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Showing posts with label PTSD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PTSD. Show all posts
Monday, October 22, 2012
Alpha-Stim Certification Program
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Radio Interview with Marlene and Ian "Strategies for Healing from Addiction"
When Begin Healing Inc. was recently displaying Alpha-Stim at Association of Christian Counselors conference in Branson, MO, we met Shanon and Gary Worrell from Strategies for Healing Inc. They were very interested in our device, and believed that many of their clients could benefit from it, so they invited us to be interviewed on their radio show called Strategies for Healing from Addictions.
Click here to go to their site and listen to the interview.
It was great to talk to the Worrells about their practice and how Alpha-Stim can treat the depression, anxiety, insomnia, and stress that can lead to or be caused by addiction.
Friday, October 12, 2012
NEW Alpha-Stim M and Alpha-Stim AID - NOW AVAILABLE
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| NEW Alpha-Stim M open case |
It is with great pride and excitement that Begin Healing Inc. announces the launch of our much anticipated 7th and 8th generation Alpha-Stim models. The Alpha-Stim "M" and the Alpha-Stim "AID" will be released October 15th, retiring the Alpha-Stim 100 and SCS. The sleek look, feel, and presentation of the new models represents a cutting edge therapeutic choice, while providing the same effectiveness and reliability that Alpha-Stim has offered for over 30 years. The fully digital display is user friendly and includes backlighting, usage tracking, and a locking feature. Additionally, the new models self-test, providing you with the confidence of knowing the patient is receiving a full treatment. Please visit our website and take the new devices for virtual test drive right now at www.beginhealing.com.
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| NEW Alpha-Stim M |
Kind Regards,
Ian Stenlund
Begin Healing Inc.
Sales and Support Representative
(877) 569-2583
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Interview with Dr. Jeff Marksberry: New Studies - Issue #8
This month we feature Part 2 of our interview
with Jeffrey A. Marksberry, MD, who is the Science and Education Director of
Electromedical Products International, Inc (EPI). EPI is the company that developed the
Alpha-Stim technology and manufactures the units. As leading research analyst for studies on
the Alpha-Stim, Dr. Marksberry has vast knowledge of current and past studies on electromedicine, microcurrent, and
Alpha-Stim in particular
New Studies on Alpha-Stim
Interview with Dr. Marksberry, Part 2
Tell me about the new
PTSD studies, as it seems very relevant now that the war in Iraq is coming
to a close. The veterans are coming home, and we need to be able to treat them
somehow.
Well, we have got three studies on PTSD underway, all in
different stages. There is one at the University of North Texas, which is just getting
approval to start by the college. There
is another in San Antonio, and they don’t have
anyone to analyze the data, so we actually got them in touch with some
researchers at the same University, North Texas. So they will have the data and they are going
to analyze that. And the third one is in
press to be published in the next couple months. So there are three. There is also a traumatic
brain injury study at the University
of Baylor, and they are in conjunction
with the VA clinic in Houston.
Aside from studies on
veterans or VA studies, are there any studies happening or being released soon
that you are excited about?
Yeah, actually I got an influx this last month or two of
people wanting to do research. I am the liaison between them and the company,
so we loan them [Alpha-Stim] devices and we help them set protocols. I think the one I’m most excited about is a
Fibromyalgia study. It’s at Virginia University, they finished, and they are
writing it up, and it’s a big study.
They looked at pain with Fibromyalgia, they looked at sleep, and I
believe they also looked at anxiety and depression, but they did FMRI imaging
in the study as well.
We’ve got another one that’s going to start that I’m excited
about is at a VA clinic. We have got
over 27 on-going studies, and all of them but this one are based on CES, but
this one will actually be using the probes, and they are going to double-blind
it.
Really the most gratifying thing I’ve done now is going to
NICoE and seeing their facilities, they are the military leaders on PTSD and
brain injuries. I’ve done two trainings
there. I trained at camp Lejeune,
which is a marine and naval base. That’s
where the Wounded Warrior headquarters are, the battalion, so most of the
Wounded Warrior work comes out of there, and so I trained some of their
doctors. Just seeing them tell you what
they have been doing is amazing stuff.
That’s interesting,
I’ve been doing follow-up for a couple conferences and I was just on the phone
with someone who works with Wounded Warriors.
Tanya does our government services and she works a lot with
Wounded Warrior programs. They call any
soldier that’s injured, or marine or whoever, a wounded warrior. I think it is headquartered at Camp Lejeune, North
Carolina. I
went there and trained some of their mental health and pain doctors. So that was really cool, and they want to
have me back. They are moving offices,
but when they are all set up together they want to have more training so they
can use it and integrate it more.
How does the arsenal
of research on the Alpha-Stim compare to other devices, or even
pharmaceuticals?
Any of our competitors – we absolutely kill them. One time I did a device comparison, so I
found every competitor of ours, of the CES, that I could, and put the name of
the device, the pricing, anything I could find, what they claim they treat,
then research. I think only
Fischer-Wallace has one or two studies they have done – other than that, they
only just claim our research. They will
basically just copy and paste off of our website and put it on theirs. But as far as pharmaceuticals go, they usually only do one or two large-scale
studies before they get approval.
Afterwards, I’m not sure they would do any – unless they want a new
indication. Other researchers,
independents, will do research with it. Once aspirin, you know, is approved
they don’t need anymore research. Other
people will go an tell them, “You better do this study,” and over the years
they get more, but most drugs don’t have a lot of research that they’ve done –
but over the years they get more from independent sources.
I think we stack up pretty well against most pharmaceuticals
for research though. Those companies do
pay for large-scale studies to get first approval, and a lot of times it may
have 2000 patients in it. We don’t have
that kind of study where it’s got 2000 patients in it.
When I was reading
articles about the FDA’s re-classification of the Alpha-Stim, and the FDA’s
Proposed Rule, the FDA was saying, “That was only 20 patients.” So the studies are completely dismissed just
because they are small, but I don’t think that’s valid because it’s a quantity
over quality argument.
You know, when I’m at a conference and a practitioner says,
“Well, you don’t have a big “in.” Where is the 2000 patient study?” I would say, well, you can pick any drug, but
let’s say Zoloft, they have a study with 2300 patients. You can go to their
website and see it. That study, and this
is documented, that study actually started with 5000 patients. Ok? They went through phase one, which was “See
how well it works for everybody.” And
they took the bottom 25% of doctors that were in the study, and if their results
weren’t very good, they got thrown out of the study. And then they did phase two, where every
doctor got paid more to be involved. And
they did another trial, and the bottom 25% were picked out again. They do that
about four or five times until the “best” practitioners, who are really incentivized
to get good results now, because you are getting paid more for every step that
goes on. There is more and more
incentive to stay in the study, and you get better results. They threw out the bottom 25%, so now they
are up to just the best patients and the best doctors that they can get results
with. So there are ways of skewing
things, and just because you have got 2000 patients, it doesn’t mean that it’s
better than something that’s got 100 patients in it.
Right, if I was at a
conference and this question came up, I would be like, “Well, how many patients
do you see?” You know? Do you see 20,
30, or 40 a week? Then what if 80% of
them got better from this? Would you
say, “Oh that’s not very valid. It’s only 20 people.”
Yeah, exactly, and that’s the way you have to think about it,
and people don’t. People get accustomed
to the drug Rep coming in and saying, “We’ve got this study. It had 3000
patients in it. The P value was….” You
know, it’s the quality of the study and not the amount of patients that were in
it.
Last question
then. I don’t want to get you in trouble
with anyone. But I’m curious as to what
you think the future of micro-current, in terms of medicinal use.
I’d say the future would be wide open. Getting the calls that I get on a weekly
basis are amazing. We have our four
indications, which we market for, and know a lot about, but we’ve had, in the
last few months, stories about two people that were in comas, that were in
vegetative states, that came out of the coma.
Actually their spouses started using Alpha-Stim with them. I mean, out of comas, vegetative states. I’ve also talked to two people, and they were
about a week apart, one gentleman, he had a tremor for 25 years. He’s only 37, he’s had a tremor since he was
12. Played the violin, but doesn’t play
as much as he wants to because of his tremor.
Went home for Thanksgiving, and his mom put her Alpha-Stim on him, and
five minutes later his tremor was gone.
I mean, those things aren’t what we market for. I’ve talked to people who are autistic who have
gotten benefits, with ADD, so many things that we don’t, and can’t, market for,
that we get reports from practitioners and patients, is very encouraging. It makes me think that really everyone or
anyone who has got problems and doesn’t feel perfect should at least try it and
see if it helps them or not.
There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be more mainstream and
utilized more.
Is there anything
else you want to add?
We’ve got a lot of studies on the way we are very excited
about. Twenty-seven is a huge
number. And all together we’ve had about
50 studies published. We’re doing a lot
of webinars, excited about that. We
really feel like education for the practitioners is the best way to get them
involved, better than selling more. So
we are really pushing that.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Interview with Dr. Marksberry: Conventional Electromedicine - Issue #7
This month we are featuring Part 1 of our interview with Jeffrey A. Marksberry, MD. Dr. Marksberry who is the Science and
Education Director of Electromedical Products International, Inc (EPI). EPI is the company that developed the
Alpha-Stim technology and manufactures the units. As leading research analyst for studies on
the Alpha-Stim, Dr. Marksberry has vast knowledge of the philosophy and
technology behind electromedicine, microcurrent, and what makes certain
waveforms good for your body and brain.
The Philosophy behind Alpha-Stim:
Interview with Dr. Jeffrey Marksberry, Part. 1
First, I’d like to
hear about how you first became interested in electromedicine.
I think the first exposure I had to it was that I had a
friend who got an Alpha-Stim from his chiropractor. Then I saw a job posting [by EPI], and was
really tired of traveling as often as I was, and I got an interview for the
job. I liked what they said. I wouldn’t say I was skeptical, but just like
anyone, like “Wow” if it’s as good as it sounds, then it would change medicine. I got the job and took the device home, and
then New Years my daughter had a sleep-over at our house and ran into the bed
and broke her nose when they were playing.
I hadn’t used the probes yet, so I just pulled it out, and her nose
wasn’t displaced so it wasn’t like she had to go to the hospital and have it
moved or anything like that. It was just
really swollen and really painful. So I got the probes out, treated her nose
for about a minute, and then another minute went by and she was like, “It doesn’t
hurt anymore.” I mean she was crying and all this, and then she was, “It
doesn’t hurt anymore.” That lasted I think the rest of the day, and then the
next morning she woke up, the swelling was much better. She had a little bit of pain, so I treated
her again and that was all the pain that she had. And then around that same time I put up
Christmas plants and dropped a big planter on my foot and broke some toes and
my foot, and I used it on myself and it just took away the pain. I couldn’t believe it. You know, quicker than any medicine I’ve had
for pain, so I was pretty convinced then about the pain. Then I was a believer, but it took awhile for
me to treat some people before I’d really see changes with depression or
anxiety or PTSD.
Can you tell us what
the philosophy behind micro-current technology is?
It’s probably two things. One is that the body has the power
to heal itself. And I think we deliver a
lot of raw materials with the waveform. We know that frequencies, electrical
frequencies, can help with things – with anxiety, with pain, with a number of
things. And a lot of conditions are
considered to be an electrical problem, in tremors or anything neurologic. There is a chemical component, but it is
probably electrically based. But with
our waveform we are really delivering a lot of raw materials to the brain and
letting it do what it needs to do to normalize itself. No matter what we see, it’s heading toward
normal. So if a patient is depressed, it
elevates their mood, but if they are anxious and manic, it will lower their
mood. No matter what they are doing you
are normalizing the patient.
Right, and I guess we
usually describe the effect of the Alpha-Stim as increasing Alpha waves,
because the majority of people try it because they still have some Delta or
Theta brain waves from sleep or from depression and insomnia.
That’s exactly right.
I think that of everything we do it is really normalizing. Everyone has cultural differences of what
they think “normal” is, but for a human being, physically and physiologically,
depression is not a normal state, and mania is not the normal state. So we are always driving a person to sleeping
better, to having normal sleep patterns, to not having pain perception all the
time, normalizing that. So whatever
their condition is, it seems to help normalize.
This ties into my
next question. Dr. Kirsch is quoted as
saying, “Physics controls chemistry.”
What do you think he means by that?
Well, chemistry is involved in a lot of things, protons and
neutrons and electrons. A compound may
have chloride ions and sodium ions, but how they react and how they act on each
other is based on the physics of the components. While everyone has chemicals in their bodies,
how they react and how they react with each other is based on the physics of
that person, electrically or physically, it is based on the laws of physics.
As the leading
research analyst for the Alpha-Stim you must be confronted with the issue of
how it is defined in the medical world.
And I am very curious about the history of electromedicine and why a lot
of people think of it as “alternative” medicine even today.
I think if you go back, probably pre-penicillin, it wasn’t
considered alternative, it was considered mainstream. But as drugs really took off with
antibiotics, with discovering DNA, with advances in microscopy, and designing
medicine, then those became huge, and electromedicine was really left
behind. Then you get large companies
that really job that market. I’m sure
you’ve read Politics and Healing. You
can see how the efforts that are non-pharmacological often get squashed if you
are not ready to sell the rights to AMA or Johnson and Johnson. If you don’t work for them, they will bury
you. So a lot of companies have gone out
because they weren’t large enough to compete with the Pfizers and Mercs of the
world.
When doctors are trained now, you have a class on
pharmacology. You don’t have a class on,
I guess it would be called, “therapeutic options.” That’s not the class, its pharmacology. You go in, and over a semester you learn 700
drugs, and how they work, and how they act on each other, and what if you are
taking two, and what you can’t take when your pregnant, but you don’t learn the
benefits of someone that’s meditating or acupuncture or behavioral therapy,
things like that. And you don’t learn
about electromedicine either.
If you look up the
definition of alternative medicine, it just says, “That which is not
conventional medicine,” or sometimes, “ that which has not been scientifically
proven to be effective and safe.”
I would say it’s probably more subjective, it’s probably
more practitioner to practitioner, and they have in their own mind what they
consider is alternative or not. If
you’re only doing one thing, whatever it is, anything else is
unconventional. There are some older
doctors that still write the same 10 or 15 prescriptions that they did 30 years
ago and have no intention on changing anything.
So even an antidepressant would be unconventional for them.
So tell me how
electromedicine, and specifically the Alpha-Stim, falls within the realm of
conventional medicine.
I think it should because, just like anything in medicine,
as a practitioner you should be following the Hippocratic Oath – you won’t do
any harm, so you are focusing on safety, and you are only doing things that
help the patient – and that really boils down to every decision you make
there’s a risk and a reward ratio. You
know, “Is this surgery going to help the patient, if so, how much? What are the risks and side-effects before
you decide on doing that?” With
Alpha-Stim, with really no safety issue, the worst that can happen is that it
doesn’t work for that patient. And you
always start non-invasive first. A
patient is over-weight, well you don’t go to a gastric by-pass. You start with
diet and exercise, getting a nutritionist involved, you go through the steps.
That builds up to eventually maybe they get a gastric bypass, if nothing has
worked and they have honestly tried, and had the psychological review that they
are supposed to, and all those steps.
But you always try the non-invasive thing first – or you’re supposed to. And if you have a patient that’s interested
in that, then you do a risk-reward ratio – and with a zero on the risk then any
reward is good. So the Alpha-Stim almost
always passes that test.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Response to the FDA's Proposed Rule
Nation-wide support for re-classification...
Issue #6
If the FDA takes action which will reduce or eliminate patient’s access to this device, many patients will suffer needlessly and will be forced to return to dependence on analgesic, anxiolytic, or antidepressant medications.
- Dr. Harbin (excerpt from letter)
Recently the FDA published a Proposed Rule in the Federal Register regarding cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES) and opened a 90 day public comment period on CES. This rule would require Pre-Market Approval (PMA) for CES, while for the past 30 years CES devices have been legally cleared to market in the USA by the FDA. At the end of this comment period the FDA will issue a final rule which will either down classify CES to Class II or will call for all CES manufacturers to prepare PMA Applications. To view the FDA docket including proposed rule, please click here.
Approved for over the counter sales in Europe, China and Canada, the Alpha-Stim devices have gone through an extensive review process for the FDA six times since 1981 and have been cleared to market.
The response we received in support of down-classification is astounding! We would like to take this opportunity to share some of the letters with you. These doctors, patients, chaplains, and military personnel have great stories about the results they have received from using the Alpha-Stim in their practices and at home.
Please review some of these astounding letters, so you can see why we are energized to continue the "good fight" and explain what a valuable tool Alpha-Stim is for practitioners.
Please review some of these astounding letters, so you can see why we are energized to continue the "good fight" and explain what a valuable tool Alpha-Stim is for practitioners.
The Military and Alpha-Stim...
We are pleased to have new survey data from the military. Military Personnel Survey Analysis Summary, written by Larry Price, PhD., is a must read and a great breakdown of the effectiveness of Alpha-Stim among our different indications with or without medication. Click Here for the full version of the survey.
SPECT Brain Imaging
S.P.E.C.T Brain Imagining
Issue #5
At the American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC http://www.aacc.net/) conference in September, Begin Healing shared the exhibit hall with the SPECT Brain Imaging booth run by The Clements Clinic. Dr. Todd Clements found some time to sit down with us and talk about his practice and how he has incorporated the Alpha-Stim.
SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) Imaging
is a nuclear brain scanning technique developed by Dr. Amen, MD (author of Change Your Brain, Change Your Body). Dr. Todd Clements, MD, joined the Amen
Clinics in 2006 where he trained in SPECT Imaging. In 2008 he became Medical Director of
Clements Clinic, his own out-patient psychiatric practice in Plano, Texas,
which specializes in the SPECT scan.
A SPECT scan is performed by injecting a very small dose of
a radioactively tagged compound (Ceretec) that is taken up by the brain.
Once in the brain the Ceretec emits energy for the next few hours. The
cameras in the SPECT scanner slowly rotate around your head and detect this
energy in the form of light. The most active brain cells will emit the
most energy and the least active ones will emit the least energy.
Whereas MRI and CT scans look at the structure of the brain,
SPECT looks at the functioning of the
brain in terms of cerebral blood flow and activity patterns. With these 3D images they are able to
evaluate 1) areas of the brain that work well (2) areas of the brain that work
too hard and (3) areas of the brain that do not work hard enough. Among other
reasons, this is helpful because there are many cases where the brain’s
structure is normal, but the way it is functioning is abnormal.
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| Brain with ADD before treatment |
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| Brain with ADD after treatment |
The Clements Clinic website helps explain this difference
with an analogy: “If you were flying in an airplane today you would want to
know that the engine was working right. Taking a picture of the engine
(CT/MRI) shows you all of the parts, but does not give you any information
about how well the engine is running (functioning). A brain SPECT image
identifies important information about your brain’s functioning.
Identifying areas of abnormal functioning can be vitally important in
helping you doctor make the best diagnosis and treatment plan for you.”
When asked about how he generally uses the Alpha-Stim in his
practice, Dr. Clements said he usually uses it with teens, and for patients
with sleep, anxiety, or anger problems.
First, the patient comes in for a SPECT scan, and if their brain shows
over-activity in the basal ganglia or in the thalamus, then the patient is a
likely candidate Alpha-Stim treatments.
“Instead of taking a Xanex when they feel anxious,” said Dr.
Clements, “they can do a 20 minute session with the Alpha-Stim. I find it’s a
good tool. A lot of people come in on benzos or clonazepam. These people just
get used to popping [a pill] when they get anxious, so I find it’s a good
alternative for these drugs.”
He has also found that the Alpha-Stim helps chronic
marijuana users feel less anxious when they stop using. Such cases are examples of patients that show
over-activity in the thalamus in their SPECT scans. Dr. Clements also pointed
out that when patients dealing with addictions can actually see how their substance abuse is
effecting the brain, they are more likely feel motivated to change their
behavior.
Along with evaluating the specific brain patterns associated
with mood disorders, the SPECT Imaging can also evaluate memory loss, the
effects of brain trauma, aggressive and/or violent behavior, cerebral
cardiovascular disease, the extent of impairment that drugs, alcohol and other
toxins have done to the brain.
Perhaps the most important aspect of the SPECT technologies
is that a scan can help determine the type
of ADD, anxiety, or depression that is present. Far too often are people
diagnosed with ADD and immediately prescribed a stimulant, when their type of
ADD could be treated more effectively with multivitamins, fish oil supplements,
and/or CES. The more we know about a
persons specific condition or type, the better we will be at treating them.
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