The Future of Medicine Is Already Here
The future of medical intervention is already here. The only problem is that most of the world doesn't know it.
As someone who has worked in the field of functional neurology for years, and under the direction of a doctor who has worked in that same field for over a decade, everything that we do at The Neuro Clinic feels normal and standard. It definitely still is incredible, but it can feel like standard treatment after treating hundreds of patients. But I had a couple of experiences recently that reminded me that what we doing here, is anything but common or standard. Most people aren't even aware that these treatment options exist, let alone know where to find them or how they work.
The first experience took place several weeks ago. I was having dinner with some friends, several of which also work in the medical field. One was doctor doing his residency at the trauma and wound wing of the local hospital. Another was a psychiatrist. And the third was a nurse.
Over the course of the conversation, the doctor brought up a case in which a patient had come in with a wound that would not heal, partially due to an infection, and also due to poor circulation. I asked how they had responded to hyperbaric oxygen treatment (HBOT). The friend responded that they had not used it and was confused how that would have helped. A little surprised, I gave a quick explanation about how high concentration oxygen at above-ambient pressure helps the body fight pathogens, turns on signals to build new blood vessels, increases circulation, and increases wound healing speeds. He was very interested and also a little surprised, because they had not learned anything about that in medical school, and had not implemented treatments like that in their hospital. For us at The Neuro Clinic, that's just standard knowledge - most of our patients even know how the HBOT chamber works and what it's used for.
Then later during the evening, I asked the psychiatrist friend if they had started using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) therapy in conjuncture with their standard cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Ever since The Neuro Clinic got the first MagStim TMS unit in Utah in 2018, several TMS clinics have opened up along the Wasatch front. TMS has really started to gain some momentum, and due to the fact that psychiatrists are most commonly the ones working with mental illness, many psychiatrists choose to incorporate TMS therapy into their standard treatment due to it's incredible success rates. However, this friend responded that he had heard of it before, but didn't know much about it and didn't know any clinics around that used it. That just felt so bizarre.
With mental illness rates sky-rocketing, it's become clear that old methods for handling such health concerns are not sufficient. TMS has now been studied enough to know it's efficacy and safety, and with technology improvements, treatment costs have dropped drastically. This is how we will be treating mental illness for years to come, and yet very few people understand that.
The third example came years ago when having a conversation with my neuroscience professor. This brilliant man had a doctorate and several master's degrees in the fields of neuroscience, anatomy, and neuroanatomy. He was incredibly well read and each week for our advanced neuroscience capstone class we would read 3-5 of the most recent and ground-breaking neuroscience research articles and then discuss their implications. During this conversation with him, I brought up the fact that we had been using transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation to treat depression, anxiety, and several other serious health concerns.
"You can't just stimulate the vagus nerve and treat depression," my professor remarked.
"Ummm... Yes we can. I personally saw ten or so patients this week who's depression symptoms are drastically improving. And I just re-administered follow-up testing for a patient whose depression has now been in complete remission for months," I replied.
My professor rambled on about something being too simple and how he hadn't read anything about it. I was shocked. But after thinking about it, it made sense why he didn't realize this kind of treatment existed and worked. There's thousands of research papers being published every week. It's so hard to stay caught up on every advancement.
So the next semester and I wrote my capstone research literature review on using transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation to treat medication-resistant depression. This lit review was accepted and published in the Chiasm undergrad research neuroscience journal at BYU. You can read the original article here:
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Whether you want to think of it as the rest of the medical community is behind, or as The Neuro Clinic is just ahead, the fact of the matter is that we put great effort into finding and implementing the newest, most accurate, and most effective medical interventions. We just focus on what will help our patients the most and how to help them achieve true health. That's what we've always done and we're confident that our approach will continue to work for years to come.
There are countless new devices that are completely reshaping the medical world. It's changing not only how we treat diseases and injuries, but they're also completely changing how we view these health issues to begin with. As we observe how different wounds or illnesses respond to specific therapeutic modalities, we gain invaluable insight into what's causing them in the first place.
Whereas some injuries used to take months to heal, now they often can be healed in just a couple of weeks using tools such Indiba RF therapy or MLS Cold Laser therapy. And where doctors used to tell patients that they'd be struggling with a certain illness for the rest of their lives, we're now seeing complete turn arounds in just 6 weeks. Prognoses are being redefined within the space of a single generation. By definition, these advancements are life-changing!
We've provided links to some these new therapies in case you want to read a little more about these advancements. Or if you'd like to learn more about how these therapies work and if they could help with your health concerns, get in touch with us (ask for Bryson) and we'd love to talk more!
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation - Mental Illness
RF Indiba Therapy - Musculoskeletal Issues, Strains, Sprains, Chronic Pain, Neuropathy
MLS Cutting Edge Cold Laser - Musculoskeletal Issues, Strains, Sprains, Chronic Pain, Neuropathy, Nerve Damage
Repetitive Peripheral Somatosensory Stimulation (RPSS) - Depression and Anxiety Symptoms, Movement Disorders, Sleep Disorders, Autonomic Nervous System Disregulation
Alpha-Stim - Insomnia/Sleep, Anxiety, Depression
Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment - Wound Healing, Circulation, Inflammation
Rebuilder Stimulation Therapy - Neuropathy, Circulation, Nerve Damage
