Interview with Dr. Kevin Green, MD
Issue #4 February 2011
This interview took
place at the SCRIPPS conference in San
Diego, California,
which is hosted by the Center for Integrative Medicine and the American Board
of Integrative Holistic Medicine.
Marlene Stenlund RN and Clinical Adviser for Begin Healing Inc. sat down
with Dr. Kevin Green MD to talk about his work and how he has incorporated the
Alph-Stim into his practice. Dr. Green
is a family medicine provider based in Wisconsin.
Marlene: Just tell us
a little bit about who you are, and what kind of practice you have.
Dr. Green: Okay, I am
Dr. Kevin Green and I work with Aurora currently
in Osh Gosh, Wisconsin. I am a family medicine and integrative
medicine provider. And I try to look at
all kinds of alternatives for helping people.
Marlene: Okay, and
how long have you been using Alpha-Stim in your practice?
Dr. Green: I think
probably for about five years. And I use it a lot.
Marlene: What kind of
patients do you use it on?
Dr. Green: Mostly anxiety, insomnia, and depression. I do use it some for pain, some in the
office, most of it is people obtain their own unit and use it out of the
office, under my guidance.
Marlene: What kind of
results are you getting with Alpha-Stim?
How do you see Alpha-Stim helping people to be less reliant on
pharmaceuticals?
Dr. Green: I have had
very good results. I would say that I am
able to get probably 95 percent of my clients off of their medications. And I usually have them use the Alpha-Stim
for at least a month, and then I start tapering their medications. Usually for about six weeks, I have them off
their medications.
Marlene: Do they have
any difficulty going off those medications?
Dr. Green: I taper
them, and there are certain SSRIs that you have trouble getting them off, just
because of the side effects, but you just taper it very slowly – and the
hardest is probably Alprazolam because the people who are really anxious like
to have that – even if they do not use it, they like to have that available to them. And eventually I can convince them that they
haven’t used it for so long, that they don’t need it anymore. So I have had very good luck getting them off
their medicines.
Marlene: Tell us about a patient situation that you have had
that was especially interesting to you.
Dr. Green: I have
been completely surprised all the time.
The longer I use this I’m finding out it actually fixes the
problem. And after a while they find
they probably don’t need the Alpha-Stim anymore either, that was a surprise. I am finding it helps with addictions, drug addictions
and cigarette smoking: that was a surprise.
I had one gentleman that was a very successful business
person, and he had a very severe stroke.
And he had a huge tremor of his wrist and his ankle on the same side,
and it was in constant motion, and he had been to six doctors, three
neurologists. All of them told him,
“Live with it,” because there’s nothing that can be done. He came in to see me because of depression,
and I put the Alpha-Stim on him. And
really what bothered him was his ankle was in constant motion because that kept
him from sleeping. I came back in the
room in about 30 minutes and his ankle was, for the first time in eight years,
silent.
And due to that, I predicted that if he kept using this,
that it would improve. And actually I
saw him probably several months ago, and the tremor is virtually gone. The hand
still has a little bit of the tremor, but that doesn’t bother him at all.
Marlene: Oh, that’s
wonderful.
Dr. Green: But his
life has been dramatically changed by the Alpha-Stim.
Marlene: What about pain treatments? How much time would you
actually spend doing an in-office treatment with them?
Dr. Green: I,
generally, if I am going to use it for pain, will see them in the office and
maybe give two or three or four treatments in the office. That doesn’t take long, usually 15 minutes is
plenty. And I do that over a week to two
weeks, and I see what kind of results they get.
If they respond favorably, most of them will just purchase the unit and
we just teach them how to do it at home.
And actually I’ve had better than expected luck with some
very tough cases.
Marlene: What would
the diagnosis be for some very tough cases?
Dr. Green: Mostly
arthritis, or chronic pain from an injury.
I had one gentleman. And I saw
him on my schedule and he came in for pain.
And what I didn’t realize is that he was 84 years-old and hurt
everywhere, and walked in like a probably 95 year-old. He couldn’t sleep on his right side because
of the pain.
So we treated [him] three times in the office, and the third
time he came back, and he said, “I’m sleeping on my right side, and I haven’t
done that for years.”
I saw him probably six months afterwards, and he was walking
like a 40 year-old, which totally amazed me. So it’s really worked well for
him, and I thought that was a set up for failure.
Marlene: Right. Great, is there anything else that you want
to tell us about…?
Dr. Green: It works.
Marlene: It works,
okay.
Dr. Green: It works
as advertised, and even more than advertised.
The amazing thing is that I didn’t realize that it actually fixed
problems, and that is what I am seeing – that after people use it for a period
of time, usually a couple of years, they probably can put it away and keep it
if they need it again. But, so far not
many have needed to pull it back out.
Marlene: That’s
wonderful.
Dr. Green: And it
works for everybody in the family – so that’s the other good thing too!
Marlene: That’s the
other good thing too!
Dr. Green: Yes,
that’s the other good thing. You can’t
share a pill with somebody, but you can share this with somebody.
