Interview with Dr. Kevin Green, MD

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.