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. 

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. 

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.

COL Platoni's Letter

Ms. Ehrlich's Letter

Chaplain Fair's Letter

Fr. Mangoian's Letter

MAJ Hutchison's Letter

Dr. Harbin's Letter

Dr. Eidelman's Letter

Dr. Nichols' Letter

Dr. Dereberry's Letter

Dr. Overcash's Letter

EPI’s Response

 

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.  

Brain with ADD before treatment

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.

FDA Cautions: Common Pain Killers Risky

In response to a growing number of people suffering from acute liver damage, the FDA has issued cautions about the dangers of taking the over-the-counter pain killer acetaminophen (also known as Tylenol, Anacin-3, Tempra, Datril, and still other names abroad).

            This may come as a surprise to most of us, to whom the term “over-the-counter” is usually synonymous with “safe.”  However, we know now this is not the case, for acetaminophen toxicity is the leading cause of acute liver failure in the U.S. and may other Western countries.

Among other cautions, the FDA has recommended stronger warnings and stricter dose limits for drugs that contain acetaminophen because they pose an increased risk of liver injury to those who use them improperly.  For example, they have urged that the maximum adult daily dosage be reduced from the current amount of 4,000 milligrams to 3,250 milligrams.  They also have proposed a limit on the strength of immediate release versions of the drug and on the use of liquid formulations for children.

            We know the Alpha-Stim micro-current treatments to be a safe alternative or supplement to pain relief and pain management drugs. It is approved by the FDA to treat pain with no significant reports of side-effects. Adverse effects are usually mild and self-limiting. Out of approximately 4,541 patients in controlled, open, and uncontrolled conditions, by physician survey and reasonably associated with the use of CES are dizziness (6 cases, 0.13%), skin irritation/electrode burns (5 cases, 0.11%), and headaches (9 cases, 0.20%).

           

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.

Interview with Dr. Paul Olson, MD

Interview with Dr. Paul Olson, MD

 Issue #3 August 2010

Dr. Olson is a graduate of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Medical School, and currently practices Diagnostic Radiology in and around Grand Rapids, MN.  He is affiliated with 5 hospitals, including University Medical Center-Mesabi.  Marlene Stenlund RN and Clinical Advisor for Begin Healing Inc. requested that we interview Dr. Olson because of his expertise with Alpha-Stim, and also because she believes he is an extraordinarily compassionate physician.  She has seen chronic pain patients comforted by his skill level and understanding of pain on a personal level.

            Dr. Olson is also a photographer and French horn player in the Itasca Orchestra.  Editor Ian Stenlund contacted Paul Olson to ask him a few questions about his experience with the Alpha-Stim and its role in his practice.

Hello Dr. Olson, first tell me who you are and what you do.

I’m a radiologist.  There are two ways to do pain management: radiology and interventions. I am a radiologist that does interventional pain management.

How is radiology related to pain management?

What intervention is all about is sticking needles into people.  The typical thing you hear about is the steroid injection, people say “I got an epidermal shot today.”  But the diagnostic part [of my job] is to locate the pain generators, to find where the pain is, then and look into therapies for the pain. 

‘

Whether its needles (steroids), neuroablation [a precise x-ray guided technique for destroying a pain generating nerve], implanted devises in the spine, implanted electrical stimulator devices -- I look for what works best for the person.

How do you implement the Alpha-Stim in your practice?

I have used the Alpha-Stim myself for six years.  The groups of people I saw that were the most receptive to the Alpha-Stim were those patients who have sympathetic nerve pain.  If I do a nerve block they get a couple of weeks free of pain, but if I use the Alpha-Stim, they can be pain-free for months.  I have been combining the Alpha-Stim, biofeedback, and sympathetic nerve blocks.

I also use it on patients that are very nervous at an appointment or they are afraid of my needles.  I’ll leave it on during the procedure, and they tend to calm down and for some people the procedure is less painful.

Do you use the probes or the electrodes in your office?

No, I send them to Marlene Stenlund [RN] and she uses the probes.  I just find people who are going to have good response to Alpha-Stim.  I don’t tell them anything, I just say, “Hey,  let’s try this thing,” and then we sit together and talk.  After a while I ask “how is the headache or the pain now?”  If they have results I suggest they see Marlene.  Usually the Alpha-Stim works for people with a sympathetic component to pain, if it’s a mechanical source of pain, I don’t use it.  Sympathetic pain has no known mechanical component.

The sympathetic is a non-controlled system.  Basically, think of Fibromyalgia stuff, that’s the sympathetic nervous system amped up.  Every nerve in body has a connection to the sympathetic and everyone’s geography is different.  I use the Alpha-Stim to shut down sympathetic nervous system so I can find the typical pain generator.

People who use a TENS unit usually say that it only makes [the pain] worse, and I say I got a trick for you, and Marlene gets another patient.  Its pretty obvious that when TENS doesn’t work that the Alpha-Stim will be good for the person.

Marlene loves my referrals because I’ve already tested whether they are going to benefit from the Alpha-Stim.  This pain management stuff is all about matching the right patient to the right treatment.

How has your practice changed since adding the Alpha-Stim to your repertoire of tools for pain management? For example, has your client load decreased because people find they can manage their pain at home?

I don’t see decrease in client load. I see more and more once word gets out. Everybody is so different, so I’m always trying to match the best therapy for patient.  Now I have a tool that can help me treat sympathetic pain that I didn’t have before.

Actually, I’m writing a paper on the effectiveness of the Alpha-Stim on a certain type of headache and other extremity pains.

How do you explain the technology and science behind the Alpha-Stim to your clients?

I don’t tell them anything.  If they ask, “What is this?” I say it’s just a little electrical activity, let’s see if it works.  I don’t explain much so they don’t immediately attach a negative stigma to it.  If they’re really skeptical, I send them to the website.  Most people don’t care because if they’re pain goes away, that’s good enough for them.

If you don’t mind me asking, Do you use the Alpha-Stim for personal treatments? And if yes, please tell me some of your experience and/or results.

I have chronic chest pain. And I have tried everything to quiet it down.  I could barely make for three hours in the morning before I couldn’t do anything because of the pain.  At first I thought it wasn’t helping. But then I noticed I could stand a couple more hours in the morning, and then after anther month I could sleep at night.  That’s how I use it, to keep things manageable.  I use it for my pain everyday.  I also love it when I go on an airplane, I put it on and go to sleep.