think there is. And I think this is why people take my class and my class and other classes. I took leisure class already this year, myself, and I think I learned so darn much that I think that the agenda part is this very simple concept. The biological epicenter of aging is the mitochondria. And consequently, anything you can do to enhance mitochondrial health is in your best interest. And the lasers work at the level of the mitochondria that is not controversial. And so to really understand why you would use a laser at any level of game, you have to go back and get down some of your mitochondrial physiology. So I’m attracted to mitochondria publications, I like them. That’s where I like Otto Warburg stuff, because he discovered the mitochondria. And understanding that lasers are targeting mitochondrial physiology in a way that is unprecedented. Nothing else can even come close. But again, part of when you read the literature, part of the way that lasers work with the mitochondria is through the release of a vasodilation or nitric oxide, but then they quickly also throw the curveball at that nitric oxide in excess functions as an egregiously dangerous pre radical. This is again why they say don’t overdo it, that you want some vasodilation but you don’t want to get free radical damage. Read, just look at mitochondrial health and bottle condo physiology. If any of you that are listening to this ever are in my class, happy to see you and say hi to I would tell you that this whole thing on the wavelength thinks that I kind of just made up, I have a graph on it that I created. I created the graph. And it is so good. I mean it is really good. And then most of the class is on mitochondrial physiology. That’s why we integrate both laser and high intensity interval training and certain supplements and intermittent fasting. In fact, again, if you look at country’s recent most recent book He says that the, the, if the most important of all of the eight steps is intermittent fasting because it influences mitochondria in a positive way, show when you what you’re doing in the leisure, you can enhance it. If you take certain supplements, if you get people to exercise, if you can get them to do some intermittent fasting, if we make sure they’re not insulin resistant by changing their diet, all of these things kind of amalgamate into a program of care. That helps us as providers as clinicians to get really good outcomes. So you can’t even tell what chiropractors do when you go by our office, we have no signage at all, yet we are completely packed. We’re quiet right now, just because I’m doing this podcast. But soon as we’re done, we are completely packed today, just just nonstop, body after body. Because we get exceptional outcomes because of our integrative approach of which all of us in the groups that I hang with, none of us can actually practice anymore. Without lasers, it’s inconceivable that we would know what to do, it’s inconceivable that our patients would say, Well, I have to find other chiropractors who don’t have these devices. Because they make the biggest difference, because they target the amount of Erchonia. More Highlander mitochondria, more ATP, more ATP, better, everything more better pumps, better expression of your genes, better everything if you can up the adenosine triphosphate. And that’s kind of the struggle with age as we age, our ability to make ATP goes down. All of these things are so that we can hold it off as long as possible so that we’re making high levels of energy for as long as possible with an integrative approach of which the center stone for us is this low level laser therapy, we can we can advise people in high intensity interval training and intermittent fasting, and it takes some supplements, but in our clinic, we are chiropractors and we do the laser to unblock the cytochrome c oxidase to enhance instantaneously and meaningfully the production of adenosine triphosphate.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So, Dr. Murphy, I was just going to ask, you know, for dogs who want to get into your world more, I’m assuming many know where to go. But where would you direct Doc’s to come to either of your seminars to learn more from you directly? What would you say?
Dr. Dan Murphy: Well, you know, we are not entrepreneurs. We are contractors. So people hire us, I Michelle today, he says, Man, you’re doing the South Carolina convention, you got to put those notes together. So they just hire us. So we go out there and say What topics do you want, you can always go to my web page, which is www Dan Murphy. dc.com Dan Murphy dc.com. And there’s always a list of where we’re going to be. There are always different sponsors that I do quite a few classes with or Erchonia just on the topic of lasers, but again, they don’t even know what I go over. Because they trust my judgment. They trust that it’ll be solid evidence based, no vs. And I’m clinically experienced and we can do all of those things. So they trust my judgment. And I’ve done classes with them pretty much nonstop now for about 20 years. But I also do other classes on orthopedics and neurology and pediatrics on trauma. Last week I did trauma up in the state of Washington up in Seattle. Some of the greatest stuff I’ve ever done in my career. I did last week at a whiplash conference in Seattle. I thought oh man, this is the best stuff ever. Some of this stuff is so good. So just go to my webpage and I can do it. And then of course we do have educational videos that have nothing to do with it. Michelle uses them on her patients but we have them on lasers and exercise whatever we have them on just about everything we think she’s up to like 48 different educational videos that people can get if you ever ended up just contact Michelle with this Michelle at Dan Murphy dc.com Michelle at Dan Murphy dc.com I’m Dan at Dan Murphy dc.com The webpage is www Dan Murphy. dc.com
Dr. Chad Woolner: Awesome. Awesome. were you gonna say something Dr. Wells
Dr. Andrew Wells: Similar question that you had Chad. Dr. Murphy, this has been amazing. I’ve written everything down in six books that I need to read and another couple are research articles I need to follow up and read. This has really blown my hair back. We really appreciate you cramming an immense amount of information is very fascinating and information into a very small amount of time like holy cow. We didn’t have to pay you fortunately for this for our other podcast Dr. Murphy because I think that would have been an expensive hour but I just want to say we really appreciate the knowledge that you shared with our listeners and your insights into making laser therapy impactful for patients. This has been unbelievable. So thank you so much.
Dr. Dan Murphy: before you get to hang up I mean it just I just want to let you guys know you are the only guys that I’ve run across so far that are conversational and analytic and booked from last August. Oh, that’s cool to your credit. Oh thank no one knows that stuff and if you’re if you’re into that, I know another, you know, half dozen books that except was supportive of that model you read I mean it all starts with hacking of the American mind by Robert Lustig in 2017. He’s a pediatric endocrinologist if you read Daniel labored son’s book called The molecule of more if you read Fred private’s book, the dopaminergic mind and human history and evolution if you just read a quick Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Moss from last year 2021. You mean, there are so many things once you start understanding, or Mises and you understand dopamine and you understand serotonin and you understand balances and how you can influence these things. And how the whole world is going if you’re into this read, read Sam Quinones book from last year, read the book, titled the least of us, it will change you forever. Because all of a sudden, the whole world has changed in the last decade. And people are going through what’s happening. Sam Quinones nagels, that read that book, because it’s about brain neurochemistry and how it’s being exploited and influenced, and what it’s doing to society and to our world and to our planet. It’s incredibly cool stuff. You guys are good. I’m proud of you guys.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Thank you so much. And for Doc’s listening, I will make sure that we go back through probably a couple of times, and do our best to get all of these listed out in the show notes so that you guys will have links to these so that you won’t have to listen to this 20 different times to to jot these down. We’ll do that for you. So thank you for sharing those resources, because we are definitely going to get on, that is definitely we firmly are in the same kind of line of thought or school of thought there that this is exactly where the direction is heading in terms of health, longevity, helping improve people’s lives. So we appreciate it again, I would echo everything Dr. Wells has said. So thank you for your time. Dr. Murphy. You appreciate it. And yeah, Doc’s thanks for listening, and we will share more with you on the next episode. Hope this has been extremely valuable for you. We’re sure it has been and I will 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.
On today’s episode we sit down with Dr. Kirk Gair to discuss some of the most common (and often unknown) applications for low level laser therapy. As you’ll see, Dr. Kirk Gair is using lasers for a wide range of conditions, many of which may surprise you! To learn more about Dr. Kirk Gair you can join his private Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/drgairlasertherapy
Dr. Chad Woolner: All right, everybody. Welcome to episode five of the laser light show. Today’s episode we have with us our good friend and special guests, Dr. Kirk Gair and we are going to be discussing the top 10 applications for low level laser therapy. 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, everybody. Welcome to the show. And a huge special welcome to Dr. Kirk Gair all the way from sunny Southern California. How are you?
Dr. Gair: I’m doing great, thank you. How are you guys doing?
Dr. Chad Woolner: Awesome. Thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to be here with us. We really, really appreciate having you. So to start off with, you’re down in the LA area correct?
Dr. Gair: Yeah, I’m just east of LA and Pasadena.
Dr. Andrew Wells: To kick this off, Dr. Willner. Dr. Garrett, the reason we wanted to do this episode of the top 10 applications for laser therapy is I think a lot of Doc’s like me. At one point, I thought that laser therapy was only used for musculoskeletal issues. And I got that right. I got that impression. Just going through school, we had some laser devices and different things in our clinic. And it was only used for neck pain, back pain. And it wasn’t till I got outside of school and started going to CTE events and studying other modalities and therapies. I realized, like holy cow, laser therapy can actually be used for lots of different conditions. And in fact, maybe let’s start off if you don’t mind. Maybe you have an eye. Maybe you have more of an agenda than I do. But we were talking offline before the podcasts about helping with machine motos and AI, right. Yeah, like maybe you can speak to that, because I don’t think a lot of Doc’s even would make the correlation that there are therapies for things like Hashimotos and autoimmune conditions that laser therapy can help with. So maybe that’s a good jumping off point.
Dr. Gair: Yeah, that really is and it’s something you’re correct. Most people think that it’s just musculoskeletal, but it is so much more. It’s really the applications are kind of endless, if you look at the research, and that’s what I did when my wife was really, really sick. It’s, you know, necessity was the mother of invention, and she got a really bad autoimmune Hashimotos reaction that was affecting her brain and a lot of autonomic nervous systems and we’re going to have all these different specialists and nobody could figure out what was working. And I’m fortunate that I went to school with Dr. Datis kharrazian. And we’re good friends so I was able to call him up and get some help he was able to figure things out relatively quickly what was going on here that it was this iodine contrast that triggered this massive autoimmune reaction for her but as I’m talking with him and he’s doing the evaluation that’s when the light bulb went off for me about hey, you know what if I use my lasers here on her brainstem and on the nervous system, discussing with him he’s like well let me let me check let me do some research and get back to you and that night he he found some studies on laser for Neurodegeneration and sent it to me and said dude laser the crap out of a brain I was not aware of of this happening and you’ll Hashimotos can affect the cerebellum have seen antibodies that that attack the thyroid can also attack the cerebellum. So, in the research he showed me you can see that you can come down this autoimmune attack and then I got curious and dove further into it and I found these studies called the Hofland studies out of Brazil. And in this Dr. halfling, took low level non thermal lasers and use them on Hashimoto as patients and he tracked their thyroids on ultrasound, he they track their lab tests, their medication use, and he found that when he was lasering, these patients that they that almost 100%, the study had some improvements. And it was something like I believe it’s 47% Didn’t need their meds after eight months. I’m not saying this fixes it. This is definitely off label types of uses here. But this is research that doctors could check in on PubMed, thyroid ultrasound at the site of improved blood flow, the at TPO antibodies went down just all these different kinds of things that occurred when you would use the laser on Hashimoto’s patients. And then when you look at auto immunity in general, because I know you guys do functional medicine, we know that you know, by supporting nitric oxide, especially neuronal endothelial and also supporting glutathione you can kind of tell Have down some of the autoimmune flare ups and reactions that happen. Well laser stimulates nitric oxide production estimates glutathione production and the laser also modulates cytokines like you hear with COVID. So cytokine storms you put a laser on someone, especially a low level non thermal, you can actually up regulate interleukin 10 and down really regulate interleukin six and that helps to calm down inflammation and you can calm down other inflammatory molecules like nuclear factor kappa beta as well too. So you have this big big impact on audit immunity like Hashimotos and because of that, I was asked to appear and Dr. Isabella Wentz she’s known as the thyroid pharmacist and her documentary called The thyroid secret. And when I talked about my wife’s story and what we were doing with some of the patients, the phone lines blew up at her Erchonia from around the world with people who were looking for doctors who had these are Erchonia, low level lasers to use to dampen the inflammatory process that occurs in Hashimotos. And as a matter of fact, Dr. Wentz even wrote about me and your Erchonia lasers in her book Hashimoto’s protocol. That’s how big it got with that. So we have patients who have some who fly in from Europe even to see me to do some support will do with Hashimotos. A lot of the patients have brain fog. And our lasers have FDA clearance for inflammation for use anywhere in the body. So we’ll use the lasers transcranial dampens the brain fog, we’ll put it over the gut, there’s studies show that you can lean laser over the gut, you can actually stimulate improvements in the microbiome, a lot of these Hashimoto’s patients have issues with the vagus nerve that difficulty swallowing will laser while they do vagus exercises like gargling, and now you improve that gut brain connection. And so it’s really fun and exciting to be able to do that. And they get some help that you know, when traditional medicine is just saying Here, take this pill, oh, your levels look fine. So you’re fine, yet they feel like crap, we can actually provide some help, like, especially combining functional medicine with the low level lasers.
Dr. CHad Woolner: Yeah, and I would say the cool thing is not just pharmaceuticals, but also nutritional supplements. A lot of times, that’s kind of a conventional model, I think more and more people are becoming aware of natural supplements being used. But this is just yet again, one additional tool outside of that realm of either pharmaceuticals or supplements that can be used. So really, really powerful
Dr. Gair: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, definitely.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, that’s amazing. You know, we think of sometimes in terms of therapies for patients to go therapies in terms of exactly that there’s this, there’s this, these two ends of the spectrum, you have either pharmaceutical side where you have the natural side, which inevitably is, you know, diet, nutrition, exercise, these other modalities. And we’re not even I think we’re just scratching the surface, in terms of things that we can do in terms of bioenergetics. And using things like light therapy, to influence energy production, and that’s this. So even even in your, your, your, your story there, we hit three body systems, right, we hit the nerve, right? We had the endocrine system, we had the digestive system and the microbiome. And those are, those are things that most practitioners, especially chiropractors are seeing day in and day out. You know, people are coming into musculoskeletal pain, but they also have these other secondary and tertiary issues. That really we’re very well suited to handle. We have the right, the right philosophy. And sometimes it’s just matching up the right systems and tools to be able to help people correct those. And I, you know, this is an interesting day for Dr. Holdren, because we’re doing lots of podcast interviews. And, and we’re seeing just as this, this massive scope of different health issues that we can solve. With laser therapy, it’s really, it’s really encouraging. What are some other things so as a doc in the trenches scene, what are some of the things that you’re the other things that you’re using this for?
Dr. Gair: Well, I’d say one of the hot ones right now is going to be long COVID syndrome. That’s what I’ve just exploded with, like we’ll get into it a bit. What is the bread and butter of what I normally do, but this is something that doctors may not be aware of that they’re seeing right now is the impact that COVID has on so many systems within the body. I talked with this doc who’s a specialist even in reproductive health, and she was telling me that COVID is even impacting the pituitary in the brain to alter hormone production, where she’s seeing males in their 20s who look like they’re going through andropause, females are going through menopause in the 20s. And we look at patients. There’s studies that suggest that between 30 to 50% of patients who have recovered from COVID have long term brain issues, even sometimes some psychosis, psychosis and mental health issues as well too. And there’s even research suggesting that the mRNA vaccines can do it as well too, because that spike protein can trigger cross reactivity against about 26 different human tissues in there. So doctors are gonna see these patients coming in and they can be complaining of things like oh my gosh, all of a sudden, I’ve got brain fog. I can’t focus. I can’t concentrate. I’ve got trigeminal neuralgia, I’ve got Bell’s Palsy. I’ve got some numbness and tingling on you know, in this area that I’ve never had before. I’ve got this extreme fatigue So we’re seeing a lot of these people coming in like that. And one of the big things we do is we get the Rivonia laser, especially the effects on their brain. Because when you get that laser on the brain, one of the things you do, and a big thing to do is you calm down inflammation. And we know that exposure to that spike protein or to the mRNA, vaccines can potentially trigger this inflammatory reaction in a certain subset of patients. And so we can dampen that inflammatory reaction that’s going on with them, you can also stimulate brain derived neurotrophic factor in these patients by putting the laser on them. And that’s basically what I said, it’s like Miracle Gro for the brain that stimulates some new neuronal connections in there, you’re gonna stimulate angiogenesis, as well, which we know that COVID can impact the circulatory system and damaged blood vessels. Well, lasers have been shown to stimulate new blood vessel growth, and also just to make something called vascular endothelial growth factor, which helps to prepare blood vessels. So you get all of that good stuff together, you also facilitate glymphatic and lymphatic drainage throughout the body, especially in the brain. And so we see a lot of benefit with these COVID patients who are basically hopeless, saying, Oh, my God, I’m going to my doctor, and they think, you know, it’s no big deal. But I’ve been like this for six months, I’ve been like this for a year, particularly when I see them having the vaccine and the infection, those are the ones that we see really, quite affected by this stuff in the practice a lot. And we see some improvements with them. And along those lines, too, if the dots have the red violet combination, like the FX 405, or the ecrl, there’s a lot of really cool research, actually, they can go onto my YouTube channel and searches to see a video I did that’s an hour long, that talks about just the immune benefits of using the violet laser that you can actually help to support the immune system versus, you know, invaders, basically. And the lasers do have an FDA clearance versus the bacteria in an acne and also a nail fungus as well. But we use them in general in the body, a lot of really cool studies that they can find on PubMed, showing these violent lasers providing support against like Mrsa, also against, you know, specifically talking about it even with acute respiratory distress syndrome and COVID patients because of the impact it has on the cytokines and also on providing immune support to so that’s a big one that we’re seeing right now.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s incredible, man. Such such a Yeah, you know, I always get a little leery when you start to hear claims that are made that almost sound like a panacea. But like snake oil. Right, right. But the cool part is that there’s really, really high level research to support and backup this. This is not just purely anecdotal, you know? No, yeah. So it’s really powerful.
Dr. Gair: Yeah, Yeah. Especially if you go back. Here’s the crazy thing. You know, you have all your patients say this all the time that Oh, I talked to my ortho about and they said, Oh, lasers, don’t modern science lasers. There’s no research behind them. Well, you know what, that’s an extremely ignorant statement that I securely made all the time, because if you look at the research on lasers, there’s over 10,000 studies now indexed on PubMed, that go back to the 1960s. And if you really want to look at who was the cutting edge, and it was the Russians in the Soviet Union, by 1974, they were already using low level lasers as part of their state sponsored standard medical care. So that’s like Medicare saying, Yeah, we’re gonna use this. And what did they use it for? They used it for everything. You look at the list, there’s this, there’s a study that doctors can check out called low level laser therapy in the USSR. And it talks about they’re using it even for off limits, things like cancer, like reproductive health, they’re using it on kids, they use it for dentistry, they used it to regenerate liver cells, they showed that you can stimulate hepatocyte growth factor and regenerate a damaged liver on here. If you’re using ortho and neuro, but all these other off limits things. And that’s what the Soviets were doing in the 1970s. So we’re 50 years later, and still out here in the West, you know, this is still like the frontier to where people don’t even know about this stuff. It’s almost like lasers were in the 21st, or even the Star Trek centuries. And a lot of modern medicine is still deeply rooted in the 20th century.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, it’s interesting. This will be a little bit political. But we’re, as we’re, as we’re recording this podcast episode. It’s like there’s a lot of tension right now between the US and Russia with the invasion of Ukraine. Absolutely. And the interesting thing was, if you look at health, the health propaganda, health history in Russia, they didn’t adopt Western health care very much at all. In fact, they look at the outside in approach as for what it is mainly symptom relief, and disease management, and so they never really adopted the American Medical Association’s definition of what a healthcare system looked like. And when you look at Russia, they actually have been really innovative in terms of technology and also very fundamental in what they’re using in health care. Like if Yeah, right. So they had and if you look at their population, in general, they have far less Chronic disease than we do here in the US and they write, they take a fraction, a small fraction of the of the pharmaceuticals we’re taking here in the Status ship. And it’s yeah, it’s interesting. They’ve been absolutely lightyears ahead of us in terms of being free thinking and also the ability to apply the things that we know work and are studied by research to write the population in terms of public health. And that’s right. I didn’t know about laser therapy. I didn’t know that that was kind of standard procedure in Russia and it makes sense.
Dr. Gair: I was shocked at me, you look at what they were doing with laser eye surgery. They were far ahead to where they were selling their old units to doctors in the US. And he had doctors who were doing laser eye surgery here. They were using the older generation of the Russian models, they were so far ahead. Are you looking at how Doc’s back in the 80s and 90s? Were trying to buy Russian Eastern units, you know, they were just kind of cutting edge on some of those things. We were going to be lagging behind interestingly.
Dr. Chad Woolner: I can’t help but think of that scene from Rocky for where? Yes. So he’s training. He’s out in the woods, and he’s in a bar and you know, he’s like, punching bags of weed or whatever. And then and then Drago is like getting all injected with all these like steroids, high tech equipment and everything.
Dr. Gair: Yeah, so exactly. That’s a perfect example there.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah. So I would say to tell us a little bit about your practice, you know how long you’ve been in practice. I know you’re down in the LA area. Right and maybe even talk about kind of the story of how you got connected with Erchonia and your share with him now.
Dr. Gair: Sure. Well, so story, my practice started in 1999. And like a lot of Doc’s you know, it came out that school doesn’t really prepare us for much except passing the boards, you know, you’re really your education actually begins in the trenches and what you do in your CTE seminars. So, you know, I struggled for my first few years and I started doing workers comp for a while. And then in 2002, the Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger got elected as governor here and he promised to help us. Chiropractors, you know, to move us forward because part of getting him elected was our California Chiropractic Association help with that. One of the first things he did was turn his back on us and sign legislation to carve us out of workers comp make it much, much harder. So a lot of Doc’s actually went out of business. And so this is what I had to reinvent myself, because you know, we’ve got a lot of managed care out here and the HMO payouts are just absolute garbage with a lot of paperwork. And we have looked around my office for 50 other chiropractors in less than five mile square radius, so a lot of competition. So I thought, You know what, I gotta do something different. I gotta do something to make it so I’m not dependent on insurance or on like a governor carving us out of something. So that’s what I had been seeing Dr. Dan Murphy, I know you guys just had one you know, it’s just a no, he’s an amazing, amazing fountain of knowledge. I went to seminary, his up in Northern California. And as we walked in, they had a computerized muscle testing device and range of motion device where they measured all of us doctors range of motion of the neck and the shoulders and muscle strength to upper extremity. And we got to baseline and the laser just on the neck for just a few minutes, and then read a substance and my range of motion. And all of us our range of motion and our muscle strength improved. And that was clear objective evidence to me that this laser had, you know, didn’t look that impressive, just a couple of lines of light, and I couldn’t feel anything. But that had a clear impact on me physiologically, I thought, This is it. This is the wave of the future. And then I went to a Dr. Jeff Spencer seminar. And Dr. Jeff Spencer was Lance Armstrong chiropractor on the Tour de France. And we know Lance did whatever he could to win both legal and illegal. Spencer was part of the legal side. And it’s interesting thing to going into this is that there are studies that show that there’s one of the Journal of athletic training and another of the Journal of photo by omics that said that if you if athletes get laser therapy, on a regular basis that their performance is enhanced to a level as if they had taken performance enhancing drugs. And that includes that their muscle strength, their endurance, their muscle size, their time to recover, are all are all faster. And they actually said we’re not sure that should be allowed in the Olympics because it gives people an unfair advantage. And I work with a lot of athletes. And when I learned about this unfair advantage that you can give, I’m like, shoot, I can really do a lot with this with athletes because I played high school and college football and I was always looking for an edge like how can I get an edge on someone else? And when I went to see Dr. Spencer, he asked Is there anybody in here who you know, has an old shoulder injury? I went from playing high school and college football to where I couldn’t really throw a ball like I used to when I played in tournaments, I could put a lot of emphasis on it. And I was throwing more touchdowns to the other team than I was my team. So 34 is ready to quit. And when I worked out I couldn’t do the same weight on my right side as my left. Well Dr. Spencer went through and did this. This laser when he called up regulation he had gone through his muscle. If it was weak it hit the nerve root and boom, you could feel it change its strength within a few seconds. I was blown away because then I went to the gym the next day and I had almost an even stranger on both sides and I hadn’t had that in over a decade. Then I played in the football tournament that month. And I was back to throwing the ball so hard again that it was whistling. And I was 34, I was throwing harder than I did in my 20s blew my mind. So I thought if I bring this to youth athletes, I can do some amazing things. So I started working on it with athletes, they’d come in with shoulder injuries where they’re told, okay, you’re done, you need a surgery. And we could actually not only repair that muscle, because the laser stimulates stem cells, you can get this repair. When these kids didn’t have to have surgery. Sometimes, we actually enhance the performance too. And so I started working with these athletes and kids whose seasons look like they were over. We had one this was one kid during Turner, who went from having a season over to where he doesn’t have the surgery like this ortho recommended, we get him back, he only misses like four weeks. And he becomes the MVP for the conference, his team wins at a conference championship undefeated, and he goes on to play college football with another kid who had a hamstring injury recently, who ‘s a four by 400 meters runner, and also a 400 meter 100 meter sprinter. And he thought his season was done. We get lasers on him, we do some things on his brain to improve his balance. So he stops blowing out that hamstring, he actually ends up running faster than he ever did before. And he ends up being the fastest kid in the whole US that year. And also goes down to the pan-am Jr games and sets a world record in the four by four meters and gets a gold and a bronze medal himself. And he’s been at USC running and he’ll come in kind of on his breaks from school and get to nuts on there. So we use these laces for their injuries and also to enhance their performance. And that’s kind of how I got going, worked with these youth athletes and doctors listening to it. If you don’t work with youth athletes, you are missing out on a lot because these kids and their parents see that as their ticket to getting into college. So they will happily have some athletes come in every single week for their whole high school career just to enhance their performance and prevent injuries. Because again, they see that as a ticket to college and get an education. And once you work with one athlete like when I worked with one kid who was in a batting slump because he had a concussion. The lasers on his brain did some eye movement stimulation. Because the laser works best when you also do movements and neurological stimulation. We did that. So he attracted pitches better. He went from being concussed and in a slump to leaving his conference batting. Guess what happened? What his coach saw was that the coach started sending every athlete from that team to my office. All of his teammates would come in, they come in on a regular basis. And so thanks. So we do with your Erchonia lasers, we don’t have to do any marketing. And what I would do over the years, I would share these stories with the guys that are Erchonia and what I would do with these youth athletes and I got invited to work the Dodgers angels fantasy camp, because of what I did with youth athletes. So that was really cool, because then I got to hang out with people like Rick Monday, and Bill Russell and Kenny Landro. And also from the angels, Tim salmon, I get to hang out with these guys and work on them and like to hear their stories. And it was all because of the Erchonia lasers. And so as that word spread around the nerd, Tony asked me to come in and teach for them because I used to teach junior high. And if you can teach things to junior high schoolers, you can teach them to anybody. So they asked me to come and teach a group of doctors and to simplify what you can do with lasers. And that’s what I did is that I came in and I started I created a simplified system of how to quickly get up and running with the lasers to where if you want to do just simple point, shoot things or if you want to do these more, a little more advanced recalibration systems, I took what Dr. Spencer taught me, and I just really streamlined it and simplified it. And that’s how I got started with our Erchonia. We had such a great response from webinars. We started doing our webinars in 2017. And I had a series of initial 15 webinars we did once a month. And every single one we had maximum attendance over 100 doctors on there to where they actually had to expand their podcast or their webinar capabilities to 200 just to accommodate what we’re doing. So that’s how I got my start with your Erchonia.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing, man, what a cool story. I can’t help but think of my own son . He’s on track right now. And he’s, in fact, their track four by one relay team just qualified for state. So this weekend, he’ll be at the state championships. And I’m super excited because we’re going to be getting the effects four or five here in our clinic real soon. So I’m excited to start using that with him these upcoming years.
Dr. Gair: So, we’ll definitely watch what you want to do with these athletes. But we have them all do as before they have their big like right now it was when they’re going into the you said the state championships or regional championships. We have these athletes come in like right now Zach Shinnick. That’s the kid who was the runner that I mentioned. He’s at USC, his sister Maya is racing in our local state championships right now. So she comes in a couple of days before her meeting. I go through tester muscles, if it’s weak, boom, I hit the muscle with the laser, we activate it, then we just haven’t heard, just lay down and the FX is going on the trunk and on the legs. That’s going to increase ATP. So that way she’s got more energy reserves to be able to race better, she’s going to increase glutathione so she can neutralize those free radicals. So you can increase nitric oxide so that way she’s gonna have better blood flow. So you can do that with your son, stick them under that effects for about five minutes on some of the basic frequencies and You’ll get all that enhancement with him too.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing. Absolutely amazing. Super cool. Yeah. What a cool patient population to work with two young athletes motivated, driven and fighting.
Dr. Gair: Yeah, yeah, they are motivated. And what’s great isn’t you see him go off and I’ve got one of the kids now in the starting rotation for one of the major league baseball teams. And I remember working with him when he was just in high school, just the high school kid just coming in. Initially, for an injury, a common one we treat is Little League in elbow or Tommy John had injuries. He came in, in nursery for that, and then he’d stick wrenches for a team’s velocity up, he’s like, Hey, man, my Velo dropped from like, 93, it’s down to 90. And that may not sound like a big deal to a person who’s not familiar with baseball, but you drop your velocity two or three miles. That’s a huge difference for an elite pitcher. And so we would just use a laser to get his velocity backup. And you know, now he’s pitching in the majors and had another kid I work with who won a Super Bowl Championship with the Seattle Seahawks. You know, it’s just, it’s a lot of fun working with that population. And then I have another one who won a national title with Vanderbilt. And you know, these kids will fly back in and see you too, you know, when they take their breaks, because what you do with the lasers, they can’t get anywhere else, like this kid at Vandy. Number one baseball program in the US, for colleges, they’re just doing dry needling, and cupping and nothing against those things. But you compare that to putting a laser on somebody or adjusting somebody, it’s it’s it doesn’t even compare.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing. What would you say to Doc’s who are hearing this, they’re excited, they’re like, Okay, this is cool. Where would you direct them in terms of next steps, either learning from you or from Erchonia? Or both? What would be some of the resources you would turn them to?
Dr. Gair: Yeah, well, definitely, you know, or Erchonia, I think this is so many things that are coming apart. You know, research is obviously a big one with all the FDA clearances that they have. That’s a unique thing that is different from any other laser. But also the other thing that no other laser company out there does for sure is the volume of seminars and webinars that we have. So a great thing to do is go onto the air Erchonia website, or konya.com, click under Events, and go out to a live seminar near you. So you can see something that’s close to you. We have a ton of great speakers, and try to sample all of us because we all have a little different, different way of doing things like Dr. Murphy is great for learning all the research behind everything to understand how lasers work. And he does really simple methods that just point and shoot, hey, get this thing laser on there and have it move it around. And that’s you know, very, very great things for a newbie, just to kind of get their feet wet and acquainted with it. And then you’ve got like, if you want to learn the neuro stuff, you go to Dr. Berry, Dr. Berry and Brock they’re actually amazing with teaching you the deep ins and outs of Functional Neurology there to really take patients to a whole other level. Dr. Silverman and I are like East Coast, West Coast versions of each other. We’re really sports oriented. And also do you know a lot of similar kinds of things. And then Dr. Dr. Ruka is amazing. As far as sports performance, he takes it to a whole other level like someone has like three day retreats are fantastic things. So I’d say get out to live one, look at what’s done on the seminar schedule, go to live one. But don’t wait for that either. We’ve got a ton of webinars that you can do. So talk to your local rep. And ask them for our old webinars like I have one that I’ve done, that I’m really proud of, it’s a four hour what I say like remote hands on laser seminars. So I created this four hour seminar, where I’ve got an hour of technique videos in there. And I will show you both point and shoot techniques that if you’re brand new, like you’re just getting your FX, you look at these videos in there, and you’re like, how do I do this on a net? Well, I’m gonna show you exactly what what I do with a neck with just the laser, and just a precursor and an engine adjuster tool to where it’s fresh out of the box, you’re brand new and lasers, you can do that for a neck, for a low back for knee for an ankle for carpal tunnel for an elbow for shoulder, whatever. I’ve got videos in there and that I’ve also got the more advanced ones of those Dr. Spencer kind of protocols or what I call laser neuro recalibration to where you can test the muscle and how do you actually reset it and blow a patient’s mind. That is one that you definitely want to learn about. And again, just ask your rep for my four hour hands on webinar, because in that one, the goal when the patient comes in is you want to blow their mind so they never go anywhere else because no one else can compare to what you do. So I have a patient come in, let’s say with a shoulder injury, and I haven’t gone through their range of motion or whatever it is painful. And then I’ll tell him, hey, look, what I’m gonna do on you next, it’s gonna look weird, it’s going to look like some kind of voodoo or magic trick because I’m gonna test your muscles can be weak, I’m gonna laser it for me to five or 10 seconds. And in most cases, it should strengthen up and you’re going to wonder if I’m pushing differently. But then I’m going to have you go through a throwing motion or a movement that just hurts you. And you should see at least like a 20 or 30% improvement. I go through and I do this and time after time people’s eyes pop out of their heads. They’re like, What the hell is this? This is like Star Trek or something. And then usually the family members who are with them want to come in. So definitely if you want to learn that that will generate a lot of referrals. That’s how we do zero marketing. Yet we stay booked out at least a week or two in advance and we get a flood of new patients without doing any marketing. See, that’s a great place to start.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s awesome. Dr. Wells, any questions you have?
Dr. Andrew Wells: Oh, good. Sorry, Go, ahead, doctor.
Dr. Gair: I do want to jump in on one thing that I left out here is when I talked about the brain I want to backtrack a bit to if it’s not just for patients with Hashimotos. It’s also like these athletes who’ve had concussions, they’re not being assessed very well by their pediatricians, they the pediatricians usually aren’t aware of the long term impacts of concussions for not only sports performance, but school performance. We regularly get the lasers on these kids’ brains to help them recover and also prevent the secondary impact. Now, we also do this too, for elderly patients or Kony is doing studies on Alzheimer’s, they’ve done a study before on Parkinson’s that shows improvements. And especially when you get the laser on the brain of a patient who’s neuro degenerating. If you pulse it at 40 hertz, their studies show that you can actually break up the amyloid beta and the tau proteins holdings in there. So we have patients and my wife says, Oh, you basically laser people through lifespan. And that’s what my new seminars call this lasering through the lifespan as we get people coming in as kids working on them with their concussions, as adults dealing with you know, whatever kind of autoimmunity may be exploding on them. And then in the elderly, with whatever kind of neurodegeneration is going on, we’ll get the lasers on their brains to try to slow down that progress and to keep them better functioning, and to be a better, more productive member of their family.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s an amazing doctor here, I’m trying to think of questions for you. But I don’t have questions because my brain is swimming in potential. Everything you can do, yeah, yeah. That was the whole purpose of this podcast episode, were all the different things that you can do with laser therapy. And I really meant as you’re talking, you do such a good job of bringing these concepts to life, and really, really appreciate the examples that you’ve given. And we have and next, our next guest is Dr. Dan Murphy, who’s on the next episode, we already recorded that episode, but a very similar episode, like my hair is my hair is blown back because I’m just like, Man, there are so many different ways that you can use this amazing therapy. And it’s such a good sync with the chiropractic philosophy and mindset, right, because it’s always inside out approaches and above down inside out approaches. And that’s an amazing tool to bolster what we’re doing with chiropractic care in a totally different way.
Dr. Gair: Yeah. Oh, it really is. And you know, one thing I didn’t mention too, is you can use these pre and post off on patients to the or Kony lasers have FDA clearances for that. And so, you know, I had one patient who was a high school athlete, and she got injured her junior year in high school wrestling. A really pretty sweet girl but a beast on the wrestling mat, but she got a terrible Tria to her knee where it was her ACL MCL. And the meniscus got torn and when her mom showed me the video, you could hear it rip from the stance. And you know, she goes down crying and she goes to see the ortho in the summer between junior and senior year and the ortho says out it’s a massive surgery we have to do you’re gonna be out nine to 12 months. So she’s of course in tears because there goes her senior season or hopes of the rest of the college. Well, they came in because they’d heard about me helping this kid who won a national championship in France clean with Northview High School, when his knee had a similar injury. We actually saw that his parents used to call me Mr. Miyagi. They say Doctor care, we need your Mr. Miyagi wax on wax off with lasers because Brian got hurt, or, you know, before his championship, and we would actually laser him it would keep them going just enough to where he won a national title with his knee torn up. But then, when he had the surgery, supposed to be out for six months, we got him back in six weeks by, you know, doing lasers on him. So she’d heard about this. They said, Look, my daughter sports at nine to 12 months, can you accelerate this and this is where I really love working with these youth athletes if they’re motivated to do whatever you tell them. So I said, Yes, we can. As long as you come in with a frequency I tell you to eat what I tell you to and you take the supplements I teach you. They said okay, we’ll do it all. So they talk to the doctor into allowing her to take this agility test, which is four months, which is right before resting season. He’s telling her No way. No one has ever passed it faster than nine months after this, this surgery, this will never happen. What we did with her is we did the pre op laser sessions for about three weeks before she went in for surgery. The goal with that is to get the tissue as healthy as possible. You still get a lot of glutathione ATP, nitric oxide, stem cells, etc. And then she went in for the surgery. We did post op as soon as she could get out. She came in and we got the laser right on her to accelerate the repair and recovery. Then we did our Phase Three of rehab, which is where we strengthen up the muscles with a laser. And what happened was she was allowed to take that test after only four months. The ortho said you’re never going to pass this you’ve got to run, jump crawl, squat, climb, it’s such as to just understand you’re not gonna be able to pass this well. She passed it with flying colors, and he was blown away and all the physical therapists were blown away as well to their like, we’ve never had anybody pass it sooner than nine months you just did it for and the daughter and the mambo Symbaloo saw Doctor care for laser therapy. And of course the ortho and the PT poo pooed it and that’s the cool thing is that they never become you. They never become your competition because they’re just doubting Thomases no matter how much proof they just won’t become your competition. But these athletes knew it and she went on and she was able to compete her senior year and won her league championship and competed in the State championship and went off to wrestling college. So you know, the laser it changes lives it changes the practice of The Doctor makes their life easier, makes practice fun and more exciting. And you think about it with desperate patients like this girl Briana, she wouldn’t have never been able to wrestle her junior or senior year, that kid door and he doesn’t play football his senior year doesn’t get a scholarship to college. And then it becomes an Al Bundy of you know, man, I could have done this poll chi, you know, and here you’re doing things, you’re changing lives. We’re gonna do what to do with my wife, you know, went from being bedridden to playing tennis and you’re later we do these things over and over again with patients or kids who are concussed who are unable to go to school and you know, to get their lives back. And it’s just, I can’t say enough about how exciting it is to use lasers in practice.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, your passion shines through for sure. And it’s exciting, man. It’s super cool to hear the rest of the stories and I no doubt for our Doc’s. It’s got to be exciting for them to to think about the possibilities and implications and or application of these lasers for them and their practices.
Dr. Gari: Yeah, well, such an amazing man, then their patient, their patients will think that as well, too, because I get tagged online on social media all the time. Whatever they see, someone’s got to know you got to see Dr. Gari, he can fix it. He can’t fix it. No one can with Hey, Ryan and his magical lasers.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing. Well, Dr. Gari, we sincerely appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to be here and kind of sharing your experiences. And yeah. So for Doc’s wanting to learn more from you go to Erchonia at checkout. Are you doing up for a seminar here pretty soon?
Dr. Gari: Yes, I’m going to be in Detroit in June. And then I’m going to Puerto Rico in July. I’m doing the first ever Erchonia seminar in Spanish, I know and will in Spanish. So I’m doing a four hour presentation there. The other thing dogs can do, I have a Facebook group. For those who aren’t anti social media. There are some dogs we have in the group who are only there because of my group. It’s called Dr. Gari, laser therapy, treatment and marketing secrets. And we’ve got about 540 doctors there. And what’s really cool is it’s an interactive group. So it’s not like I’m the guru teaching everybody. All these Doc’s are sharing their information and what they’ve experienced throughout the years. So you know, Doc’s can feel free to post questions in there. And it’ll get answered only by me, but by other doctors who’ve got, you know, 15 or 20 years of experience as well. And then ducks will refer patients back and forth. Hey, I got a, I had a patient that a friend member in Chicago who’s in Chicago that I can send him to awesome, who’s got this laser does this kind of thing. So it’s a really fun interactive thing. We got some videos there. And that’s where we also announced upcoming seminars and webinars.
Dr. Chad Woolner: We’ll make it, we’ll make sure we put a link to that in the show notes so that if Doc’s want to check it out, they totally should. That’s awesome. So that’s it. All right, Doc’s well, that wraps up this episode. And we hope that this has been incredibly valuable for you. It’s been awesome. It’s been fantastic for us. So we will chat with you guys on the next episode. Have an amazing day. We’ll talk to you later.
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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.
On today’s episode we dive even deeper into the mechanisms behind how low level lasers work and what makes them such a powerful tool for clinicians. Dr. Marc shares some AMAZING stories of his experiences with low level laser therapy in his practice. To learn more about Dr. Marc you can check out his website here: https://www.oakcityhealth.com/
Dr. Chad Woolner: Alright everybody, welcome to episode four of The Laser Light show. We are super excited. We have with us on today’s episode, special guest Dr. Marc Funderlich and we are gonna be diving even deeper on how low level lasers work. This is gonna be part two from our previous episode (How Low Level Lasers Work Part 1 – Ed.). If you caught that we’re gonna talk a little bit further about the why and the how behind low level laser therapy. So let’s get right 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 Dr. Marc. We are super excited to have you here with us today.
Dr. Marc Funderlich: Thank you for having me. We always love going on podcasts and having discussions about medical devices.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah awesome. So tell us, we talked a little bit before we started the podcast about where you are from and it’s kind of a twofold question, where you’re from originally and where you currently are and it sounds like where you currently are is gonna change from time to time
Dr. Marc Funderlich: So I’m currently in Raleigh, North Carolina. We’re hoping that we can kind of be permanent residents of North Carolina going forward. I’m originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So you know I love Pittsburgh, love Pennsylvania but we’re hoping to make our permanent home down in Cary or Raleigh, North Carolina.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Awesome, awesome. So tell us a bit about your background in terms of your schooling, education, and obviously experience with lasers.
Dr. Marc Funderlich: Sure. So I am a chiropractor, graduated in March of 2017. My path through starting my clinical practice is kind of a little bit different than most other chiropractors. So I had a small clinical practice for probably six months in Pittsburgh and then my family decided to move and I actually took a job in neurosurgery working as an independent contractor across a lot of different hospitals in New Jersey, New York – right around New York City. And so, I was an intraoperative electrodiagnostician. I was doing cortical brain mapping and different things like that. The goal being either research – looking at brain function or patient safety. So making sure the surgeon doesn’t basically screw up your spinal cord or peripheral nerves or take away too much tissue during a brain surgery. So that was really where my kind of chiropractic career took a different turn. And from there, I got into the medical device space with Erchonia lasers and things like that. Now, we have a clinical practice that we’re getting ramped up again. I work on the medical education side for lasers and other medical devices and then we do clinical research so now that we’re settled, we’re going to be starting back up our epigenetics, Alzheimer’s, and neurodevelopmental disorder research that we kind of we’re getting into before I moved down here.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Very cool.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s what I love about chiropractors. The scope of what we do is so vast that we really like – there’s so many interesting people that I know who are chiropractors that do different things and that’s yeah, that’s amazing. What was there anything about laser therapy that was of interest to you? Like how did you make that connection?
Dr. Marc Funderlich: Sure so inside of the neurosurgery space, there are a lot of different types of lasers that are used. So they will do intravenous types of laser therapies. They’ll do a blade of laser therapies, dermatologists will use class IV CO2 based lasers and so the amount of different types of lasers that I saw in the operating room really kind of made me interested and then from working surgery researching and studying the different types of devices, the efficacy kind of engineering behind them, what made them work was a big part of what I had to do.
And so I learned alot about different types of medical devices and medical lasers and how they had different effects on tissue and so kind of pyramiding through that as I work my way out of the surgery sphere and into private practice. The lasers helped me differentiate myself in the clinical space where I was from the other practitioners and my ability to use that clinically with patients was vastly different than the other providers around me which really gave me a foothold to build my practice and build my own practice quickly.
So I think that is kind of how and the why and when I first started using lasers. I think I was 20 – I was less than a year graduated out of school and we had a really powerful patient experience and so we had a girl who was in high school and she was completely non-verbal. She wouldn’t talk, never spoke, she had seen a whole bunch of other doctors, she had seen applied kinesiology type doctor, she had done hyperbaric oxygen type treatments, she had done diets, supplements, you know everything that you could possibly do or imagine. And another treating doctor sent her back to me to try the laser since that’s something that she hadn’t tried and parents of children with neurodevelopmental disorders were willing to try and do everything and everything so we decided to use the laser on her transcranially.
And after the third visit, she got off of the table, she sat up, looked at her mom and said “I love you” to her mom as the first thing she ever said or ever did. And so that really impacted me kind of very early on in my career to figure out kind of what’s going on with these types of devices as well – besides, just my experience and neurosurgery and kind of use it as a platform to push forward how to implement and use these devices to help children which is kind of how I ended up getting teamed up with Erchonia and teaching a lot of the pediatric courses
Dr. Andrew Wells: Is that the direction of your practice- your private practice is heading, is working with kids with neurodevelopmental issues?
Dr. Marc Funderlich: So I would say 80% of my practice before COVID was just children and so it seems to be that children end up being attracted to me or you know however that “what you put into the world you get back” kind of thing where us in practice you know go and learn about disc injuries and all the sudden, there’s 10 disc patients on Monday. You know whatever that is no matter where I go, I seem to end up really drawing in a large number of children and so you know we do very comprehensive programs for children. So I think we did about 1200 blood draws in three years for children who were pre puberty which is a significant number of kids that we’ve used a laser on, done functional medicine with and done rehabilitation programs for. But I don’t necessarily exclude any other people if that makes sense.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s incredible man. What a story – what was your reaction to that when that happened?
Dr. Marc Funderlich: I think the only reaction is just for everybody to start crying and so you know? There is no words that I can describe how that moment is for a parent who has done so much for their child and for the realization of that parent who has done so much for their child, and for the realization of the parents to understand that the child has understood everything that they’ve done for their entire life, and then to finally have that expressive communication where you know it’s almost like saying “thank you” in the best way that the child can.
And so it’s been a couple years for that child and the thing that I think for a clinician is to really understand about the gravity of that situation is this child, we continue to work with her beyond just these three visits. And so once we had these types of results with her, that parent you know that patient is going to stick with you forever. And we continue to dig in and do more things with her and so what I also like to explain to people is that once we started getting the results with the laser, that allowed the mom to trust us to do blood work and things with the child.
And so we found out that the patient had an IGE total of over 3,000 which you know the normal range, depending on who you read, should be no more than 25 according to the labs or 300 according to some allergists and hers was 3,000. She had three or four autoimmune disorders – I mean there were tons of metabolic things going on with her and just from using the laser, we were able to shift the function of her brain to completely change her expressive language and you know beyond just not being able to talk. She wasn’t in regular school, she had been banned from Disney World because she had walked into the water around Epcot – she had walked off of a bridge twice and so they didn’t let her go there.
In the span of six to nine months, she was playing varsity soccer, she was playing varsity tennis, she can speak three languages now, she’s going to college. I mean she can obviously talk, you know it’s a complete shift in the paradigm of that child’s life and none of that would be possible without the application of the laser and so you just can’t unsee that.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s like to say that’s amazing is like the world’s biggest understatement. That’s incredible but like holy cow you can’t even articulate just how incredible that is. So how do you make sense of the mechanism right? Because here we’re talking about like how this works, how does it work? How did that happen? Like what have you, I’m assuming you’ve gone back and looked at that and pieced together on some level the research that Erchonia has put together and the current research that’s underway. Let’s unpack this and kind of dig in and share with us what you understand about that and moving forward now using lasers and how it works.
Dr. Marc Funderlich: Sure, so I think there’s really two ways to look at the laser based therapy. The thing that we tend to want to do is look directly at you know, I have a broken bone – I’m going to shine this light over the bone, and it’s going to do you know this and this which is going to drive the bone to heal better. But, I think at least where medicine is really going as a whole is more into the epigenetic factors, more into “how are cells being signaled?” How does that cell signaling changing things like cytokines and growth factors? And I think that is where the conversation with what laser does is heading.
And so we know as we believe we talked about in the previous podcast, how when you use the laser, you’re going to change the mitochondrial function by changing the enzymatic processes inside of the mitochondrial membrane to allow more ATP to be produced and that’s kind the – if what you shine the light on the mitochondria, what happens inside of that cell body or inside of that neuron. But what we also know from research with something like the 405 nanometer laser and something like the EVRL, that we’re going to activate different gene types and those different gene types are going to change not only the signaling system but change the cytoarchitecture of the cells.
And so if we frame this from a brain perspective, the first thing to kind of understand is that the brain is mostly run by immune system cells and really the function is carried out by the neurons or the brain specific cells and so when you look at how the 635 nanometer wavelength of light is interacting with immune system function to change the way that the networks of the brain are actually interacting. I think that’s kind of where the actual magic is inside of how we see these significant changes inside of something like the neurodevelopmental space.
There are some Russian studies where they put the laser directly into the bloodstream and they look at all the signaling pathways that are changed and so you can see changes in things like CRP, you can see changes in things like decreasing IL6 or increasing growth in factors like [INAUDIBLE] and so the actual genetic or epigenetic response is something that we are actually going to start looking into from a research perspective and we’re doing it across multiple medical devices so that way we can do a finger prick blood test for a patient and then build a treatment plan around it to use the medical devices that are most efficacious for that person’s actual epigenetic responses.
So I think that is kind of where the paradigm is shifting – the 635 nanometer laser doesn’t heat the brain. So it is a cold laser, you’re not going to create any inflammation. You’re going to change the cytokines such that the astrocytes and the microglial cells are going to function better which is going to unlock and allow the expression of the neurons that are being suppressed by different types of inflammatory markers or really the metabolic system. And so you’re going to get the energy increase, basically that we’ve talked about last time and that energy increase is going to happen in the neurons from shining the laser there. We are also going to change the entire cytokine milieu or cytokine structures that the neurons are bathed in, which will allow for the waste to be cleared out faster. It’ll allow for the astrocytes, if it’s in a very young child, to create better connections and so when we talk about plasticity but we look at solid rounds of brain development around the ages of two and then another solid round of brain development around the age of seven or nine.
If you’re doing things to change the brain function before the age of two, it is not really changing plasticity. You’re changing this cytoarchitecture of the brain and so the astrocytes are the things that are responsible for the actual pulling and connecting, so the laser is helping to dig better tunnels so the neurons can connect better as a, from a seeding perspective and it’s doing all that through the changing of the expression of cytokines and epigenetics in the immune system. So I think that was kind of a roundabout answer.
Dr. Chad Woolner: No, that was a great answer. How does, do you have a pretty decent idea of how BDNF plays a role in that in terms of lasers and impacting? Does it impact BDNF directly? Does it impact it indirectly that you’re aware of? Because I’m you know, the way I understand it, is BDNF kind of acts kind of, and maybe this is an incorrect analogy but like the orchestra conductor in terms of it. It helps facilitate a lot of these proper connections within the brain. Is that a correct way of looking at it or analogy?
Dr. Marc Funderlich: So I would say that the BDNF does a good job from a plastic perspective, it does a good job of helping solidify those new connections. And so you, I would argue if you were to use the laser on a patient that you improve BDNF output if you were doing some sort of co-activation within a timeframe of using that laser and doing the action so you’d have to do the action and use the laser at the same time. I don’t think just using the laser is going to create a big enough change in the BDNF -that’s really the responsible factor for brain derived treatments. The- just using the laser is going to do things, I think more around microglial modulation, antipathogenic factors, things like that. But when combined with something like exercise; let’s just say you’re on a HIT bike and you use the laser before the HIT bike which is always – my preference is to use the laser before the therapeutic activity minimally, you get much better production of things like brain derived neurotrophic factors to solidify those gains that you’re going to see from the therapeutic intervention of an exercise.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So almost like the laser helps set the stage for the things that are going to come directly after it to then anchor in the changes that you want to see taking place. Is that a good way of…?
Dr. Marc Funderlich: So that’s that was important so that’s kind of route one, one route two is it’s going to prevent negative side effects. So when you look at the research with laser and how the 635 nanometer light decouples the COX enzyme to allow the electron to be transported through to the final oxygen acceptor better. If you do something to stress the system and that COX enzyme is not diluting at a rate that is equivalent to the amount of energy expenditure you end up creating a backlog and the oxygen will end up being pushed off into hydrogen peroxide. So what you can end up happening with the increase of blood flow to the brain in the increased amount of oxygen to the brain, you can end up with the negative side effect of producing hydrogen peroxide which then leads to cellular death or mitochondrial death and that’s kind of you can classically think of that as if you had a concussion patient, you put them on a treadmill and made them run, they’re going to crash. And so you can make people crash from doing very simple exercises. You can make tissues besides just brain tissue crash and you can make it fibrose so if you’re a chiropractor and you’re dealing with an orthopedic type practice and you were to you know adjust a patient and put them on traction or decompressions and that tissue is not ready to be stretched, you’re going to make it fibrose. The laser is going to make sure that the appropriate amount of energy is going to be produced by those mitochondria stabilizing the cells so they can adhere to therapy and not go down the negative pathway that you may get with the percentage of patients that are going to have a quote-unquote negative response to whatever therapy you end up doing. So it’s protective and beneficial.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So if i’m hearing correctly, just as an overly simplified way of thinking about this – you can use the lasers pre to help get better results with the therapeutic activity you’re going to engage in and post to help protect against any of the potential negative consequences of a certain activity that a patient is involved in or that you’re going to do there. Is that a correct way? Is that what I’m hearing?
Dr. Marc Funderlich: So I would frame it as by using the laser for even 20 seconds before you were to do therapeutic intervention, you’re going to minimize your risk of a negative or adverse event as well as improve the mechanics of whatever that therapy as well.
So you can do it afterwards as well – you know something that we like to do since we do a lot of neuro rehabilitative exercises is we use the laser before the therapy and we use the laser after therapy. I don’t find, at least from my clinical practice, I haven’t found that the idea of using the laser for neuro rehabilitation during the exercises – it seems to be too complex and fatiguing for the patient. Just from a mental perspective then running around with the laser and things like that. So we do short bursts of laser before an activity and after an activity. If somebody wanted to do it during… you, I would count that really as doing it before. If let’s say about a disc patient that you were going to have do Mackenzie press ups or something like that or bird dogs and you had the laser on their back while they’re doing those things you’re going to start to see positive cellular responses to laser in about 20 seconds at least from the research that I’ve seen. So to get it quickly and all those benefits from very very short amount therapeutic intervention.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing
Dr. Marc Funderlich: Yes, so at least in our research that we’ve seen; 20 seconds seems to be like a super sweet spot for the minimum intervention necessary to create a significant change. We’ve seen significant reductions per the research. I believe there is a study with like 5,000 women with trauma and wound-like trauma and wounds, skin broken, everything like that, infectious disease coming into that as well. And just from 20 seconds of laser, they had a 98% satisfactory rate of reducing pain for those women with a 20 second treatment.
So it’s not like more treatment is necessarily always better in every practice and that’s something that we also found as well. When I first started using the laser we kind of just preset you know 10 minute treatments and I thought okay, this is having significant changes – why don’t I move it up to like a 20 minute treatment and then my results weren’t necessarily as good and so then I moved it back down to 10 minutes and then slowly started moving it to smaller and smaller increments based off of looking and reading all the research of how small the time frames are to get these significant backed results.
And now we do very very short laser treatment multiple times throughout a visit and we’re getting better results than we got when we did 10 minutes straight and so that’s why also think that when you look at something like the ATP production and we want to visually think about – I turn this laser on and I shoot it into the tissue and it’s dissolving the enzyme to allow for the ATP to be produced, if i keep doing that, you’re not going to keep dissolving the enzyme. The enzyme gets wrong in the ATP can go through and so the idea of just continuing to crush the tissue doesn’t necessarily make sense to me. I rather dissolve the enzyme, have an activity be performed, If it’s going to start to come back you know dissolve it again and then have an activity performed in these short bursts per se rather than just pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing and making the patient lay there for 20 minutes. So I think that really gears towards the cell signaling response theory as opposed to like the photons going into the mitochondria and like becoming something positive.
Dr. Chad Woolner: You know the analogy that I’ve heard used and I use you know is once water is boiling, you can’t boil it more. And so once it signal’s been signaled – once a reaction is in full effect, it’s gonna do what it’s gonna do whether the laser continue or whether it’s stopped and so that’s an interesting concept. How many typically in a typical visit will you laser them for these short bursts?
Dr. Marc Funderlich: So because we see such a variety of people, it’s really different for every patient. You know some people they come in, they might spend three hours at my clinic doing something and they come in for 40 visits and so those people we may be lasering them five or six times for 20 to 30 seconds. For some people you know we may end up doing like five minute treatments. If they’re just coming in for a specific issue and there is no kind of excess rehabilitation going on.
So I think for a standard chiropractic practice, using the laser before the adjustment before the decompression may be during something like electric stim, whatever your musculoskeletal complaint is doing it for five minutes before is really all you need to do. You know, I think there’s oftentimes we feel the need to provide value to the patient by doing something for x amount of time – so I think it might be hard for like a pain management type of clinic or a disc herniation clinic to convince those people to only do 20 seconds. But I really don’t think that if someone has an acute disc herniation, they need to go more than two to five minutes. Just really see the bulk of the benefit and then do whatever other therapy they’re going to do. And if you in a perfect world could do another 20 seconds out the door – that’s what I would do.
Dr. Andrew Wells: We were speaking to Dr. Dan Murphy about the Arndt-Schultz law, meaning that you don’t get a higher benefit for doing more of a good thing to a certain point. And so I’ve always heard a lot of docs using this ten minute protocol but you’re saying even as low as 20 seconds has a positive benefit or multiple rounds of 20 seconds. That’s a lot. That’s a lot less than I would have thought originally.
Dr. Marc Funderlich: So, if we shift the mechanics for a second. We know that if you were to shine the laser on your right arm and you have a left arm injury, we can see changes in the left arm at a more rapid rate. So we also know that things like the red blood cells are going to change. We know that you’re going to get proliferative changes in the cell signaling mechanisms of those tissues the same way that when you have an injury in one area, the stem cells may be driven up right? Everybody loves to talk about stem cells.
So, say you break your left arm, the stem cells get driven up in order to help repair that area. The growth factors get driven up from the rest of your body to get help and heal that area. It’s not just osteoclast fibroblast response at the left humerus. And so by lasering those other areas of the body, we know that those tissues they’re going to ramp up their production and their cell signalings for growth factors and things like that are going to go and help other areas as well. And so we have to also account for the systemic of the laser and not just the local effects of the laser.
To put that in a different perspective. If you’re looking at brain health, there is the want to laser over the area of proposed injury. So, let’s just use a stroke because it’s the easiest, clearest defined injury. Let’s say someone has a stroke in their right hemisphere… actually let’s go back as I have a stroke patient.
My stroke patient, who was seven years post stroke, had a middle strieble artery infarction. He had some good receptive language, he had terrible expressive language. He could say yes, no, and okay. That’s all he could say. He came to us, obviously, no change. He was in a nursing home style situation, his wife would drop him off at daycare or different babysitting groups that were just disguised as therapy groups that do the same stuff everyday.
So he came to us, we were doing our rehabilitation protocols but we started with a laser because we wanted to stabilize the area metabolically before we had him start doing these therapeutics and the idea you would want intrinsically to just laser over that expressive speech area but no, we just did kind of a global brief treatment protocol right? I believe we did two minutes and we kind of just did the neck. We did it globally on his brain and by the time we were done with our program for him, after about six months, he was able to put six to seven word sentences together. He got his driver’s license back, he was able to raise his right arm which has been spastic over his head and get things like towels off of the top shelf. He was able to integrate back into society again, becoming a functional member of the family. He had a son who was in college who he was basically absent for.
And so you know we lasered sometimes his neck. We lasered other areas of his brain and we saw the symptomatic areas of the areas where the stroke actually occurred. We saw functional changes but without just lasering over it. So again, you know how much of this is creating systemic changes as far as growth factors are concerned, not just having to laser over the area of the injury right.
If you have someone who has autism or someone who has a brain stem infarction, you don’t know you can’t see, right? No picture is really useful for defining how to rehabilitate that person or else you know, medical doctors would be amazing rehabilitating these patients because they would look at a picture and say there’s a problem. Just like we do in X-ray and so creating global changes with the laser occurs no matter where you place the laser. It doesn’t have to just go over the area of injury. We know that the immune system is systemic. They’re growth factors are systemic. The ability of the immune system to use those and guide and direct those are more important than just lasering over the area of pain. And so I think it has to be thought of as systemic therapy. Even though we want to just laser over the area of pain or injury or whatever it may be. Which then again leads to a larger mechanism of action that has to do with cell signaling and cascading as opposed to just enzyme degradation of the mitochondria in that one specific area where you’re lasering over.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing, seriously. Mind blown here in terms of that, no wonder you’re doing what you do. That’s got to be extremely rewarding for you to be able to see these types of results and get to experience firsthand. How many of your patients would you say are in this category? I mean is this what you’re describing here as pretty typical cases that you see?
Dr. Marc Funderlich: Yeah so, we see a lot at least from before we closed our practice and moved. We saw a lot of people but you know because of the therapies we’re integrating with people in the way we work with them. We have specific pillars and specific goals.
Like if you’ve ever seen My 600lb Life and I think it’s like TLC or something with the weight loss surgeons. Now, the patients come in, they have to do a dial lifestyle nutrition before he will approve them for their weight loss surgery and so we work with a lot of patients and we don’t just have a preset model of care and so we have patients come in. We make very clear and defined goals that we take them through to make sure that each phase of care, they’re getting optimal results and by the time you compile all of those whether it takes three months, three weeks, or you know, nine months; we’re gonna make sure that patients has optimal function around whatever it may be at the time they are through with their care plan which is custom made to them.
So I think the total number of patients that we saw in the three years was somewhere around 3,000 patients between me, and my wife, and kind of the team. But, each one of those patients was spending somewhere between 40 hours to probably 10 hours in the office. So, very intense work you know. We’re really building relationships the way that my model really runs is, we have occupational therapists and kind of other licensed providers who are carrying out the daily treatment protocols that are set forth by me. I’m looking at the diagnostics and we have almost an open area of rehab, so someone may be doing like a virtual reality rehabilitation for their spastic arm. Somebody may be doing primitive reflex exercises and we have an open gym style where I can work with a bunch of people at one time where it’s more me helping the therapists provide the therapy properly. If there’s anything that’s wonky and then me doing intakes and things like that.
So we can give people very specific and guided care and then help them so they feel like it’s a personalized experience and then it is but you know we’re teaching and learning and going through everything together.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Dr. Marc, what would you say to a clinician who maybe has very little to no experience using laser therapy and wanting to introduce this into their practice? What advice would you give them as sort of a standing point?
Dr. Marc Funderlich: So, I think because whenever I got…the laser was the first large purchase I would say that I had out of school. I graduated in 2017. I think about six months into practice is when I purchased the first laser that I ever got. And so…the thing about laser, especially when it comes from a place of being like a 635 nanometer class II laser is that you’re going to see results. It’s very very hard to mess it up. And so from my perspective, and this will be a two-part answer, from my perspective. I wanted to see more intense cases. I wanted to see harder cases.
Those cases kind of came to me using something like the laser insulates your results so that way you can learn to deal with these harder, more complex cases if that’s what you want while you’re still learning. Because it’s hard to do these things without seeing the patients, but it’s hard to ethically market that you do these things when you’ve never seen the patients. And so using the laser to provide the cover that you are going to help somebody get the result that they desire really helped me have the confidence to build the practice that I wanted so that’s kind of one. Two; if you stay with the standardized protocols and you’re just using them for an everyday chiropractic practice, because it’s a non-thermal device, you’re not going to aggravate the injuries that other types of lasers may aggravate.
So, once you get into class IV lasers, which are designed to heat and/or cut, or you get into sauna type situations, or you get into the infrareds which also create heat in vasodilation, you start to have to know what you’re doing more because those devices can create negative impacts. If you have an acute disc herniation you use a class II laser, there’s not going to have to be any heat to inflame an already inflamed injury or if you have an acute concussion, you’re not going to inflame that inflammatory process more to where you’re going to create more and neuronal damage and more symptoms with the class II laser.
Once you start getting into the saunas the class fours, you can actually find growth plates. If you’re using it on children, you can create postural tachycardia symptoms in patients who have a neurologic disease. You’re going to create just inflammatory processes and so you don’t know what you’re going to get with those. With this, you know what you’re going to get. You know if you use it for 20 seconds to 10 minutes you’re going to get a positive result. Let’s say that whetherI use the laser for 20 seconds or 5 minutes, I’m going to get 80% of the positive result and you know maybe if I use it for “too long” maybe I don’t get that last 10% of optimality. But you’re still getting the patient an 80% significant result in the positive direction. So, just getting the laser and not necessarily worrying about what settings are. You’re putting in and just start using it on people. If you’re not comfortable using it over the area of injury like if they broke their left arm and you’re afraid to use it on the left arm, start with the right arm, and you’re going to start seeing results by just using it in a very non-invasive way. Build your confidence and it won’t take you very long to end up using it more intensely with people if that makes sense.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. It sounds like this is kind of a very easy crawl-walk-run approach to using this without having to worry about hurting somebody, making a condition worse. And just this is what I’ve heard from other doctors as well so you’re reaffirming what’s being said is that just start somewhere on people. If that’s an oversimplification. I kind of learned if you want to advance to a higher level and start dealing with more complicated conditions, more complicated patients. There’s a runway to be able to learn those protocols but even you know that you can’t really mess it up is what you’re saying.
Dr. Marc Funderlich: So, if you look at the people and again, I don’t like this thought process, but you know people inside of the laser space will argue if you’re using this many milliwatt laser at this many nanometers and this much output and that’ll be this dose of… and like that doesn’t matter. It’s not like a medication where if you don’t get the right dose you don’t get the right outcome. It has to be thought of as therapy that is creating a signaling cascade response and it’s creating a modulatory response and since it’s creating a modulatory response, the dose as far as getting it perfect is not the important thing. It’s creating the response that’s the most important thing.
I can only get that response from using the right wavelengths because it’s a photochemical effect and not a photothermal effect. Or else you would just say we would spend the money on a laser and just buy a hot pack.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I’m visualizing this is almost as if you’re doing a domino rally. If you want to knock over all the dominoes to get to the last one, you start by pushing the first domino and the body will do what it needs to do to correct itself right.
Dr. Marc Funderlich: 100% just if you look at the research and you say okay, using a laser will systematically decrease IL6 in this scenario and it’ll increase in this scenario and it decreases reactive oxygen species, but this scenario the reactive option species actually increased intracellularly for this amount of time which then allows for a hermetic increase in the antioxidant system, so it ends up being a net pot right? You can bog yourself down with all of the micro details, but what it really boils down to is creating a positive modulatory cell signaling response. It’s changing enzymatic processes. It has to be doing it in a positive way because we’re seeing positive systemic changes.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing, absolutely amazing. Dr. Marc…
Dr. Andrew Wells: You do a really good job by taking complex things and making them really simple. That was one of my fears I had with these episodes. We’re talking about how low level laser therapy works? It’s like man, I can tell that you know the science, but it’s also really reassuring to say like start somewhere, you’re not gonna hurt people. I love the comment they made, it’s not like you can’t mess up the dose like you could with pharmacology and really do some major damage and so I hope Docs listening to this are very encouraged by that, even if you don’t have the brain like Dr. Marc obviously has that shouldn’t dissuade you from connecting with a life-changing therapy that’s available to you.
Dr. Marc Funderlich: Yeah and there’s no reason, I mean from my perspective when we look at it from a practice management perspective, one 20 seconds is 20 seconds. If you can’t find 20 seconds to improve your therapeutic outcomes, then I don’t really know what…there’s no argument I can make to convince you because you’re coming from a place of presupposed bias of some kind. 20 seconds is 20 seconds. That’s kind of one. And two, if you’re able to use it, you know anywhere on the body and create a systemic positive change, then the level of risk factor to using it in a let’s say high volume practice where you know you may not be able to have all of the micro details managed right? Your risk factor or risk mitigation with a class II laser is so small right you don’t have to really change much from a malpractice perspective.
When you add that therapy in because it’s a known effective safe therapy if you want to integrate like Asana, if you want to integrate something like a class IV laser depending on which one it is you may have to disclose that to your malpractice insurance because if something goes wrong, and I’ve worked in a practice that has had class IV lasers. I kind of worked in it when I first graduated to supplement while I was building my other business and I mean we made disc injuries worse. We created burns you know that became boils right? These are things that get you in trouble and if you have a high volume practice and you are using chiropractic assistants or people there’s going to be some level of error. There’s going to be some amount of people that are going to get hurt.
That’s just not going to happen with a class II. The worst thing that you’re going to do is do it for too long and not get as positive over a result? Yeah well right because I was using the laser on people’s brains for 20 minutes and it wasn’t that it wasn’t helping it was just not helping as much. So I said why am I wasting my time doing this for so long when it’s not creating any net therapeutic positive over what I was doing before and so between only needing 20 seconds which can be integrated into any space, having to be a class II device that can be run by a chiropractic assistant so it doesn’t even need to take up your time and being safe and efficacious. There’s no reason not to use it.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing Dr. Marc. For Docs who are interested in learning more from you, where would you recommend they connect with you?
Dr. Marc Funderlich: I don’t know! If they reach out to Erchnoia or put them in contact with me. We are developing some new class work to come out in 2022. If you guys want I can give you an email and a phone number that they can contact if they want personal help, or if they want to be put on a waiting list for future education.
I do own some other distribution and some other companies that we are building online education out for that. They can be put on a waiting list that way we can take these topics and five deeper into them where we have no time limit so we can go through everything and you know then they have that forever to rewatch and play because we’re designing it to be watched on a cell phone. We’re designing it to be app based so that way it’s really designed for the 21st century as opposed to just you know, filming people behind a teleprompter upon a stage talking. You know we’re designing it for an iPhone for handheld devices, so that way you can integrate the education wherever you are!
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, we’ll make sure we put any links in terms of that here in the show notes so that Docs can connect with you for sure because I guarantee you’re gonna have a lot of docs who are very interested in learning more about these subjects. Dr. Wells, was there anything else you wanted to add?
Dr. Andrew Wells: No, other than that thank you so much for being a guest on the show. This is exactly what we hoped this episode was going to be and I think a lot of doctors are going to benefit from this. Hopefully, they will and you know one of the resounding messages I got of this and hope Docs also got was there really is no reason to use something like this in your clinic. Whether you’re high volume, low volume, complicated cases, there’s a spot for laser therapy for every type of practice.
Dr. Marc Funderlich: Yeah, if we look at just the way that we, you know, whatever term you want to use, evolved, designed, as people we have an entire lobe of our brain dedicated to the visual system right. We have the endocrine system linked to light based off of the sun and our circadian rhythm that helps control your endocrine system so it makes sense from a fundamental perspective that a light-based therapy is going to create significant changes when people are so visually driven. You know we’re not near infrared drive. We’re not sona driven, right. We are visible light spectrum driven entities and so it only makes sense to use a visual light based laser to help signal those changes inside of our body, so I think it falls in line with us in kind of the most fundamental of ways.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, thank you again Dr. Marc. We appreciate you being here. We could definitely go on and on and I foresee us trying to get you on the show again at some other point here in the not too distant future for sure. So, we appreciate your time Docs. I hope that you also found this as valuable as we did. We would encourage you to share this with your colleagues. We know this can help you ultimately more patients so that’s it for this episode and we look forward to sharing more with you guys on the next episode, so have a good one.
Thanks for listening to The Laser Light Show. Be sure to subscribe and give us a review. If you’re interested in learning more about Erchnoia lasers, just head on over to Erchonia.com. There you’ll find a ton of useful resources including research news and links to upcoming live events, as well as Erchonia’s e-community where you can access for free additional resources including advanced training and business tools. Again, thanks for listening and we will catch you on the next episode.
On today’s episode we explore some of the “how” and “why” behind low level laser therapy with Dr. Jerome Rerucha. Dr. Rerucha is a brilliant clinician who has been using low level laser therapy in his clinic for over 2 decades! To learn more about his Dr. Rerucha and his work go to: https://www.performancepractic.com/
Dr. Chad Woolner: What’s going on everybody, Dr. Chad Woolner here with my good friend Dr. Andrew Wells and our special guest today Dr. Jerome Rerucha and on today’s episode 3 of The Laser Light Show, we are going to be talking about low level laser therapy and how it works and this is going to be a two-parter. So this is part one of how low level laser light therapy works. 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, and welcome to the show Dr. Rerucha. We are super excited to have you here, thank you so much for taking the time out of your schedule to be here with us.
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Thanks for having me as well, excited to be here with you and thanks for all you’re doing as well.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, you bet. So, this episode, fresh off of the heels of episodes one and two really kind of help set the stage a little bit behind the history behind Erchonia and kind of the research side of things and really dove into a little bit more in terms of what that looks like in terms of the process and it’s quite the ordeal in terms of time and money involved and the research behind it. What we wanted to do in this episode is maybe dive in a little bit more behind the mechanisms behind low level laser therapy. You’ve been doing this for quite some time, so maybe to kick it off, maybe tell us a little bit about you, your background, and how you kind of came to be with Erchonia.
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Yeah, I graduated chiropractic school early 2000s, prior to that I was a full-time strength coach so physiology, neuromechanical biology was a huge interest for me and I took that in a performance model. And I really wanted to make people faster, stronger, healthier, so I looked at chiropractic, the advantages, that allowed me to have a really good experience with the very dynamic of chiropractor growing up. So, that kind of set the stage of what I was doing and right at the time of my graduation I got introduced to low level laser therapy and Erchonia. And so shortly after that I dove into it pretty deeply and started using it in my practice and met the primaries of the company relatively soon after that with my excitement, results we were getting, how we could pair that with the physiology systems within the body. I started teaching with them shortly after that and basically 22 years later and here we are and there’s been a lot that’s happened since then when we look at the research validation, understanding what’s happening underneath the microscope, what actually happens to the cells, not just with obvious strength and range of motion, symptomatic improvements per say. But really understanding more than we had any understanding when we first started this, it’s been a really exciting journey. So many people have come and brought their level of expertise, some of the people you spoke with already with interviews with this have been instrumental and just a big team approach.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, what’s cool about it, what I love hearing when you tell that story is what I think is so cool about it is this kind of best of both worlds approach. Meaning it’s not as though Erchonia was sitting on the sidelines waiting to use these tools until there was the placebo control, double blind studies that were published, but rather along the way the entire time, docs like you were in the trenches using these tools, you saw first hand what was happening. You knew there was real validation objectively in terms of evidence and simultaneously alongside you Erchonia was there digging in, fighting the good fight and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars that go into these research projects. So it’s kind of cool to see that. Because I think sometimes, at least this is my perspective, there can be a little bit of a disconnect between the world of academia and then the actual like real world. When people look at studies, and I’m not suggesting that studies are bad, studies are great, we want them we need them, but let’s never forget at the end of the day if you don’t have the actual real world in the trenches things that are happening, docs like you on the front lines treating patients and really sharing what you’re experiencing and seeing first hand the right hand and the left hand communicating, does that make sense?
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: I couldn’t agree with you more, and coming from the strength and conditioning world we always said that strength coaches on the hands-on applications were so far ahead in making people bigger, faster, stronger. If you told the majority of PhDs out there that people can squat 1,000 pounds, they would have no idea how to do that or even understand the mechanisms and training protocol to do that. Whereas, it’s fairly common sense not every strength coach puts people who are competitive strength athletes, and of course you tailor that specifically, how does this apply to make you a better, healthier athlete that you’re taking it for.
Obviously you don’t need to squat 1,000 pounds but if you know how to do that it gives you a lot of advantages when you’re creating those protocols. And, clinically, for me, it’s the same thing. We never waited for the research, you could tell it’s incredibly safe, non-invasive, obviously light therapy was being used the mid 60s in Europe even though this is very different, huge improvement in the technology itself and the devices themselves. There was very little research so it was very skeptical to say the least, probably not very thought of highly in the world of medicine or anything because the research wasn’t there. But as a clinician, there’s no doubt, we really saw something and how it could help people.
And it was the best of both world you know we had a bunch of aggressive practitioners who aren’t waiting for permission to have it be accepted and Erchonia was doing the diligence from ground zero and really going off of those clinical success we were having I mean just asking the question, how can we learn more about this? How can we make this tangible through academia information based on what these clinicians are reproducibly doing and it took both sides. You wouldn’t want me running a research study, I’m just a good clinician.
Dr. Chad Woolner: If there’s one thing that I can see very clearly is that Erchonia itself as a company as well as all the practitioners, the one thing I can see, the common denominator, is that there is an immense sane level of passion behind this application but just learning in general there’s just a love, an insatiable love of learning and constantly innovating and developing, and so I can’t have anything but a tremendous level of respect that. I’m similar, when I get excited about something I definitely can geek out on it and I think that’s something that all if not most chiropractors and I think doctors in general can appreciate too. I think there’s a mutual geekiness that we all share in terms of digging in and all that so totally.
And the other thing I was going to say too it prompted me, I had heard this before from somebody, I can’t remember who so sorry if I’m not giving credit to somebody. But they said if you want to know in terms of nutrition and supplements, like who’s always on the cutting edge, it’s always the strength and conditioning world, all of the bodybuilding world, they’re always on the front lines, they always have their finger on the poll of what’s… even beyond the realm of study that I saw and I’ll just share, let me pull it up real quick because the title of the study says it all, and I saw this and we banked it away. It says, it was published in England, it was not a study, it was a review but basically it said: “The answer is seventeen years, what is the question? Understanding time lags in translational research.”
So, I think you can appreciate that being in your world and seeing Erchonia in terms of the lags and times sometimes you’ll have various modalities that you know work and yet research and that world is so far behind, especially no doubt with conventional medicine and conventional approaches, there are probably at best 10 or 15 years behind, if not more than that in terms of those lags. So, it’s cool you know that you not only had the world exposure clinically as a chiropractor, exposure to Erchonia but also just your background like you said in bodybuilding and in strength and conditioning, that probably kind of gave you a certain advantage or edge if you will in the term so of seeing 10 to 15 years in the future so to speak, you know?
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Without a doubt, I mean coming from the athletic world and competitive athletic world we’re all about prove it and it’s about winning and losing. It’s like when you win consistently it’s like I don’t care if it’s written in the books, we know what we’re doing, we can engineer it and understand the premise, and just because it’s not there academically, we prove it all the time. And that is absolutely what nutrition, science of food, supplementation has done in the training world. And it’s a great model, you know this is kind of one of those situations, it was a really good blend early on, like I said Erchonia did a great job really looking out, starting very conservatively in the research world but it was a priority to them and they did a great job validating and bringing it to fruition, way more significantly than what was done prior to them.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s a really good segue into talking about how laser therapy actually works and I think we’ve all heard the term, we’re gonna wave the magic wand and good things happen, and Erchonia kind of seems like that proverbial magic wand right, that’s how the actual application of the therapy works you wave some light over something and it gets better and most of us have heard all these really cool transformational health stories of people who have seen amazing changes with their health by using laser therapy, Erchonia laser therapy. So what we want to do today is really kind of start to understand what some of the mechanisms of healing are, when do you start to use laser therapy, what’s actually happening.
Speaking from a chiropractic standpoint it’s nice when you adjust a patient and they feel and hear something, they hear a pop and they feel something moving and they’re like, ok it worked that time that was a good adjustment. And, the frustrating thing for me, having had an Erchonia laser on my brain, I’m like, I don’t know if it’s working, how does it work? What is it doing? What is it not doing? Is it done? Did it start? And so we don’t have enough of these immediate sensory responses to what’s actually happening and so the reason we wanted Dr. Rerucha to come on the show is, he’s going to help Doctors understand what’s actually going on in the body and what the science is behind these amazing health transformations that are happening so Dr. Rerucha, where do you want to begin with this topic?
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Well, a little bit about what you just mentioned, so low level laser therapy, I mean even chiropractic can seem a little bit of what I refer to as invisible. And I know when I was a patient, and lasers weren’t being really used anywhere, a very small group of people, and I had no exposure when I was a patient prior to going to chiropractic school with laser therapy. And, so, I guess what I would say under traditional chiropractic, I probably got adjusted for the first time when I was three years old.
And, my family’s always been, they weren’t chiropractors themselves, but used chiropractic. My grandpa lived to a 100 and I think he said he got adjusted for the first time when he was nine years old. He was one of pioneer patients and it was just pretty consistently used all through his life. He was an expert on chiropractic practices as he was a patient no doubt. He used it a lot, it transferred over to my dad and then my family. So, one of the things to it was neat, and I grew up under a variety type of chiropractors but then one person who then created Team, moved into our town and they were AK-CK based which was even more like a magic show, that was even more fascinating than the original chiropractors I went to which were no disregard to that, I mean you didn’t know. You got the pop, you were in and out of there, there wasn’t really an exam. And it was like, hey it felt good, and these types of things.
We actually want, primarily, my sister had allergies, so we didn’t go for neck pain, back pain necessarily and you know we just went on a family plan and just got a tune up. So, that was a great decision on my parents’ part to do that, not using it for symptomatology alone but the benefits that we know adjusting and neuromechanical biology can provide. But there was a lot of questions yet, you were just kind of like, and it was just by personality, I always, it bothered me as a patient how little people knew about chiropractic and what people aren’t up on they’re down on, so you kind of hear the negatives from the consumer market and it was fascinating to me, you know. What it really did for me was amazing.
And, then when we went to this other chiropractor that moved to our town, he was an AK doctor, could move every bone in the body still to this day he’s one of the greatest adjusters I’ve ever been around. He can smoke it. And a couple ladies were in the office as well and they were equally as good, just a great experience. And, I always wanted to understand it more, you know the whole concept through the eyes of the patient to the power that made the body heal, heal the body, and that’s not as validating to a patient as it is to the doctor and to me, I can wholeheartedly understand and believe in that now.
But, so that tangibility, so, when I decided to be a chiropractor, I made a commitment that I was going to take education as seriously as I take my adjusting skills and knowledge of being a chiropractor, physical, chemical and emotional. And so we have, we’ve always worked really hard to provide information, explaining to patients what I want them to know what’s really important to a patient. To understand the real importance of the adjustment not just the importance of the philosophy necessarily but the physiology, what goes on. It should be very tangible, it’s a very tangible thing. And, one thing that was a blessing for me was when a chiropractor would do muscle testing and show you dysfunction, through a very specific adjustment and you got a response. That was amazing and fascinating, especially somebody who very early on had the drive to lift weights and compete in strength and conditioning sports and that’s everything. If you can recruit muscles and if they’re not turning on, how you’re compensating, how you’re just not recruiting and ideally using your techniques. So that was eye-opening.
And so the same thing when I started using laser, we were the ones who initially did this, we did a lot of showmanship, I guess even though it was the exam where we could show people these dysfunctions even if you just used simple myotome tests, take their history, listen to them, and you could show things that aren’t functioning not working properly, and then you just use the laser and turn them on. You know, so it made it very tangible. So we didn’t have the academic information at that time like we do now, but we had very very good preimposed applications to show people with the laser.
And, now there’s so many different personalities and so many types of chiropractors that use it, and you can use these point and shoot, so similar to what you were saying, you know they lasered your brain and you’re like, okay is it on? Is it doing anything? You know if a certain type of practitioner did an exam that would be very tangible to you and it’s not just a brain exam, but seeing how the whole nervous system is connected and obviously the brain is a keystone. And that makes it very tangible to people even when you don’t know the academia. But we are living in the best of both worlds where you can learn a very practical or a very advanced examination that is even ideal for documentation and insurance billing if you want to do those things, but of course whether you’re a cash practitioner this document, proper documentation is really important. Strength, range in emotions, the gold standard. So that works great for patient education. Apply lasers whether you’re doing an attended or unattended application and then show a change. So, different people practice different ways obviously but those are things that are available out there.
Dr. Chad Woolner: I think, I want to connect some dots for Docs who are listening to this because I think what you’re saying is whether they have connected these dots themselves and realized it themselves; many if not most docs are looking for more and better ways to change the conversation from it being purely a symptom/pain based conversation which can be frustrating for a lot of physical medicine practitioners. Be it chiros or physical therapists or whoever, that when we’re dealing with something as nebulus oftentimes as pain, that can be a really frustrating situation because of the objective findings that are there can be a little bit allusive in terms of, you know you’ve got your various questionnaire instruments like oswestry questionnaire, neck disability, you know you’ve got all these different things. But what you’re talking about here is a very simple, very simple, very tangible, very accessible way to shift the conversation in a way which I think again, is what a lot of Docs if not most are looking to do is shift that away from it being feeling versus function. You’re talking purely a way, a simple, very accessible way to shift into a function based conversation as opposed to chasing nebula symptoms all day long.
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Yeah, that’s always how I practice and under certain expectations I don’t do that oswald questionnaire on everybody, if you were gonna be doing a personal injury case those are the standard forms that I would highly recommend. You know, you need to achieve the standard of care before you exceed the standard of care, and so those would be things that documentation of the oswestry forms, things like that are really important and necessary. They don’t make me a better clinician and there’s no reason you can’t do both, you know by using those things are appropriate, but having this functional assessment always carries over and it’s just about developing that rhythm and we do live in very exciting times, in terms of what we can apply.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So, here’s kind of where I think we should take the conversation, because this is where I’m mentally tracking right, the question being is how does low level laser therapy work? And we’re kind of almost from a macro level looking at, okay you’re seeing these things happening, you’re not exactly sure first the mechanisms behind how they’re happening, you just know they’re happening. And so then Erchonia comes into the picture in terms of their research they start producing it, they start giving better explanations to you and to other clinicians, this is from a physiological standpoint what we see happening based on the research. So, maybe talk to Docs about that. Like what did you start learning? When did those two roads kind of intersect in terms of what you were seeing in the day to day versus the research and maybe explain that to docs in a simple, straightforward manner.
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Yeah, so the biggest change that I’ve seen since I’ve been doing this for 22 years is that, like I said, when we first started pretty much everybody is I call the earlier doctors and there the segment of chiropractic they don’t need research to validate, hey this is a fantastic healing device, and a lot of them were muscle testers at that time. And, so just showing them the functional tests and the functional improvements and even though A.K. has always had the five factors of the IBFs to where they were finding the range of strength and motion and the differences in you’re using nutrition, emotional of course, the adjustments, soft tissue corrections, neurolymphatics and that never goes away.
Like we’re not saying this is even a substitute for any of that but it really was obvious that hey something else is happening here, it’s very complementary to everything in the body. So, what we learned and is completely irrefutable now, this is not a hypothesis and even if you’re still a skeptic, of if you want to bring low level laser therapy into your office, there is nobody out there who disregards the fact that low level laser therapy affects the mitochondria to produce ATP. And that’s it. That is one of the most important and simple understandings, and then when we break that down, it’s like okay, so what does that mean for me, the clinician, no matter what licensure they have, so every cell in your body has mitochondria except mature red blood cells.
And so that’s why even when you go into Pubmed, you can type in low level laser therapy and type in the word ‘and’ and pick all sorts of name diagnosis or symptoms and you’ll find out there’s hundreds of symptoms and diseases that you can add to that, that validates the use of low level laser therapy. So, I always tell patients there’s over 30,000 symptoms and diseases written in medical journals, there’s only 14 systems in the body, every cell in the body has mitochondria except mature red blood cells. And what we’re gonna do with this laser is we’re going help identify where there’s breakdowns are in the body, whether it’s the nervous system, muscles, even visceral somatic reflexes, organs aren’t able to keep up with the demands, and we’re gonna see, you know where can we apply the laser to, yes, have systematic benefits. But where’s the mitochondria of these cells really injured? And show them pre and post changes, you know.
The strength and range of motion exams you can do, and you can do more extensive than that but everybody, not everybody muscle tests at an A.K. level but everybody in school was taught myotome testing, no matter what your licensure is. And even chiropractic is diverse in techniques and how people practice, everybody was taught myotome so even when we had that baseline philosophy of the nervous system connects all things in the body, and it’s absolutely true. And, think of how metabolically active your heart is which is phenomenal just to think about that but the central nervous system uses more ATP energy than the heart does even. And so if you’re the most principled chiropractor in the world, that your subluxation based, well if you really understand subluxations and how subluxations in the mitochondria coincide to each other, would you rather adjust somebody with 40% of the mitochondria working or would you rather adjust someone with 60 or 65% of the mitochondria working and that’s a fact. So, I don’t care how good of an adjuster you are, you’re always gonna get a better response from your adjustment the more mitochondria you can get involved. And the lasers are a phenomenal complement to that of how it works at a cellular level immediately.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah that’s amazing. Absolutely incredible. And I think that’s a really easy concept to grasp for docs, right. That using lasers stimulates the mitochondria, mitochondria then has, and that would explain too I think, we were talking about it earlier, this sort of explains a lot of the systemic things that we see. The systemic, because I think sometimes, at least previous to my exposure to Erchonia, we would think of lasers as being very focal, localized, you know? We’ve got an elbow issue so we’re going to laser the elbow and no doubt it’s going to have an effect there but there’s also far reaching impacts from just that one spot there and if you start talking about mitochondria that at least, on some level, begins to explain part of that whole issue there in terms of the systemic effects that we see.
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Yeah, in today’s day and age, like I said, there’s more chiropractors that are newly getting exposed to lasers that probably predominantly use the lasers symptomatically, similar to what the random blind double sight studies do. Here’s your symptom, laser the symptom, and then we’ll re-evaluate over time. And that works, like lasers really can be used as a standalone but like anything I’m really big into integration and of course natural healing integrative techniques, and so when we do see that, they do, they work really well in point and shoot but it’s easy for chiropractors to understand to, hey I could have carpal tunnel and my neck needs to get adjusted and I never even adjust the wrist, and you’re going to help a lot of people just by doing that. Hopefully you have the capabilities of adjusting extremities, doing soft tissue work and adjusting the spine at a ninja level, but that’s not a hard grasp for chiropractors.
So that’s the foundation we all share, and it is really fun over all these years to see very successful chiropractors for 40 years, they’ve been practicing much longer than I have, very successful practices, and not saying they’re burned out, but you know anybody, you do something long enough and you kind of would like to get revitalized a bit. So you see these people with their long standing successful practices for 40+ years, and they come to a laser seminar and it’s like, okay, this is neat. And then you talk to them for one year, three year, five years later, they’re like a little kid like: oh my gosh, things were great before but this has changed everything, my practice is completely different, people don’t just come in for the acute symptomatology and then they leave when it’s done. They come in for so many different things and it’s really allowed them to share chiropractic with a larger audience because we live in the technology age and we live in the information age and lasers are sexy, they definitely check the box for technology, and there’s so much information behind them. Just the FDA clearances that Erchonia has but you go into pubmed and you can find validating research under any way of how you practice. Just to really again give that patient that ease of mind of how long this has been around, how safe and effective this is, and again those basic concepts of how it works and it is, it’s a game changer of patients understanding and being able to get help.
Dr. Andrew Wells: The thing I’m hearing here too is that when we start talking about neurology and we start talking about biochemistry, I know some chiropractors, especially those who have been out of school for a long time and they’ve forgotten a lot of these concepts it’s really encouraging I think for docs to hear, hopefully encouraging to hear that this is a technology and device and therapy you can use like we call, point and shoot, and still get really good results without having to have a diplomate neurology or some advanced training. Like you can really pick this up and start having an impact on the lives of your patients and I think that’s really really encouraging. And I think it’s a good place to start and I keep hearing this from doctors who have way more education and in-depth understanding of how it actually works on a physiological level they’re saying, yeah just, get it on your patients, start using it, and you’ll start seeing results. Is that what I’m hearing?
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: A little bit, I would never belittle all the efforts that were put into this and all the knowledge but it really does, it’s like, to have an instructor that can lecture into the ear of the listener and some practitioner have different needs, they have different questions for instance. And, so you just really help them understand the basic premise of this and listen to how they practice, and say, okay when you go back this is going to work really good for you, to apply the laser into how you practice and then hit the start button and get out of the way of the healing. You know? Don’t think you have to know everything, you’re going to learn a lot about laser therapy just by doing it because you are so smart with how you practice already, and what’s priorities in your office. I always tell doctors it’s like, rule number 1: you don’t change your practice to bring laser therapy into your practice. So, lasers fit into your existing practice, just as it is. So that’s whether you’re an upper cervical doctor or a craniopath, a functional medicine doctor, whether you think the pelvis solves all the problems of the world or you think the feet solve all the problems of the world, it’s great! Don’t change anything, just apply lasers into the great work you do and it just gives you that physiological advantage to implement with that neuromechanical biology in the great work that you’re doing.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, I would imagine that this opens doors for practices in a variety of ways including, like you kind of had eluded to people who maybe otherwise wouldn’t consider seeing a chiropractor for whatever preconceived notions or misconceptions or biases that they might have. I would say exactly what you said is that the technology aspect can be very appealing to people, the cutting edge nature of it and that perception can really really help. And just the fact too that inherently you’re going to open the door to help a wider range of patients that previously you may not have had the ability or the tools necessary to be able to help them. Or at least to be able to help them to a higher degree, you know? And that to me is the most appealing aspect for my clinic of getting lasers involved.
And, I think too, personally, it sends a statement to your patients that you’re willing to invest for their benefit, that you’re willing to constantly seek to keep your finger on the pulse of cutting edge research and whatever is necessary. That’s the one thing we’ve heard in our clinic over the years from our patients is that we’re constantly looking for ways to drop any biases that we have or any sort of…. sometimes chiropractors can have a tendency to be myopic in terms of their various respective techniques. My technique is the best. I don’t need anything else and for us at our clinic, we’re kind of the opposite and that we’re just trying to just keep our eyes as open as possible and make whatever tweaks and changes are necessary. If it means better outcomes for our patients, we’ll definitely look at it and implement it or at least try to do so. I think that’s a powerful addition for sure and a way to just help change more lives for the better.
Dr. Andrew Wells: So we’re talking a little bit about this working systematically versus like a focal approach. Is that to say that you don’t have to be specific in terms of where you’re applying laser therapy. So we talked about you’re seeing the results when you’re doing muscle testing you see the immediate effect afterward. What is your approach when you’re actually applying laser therapy doing it in this? I imagine you’re falling at a very specific protocol for a specific thing or is that not true?
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Well, why practice just a certain way. I’m a very systemic practitioner and so I even have a program called brain body fit and will teach clinicians to do our 3D brain mapping and 3D body mapping and how they coincide together. So the body affects the brain, the brain affects the body.
And me personally, I don’t have a bias. I couldn’t care which of the 206 bones I adjust, I can adjust them all, I know how they all work in a cross-bulb neural inhibition pattern and those are fancy words to say that doesn’t matter without hand knowledge having hand knowledge. Having head knowledge is pretty worthless and so it’s just that aspect of…these are so safe when you’re talking to Erchonia laser. It is so researched, it’s so proven, even outside of Erchonia, what true low level laser therapy is researched as and again how safe and effective it is.
So, I always tell people it is safe and effective is this is, lasers are very forgiving. You can be kind of sloppy with them and still get pretty good results in many instances but I’m like that’s not good showmanship to the patient. Treat it like a tool, not a toy, even though this thing is incredibly safe and you know to be specific with it as possible you know acupuncture doesn’t use 16 penny nails because it would work better. You know the body does like precision and what that means to you and your technique is what I want people to apply so it is you know if you’re going to be symptomatic of applications with it then be specific with it.
And knowing the systemic benefits too you know will get people that are very one-dimensional and their thought process and not saying as an example like the brain or upper cervicals is not important, but you’ll get people even in their clinic to this day that they, if you had low back pain, chronic low back pain, they won’t even laser your low back. You know, if they have a brain-based practice many of them they just laser the brain, not all of them, but they’re still not uncommon. That’s the case or they just laser the upper cervicals and do the adjustment as well and you see improvements, especially the noticeable difference you see with people that have practiced for 5, 10, 20, 40 years without using lasers and have had that type of practice. And then they bring lasers in and we just help them implement it into exactly their philosophy at exactly how they use it knowing there’s symptomatic and localized benefits.
But, you never put a ceiling on the systemic benefits that can happen in the integration that’s applied in the body. And you’ll get people that’s like: “Wow.” You know, we’ve managed this person’s case or they always plateaued results a lot earlier than the standard patient in our office, that as soon as we started using laser like even a far away from their symptom. But what they consider the primary area of the body to work on and you see noticeable clinical improvements and it’s the patient telling you it’s like, “Holy Cow, I feel so different!” You know?
And that’s really exciting to see. So you can never ignore both. And that’s just why I tell people too. It’s like when you first bring lasers into your practice, you’ll hear a lot of stories. You’ll hear a lot of miracle stories. Everybody practices different. I’m like the most important thing is for you to bring lasers into how you already practice and you’re going to see those symptomatic improvements and you’re going to see systematic improvements just by the nature of the beast. So, rather than chasing and trying to be something and someone that you don’t have a lot of experience with to see difference in care, that to me has been the most effective way to introduce it to clinicians and in a very short time to get their confidence up. They start seeing what’s normal. What would using laser therapy…and then it is really fun to watch and then progress and do things that they said they would never do in their office like you would when it comes down to muscle testing. You know that’s not chiropractic. And I know some of the most venomously jaded people against you know muscle testing for 40 years of their career that they got into lasers and they’re like hey, could you show me some of this other stuff? And literally they’ve become some of the best muscle testers I’ve ever met even when they were very against it, you know for their entire career prior.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s hilarious. So my question for you in your practice, you’ve been practicing now.. how many years? You graduated early 2000s?
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: That’s right, yeah it’s 22 years.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So in 22 years, tell me off the top of your head, if you can, what’s one of the coolest cases that you’ve seen with laser?
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Yeah, I mean just being a chiropractor, you’re gonna see miracles and at times you just can’t even predict at all of course who those are going to be. I guess the one thing I would be out there to share with people rather than a specific case because I never liked to sell miracles to people. I like programs of care, you know. The miracles are going to show themselves whether you want them to or not, but lasers have a phenomenal benefit to acute trauma as in injury.
But one of the biggest advantages I had was you know patients that would deem themselves as non-responders. You know they’ve tried a lot of different things even if they didn’t try chiropractic you know they think they’ve tried everything? And even some people that have done more one-dimensional chiropractic and I know people that have gone to really good chiropractors and I know it’s not normal results but they were non-responders.
And my clinic primarily was built on non-responders is more what I see than anything. And it is really just really neat you know you listen to people’s histories and there’s a lot of very unfortunate histories and decrease quality life and obviously we’re doing very dynamic advanced chiropractic care, physical, chemical and emotional, but to see that implementation of the laser it without a doubt in my mind you know how it speeds up the process coordinates the body.
We’re not trying to suppress the body. We’re not trying to stimulate the body. We’re trying to facilitate the body and you know that’s what low level lasers do. You know with certain techniques you can neurologically organize it. Obviously you can cellularly organize it and talk about the integrand system and meridians and all those things you know it’s a light source and it is a foundational principle of how the body’s wired as well. So I would say that’s one of the biggest advantages. I mean the acute traumas and just the speeding up of tissue regeneration is a big deal. But when you really get those non-responders and anything you can think of it really tilts the law of averages in your favor no matter what they were. It really makes a difference on how there’s pretty systematic, easy responses and in many instances.
Dr. Chad Woolner: For Docs listening who want to learn more from you, where would you direct them? Where would you have them go?
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: I guess probably one of the things we’ve created, so Erchonia has always done a great job. Oh my gosh, the amount of seminars that they put on and the amount of great speakers that they provide to the profession is obvious. Outside of that, I’ve always created my own videos of education of what I thought could help the most amount of people, kind of like universal information and systemic exams and treatment show and tell. And we’ve created a channel now called Performance Practice TV so for a long time you could buy one of my training DVDs and you owned it forever.
But they weren’t that expensive for what you get but that’s it. You buy it once, you kind of pay a premium price for doctor information and now we kind of created a Netflix for healers to where all these videos are just all in one place. You pay for a low monthly fee and as long as you pay for your subscription, you can watch everything. We’ve updated the information up there recently so we got about another seven to ten hours of information sitting here in our office right now that we have to upload here pretty soon. But there’s a lot of information on lasers in there. And the super simple application of lasers and then the integrated application. So it will start you out very non-confusing, all the details of understanding, research science, basic application goes through the research studies and it explains from a hands-on clinical application, not just the study alone and then we progress you know. I just go through the standard of care, strength and range of motion. You know whether you have lasers or not. This is the standard of care, but this is how laser implements into that and then we take the gloves off and we spend 12 plates at the same time and you know rip souls out of people’s bodies and you do all sorts of things.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Love it, so what’s the URL for that again?
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: So if you go to my website which is performacepractic.com that’s one of our portals and on performacepractic.com they’ll be an obvious window there that mentions performance practice TV so then they can click on that and it’ll kind of explain and they can sign up right there.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Got it! Got it. Awesome very very cool, we’ll make sure we put that in there
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Yeah, we try to make that as user friendly as possible. Based upon a book. Did I lose you?
Dr. Chad Woolner: No, we’re here.
Dr. Jerome Rerucha: Okay, my screen changed here so I can’t see what I was looking at but at least you could hear me.
Yeah, so yeah, it’s just you can cancel anytime. There’s no year subscription you’re dedicated to. It’s just month by month so practitioners have really liked that a lot. There’s adjusting information, manual instrument adjusting, soft tissue, obviously a lot of laser in there and even how you we integrate it you know on the brain. Visceral somatics, nutrition, implementing vibration therapy with laser needle why we would do those things, implementing some very common clinical exercises, helping people implement it in their practice and explaining the benefits of symptomatic care.
Systematic care, creating unattended laser stations and of course, the active laser stations to where you don’t have to just lay there face up or face down or sitting in a chair there were lasers work great, but we really give doctors very common sense, very practical but very big changes by doing certain activation things that really promote chiropractic structural correction or strengthening the nervous system and doing that while you laser and that’s really where the lase…the magic starts getting to where you start learning how their single doctor practices out there but they’re working on 12 people at the same time. And that’s no exaggeration.
And they have these unattended stations and they have certain activation things and there’s single doctors that have a laser at every station. You don’t have to do that obviously. But that’s how people have grown into this. You know it’s really helped their business and helped their efficiency of working on people. They can only examine and adjust one person at a time, but you can have a lot there. Things successfully go on in your clinic at a very high quality level with the systems that we teach on there.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing. Well we will definitely direct docs that way and we certainly appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to be here with us today and sharing just some of the fundamentals behind what makes these tools so powerful and how they get the results that the doctors are experiencing so, Docs, hopefully you found this extremely valuable. If you have gotten a lot of value out of this, all we ask is a few docs to share this with your colleagues to get them interested and excited about better ways to help your patients get better results. So, thanks again for being here with us and 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.
On today’s episode we dig in a bit deeper on the research behind Erchonia lasers with Steven Shanks and Travis Sammons. We discuss why research matters and what clinicians should look for when considering adding any type of medical device into their clinic. To learn more about Erchonia’s reserach you can go to: https://www.erchonia.com/research-articles/
Dr. Chad Woolner: All right, everybody. Welcome to episode two of the laser light show on today’s episode, we have with us Steven Shanks and Travis Sammons from Erchonia, and we’re going to be talking today about why research matters. 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 to the show Steven and Travis, excited to have you guys both here with us. So, Travis, tell us a little bit about your, your role at Erchonia? What do you do at Erchonia?
Steven Shanks: Sure. So, I work as the Clinical Affairs Manager, really side by side with the President Steve Shanks heading the research Erchonia. So it’s kind of really every project we have is a three to five year process. We start by choosing the conditions that we want to study. We developed the protocol we submitted to FDA, just so they can review it, make sure we have all the assessments, although outliners lined up properly. Then from there, we set up the clinical study, and we find the correct physicians. We get the data back, typically after another two years. And then we submit it to the FDA. So that’s another year’s process in itself.
Dr. Chad Woolner: And how long have you been with the company? Travis?
Travis Sammons: Just about 15 years,
Dr. Chad Woolner: Just about 15 years? Yeah. flies by?
Travis Sammons: You know what’s interesting about Erchonia like, I’ve had a chance to talk to quite a few of the people that have founded and worked at Erchonia and it seems like everybody there has been there for 15 years to like 35 years, but it’s it’s a I know that it’s a family company, which is very reassuring to me as a doctor, but that says a lot about your company and the fact that people seem to be everyone who works there seems to be a lifer. So you guys must be doing something good for your employees and people that work there.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Not only very fortunate, I was gonna say to not only that, but the doctors who use Erchonia. You know, once they start using Erchonia you know, lasers, they, they’re, they’re in for life as well. That’s what I noticed as well. So I wanted to kick this episode off where we’re talking about research and I wanted to start with a story here. I remember. So I live in Asheville, North Carolina and downtown Asheville is very much known for being a hippie commune. So if you’re a retired deadhead, if you’re a hippie, if you’re into natural health care, somehow you’ve been through or live in Asheville. And there’s this one particular grocery store that’s in the heart of this center. And, it’s called Earth fair if you’ve ever been to Ashley Earth fair. And this is like, where all the people who are in international health care congregate, it’s where they buy their groceries, it’s where they hang out in the cafe. And our office was right next to this grocery store. So I spent a lot of time there. And this one guy knew that I was a chiropractor. And one day he was working at the food bar there and one day he came up to me, he goes, and I’m not exaggerating. He’s like, Hey, man, you’re the chiropractor, right? And like, yeah, chiropractor. He goes, he goes, let me tell you the future of healthcare, man. It’s sound waves man. It’s sound waves. And like, what do you like? What are you talking about? It’s like tuning forks, bro. Tuning forks. I’m like, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Like, I kind of like oh, that sounds really interesting. Like that’s really cool. You seem to be into that. He’s like, Yeah, man, check it out. And, and the interesting thing was there is actually a lot of cool stuff coming out with Soundwave and vibrational therapy, but the way that he presented it to me was like, just totally like it was him being him but it didn’t lend itself very much credence and credibility. And so I got my food and laughed and didn’t give it much thought but I remember that guy, he was passionate about it. But the thing that strikes me a lot about you when you get into bioenergetics in the field of healing through energy and light and sound and vibration through lasers. Sometimes it can come across to healthcare professionals and to the public as something that is not real, as hokey and isn’t real. And I hope that I don’t mean this in a bad way. But sometimes even as a chiropractor I, you know, we hear like, Hey, that’s not, it’s not based in science. So there’s no evidence to prove that a chiropractic works. But the thing that really struck me about Erchonia is that they backup their claims with evidence and research. And that is no small feat. We had a little side conversation before we started recording this episode on how difficult it can be to get FDA clearances, and to actually study the things that you’re doing for particular therapies. And that’s what this episode is all about. And so if you’re curious about this, this is not like, you know, sometimes we talk about research, sometimes it tends to be, there can be a very dry subject, but it’s not. And I really want to do this episode, because for doctors who are considering using your cornea or lose using your cornea, or maybe if you’re a patient, listen to this podcast, we want you to know that our Erchonia has done the work, the really, really difficult work, the time consuming work, the expensive work, to bring this technology to the forefront. And we really feel that this is the future of healthcare. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about today. So that’s why we’re so excited to have Steve and Travis on here today to talk about how they pioneered this research in low level laser therapy. So I thought I’d kick it off with that story. And hopefully at the end of this episode, you’ll see that this is not something that is, you know, this is something that’s been proven in research. And so yeah, let’s let’s start there. So we share this little you guys share the story on the last episode, the first episode about getting your first FDA letter so maybe we can maybe start there and kind of go through the evolution of the research.
Travis Sammons: Yeah, just one comment when you were talking about medical devices. Obviously, we had a lot of meetings. 90% of all medical devices have no research of the other 10% of it. Most of it’s not blinded to control. So medical device manufacturers file substantial equivalences of other devices. I’ll give you a perfect example. You guys are chiropractors, you’re probably familiar with class four lasers. Sure. Okay, so class four lasers started out as the heating pad in 1976. So they were FDA cleared, because heat was therapeutic back then. Then diathermy, follow the follow substantial clip off of eating pets. About 2004 2005. The FDA came in and said, I’m sorry, the manufacturers came and said, Look, we can heat the skin and do the same thing dial thermal heating pads they’re doing with no research, as long as they raised the temperature, what was the 40 to 4535
Steven Shanks: to 40 degrees Celsius 30.
Travis Sammons Yeah, so they could get 510 K. So if you look at the class for lasers, there’s no research behind them. There’s no blade controlled clinical trials, and the mechanism of action is heat. But when you look at the research that comes off low level lasers, so anyway, I just had to throw that in here, because that’s why a lot of these medical devices like 10s units, ultrasounds, they were all round before 1976. So you have to be grandfathered in, never proven to work. Unfortunately, when we started doing low level lasers, there was no category for low level lasers. So the category for low level lasers now is n h n. And to this day, if you want to get into that category, you have to do blind controlled clinical trials. Why is there that’s why there’s not a lot of low level lasers FDA cleared.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So what’s that category? And H N does that. What’s that stand for?
Travis Sammons: NHSN: not heating heat lamp. So when we got the indication from the FDA, we sat down with Richard Feld, who proved all devices at that time. And he said, Look, we don’t have a category for light for devices, low level lasers or biostimulation lasers. So we’re going to create this category called nh n, which means not heating a heat lamp, which is the dumbest thing ever. It doesn’t even make sense. You can imagine how bad we got beat up when we first introduced the product categories. But that’s the FDA. Yeah, right. The FDA doesn’t have to make sense.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, you’re working with the government, say no more. It’s okay. We understand.
Steven Shanks: At that point, we were so happy. I don’t care what you call it.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Right. Right. Yeah. So you have I imagine you have to be a little bit wild and crazy. To take on a to take on the research and to prove what you’re doing through the FDA like that. The thought of that, like the thought of me actually like, man, what if we were to try to take a product to market? That sounds like? That sounds dumb almost. I don’t mean that like, I don’t mean that in a negative way. Like, kudos to you guys for having the drive.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, after after our lesson this after our last episode, Andrew and I were talking just as a sidebar and I was saying if that were me, and I was doing something, and the FDA sent a letter saying, hey, you need to like cease and desist or do research to prove this or whatever, I’d be like, Okay, guys, it was fun while it lasted, but we’re done now, like that would be able to fold it. And so that’s it that says a lot in terms of, of your guyses mission, your resilience, your desire, and drive to really, to really do things right. This, it’s that incredible, really is.
Steven Shanks: Well, the funny part about that is at that time, I had a full time job when I got the letter. And if it wasn’t for Deborah, I’ve got my family secretary, who, of course, is the government, we would have never figured out how to get to the regulatory pathway. Oh, really? So if you know, when my dad, you know, asked my dad, you know, Dad, where should I go with this? He goes, Steve, he goes, you’re not hurting anybody? He goes, do what you got to do. That’s kind of how we
Dr. Andrew Wells: Wow, that’s amazing. What? So tell us what, tell us what it looks like to get FDA clearance for, for a particular therapy? Or what does that process look like in terms of effort, time costs, what kind of hoops do you have to jump through to do this?
Steven Shanks: To me, it looks like a bottle of champagne. But originally, the process was not as complex as it is now, our first FDA submission was, I don’t know, maybe five 600 pages. Now it’s 10 1000s. of pages, regulatory gets worse and worse and worse, takes longer and longer and longer. But I’ll let Travis kind of walk you through the process we currently have.
Travis Sammons: Yeah, yeah. And to start with, there’s really two different pathways to get FDA cleared. Go over the simplest form first, it’s, as Steve mentioned, filing suspension equivalent. So any device, if you go to fda.gov, you can find a device that’s cleared. And if you file a substantial equivalent, just saying your device has similar outputs, you can basically get through without submitting any clinical data at all, the difference between that. And then the other pathway that Erchonia takes is new indications for use, that’s where it gets tough. You have to prove it through double blind placebo controlled study. Plus you have the scrutiny of the FDA, they’re gonna review every single document, because you’re now asking for an indication that’s unproven. And that pathway takes, again, it takes two to five years. Wow.
Dr. Andrew Wells: What is? So what is it? Let’s actually start off with maybe some of the initial clearances that you guys have for things like neck and back pain, and maybe take us through the evolution of the different clearances?
Steven Shanks: And correct you have now how many different clearances do you have in level, like therapy, we’ve got 20 different 510 cases. And as we upgrade devices, we can file substantial equivalence. So every, you know, if we’re going to upgrade a device, we’ll file some potential closure ourselves. So probably 40 to 5510 cases, but 20 original ones.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Can you explain what a 510 K is?
Steven Shanks: Yes, so I suggest every doctor that’s going to buy a medical device, asking for their 510 K 510 K is a marketing statement from the FDA, that that’s a license that allows you to make that medical claim. So for instance, in 2002, all we had was chronic neck and shoulder pain. We couldn’t advertise anything else. So, you know, as we go on, now, we have an overall indication for chronic neuromuscular pain, we have another indication for overall post surgical pain, those things have taken us 15 years to develop.
Travis Sammons: 510 K is the same terminology as FDA market clearance. And just I was surprised, you know, the more seminars and more I deal with society a lot of them are unsure the difference between FDA approval and FDA clearance, they almost looked down at FDA clearance, but kind of set this the facts straight as straight FDA approval is strictly for drugs or high risk devices. FDA clearance applies to low risk or non significant risk devices which are Erchonia.
Steven Shanks: Okay, so yeah, I think most people don’t know if you want to bring a pharmaceutical to market. You’re looking at what is statistically significant. So if I treat 1000s and 1000s of patients, and I’m five to 10% Better than placebo which most drugs are, they have to weigh that against side effects. With us, ours are not only statistically significant, they’re clinically meaningful. So for instance, if you’re in a low back pain study, to be in a clinical trial, you have to have a minimum of 50% pain reduction. And on a scale of one to 100, you have to be 50 or above. Plus, we do disability studies with low back pain. So that’s a secondary measure. If your pain comes down, and your disability goes up, that’s not a successful patient. So most doctors don’t look at the research. When you look at the research where our pain comes down, and our disabilities go up. That’s exactly what should happen. So we have a harder process, in my opinion, than drugs, because we’re statistically significant, or clinically meaningful.
Dr. Chad Woolner:
Yeah, the bar says a little bit higher.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yes, so you’re increasing the effectiveness, but you’re decreasing the risk for the patient. Absolutely. And you mentioned when you’re asking others, like, if a doctor is looking at buying a piece of medical equipment asking about the 510 K, why is that? Why is it important for the doctor? What? Why should the doctor be concerned with that?
Steven Shanks: If somebody’s marketing a device without a 510? K, it’s illegal. Why is that bad? Say the FDA comes in and confiscates the manufacturer and tells them to recall all their devices. Well, the doctor just bought the device now it’s getting picked up.
Dr. Andrew Wells: While so not only could they lose their investment on the machine, but they’re also liable for marketing claims. Is that what you’re saying?
Steven Shanks: They can be liable for marketing claims. So say they treat a patient. And this happens in a doctor’s office, I treat a patient, the patient claims, it happened from the device, we’ve gone through this. You know, they’ll say what happened to the device? Well, if you don’t have a 510 K, and you’re selling advice illegally, and you go to court, that manufacturer could stand behind you. Some things that doctors don’t think about yet?
Dr. Chad Woolner: Well, I was just gonna say, I would have to imagine that a significant I don’t know what number it is, maybe you’ll know the numbers better. But a significant number of Doc’s are doing this unknowingly, probably myself included, you just you have to be you know, if you’re using stuff in your clinic beyond adjusting, you know?
Steven Shanks: Yeah, I, I would say 99% of Don’t, don’t ask to, you know, the salesperson. They don’t do their own research in their investments, you know, some of these classes for lasers that are substantial to, you know, a $300 heating pad. They haven’t done any research and you know, those things are 50 $60,000 for a glorified heat lamp.
Dr. Chad Woolner:Yeah, that’s crazy.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Maybe, and maybe this will be helpful for docs when looking at the research what, what, and, Travis Forgive me if I mess this up, but what clearances or approvals do you have for what are the different therapies that are approved for Erchonia lasers.
Travis Sammons: For pain indications, we have neck and shoulder pain, low back pain, plantar fasciitis, overall overall muscle skeletal pain, and overall postoperative pain. So really, between the overall muscle skeletal and overall postoperative pain, we really encompass most conditions, you know, 85 to 90% conditions out there. Besides neuropathic pain and pain, and interesting enough, we actually have a double blind placebo controlled study currently ongoing for that right now. Outside of paint, we have that last indication, even for obesity. We have indications for nail fungus, acne.
Steven Shanks: I think it’s pretty much it. That makes pretty much all of our 25 10k clearances.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Very cool. And are you able to tell us what clearances are in the works? So what could we maybe be expecting over the next two to five years?
Travis Sammons: Yeah, absolutely. So currently, we have level one studies on neuropathy, diabetic peripheral neuropathy, tendonitis, autism.
Steven Shanks: We’re doing one toenail fungus, we’re mimicking a drug clinical trial trying to show that we’re better than uvula.
Travis Sammons: Yeah. Those are probably in the next forecasts in the next two years or so. Outside of that we have pilot studies, so it’s more preliminary stages for reptile dysfunction, macular degeneration, spinal cord injuries.
Dr. Andrew Wells; Wow.So you’re getting into like, go ahead.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Oh, no, I was just gonna say any studies on brain brain related stuff, Alzheimer’s, MS, things like that.
Steven Shanks: So yes, we’ve done that. pilot studies on Alzheimer’s and autism, we’ve obviously got a blind controlled clinical trial on autism, the FDA decided not to accept that study. So we’re starting another one. What we saw in the first clinical trial, it was amazing. But like, for instance, low back study, we had to do chronic neck and shoulder pain. Just because you submit to the FDA doesn’t mean you’re gonna get that 510 k, right. So a lot of our studies unfortunately have to reap, redo them. And at that point, we make a decision, do we want to go through the process again, spend all the money, but we believe in it, so why wouldn’t we do it?
Dr. Chad Woolner: Right? My question is, when they don’t accept a particular study or whatnot? What are some of the reasons? I mean, are they just random, stupid reasons? Or are they glaring? Like issues there that are like, Okay, that’s fair, or is it just kind of like, super random?
Steven Shanks: Well, what for autism study, we did research in Cuba because it was cheaper. The FDA tried to go audit the site Cuba, the government would let them in.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s a problem.
Steven Shanks: So for the neck and shoulder one, I think, because they didn’t prove they had any devices approved. This goes back to 2002. That they just wanted us to do another one. And it’s kind of funny that the results are almost exactly the same. That’s cool. So it’s for the low back. We did a blind controlled clinical trial, they audited one of the sites. They asked the doctor, did you know the difference between rolling the placebo? The doctor said yes. Well, the doctor at the end of the patient, after they treat the patient in their study, they have to ask the patient, did you get the relative? Did you get a placebo? Well, the doctor is looking at the data. If he’s got a 60% pain reduction, you’re gonna say, okay, he’s got drill. If he’s got a placebo, you’re gonna say it’s a placebo. He forgot to tell him that. So the FDA, you know, maybe it’s to do another back study. And that study, we had to send every piece of paper from every clinical trial site. So they went through it with a fine tooth comb, but we still got the education.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s cool. Yeah, I would tell me, the thing that fascinates me about what you’re doing is, I’m really curious to know what the what the potential mechanism of action is, or what the research is with things related to brain health, whether it’s autism, brain health, spinal cord injuries, how is this actually working?
Steven Shanks: I might let Travis get that. Talk to you about that. But one of the things that back when we were on our first episode, back in 99, we were too dumb to know how far these things penetrated. So we didn’t have a, we didn’t have a closed door. So all the research said you need infrared lasers to penetrate deeper, which is ridiculous, that’ll create photochemical effects. We knew back then, back in those liposuction studies, we could emulsify fat, you know, five, six centimeters in the body. We also published a study on 589 consecutive patients showing systemic effects. So these things penetrate throughout the whole body, but I’ll talk more about the mechanisms.
Travis Sammons: Yeah, so with brain health, obviously, it’s gonna depend on the condition quite a bit. One thing we do know, the simplest form of mechanism with visible lasers, mitochondrial health. So if you look at dementia, their mitochondria is slowly dying off. So if we can help regenerate mitochondria, or nerve axons. So Steve, I know you are part of the one study we did in Cuba with cue EEG testing. Yep. So it was really neat to study and perform a functional MRI before and after, you can see that whole connectivity in the brain just lights up.
Steven Shanks: Yeah, so we do a lot of mechanism studies like interleukin 10, which is the immune system, apoptosis, necrosis, TNF alpha. So one of the things when approved is a brain function, how we’re affecting the brain. So we would laser patient, and it looked at cue EEG to see what areas of the brain would light up. It’s a published study, you can, we can send you a copy of it. But we wanted to prove to ourselves that we can affect deep areas of the brain. So then we went back, and just laid out the vagus nerve, and found out well, we can also light up the brain. And with each different wavelength, you get a different photochemical effect, which is kind of some of the new science we’re adding in our clinical trials.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So do you have a fairly firm grasp on what wavelengths do what in terms of the brain like this wavelength does? Does this type of thing or this wavelength do? Do you have or is it still you’re still kind of investigating that?
Steven Shanks: We do and I’m like, what we’ll do is we’ll do a pilot study, we have a new device coming out, hopefully, to the, towards the end of the year using a green and a violet laser. A lot of the system that basic research Travis will start doing with some of the doctors would do a small pilot study. And we’ll Travis Sammons: We did a study at the University of Illinois, we looked at three to three wavelengths of mitochondria function, red was the best at mitochondrial function, you know, look at some other wavelengths, Violet was great at reducing apoptosis.
Steven Shanks: Green Green, helped stem cells differentiate. So as we collect this data, we’ll go out to do a pilot study before we ever get to a clinical trial, because by the time we’re in a clinical trial, we have a pretty good idea of what we’re getting.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Sure. That’s cool.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, that’s exciting. Yeah, I mean, I would imagine like, this is really like, where you guys are at now as a company is really at a pretty fun stage with, you know, having a really firm understanding of a lot of the potential applications. And so now I would imagine, each day you guys get up, you get to like, look in front of you at all these cool things that are happening. It’s how’s that feel?
Steven Shanks: Yeah, it feels pretty good. But it’s, you have to be patient.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Takes a long time. Still a lot of work. Yeah. A lot of patients have no doubt.
Steven Shanks: Yeah. And I’m not the most patient guy.
Dr. Chad Woolner: I can appreciate that. No, I totally can especially. Especially, my guess is you can see, based on your, your past, you can see a lot into the future, wanting, you know, then and you’ve probably got, again, working with the FDA is not the easiest partner in terms of that. Quite a bit of a series of hurdles to get to where you can already see things are going, you know, does that make sense?
Steven Shanks: Yeah, it does. I’d say we got enough research on our hands right now. stuff we have to get started. That’ll take us well, in the next 1015 years when I’ve gone traveling, so I have plenty to do.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah. Well, that’s exciting.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, I’m thinking like this. So if you were to rewind, if someone like from the chiropractic profession back in the day if BJ Palmer had his hands on intercolonial laser like what he would be doing with with that, I always wondered if some of like the old school philosophical guys, you know, your DVDs and BB DD and BJ Palmer’s would have their hands on this affecting brain health and affecting energy affecting ATP production, decreasing apoptosis, what they would be doing with these things. Have you ever had those conversations like fireside conversations after hours that are Erchonia?
Steven Shanks: Yeah, I’m sure you guys know Dan Murphy. Yeah. Yeah, Dad’s just a he’s a wealth of information. So I think they would grasp the technology and make it better. Fortunately, for Unfortunately for us, because those guys could talk about what they want were regulated by the FDA.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Right? Yeah.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That reminds me of when we talked about this in the first episode about John dinov, Freo, I think he was probably at liberty to say some things that maybe you guys couldn’t, because of the company, but he was talking about abuses, making some really interesting claims. And maybe you can answer this question, the big question I have for him was, he was talking about using lasers on the brain. And that’s the first time I’d ever heard that. And my first thought was, Is that safe? So using a laser on the spinal cord, or brain or nerve tissue is that safe?
Steven Shanks: There, if you’re using visible light, especially with the wavelengths that we’re using, there’s no known side effects, we’ve been treating the areas of the brain for like chronic neck and shoulder pain, our first clinical trial back in 1998 2000, we treat same side cerebellum, opposite side cortex, the thought being, same side cerebellum is going to run your, your your body function, but the higher levels of the brain. So the pain is going to be potentiated by the brain, and it’s going to reach the brain. So if we could slow the brain down, and go to say, like the nerve root, and then treat the inflammation, we could knock out pain. So we’ve been treating the brain since, you know, 2000, we have no side effects. And if you went to clinical trials.gov, I doubt you’d find any side effects with low level lasers. We have a document from the FDA that says they consider all our clinical trials non significant risk.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Well, is that the lowest level of risk that they issue? It?
Steven Shanks: Yes, yep.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Wow. Okay, that’s interesting. That makes sense, too, because we’re dealing in light, right? We’re dealing with some very elemental things. We were talking before about light, sound vibration, like this is very foundational stuff. And so I’m guessing that’s where the safety comes in. Because we’re not introducing foreign men. Obviously your devices are man made but the light is not man made right.
Steven Shanks: It was the lightest Demand made because it’s a diode. But it’s a process. The other interesting thing about these things is when you know I mentioned that research in the first episode about the research we did with Dr. Neeraj. And we, he was doing a surgical procedure. And we were in a process trying to get the most of the fat as fast as possible. So we would send up different wavelengths. And then we would send them higher powers, because we thought, well, if we increase the power, it should work better. What we found out is that as we increase the power, results decrease. So now you got these guys treating people’s heads with 1020 30 Watt lasers. That’s absolutely insane. You know, I still went back to Arn Schultz last week. It’s like biological activity. And that’s, you know, one of the reasons why I think we have no side effects because we’re on a lower spectrum. And with our lasers, we divide the line over an area to decrease the power on one one spot.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, that’s something we’re actually going to talk about. We’re gonna say we’re going to talk about this, this actual concept in the whole episode number six. And actually, that’s where Dr. Dan Murphy is going to be talking about the difference between power versus penetration wavelength. And I think that’s important to know, because I think a lot of people think well, more power means deeper penetration means better outcome. But that’s not what you’re saying is that’s not necessarily the case. It’s the wavelength that matters. Not so much the not so much the power, is that correct?
Steven Shanks: Yeah, Travis talked about the Eevee in the light. And what creates photochemistry? What doesn’t? Go ahead?
Travis Sammons: Yeah, so there’s a pretty big misconception out there. If you just look at scientific journals, it’s not backed by any research, it’s more of a marketing ploy. That you need longer wavelengths, so infrared to penetrate deeper, shorter wavelengths. Take your violet, your green, they’re more for skin conditions, your acne psoriasis things of that sort. But Steve and I are coming to find out though, and it’s based on the simple physics of laser or light, every wavelength is determined by the electron volt Evie. So you can take a 635 nine or red laser, and cranked up power up all day output the milliwatts, but it does not change the actual Photon energy, which is electron volt, the more electron volts, the lower the wavelength, the more systemic effect you’re going to have. Because what one cell doesn’t use, it has that cascade effect cascade effect where it continues to pass the energy down the electron transfer. So what we’re seeing is stuck these kind of take it full circle here is what a lot of people deemed in green and violet, just for skin conditions we’re finding are actually have a deeper, not depth of penetration, I try to stay away from that word, but systemic effect. So for example, we use red lasers for non-invasive fat loss. We did a study on obesity, so we were treating the subcutaneous fat.
Steven Shanks: And we showed that green lasers actually worked better for that, we actually have a pad to prove this theory. So when we had our first Zerona laser like yours, your clients might know about it, we used the red laser. There’s 23% more energy in a green laser than a red laser. So what we did is we went back and were blinded to control clinical trials, and did the exact same pop patient population. And you took 25% of time off to Verona. So what we found out is that not only can we take time off the procedure, but we also got a better result. So the way we see it, the shorter wavelengths are better. So we were issued a process patent on that theory, I think it was probably back in 2010 2011.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s powerful.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, that’s it’s no, just not powerful. It’s the frequency. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah, I you know, I think that’s and this is why we’re having this discussion, because a lot of what doctors do here in terms of this technology is a lot of marketing. And we’re facing you know, the the content that companies are putting out oftentimes is their, their their customer content is marketing. And if you dig down a little bit past that, I think it’s important to understand if there’s any research to back up their marketing claims. And we talked about this in this episode. There are a lot of reasons to do that. Number one, to protect your business. So if somebody ever says hey, this device hurt me, you need to be able to back up the claims that you made from a marketing standpoint and from a clinical standpoint, but also from an efficacy standpoint if every doctor wants to get good results with their patients. And I think it’s important to rely on the research and with the information, the data shows evidence versus just taking your sales reps word for it. And I’ve seen this time and time again, in practice, we’re pitched on all kinds of different devices and technologies and therapies and marketing. And oftentimes, it’s the salesperson leading with this information and giving you information that you want to hear, so that you’ll buy their device. And that’s the, I think the very unique thing about Erchonia is very quickly and very upfront, you’re getting clinical information, you’re getting research, you’re getting information that you should be, this is the stuff that should be driving our decisions in terms of what we add to our clinic. And that’s such a refreshing thing to hear from her Erchonia. And I think we ought to take this approach to all of the different products and services and therapies that we apply to our clinics. So yeah, it’s refreshing and chiropractic. And I think, you know, chiropractors tend to be the Mavericks in health care. And we were talking offline about this. And you know, chiropractors being the leading, paving the way in terms of nutrition, you know, what you eat has an impact on your health, what supplements you take, have an impact on your health, the medical community is has finally caught up to that. And I think with you know, that’s why we’re doing this, this podcast is because we want to get this clinical information, mixed with marketing information, to have the biggest impact on your patient population and on your business. And so this is really refreshing, guys. I love this.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, my unique perspective is I’ve been a marketer for years. And I don’t know if all other marketers are the same way I would have to assume so. But we tend to be a little bit jaded when it comes to research and evidence, because we’ve just exactly what Andrew said, there. We’ve heard it all before, you know. And so it is, I would say the same thing echo exactly what Andrew said is I find it very refreshing that Erchonia, very much. And I don’t know if you guys would agree with me when I say this, So correct me if I’m wrong here. But it appears to me that Erchonia is an education and research company, the first laser company. Second, was that fair to say?
Steven Shanks: Yeah, I would say that, I would say what you guys are called Marketing. Most of it, I would call you legal marketing.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Right. Right. done correctly. Yeah. And, and that’s, that’s powerful, too for dogs to hear this, you know, the whole episode title here, what we’re trying to focus this around is why research matters is I don’t know if I’ve ever been in a situation where you feel 100% safe making the claims that you make knowing that what you do you know what I mean? I think most chiropractors feel fairly comfortable with some of the basic claims that are made with chiropractic and chiropractic adjustments. There’s really great research out there supporting it for a lot of the common musculoskeletal things. And then there’s other research that’s out there too, backing up a lot of other stuff, but just hearing the depth of research that’s gone into Erchonia. And the various applications that you’re talking about there should give Doc’s a tremendous amount of comfort, knowing that when you’re marketing it for these various conditions that they have been approved for, you have some solid ground there beneath you to back up these claims. So that’s awesome. Super cool.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah. And marketing, like any marketer will tell you that having good research and evidence is a powerful marketing tool in and of itself. And so that’s the, you know, it makes it makes me so if you’re a doctor who’s heavy in marketing, which we are, it should give you comfort, knowing that the things that you’re promoting, I actually have, you know, science to back it up and like, like Steve said, it’s legal to say these things.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah. So awesome.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Is there anything? Oh, go ahead.
Dr. Chad Woolner: No, that’s, I think you’re going where I’m going? Yeah.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, I was just gonna say, Steve and Travis, is there anything on the research side, as we’re kind of closing up this episode that you want doctors to know, that we haven’t discussed already?
Steven Shanks: Nothing that I can think of? I mean, we could go on all day.
Travis Sammons: But yeah, I mean, I think just to wrap it all up, maybe, as Steve mentioned, if you’re investing, you’re obviously investing your hard earned money, but you’re also investing reputations online as a chiropractor? Office? Yes. Obviously. As for the 510 K cares asked for the research as well. What level of research? Is it just a case study? Or is it a level one double blind, placebo controlled study? The other thing I’ve seen quite often just gotten a glance at other competitors’ websites is so used research. This has nothing to do with their device, their device and emits 60 watts of power. But the research on the websites has 15 milliwatts, so it’s 1000 times less powerful. So I would just, again, take the extra time before you invest and make sure to look everything over clearly.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, so I would ask one last question, too, right. I think already you guys have given a tremendous About a food for thought for dogs in terms of considering the research, any other resources that you would point them to honor Erchonia site or wherever else in terms of like, exactly what you’re saying, like so let’s say I’m a doc who’s like, I’m going to entertain the idea of maybe implementing a laser device in my clinic, where would you recommend they go to start maybe doing some of their own research? And or is there like a handy place where it’s like, these are the things that you need to this is the checklist or the, you know, the kind of, you know, these are, these are the things that the baseline standards that any company or device should meet? Where would you point docs for that type of information?
Steven Shanks: If you go to pubmed.gov, and you put in a low level laser, there’s gonna be over 10,000 publications. If you’re looking at class for laser, you might find 10, and none of the studies are good. So you can go to clinical trials.gov Type in the name of the device, if they’re doing any research, the device will pop up, they also have to put what research results were.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So it’s their failure to see.
Steven Shanks: It is. Yeah. And if we find out a lot of times, if a guy goes on, you know, say you spent 20 $30,000 on a laser, and he finds out this thinking works and like he said it was gonna he’s already made the investment. Right. So every patient is getting that laser. You know, we see some of these guys have Chinese high power lasers on people’s brains. It’s just insane.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, yeah, so that’s good, good information to have good food for thought this is a good process for Doc’s in terms of if they’re interested in these things.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Yeah, and check out their Erchonia website. If so if you want to learn more about the research, if you want to see what research they’ve done, the clinical trials that they’re doing and working on if you go to the ER corneas website, so ERCHONIA a.com they have a Resources tab, and you can look at all the research there that we’re talking about, as it pertains to, or Coneys lasers.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Awesome. Well, Steven and Travis, thank you guys seriously, so much for your time. We appreciate you guys being here. I think this has been really, for me personally, informative. I’ve learned a lot of new stuff, I kind of get the feeling as this goes on. I’m gonna be learning a lot more selfishly. This has been great for me personally. But I think this is gonna help a lot of Doc’s and ultimately, again, I think this is going to help us help a lot more people out there in the world. So thank you guys for being here on the show with us today.
Steven Shanks & Travis Sammons: Our pleasure. Thanks for having us. Awesome.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Okay, docs. Well, this wraps up episode two. We will chat with you guys on the next episode. Have a good one.
[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.
On our first episode of the Laser Light Show we sit down with the founders of Erchonia, Steven Shanks and Kevin Tucek. They share the incredible story behind Erchonia lasers and how they have become the leader in low level laser technology!
Dr. Chad Woolner: All right, welcome everybody to Episode 1 of the Laser Light Show. We are super excited to kick this podcast off on today’s episode. We are gonna be talking about the history of Erchonia lasers so let’s get right 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 we have on with us, Stephen Shanks and Kevin Tucek, the founders of Erchonia lasers along with Dr. Andrew Wells. How are you my friend?
Dr. Andrew Wells: I’m excited. I’m doing really well. Excited to get this podcast off the ground and really excited for our two guests this morning.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, so before we hand it over to our guests, we wanted to just kind of really help Docs understand the kind of hopes that we have for this podcast. You know we met with the folks at Erchonia a few months back and have just been super impressed with them as a company, the lasers that they produce and we really wanted a different format to be able to really introduce to Docs the science and the application of low level laser therapy.
We’re hearing and seeing firsthand. Just some incredible stories and we wanted to be able to provide Docs with a tremendous amount of runway to be able to dive as deep as we want, to go into a range of topics within the whole realm. As you can imagine, there’s only so much time on a webinar or on a video and so for us, very much like a Netflix binge, we can say with this podcast. We’re hoping that we can provide multiple episodes to really dive into a wide range of different topics and whatnot. So with this first one we thought it appropriate and very fitting to again introduce Erchonia and the history and the story behind it by having none other than the founders here with us. So with that being said, without further ado, Steven and Kevin. Thank you guys so much for being here on the show with us, welcome to the show. We’re excited to have you guys.
Steven Shanks & Kevin Tucek: Our pleasure.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So I guess the first question that I would have is what got you guys into the world of lasers because originally your background was not in lasers correct. Not physicians. What’s the story behind that?
Steven Shanks: My background is sales, Kevin can give his background, Kevin was an engineer.
Kevin Tucek: Yes, I was an engineer and when Steve and I started a company in Colorado in ‘96, I worked for a company called COBE Laboratories. I was an R&D engineer developing products that kept you alive during heart open surgery and other types of aspects that’s surgery related and that’s what initiated Steven to get into this business. Steven’s father who was like my father, he raised me since I was a child. He was having some health issues and was going to a chiropractor in Colorado at the time who had this European plasma laser that he had brought in, that he illegally brought into the US.
Whatever the process was, I don’t know but he wasn’t approved for treatment in the US. And so he had gotten better, being treated by this. And he told me that one of my sons had fallen out of a tree and bruised his liver. He was a kid at the time and he didn’t want to tell me he done it because he wasn’t allowed to be in the tree.
So, we went to see the pediatrician and the pediatrician couldn’t figure out what’s wrong with him so Steve’s dad told me, he says, once you take Jeremy and take him to see this doctor and see if he can help. He diagnosed after doing some tests that he bruised his liver. He treated him with this large plasma laser and he got better. So I called the doctor, [and said] I’m an engineer if he has any problems or anything to just let me know. Yeah he says, yeah, I have one of those lasers, they’re a hundred thousand dollar laser and it’s broken and nobody in the US can fix it. Can you fix it?
So, I fix it for him and I looked and saw how inefficient the technology was and that prompted us to develop the first handheld. It was more for our family than actually making money at the time.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Okay, Wow. So, you essentially took apart this laser yourself and kind of like looked at it and saw how it worked and how it operated?
Kevin Tucek: Yeah, well, I had to do that to fix the original one, but the technology is totally different. That technology is like when you saw James Bond use a plasma which is a gas, and you’ll put electricity through it and they bounced the light back and forth through a couple parabolic mirrors, then it would be pushed out the end of one of them with a little hole in the end. Very inefficient. Used too much power and it was the technology at the time. So we thought, we can do a better job of that, make it cheaper, smaller, more efficient, and that are the results you see today with your Erchonia laser.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Wow! That’s amazing.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I don’t hear those stories very often and how cool is that you know? When you said plasma laser? I’m thinking of like a plasma torch used to cut metal and things like that and I didn’t…it’s interesting the different applications of lasers in general. I didn’t realize that was the history. I knew the history of Erchonia started because someone in your family was dealing with pain and back pain. That’s a really interesting story. Was there any idea back at the time that you guys were on to something, like wow, we’re gonna revolutionize the way that physicians and doctors and chiropractors are gonna be using light therapy?
Steve Shanks: Early on, when Kevin was making those lasers for him. He started some out of his office. We didn’t know at that time that it was illegal. So we got a letter from the FDA in 1998 which turned us into a research & development company. Back then there was hardly anything published on the level of laser therapy. You know since it turned us into a research development company, we started figuring out things as we went along. The more research that we do, the more things that we’re open to and the more indications that we can apply the laser to. So early on, we didn’t know what we know today. We got our first laser through in 2002 on chronic neck and shoulder pain and since then there’s just so many different applications. And for us, if you didn’t have the FDA we could get the stuff out faster but you know these clinical trials usually take one to five years.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I was in high school back in 98 when this was happening and I had no idea. I had no idea that chiropractors and doctors were even doing anything like this, was there anything else going on like this in the world? Are you aware of any other type of technologies other than these machines that were brought into the US via Europe? Was there any other kind of laser therapy that you’re aware of that was available at the time?
Steve Shanks: Most of the lasers at that time were out there for our competitors. At that point it would probably be like ultrasounds or 10 units which there’s not a real lot of really good science behind them and they’re not used that much anymore.
Dr. Chad Wooler: Yeah, we find that with 10 units and even ultrasound you know they can be helpful for maybe some temporary mild symptom relief at best, but the things that we’re talking about are the claims that can be made based on science with Erchonia is pretty powerful. You know, what we’re hearing and what we’re seeing you know in terms of what’s actually happening there at a physiological level so it’s really pretty incredible to see that so. So, your dad. What was the story there? How did that play out? Well? I guess I should say both stories, how did your son do that, fall out of the tree and then, your dad? How did that all play out?
Steve Shanks: My dad, well, he was a paratrooper so we had chronic pain issues. So, when Kevin developed the first laser he was smart enough to patent it. So as Kevin started developing these lasers you know we had a bunch of family members that were getting treated by this doctor, I’d say there were about 30 of us on a whole bunch of different medications. So we had a pretty good idea what the laser could do. You know, we just had to figure out, okay, how can we market this? And that’s always a whole different problem.
Dr. Andrew Wells: Is it safe to say that you guys, and I’m naive here to this, is it safe to say that you guys created this category in the health space.
Steve Shanks: Yes. One of the problems of low level lasers, which is actually a blessing for us, is that to get an indication as a category through the FDA you have to blind and control clinical trials like with ultrasound tens units. They were grandfathered in because they were around before 1976.
So in 2002, we did a study on chronic neck and shoulder pain. Actually in 2000, the study was so good, the FDA said, we need you to do another one. So we did another study on chronic neck shoulder pain and we created a category and we got the first 510(K) market clearance from the FDA in January 2002.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s amazing. Absolutely incredible. So, and I don’t know if I’m going to dive too deep into a tangent here, but I was just thinking about this. You know with the doctors that we train we play this video that talks about the placebo effect and they dive into the science behind the placebo effect, but they talk about go a little bit broader and they talk about just this whole use of energy and how energy is such a more efficient vehicle for helping cellular healing because it’s more efficient in terms of cell to cell communication versus chemical communication.
And they said that’s why a lot of various energetic tools and/or approaches to helping people get better results versus a lot of the pharmaceutical approaches because just simply from the standpoint. The pharmaceutical and the chemical approach of chemical signaling within cells versus energetic signaling is far less efficient. Can you guys see that kind of…Did you know that was kind of what was driving a lot of this or maybe speak to that in terms of what your observations in terms of what you started to see and maybe some of the original hypothesis behind what you guys saw and what you guys were thinking.
Steve Shanks: Yeah, like when you talk about a chemical effect which people get familiar with drugs. Lasers, just invisible light, create photochemical effects. The nice thing about photochemical effects and there’s no side effects so it’s natural from the Sun. You can get vitamin D. Like when you talk about the placebo effect. In our market, we’ve been doing placebo controlled studies since 1999. We use LEDS as placebos, we keep about a small amount of pain. We’ll get maybe a 10 to 15% reduction in pain. Well with a laser, we’ll get a 60% reduction in pain. If we’re looking at fat indications, we’ll get maybe half to a three quarter of an inch where with a laser we’ll get three and a half to five inches. So that’s the photochemical effect. It’s laser dependent. You don’t get that photochemical effect with an infrared light and you don’t get much of a photochemical effect with an LED.
Dr. Andrew Wells: It’s important to know… I think because I’ve noticed now as consumers and also as companies are starting to catch on to the fact that you can get a biological change with energy, with light, with sound, with vibration. You’re starting to see now a lot of companies are jumping on this bandwagon and what I’ve noticed as a doctor in clinics across the country is, we’re seeing now a big influx of things that are really cheap, I would consider cheap stuff, it looks cheap, and it’s basically LED technology or versions of that. And that’s become really popular, and the interesting thing about this is I have a lot of docs to say you know we did get some results with this but we’ll dive into this a little bit more in further episodes later about what actual clinical differences are between laser light and LED light, other forms of light. But, I think that’s important for doctors. To understand there’s a differentiation between what you guys are saying and Steve and Kevin. There’s a differentiation between light and laser light, is that what you’re saying?
Steve Shanks: That’s exactly what we’re seeing. Absolutely true. So, like what we’re trying to set up a placebo device in a clinical trial. You want the patient to think that they’re getting the actual device, most patients think they see a red, green, violet light which is the wavelengths we use, or are they still laser. They’re not gonna be able to tell the difference so we’re getting actually really good, hard data.
Dr. Chad Woolner: That’s awesome. So from a mile up, simple view, how would you describe to the lay person or consumer the difference between an LED light versus a laser light?
Steve Shanks: There’s research out there that says cells speak in a laser coherent like fashion. LEDs are not coherent. They’re incoherent energy spread everywhere. From a regulatory perspective, there are no LEDs that are FDA cleared with blind and controlled clinical trials. Most of the stuff that are sold out there is a bunch of marketing garbage that’s being sold illegally. So we get audited by the FDA like when I got that first warning letter you know, all of us here at Erchonia, all my brothers, Kevin, we don’t want the FDA to come taking our stuff so we really watch what we say and we try to prove everything that we say.
Dr. Chad Woolner: So, would you say that that original kind of nasty gram from the FDA was like one of the biggest impetuses for you guys in terms of digging deep into research or do you think you guys naturally would have already just due to your kind of personalities in nature would have started digging into the research on your own?
Steve Shanks: I think that letter was a blessing and a curse. I mean when you get one of those letters, they’re terrible but we figured okay, we bleed in technology and at that point understand that we didn’t know anything about regulatory, so we had to start creating this process from the beginning.
Dr. Andrew Wells: So when was it that you guys realize, okay, this is something that could change the lives of thousands, if not millions of people. When was that movement in this evolution of this technology?
Steve Shanks: I would say the driving force is probably our dad.
Kevin Tucek: Yeah, this is Kevin. When we saw it did to our family and you know we’re nobody special, we’re the average Joe. And when we saw it helped from the children up to an old man and all these different indications. It worked on everybody and you know when you see it happening for you, you don’t have anybody left to impress. It’s just happening in the house. Did we see potential procedures? Should I say I saw potential. And he was the driving force to bring it to the next level.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s amazing. How is this? How has this technology changed over the last, 30 some years?
Steve Shanks: Well, it’s been you know, the nice part about you know me and Kevin being the same age, we’ve known each other….I’ve known Kevin longer than my two younger brothers. If we wanted to develop something for a clinical trial, I can walk up to Kevin; “Hey Kevin What do you think?”
I have no mechanical background at all so Kevin being like okay, let’s try this. And we would start out with handhelds and then there’s a lot of doctors out there that don’t want to wave a device back and forth. So, then you know we kind of figured, okay, let’s create a scanner. We started developing that in 2006-2007, yeah is that when we developed this runner?
Kevin Tucek: Well, actually, the interesting thing is the very first laser that I built was actually a scanner. It was a unique scanner that I’d never patented but it was to help Steve’s dad because he’s an older man and he didn’t want to stand around. But that led into…when he wanted to go on vacation. He needed something portable, the scanner was too big. So I built a smaller handheld version for him to take on vacation and that’s how we came at it.
We started, Steve will tell you that it was the handhelds but the initial one was a scanner. Different one we scanned today. But it still scanned and then you know this test we had to hand out led to the advent of the scanners.
Steve Shanks: A lot of that is, for instance, we’re doing liposuction research. We had to use a handheld because we’re in an operating room. We went in with some of our fat reduction protocols that were, you know, 40 minutes? You can’t do a handheld device for 40 minutes so that’s when Kevin started building scanners.
Dr. Chad Woolner: And what was the, in terms of the scanning, not only the handheld but was there other rationale behind why you’re wanting to scan beyond that? Was there in terms of the pattern, in terms of the layout of it? What else went into that in terms of the kind of approach.
Steve Shanks: Well, a lot of scanning devices are developed for some of our longer protocols. So, say if I want to treat my waist, hips, and thighs in one treatment. If I’m using a handheld device, I’d have to go one, to the other, to the other. Where if the scanning device Kevil built one where we could scan all of the areas at the same time. It’s just a more efficient manner. And now we combine wavelengths and some of our scanners, so as we go along, we develop devices based on what we’re trying to treat. We just don’t create a device and have it treat everything which is most of the stuff you can see out there.
Dr. Chad Woolner: I would imagine with a scanner too, that also allows you to create a far higher degree of standardization in terms of your protocols rather than leaving up to our practitioner to scan according to their time frame and whatnot. You guys have set protocols which allow for better research and better outcomes. My guess.
Kevin Tucek: Steve is the one who works with the clinicians to be able to get that. But the advantage to the scanners is uniform treatment. We have the same energy over the treatment area without any deviation. If you are imagining scanning by hand, your frequency is back and forth, it’s going to change. With scanners, it’s always exactly the same. So because of the uniform you have dosage. Steve was able to come up with protocol with his doctors. That way we could get all these different indications for your docs.
Steve Shanks: I love that point because you know what doctors by protocols or anybody, our competitors, they ask you. How long to treat? Where did the protocol come from? Because if you haven’t proven in a clinical trial, you’re guessing. With us, we’re not guessing, we’ve already proved an abundant control clinical trial.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, and that helps you know doctors’ confidence which ultimately then helps the patient, you know. If the doctor is confident with what they’re doing, that’s gonna ultimately, the patient’s gonna benefit from that as well.
Dr. Andrew Wells: I have a story about this when I was doing a board review class when I was in chiropractic school and I had this amazing doctor, John D’Onofrio, who unfortunately isn’t around with us anymore. But this guy I remember as a student. This guy bounced off the walls with the most amazing information I’d ever heard as a chiropractor and I was you know through four or five years of school learning textbook stuff. Learning how to help people, actually, I shouldn’t say even learning necessarily how to help people but learning how to get my chiropractic degree.
And, here comes this guy, Dr. D’Onofrio, and the guy was just a wealth of information. And this is the first time I had ever heard of Erchonia and he was mentioning that he was scanning patient’s heads with Erchonia laser. I’m like well, what do you mean you scan people’s heads? He’s like yeah, we have protocols for all different types of things and I remember thinking as a student like, is that safe? Can you do that? Why would you do that? What are the different applications?
Because I was thinking I’d heard of laser therapy and Erchonia. You know cold laser therapy and thinks like this and we had some of these some of technologies in our clinic, but I’d never had ever heard of Erchonia. And I didn’t realize that this technology could be used outside of just musculoskeletal applications and this was a huge breakthrough for me. When I first heard of this, I had no idea that laser therapy was used for things like fat loss.
I had no idea that it could be used to help increase energy or help with aiding in digestion and I didn’t realize the scope of the different therapy and applications for low level laser therapy. It was actually Dr. D’Onofrio who first introduced this concept to me. And I really want Docs…one of the benefits of listening to this podcast is you’re gonna get some of this information and all these different applications that you can use to help more patients in more ways. When did you guys…question for you guys. When did you realize…it sounds like you started with musculoskeletal complaints, but when did you realize there were other applications outside of just that?
[24:04]
Steve Shank: So our next application after chronic neck and shoulder pain, and we’ve been fairly fortunate. We’ve stumbled onto a lot of great doctors. We met a doctor with the plastic surgeon out of Cali Columbia named Rodrigo Neira. And there was some stuff published on low-level laser therapy, but Dr. Nira was a liposuction surgeon so I said look at laser patient pre and post and you know you’ll create the wound healing. When I met Doctor Rodrigo Neira, he didn’t speak English, I didn’t speak any Spanish so when I met him at the seminar I worked through his brother Matt.
He got back to me three months later through Matt and he says look something’s going on with the laser when I stick my cannula inside the patient. The fat is, it’s like water, so he spent a lot of his own money proving this. He did…some of those pictures you see that everybody rips off ours showing, we could emulsify fat…2000s. We published that in 2000-2001. We showed a transitory pore in the cell and all Dr. Neira wanted to be accepted by his plastic surgeon colleagues. The first time it was presented, and he got laughed out of the building. I said, look Rodrigo, you know what we’re gonna do. We’ll do the blind and control clinical trial with Kevin and we said we’ll do like a clinical trial for liposuction so most people don’t know this but gotta give ticket liposuction in 2004. If we would have never done that clinical trial and looked at that fat, we would have never got some of our fat reducing technology. So, as we do more research, we find out a lot more things we can do.
Dr. Andrew Wells: That’s amazing and that’s transforming healthcare because I know so many clinics. I know lots of clinics who have weight loss, weight loss therapy centers in their clinics. I know that’s big in the chiropractic field. It’s a great service center and a lot of people need to lose weight and I didn’t realize that that’s where it started. And I know most doctors are not using laser therapy, they’re using these little LED paddles and things that you get no doubt from China.
Steve Shanks: Well, there’s a reason why they’re not using lasers because we’ve patented the process of fat reduction with red, green, or violet lasers. So, obviously we prosecute our patents so you won’t see a lot of lasers out there. And with that reduction, we use LEDs. They don’t work or they work good enough for us to prove to the FDA where the lasers…. Actually you know in our clinical trials, most people don’t know we have to have something that’s not only statistically significant which all drugs have to prove but we have to prove clinical meaningfulness so we treat somebody before we start a protocal. We have a target we have to hit, if they don’t hit the target, they’re considered a failure.
Dr. Andrew Wells: You know, I hope doctors are understanding and hearing that when we’re talking about the history of Erchonia, we’re gonna talk about this in the next episode as well. Is that all of this was based on clinical trials and research. And speaking as a chiropractor sometimes when I’m talking to other healthcare professionals or even within our profession, we hear like, you know we hear the things we talk about are anecdotal or not research that don’t have any evidence behind them.
No doubt if you’re a chiropractor who advertises on Facebook you get all kinds of trolls saying, what you’re doing is not research and its not evidence-based, but here we have a company who’s producing products who’s whole history is founded in the necessity in the need to research what they’re doing and backing up what they’re doing. Backing up their claims with actual studies, I think I find that very refreshing and it should give doctors some comfort knowing that what they’re doing is legitimate. It’s backed by research, it has lots of evidence to support and that’s no doubt why you guys are doing as well as you are as a company and not only here in the US but around the world. I think there’s obviously a huge need for that and so thank you guys for doing this. I know creating a company like this is not easy and I know that you had to jump through a lot of hoops and I can’t imagine what the government regulatory processes are like but well, I know that it’s hard so thank you for providing what you do and helping so many doctors and patients throughout the world with this therapy.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, I have one kind of final question for you guys. I’m really, truly curious and interested to know, what do you guys see over the next 5,10,15,20 years in terms of the future of laser therapy and specifically Erchonia where do you guys see yourselves?
Steve Shanks: Most any time, We’ve got 7 to 8 clinical trials ongoing. So you know you’ll see a lot of brain disease, you’ll see like peripheral neuropathy, tinnitus pretty much. If you look at the mechanisms, there’s probably nothing that we can’t treat. Anything a drug can do a laser can do better with a better result. No side effects. So that just kind of shows you how broad the market is.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Wow.
Steve Shanks: If you want to see what we’re doing you could go to clinicaltrials.gov.
Dr. Chad Woolner: And do just a search Erchonia in there or?
Steve Shanks: Yeah anybody that’s doing blind and controlled research legally has published on clinicaltrials.gov/erchonia and you can see some of recent research projects.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Wow. That’s amazing. Are you guys getting much pushback at all from pharmaceutical companies in terms of you know the fact that you know that claim? I’m sure they can’t be too psyched about hearing that lasers, whatever drugs can do lasers can do better.
Steve Shank: Well, I think we’re not even on their radar screen, we’re so small.
Dr. Chad Woolner: Yeah, when it comes to these companies. Yes, that’s true. So, do you have any final questions Dr. Wells, any other questions?
Dr. Andrew Wells: I don’t. You know, we’re kind of heading a little bit more towards research conversation. We’re gonna talk about research a lot more in depth on the next episode and I really am excited for this podcast because of what we just talked about. That light therapy and laser therapy has the potential to do what pharmaceuticals can do without the side effects.
Like that’s what everybody in healthcare, at least the holistic healthcare practitioners, when you’re a chiropractor it’s music to my ears. This has the ability to impact so many lives in such an incredible way and no doubt that’s what you guys are doing so well as a company. But, that’s what we’re gonna be diving into in this podcast. Docs, if you’re listening to this podcast, this is what we’re about; helping reverse chronic disease and how people get healthy without the dangerous side effects of drugs and surgery.
Really, what we’ve been doing here in the US and around the world Western health care for the last 70-80 years. We’re looking to change that and so we hope that this podcast becomes a vehicle for doctors to become more familiar with this technology and what it can do for your patients and what it can do for your practice. So we really want to give a big shout out to Steven Shanks and Kevin Tucek for being our guests on the first episode ever, The Laser Light Show. So, thank you guys very much. Chad, anything you want to end on?
Dr. Chad Woolner: Thank you guys, we appreciate you guys being here with us and appreciate you guys sharing your story. It’s incredible. What has become of these kind of serendipitous and in some instances not so pleasant moments that you guys took and kind of proverbially made lemonade out of lemons or made lasers out of pain. So, thank you guys so much! This is episode one of the Laser Light Show and we will be sharing more with you guys on the next episode. Thanks again guys.
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 therapy, also referred to as Low-Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) or photobiomodulation (PBM), is a safe, non-invasive treatment. So, how does red light therapy work and how does it apply to your practice?
Medical professionals have found it beneficial in helping treat various conditions including chronic neck and shoulder pain, chronic lower back pain, and over three-hundred nociceptive pain issues.
Its non-invasive nature and effectiveness have made red light therapy devices popular among patients who do not want to resort to painkillers. With the opioid crisis spiraling, this type of technology should be considered by medical practitioners. Especially, those who are looking for alternatives to prescription drugs for their patients.
The technique works by exposing skin cells to concentrated wavelengths of low-level red light targeted to help increase cell reproduction. Here’s a deeper dive into how red light technology works.
Red light therapy works by affecting the body’s mitochondria – also referred to as the body’s powerhouse. Mitochondria is responsible for fueling the body and more specifically each cell. They are similarly described as the body’s power plant because they produce adenosine triphosphate which a cell can use as energy.
Scientists have discovered an undeniable relationship between the mitochondria’s optimum performance and the body’s overall wellness. The sub-optimal performance of mitochondria leads to undesirable physical effects such as aches and pains, unhealthy skin, and immune deficiencies.
Light is capable of providing the body with various nutrients that contribute to overall wellness. An excellent example of this is how the skin synthesizes vitamin D from sunlight while blue light affects the circadian rhythm and, consequently, your sleep pattern.
Both UV light and blue light are part of a group of lights known as bioactive lights. Near-infrared light and red light initiate a biochemical reaction that supports the mitochondria’s ability to absorb oxygen.
Increased oxygen absorption has the potential to improve cell regeneration and healing. Red light puts temporary stress on the skin cells giving the potential of anti-inflammatory and antioxidant responses. Healthier skin cells are nurtured by these responses. Applying temporary stress is like exercising. It’s putting temporary stress on your body subsequently improving overall health.
The best part is that red light laser therapy has proven to show virtually no side effects. It doesn’t need any heat or freezing temperatures and doesn’t require any downtime. Importantly, it causes no unnecessary pain.
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Low-level light laser therapy is a non-invasive treatment that has been used in the medical field for decades to aid in the rebuilding of the body at a cellular level. It has rapidly grown in popularity as a form of treatment for a wide variety of common ailments.
It’s a drug-free, non-invasive form of inflammation treatment that has been researched and studied, with many clinical trials to back its effectiveness. Studies show success in patients with chronic lower back pain as well as those with chronic neck pain, and those recovering from injury or surgery.
In this guide we will walk you through everything you need to know about setting up a low-level laser therapy program with success in your medical office.
It is a low-risk, cost-effective treatment that can help relieve pain and shorten recovery time for various needs. In addition to the pain relief mentioned above, this technology can support recovery from conditions like plantar fasciitis and onychomycosis. The low-light laser technology can be integrated into various healthcare fields including physiotherapy and podiatry.
It’s not hard to see why this is such an attractive option for many physicians. Here’s a few benefits that low-light laser therapy brings to your medical establishment:
Now that we’ve delved into some of the benefits, here’s some tips on how to make them happen at your practice. Here’s where to start:
One of the best ways to satisfy your patients is by understanding their demographics. Diving into where they are from and what geographical issues impact their lives will allow you to get a better understanding of what they want to achieve with the treatment.
You’ll likely deal with older adults, personal injury patients, and athletes. Understanding everyone’s unique needs ensures you deliver customized services.
Regardless of the service you provide, marketing is essential. This is especially true for professionals offering low-light laser therapy. For example, your patients will want to know how this treatment can help them recover.
How do you reach out to potential clients? How will you help them to understand that low-light laser therapy is effective? This is where marketing your service comes into play.
Incorporate a broad range of marketing strategies, including social media posts and direct mailing. Here are tips to get you started:
These marketing strategies will help you explain the low-light laser therapy to potential patients to evaluate whether they need it. For example, you can describe the protocols, process, and what they can achieve with the treatment. Keep everything simple to leverage the power of marketing.
If you’re looking to integrate new technology into your medical practice, education can give you the confidence you need. You can leverage the available online materials, including research, tips, videos, and webinars to equip your employees with knowledge and skills.
You also need to know what to expect when dealing with different patients. How will you handle temperamental patients? When marketing your service, don’t over promise your potential patients. Explain what they need to expect after treatment and deliver high-quality services as promised.
Low-light laser therapy might be foreign to many individuals, but it has proven to be effective. Practitioners can leverage this to succeed in their service delivery.
The first step to getting your low-light laser therapy program up and running is to research the right equipment for your practice. Here are some essentials to look for when shopping for low-level laser therapy machines.
The intensity of the laser beam is an essential consideration when deciding which device is suitable for your practice. Low-intensity beams are used more often than high-intensity beams because they have a softer range of frequencies and can be tolerated by more people.
For example, suppose an individual has sensitive skin. In that case, they may not tolerate higher levels of intensity from a low-level laser beam. Still, they could tolerate it from a more moderate or low-intensity beam depending on their specific skin sensitivity level and duration exposure time needed per day.
When considering a laser therapy device for your practice, you’ll need to decide what type of light is best for your patients. The type of treatment you choose depends on the condition being treated and the experience level of the clinician.
A few different types of treatments include low-level lasers, high-power lasers, and infrared light. If you’re starting with a low-light laser therapy program in your practice, it’s best to start with a low-level laser or infrared light device.
Wavelengths are also important when selecting a device. They determine which type of tissue will be stimulated by the treatment process and how deep into those tissues it will reach to reduce inflammation and pain.
Low-light laser therapy is a cost-effective way to offer your patients safe and effective treatment. With the proper guidance and enough research, you can have a successful low-laser light therapy program.
Learn about Erchonia’s new FDA market cleared FX 635. the only laser on the market proven through clinical trials to treat chronic low back pain.
There are numerous lasers and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) available that work for various medical applications. While LEDs may be effective in some instances, many fall short of the true potential power that real laser therapy offers. When compared to true lasers, LEDs can only deliver a smaller portion of energy into the body tissue. Alternatively, low-level laser therapy can provide more robust energy delivery and can apply to numerous medical situations.
The term laser stands for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. A laser is a mechanism designed to emit electromagnetic radiation through the process of stimulated emission. It concentrates its power into packets of energy called photons that penetrate the body’s tissues, allowing physicians to effectively target a treatment area, such as treating chronic back pain.
Some of the main characteristics of laser light include:
A light-emitting diode, more commonly referred to as an LED, is a light emitting diode. An LED has characteristics between a laser and a light bulb. When an LED activates, the electrons can reconnect with electron holes located in the device. This reconnection causes an energy release in the form of photons. The color of the emitted light directly defines the light’s properties and corresponding energy emission.
Earlier forms of LEDs would emit red light of low intensity. With modern innovations, LEDs are available in a more extensive selection of wavelengths, including infrared, which is often required for deep tissue penetration. LEDs are a non-coherent and divergent light source, meaning the light radiates in all directions. While LEDs can switch quickly, they can’t super-pulse.
One of the most important differences between the light emitted by an LED and that of a laser is the LED light is non-coherent and divergent. Because LED light is divergent, it wastes more energy and requires more specialized optics to focus the available energy into the desired areas. Alternatively, lasers waste less energy and can precisely target a treatment area more effectively.
Therapeutic depth is the process of delivering an adequate amount of light energy to the treatment area to improve symptoms. Lasers are significantly more efficient at reaching a therapeutic depth and properly delivering energy. Because a significant amount of light energy is lost as it passes through the body’s tissues, the laser must have a higher initial power at the surface, improving the laser’s ability to provide adequate amounts of energy at various depths.
Low-level laser therapy is a versatile treatment that can improve various medical conditions. Cold laser therapy, also known as a cold laser treatment, is a fast and painless process that can relieve multiple symptoms. Another benefit of cold laser therapy is that it’s non-pharmacological, meaning laser therapy can help manage painful symptoms and be a helpful alternative to opioid medications.
Physicians regularly use laser treatments because it’s safe and effective. Additionally, laser treatments can help patients avoid extensive surgery, often accompanied by a lengthy recovery period and painful side effects. While traditional surgery may be necessary in some cases, it’s often recommended to avoid extensive surgery if a non-invasive treatment option exists.
Common low-level laser treatments include:
Low-level laser treatments are a practical option for those looking to contour the body or treat chronic pain or foot fungus. A typical low-level laser treatment is performed in approximately 30 to 40 minutes but will vary from patient to patient. Most patients receive three laser treatments a week for two weeks, totaling six treatments in all. However, the total number of procedures will depend on what you’re having treated.
Because laser treatments are non-surgical, patients experience no pain or discomfort during treatment and can immediately return to their daily activities. Additionally, non-surgical fat loss treatments don’t require incisions, shortening downtime and preventing any potential scarring. Unlike traditional procedures, laser treatments don’t need any form of anesthesia, making the recovery period significantly shorter.
In general, non-invasive therapies can provide effective treatments while prioritizing patient safety.
Erchonia is committed to the advancement of low-level laser therapy through clinical and scientific research. We’re committed to quality — not compromise — and pride ourselves on the rigorous process we follow to provide a viable treatment modality. We’re the world leader in low-level laser technology and are proud to offer effective, safe solutions designed for health clinics, physical therapists, chiropractors and veterinarians worldwide.
Our products include lasers for fat loss, lasers for pain and lasers for foot fungus. We strive to provide our clients with the highest level of products and customer service possible. Our clinical research shows the safety, efficacy and efficiency of low-level laser treatments.
Learn more about low-level laser treatments and find a provider near you or contact us today.
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