158 MBST in Practice: Transforming Clinics with Innovation

Welcome 👋

Hey lovely listeners, Katie here! I’m absolutely thrilled to bring you another episode of the Treat Your Business podcast. Today, I’m joined by two incredible clinic owners, Ian Andrews and James Scrimshaw, to chat about MBST and the real impact it’s had on their clinics and their lives.

Episode Summary

In this episode, I dive into a bold conversation with Ian and James about why they turned to MBST, what it’s meant for their practices, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. We cover everything from their personal experiences with chronic pain to making big business investments based on gut instinct, and how MBST has become a game-changer for their patients.

Key Takeaways 💡

• Both Ian and James were driven by personal need and curiosity to find better solutions for their patients, especially for those with arthritic and chronic issues.
• MBST filled a major gap in their treatment toolbox, offering real solutions where hands-on care and traditional rehab reached their limits.
• Their decisions to invest in MBST were based on instinct and belief in its potential, not just the numbers.
• Educating their teams and patients is key – it’s all about understanding the root cause and treating each person individually.
• MBST has changed the way they approach healing, making them feel they couldn’t run their clinics without it now.
• Success is measured by patient outcomes and word of mouth, not just keeping people coming back for endless sessions.

Resources & Links 🔗

• Learn more about MBST: MBST Health Website
• Connect with Ian Andrews (Oakwood Physiotherapy, Bingham)
• Connect with James Scrimshaw (Bristol)

A huge thank you to MBST, our headline sponsor for the Treat Your Business podcast. We are so grateful to them for allowing us to continue sharing these amazing opportunities and conversations with all of you. Their support makes it possible for us to keep bringing valuable insights to clinic owners everywhere.

Thank you for tuning in! If you’re curious about MBST or want to learn more, check out the website or connect with a practitioner for a proper chat. Don’t forget to subscribe for more honest conversations to help you build a clinic and a life you love! 

Come and join me over on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@thrivebizcoach?sub_confirmation=1  

Resources & Links

Clinic Growth Live: https://events.thrive-businesscoaching.com/cgl-tickets-2026

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Transcript

Treat Your Business EP158

[00:00:00] Katie Bell: Hello listeners, welcome back to the Treat Your Business podcast. I am super excited to be joined by Ian and James, both clinic owners, and they're here to tell us their story about using MBST and what impact it's made on their clinic.

[00:00:13] Welcome to the Treat Your Business podcast, the show for clinic owners who want real, honest advice and tried and tested ways of doing things. I'm Katie Bell, and this is the new era of bigger insights and bolder conversations to help you grow a clinic and a life you love. Let's dive in.

[00:00:31] Ian James, over to you. Please introduce yourself. Tell everybody who you are and perhaps something about your clinic that we would like to learn.

[00:00:39]  James Scrimshaw: I'm James Scrimshaw. I've been a chiropractor for 30 years next year. Graduated in 96, worked in Bristol. I've owned several practices in my time in larger groups, but I, 10 years ago I decided that all the personnel and the complicated aspects of practice life were.

[00:00:56] Where for me. And so I moved into a different location and started again, had a very much a fresh approach to to, to my patient care to how I wanted to practice what I wanted to get out of it, personally out of my job, the emotional connection, et cetera.

[00:01:11] And and also keep the stress levels and administration at the right level. So I could be a nice person that I go home.

[00:01:19] Katie Bell: Fabulous. Thank you, 

[00:01:21]  James Scrimshaw: Ian. 

[00:01:21] Ian Andrews: Excellent. Yeah. Hi my name's Ian Andrews. I'm a chartered physio. I've got a practice here in Bingham Oakwood Physiotherapy. I've been working here for my own business for about 25 years. Initially I was involved in sport I was in sport for a long time working at Leicester City with Martin O'Neill in the academy.

[00:01:40] There for, probably about 10 years. Then I went over to Bath University and I worked there, with the elite sports teams, team, gb you know, football, all of the athletes that come through there. But my real passion came. For setting up my own business. And I opened up a clinic in Nottingham 'cause that's where all my family was and I was desperate to get back.

[00:02:01] 'cause obviously my son Harry was was young at that time. And then, yeah, so I opened up my practice and, it was really interesting 'cause when I started I, I loved physiotherapy, but opening your practice for the first time, it gives you the real opportunity to get your teeth stuck into something and you find out a lot about yourself.

[00:02:20] Yeah, it, it, for me it was a great awakening. And so yeah I've opened up the business and it's just gone from strength to strength. We've got three physios now. We've got psychology, we've got other support services. And yeah it's, for me it's wonderful.

[00:02:36] So thank you for the opportunity. 

[00:02:38] Katie Bell: You are so welcome.

[00:02:39] So you both have an MBST machine within your clinic? 

[00:02:43]  James Scrimshaw: That's right. Yeah. Can, 

[00:02:45] Katie Bell: can I ask the first question is what was going on for you both that made you think I need to look at an alternative approach or I need to, that maybe there is a missing tool in my toolbox or something that wasn't, maybe you weren't getting patients better in the way that you.

[00:03:00] Wanted to, what was going on for you both that led you down the path of MBST? 

[00:03:05]  James Scrimshaw: I think for me it was, yeah, exactly what you just said. I spent a lot of time as a chiropractor treating back pain, whip rash, et cetera. Some peripheral issues as well, but there was. After being in the profession a long time, you realize the limitation of what hands-on care can do.

[00:03:23] There seemed to be quite a big gulf in anything out there as well from 96 to, 2010 of any, anything that could really come through and help that healing process beyond, the hands on care as chiropractor diversify you from just the manipulation. From a professional development perspective.

[00:03:43] I was just a little bit kind of. and it was actually from my perspective, I had a, an arthritic patella. I moved businesses and that kind of allowed me to take the blinkers off and just happened to be around the time where. MBST started to pop up on my LinkedIn and I was open I had a conversation with the MD Charles at the same time.

[00:04:09] I had a patello arthritic issue and a joint arthritic issue in my spine. I had a conversation with Liz and Charles. I went to see a colleague of mine, Jonathan Webb who's consultant, knee surgeon. He diagnosed me. There wasn't a lot that could be done. I then looked into MBST, I met with Liz and Charles, and it just seemed to be.

[00:04:30] Everything came together for me. Yeah. But the first and most important thing was that they allowed me to try the MBST on arthritic knee. And it had a remarkable effect. I was in my early forties struggling to get off the floor with young children. And it was really affecting my life.

[00:04:46] And there was nothing that could be done other than weight and pain relief, et cetera. And I tried everything I had and it had a remarkable effect, both in the short term, then medium to long term. And then the same with my chronic back pain since I was 13. I had back pain, a rugby injury, and I was able.

[00:05:04] My sister's a chiropractor. She was treating me and it was going nowhere. And it was due to the cartilage allowing just too much instability in the spine driving pain. So did the MBST for my spine. And it took a little while for it to kick in. We'll go into that later. But it had a remarkable effect on my spine for eight years.

[00:05:24] And so it changed my life. I said to my wife, I'm gonna try this. If it works, if it helps, I'm gonna do it clinically. Worst case scenario, it helps me. So that's how I found it and it's added a wonderful ingredient between. Hands on care and the limits that has. And it fills this gulf between the injections and the surgery.

[00:05:45] And there's an overlap with both of them as well. Yeah. It's not just this defined border where you use MBST very much an assist and a star of the show, but that's how I got involved in it. 

[00:05:56] Katie Bell: Fascinating. So from a real personal experience. Yeah. Very much. Which is often the best way. Ian, what about you?

[00:06:02] Ian Andrews: Yeah beautifully said James, as always. I'm similar. For me I was looking because we were hands-on, we are very hands-on physios. A lot of, physios aren't that way, but we are very hands on.

[00:06:13] And, from all the energy techniques, the all the different sort of myofascial work that we used to do, we were climbing all over.

[00:06:19] Patients back in the day trying to make a difference. But there was one thing that we couldn't really, get on top of, as it were. And that was, the sort of arthritic, the bony type pathologies. We saw more and more certainly athletes and patients that. Were coming through. And myself was one of those patients where, I'd had several surgeries on my knee and it was severely arthritic.

[00:06:39] I'd done the corticosteroid injections. I was even doing them myself to myself. So I was in a bad way. But but before that came the interest because I was looking for something I couldn't feel, I couldn't get to grips. Soft tissue was no problem. We had we'd been doing, shockwave for a long time. So that was really useful for soft tissue pathologies, tendinopathies, insertional, tendinopathy, brilliant. But what we couldn't get down far enough deeper was into, it was into articular joint without injections and without conventional medicine. But that was only ever gonna be treating the symptoms of something.

[00:07:12] It was never really, it didn't sit well with me that to take away the pain without treating the cause just didn't fit together. So I was looking something not only from a personal level, but. From a, from a not a curiosity, but something had to fit and balance in my mind. And I couldn't just treat with different types of treatment without treating the cause.

[00:07:34] I was looking for the cause. I was looking for the keep asking yourself why and why and why, and when you keep going down as deep as it can. I found myself in structures that I couldn't affect. So I had to keep looking deeper and through research, through looking, I had something I couldn't get to in my mind.

[00:07:51] And I came across MBST and I thought, okay, I'll just follow the link. And I went down, all the different routes and eventually sent off to to get some more information. And that's when I got in contact with. With , Liz and Charlie. And they were just exceptional. They gave me, an insight and I started making my own connections.

[00:08:10] The questions that I had a need to answer. I started piecing together the jigsaw puzzle, and this was fitting into a slot that I couldn't previously answer. 

[00:08:19] Katie Bell: Yeah. 

[00:08:19] Ian Andrews: But, so that was my, personal exploration. Leading on from that, I had issues that I needed looking at that were severely arthritic.

[00:08:28] And I was gonna be the first member to try it before I, risked my reputation on anything else with anything. So I needed to know as much as I could know personally, because your reputation takes you years and years to build. And it can be severely tarnished in, in, in a very short space of time.

[00:08:44] So I was. Very careful, and I was very stringent in looking and deeper, I had, but it also, it had to feel right. So we are all instructed with, or all trained to look at the research, show me this, show me the research. But ultimately there has to be a feel because research is always, ever as good as the person in front of you.

[00:09:02] As we all know as practitioners, that there's only, the number is only ever one. It's only that person in front of you. You could be influenced by research from other studies with other people, but that person specifically in front of you is the only person that really matters when you're in front of them.

[00:09:16] So that was what it was for me. I was that person and I needed to see it to believe it. And yeah, that was the start of my journey. 

[00:09:24] Katie Bell: So we started with two dodgy knees. And we've, and that led onto how introducing this technology into your business how long did it make you, how long did it take you to make this decision from having your knee problem thinking, we need a solution, seeing that there was a big hole that you couldn't quite get to the bottom of in your treatment.

[00:09:43] To exploring with Liz and Charlie to, 'cause it's a big financial investment to then 

[00:09:49] Ian Andrews: yeah, 

[00:09:50] Katie Bell: making the decision of, okay, I'm gonna do this. How long did that take? 

[00:09:54] Ian Andrews: Just adding a question into this mix is, it was really important part for me. So I've got a problem. So I've got something I can't answer.

[00:10:00] I've got a question I can't answer. I've got a physiological problem that conventional medicine has got a solution to, but doesn't treat the cause. Yeah. So I've got a gap in my knowledge base here. So I'm thinking, okay, so can I support that with research? No. I can look at cellular studies, which are excellent.

[00:10:16] Yeah. But were there research evidence out there in sufficient numbers for me to qualify, show you the research? Absolutely not. So I had to then, so I've got a gap in my knowledge base. So this now became an MBST vehicle for me to learn more about not only myself, but pathology generally.

[00:10:34] So this was the point that really started my, pricking my ears and excitement because now I had to understand pathology a lot. Deeper. So it gave me the vehicle. MBST provided the vehicle for me to dive deeper into pathology because I can't come up with a solution that fits unless I understand the pathology and I have to understand it in a way, deeper level.

[00:10:54] So everything I was doing was research, looking into the understanding and as it came to. It was like I need to feel this. I need to see it. So the gap from finding out about it to actually trying the machine was about three, three or four months. 

[00:11:08] Katie Bell: Right. 

[00:11:08] Ian Andrews: I went to a conference in Germany.

[00:11:11] I looked at, and to my surprise, I saw people there that were well-known some of the biggest names in my world that had reputations as big as they come. And I'm thinking this is not something that is low grade because the research is low. It was quite the reverse.

[00:11:27] It was high profile. It was used by, elite people, trusted by many top performers. It was non-invasive. And it was something that was really interesting for me. So that's about three to four months in answer to your question and Yeah. Similar story to James for sure. 

[00:11:46]  James Scrimshaw: Yeah. Yeah, for me, the effect I had on my life was was remarkable.

[00:11:50] Obviously, I was relaying this back to Liz and Charles. They were already aware of that you never know what you're gonna get when you try something like this. And so then I was able to get a few free programming cards for some of my patients who it might be suitable for.

[00:12:04] And I was able to see that it had a positive effect on their pain and mobility. And we were dealing with, quite significant arthritic knees, spent a lot of time on knees to begin with, but that's very much broadened out now. And so the effects, and I think. At the time I was just in that place professionally where where I was really open and also hungry to learn.

[00:12:26] And what Ian was just saying, there is, the depth of understanding I have now in terms of pathology the inflammatory process of, being the root of that pathology and how, what happens at the cellular level. And how that can be influenced that the, let's just say the CPD that, that I do every year now is never conscious.

[00:12:47] It's constant learning. It's extremely exciting. It's a brand new, in my opinion. It's a new science. Quantum biology is now on our side in terms of tech

[00:12:58] professionally has been remarkable. You have to see it work. Yeah. And you have to get your head around how it works. Fortunately, some of the cases I saw originally were quite quick responders. That's not always the case, as I'm sure we'll talk about later. But it was probably about the same once I did the treatment in January, February on my knee, then soon after my back, and I think I got the device in June.

[00:13:22] I was one of three in the UK to do it at the time. That's back in thousand 17. Our first conference was five of the SAT round a table in, in London. And now I think there were a hundred at the last conference last September. So yeah, it's it's quite exciting where we're at. 

[00:13:37] Katie Bell: That was a much shorter timescale than I was thinking that you, I, I thought this would be like years in the making. So you both took the decision to invest. How did you go about working out from a business point of view? So I understand you need to be absolutely bought into why you would do this. It has to align Ian, as you said, with how you treat and the how your clinic's ethos, you've got all the research, you've got as much evidence as you could to know that this was gonna be successful. You made the big financial investment. How did you work out how quickly you were gonna get your return on that investment? 

[00:14:12] Ian Andrews: I certainly I said, didn't really know the answer to that question, Katie.

[00:14:16] Okay. I literally went on feel. Yeah. I it really is that many of the cases when we are working as practitioners, we, you know we take so much more information back than we actually understand cognitively, so we can cognitively understand, we can have a conversation, we can di decipher things that there's ultimately, that gets translated into a feeling.

[00:14:36] And we, with that feel, it is the direction that we take. And and that's a strong thing in all of our worlds. It's the one thing that runs through, all of everything we do. And certainly from my position this just filled something for me that I just felt I had to do.

[00:14:54] It, it filled the knowledge base, it filled the capacity to build my knowledge base on it was the vehicle for which I can use to, to increase my knowledge, but also. Like James said, it had to fulfill its criteria. It had to do what it says on the tin. Yeah. And it did for me and I was in terrible situation.

[00:15:12] And so for me, I needed to feel that before I really, got serious with MBST. And I did, I felt the benefits, I've got severely arthritic right knee that was seven years ago. And now I'm going skiing this year, still my own knee still pathologically destroyed. And, you look at it under normal conditions and it's horrendous.

[00:15:33] It looks really bad, but it's not hurting. So it doesn't matter what it looks like. So for me, the investment was not the key point. It wasn't on a level of, if I do this. I can achieve that monetary sum and I have to have this many numbers. Yeah, I just was so excited about that. We've now got something I can't walk past.

[00:15:54] This was so important to me. This was so instinctive. It was so feel-based that I couldn't, it was like walking past something really important. Really like a million pounds on the floor that's tax free. You had to stop, you had to pick it up, you had to get involved with it. You could not turn it away. It was a relationship I could not walk away from.

[00:16:16] And that was based on pure feel. So it wasn't a number based, it wasn't a pros and cons, it was ale feel it felt right immediately. 

[00:16:24] Katie Bell: And so I guess for you, Ian, then it was a not how will I make this work. It was just this will work. 

[00:16:30] Ian Andrews: Yeah, for sure. 

[00:16:32] Katie Bell: Wholeheartedly. And 

[00:16:33] Ian Andrews: it was, yeah, 

[00:16:34] Katie Bell: the return will come.

[00:16:36] There was no doubt in your mind, even though you didn't have the numbers and the forecasting and the projections around it, perhaps. 

[00:16:42] Ian Andrews: Yeah, I think James will say the same but effectively, when we have a patient and we've got a patient in front of us, we have a feel for that.

[00:16:48] Pathology. We have a feel of that patient. We understand that what is likely, what is possible. We are not over predicting anything. We are looking at a very realistic feel here. That gets very close to where you expect. And this exceeded my excitement levels. This was something that I knew instinctively would work.

[00:17:07] I just knew it because. Based, I based that on how I understood the technology. I understood initially where it was coming from and what level it was working at. So all the really deep questions that I needed to fulfill and needed to be answered for me to get involved with this was already, already in place.

[00:17:27] Yeah. So when I, when I. Decided to go for this. I, it was a, it was an absolute, not even, no, it was an absolute no way would I walk past this one. 

[00:17:37]  James Scrimshaw: Wow. I think I felt very much the same as Ian. No projections. It was just sheer conviction and understanding. It felt right, it both based from a business perspective, it fulfilled a need for the patient.

[00:17:51] And I knew that I could talk about it from my own experience. It's always. I've spoken to a lot of practitioners who've taken on MBST and those that have looked at it and it always helps when you've had the experience yourself. You've got this base level from which you can talk from. Not every clinic that's taken it on has that, where the owners had a wonderful effect, they haven't tried it.

[00:18:13] In some cases they're looking at it and I know. And individuals look at the investment in different ways. So Ian and I jumped in from our experience, but I know patients of clinic owners that have taken two years to decide. Yeah, some have taken two years not to decide. A an element comes from the conviction.

[00:18:32] I think, if anyone were to look at the financials although the headline numbers are high, the return on investment is very good. And very low numbers needed in order to give you a good ROI. Yeah. So especially I think now the way it's positioning worldwide, but especially in the uk with the growth, with the awareness and also with the results of 10 years of.

[00:18:56] Of increasing use, more and more people are finding out about it. All the practitioners involved have are very transparent about the limitations, but the positive effects. Many have recently taken it on and they're still learning. We're involved in the support groups for the UK and the question we never get asked is.

[00:19:17] Help, help. It's not a good financial investment, it's always I've got this patient, that patient, this patient. Yeah. So from our experience, the money takes care of itself when you look after the patient and run with the technology. 

[00:19:31] Katie Bell: If we stay on something you just said than James, that more and more clinics are hearing about it, knowing about it, use, using it.

[00:19:37] How do you both market this in your clinic? Do you do marketing? Do you have marketing campaigns? Because most. Patients in my experience, don't know what MBST is. They've often never heard of it. If they have, they're already won over. And it's an easy conversation to have. But most people we speak to who maybe have got an osteoarthritic knee or back don't know that this is an option.

[00:19:59] So how you, 

[00:20:01]  James Scrimshaw: how do you 

[00:20:01] Katie Bell: market that to the population? 

[00:20:03]  James Scrimshaw: You have to from my perspective, say one or three in the UK back in 2017, no one knew about it. Yeah. And still if only a tiny proportion of people do know about it, most medics dunno about it. If they might have heard from it. It's not, it's not in their heads, so to speak.

[00:20:19] So I, I believe that you have to. I mean we've got two main areas that you can market it. We've got an existing patient base. Yep. And so it very much helps when you've got an existing practice you can understand the patients whom are suitable for, there is a market already. You don't necessarily have to do any external marketing if you don't want to providing, you've got thriving patient base and you are prepared or whoever is working with, it's prepared to have the conversations.

[00:20:45] That's the barrier within your practice, get this technology.

[00:20:49] It, and you've gotta get good at talking about it and brave enough to approach it with the patient Personally in Bristol I, I've seen so much success, so I tell people about the success. I've done a lot of print advertising and the local magazines, a lot of case studies. It's been technical, some months I'd get 35 new patients from it.

[00:21:09] Other months I get nothing from it. But five months later they'll say, I've been reading your articles. So I tell a story. Personally, I feel that to cover all the bases, this is an education process. Yeah. And we try to, we back it up with good solid research. We back it up with real people.

[00:21:26] And then there's the online, which, I think every time I do a, every time I do an Instagram live, a joke with Ian about it, you get a bit nervous and then you look and you've got seven, seven people listening, so we're not out there at the moment, but it's, it's something.

[00:21:39] You've gotta talk about it. Otherwise no one will know about it, whether it's in your practice externally. Where we're at now in terms of the research we've got which, which really defines exactly how MBST works. We need to get out and start talking to groups. I did a talk to the osteopathic society a month.

[00:21:58] A month ago, and I want be able, I wanna be out there talking to surgeons gps, doing CPD and letting them understand it. So that is the next stage really, I think that is going to bring the awareness out into the general public and the medical world.

[00:22:13] Katie Bell: What Ian, you mentioned you've got a team.

[00:22:16] One of the biggest barriers that I always find in my clinic is that you can be really passionate about something and be fully embracing this new way new method or whatever it is, and then you go back and you've got to get your team on board with this, and they've got to be. As equally confident to have conversations, to talk about pricing, to talk about the evidence behind it, the research.

[00:22:39] So what's been your strategy, Ian? If 

[00:22:42] Yeah. 

[00:22:43] I'm gonna talk about, maybe I'm putting them in a category here, and I don't mean to do this, but the younger physios who maybe don't have an author knee and haven't had that experience of, it, it helping so much. What's your strategy on around getting team.

[00:22:57] Ian Andrews: It's a really good question, Katie. Thank you for that. Yeah, we had this conversation yesterday. Every week we have a, a sort of in-service training session booked in. And it's really hard. The focus of yesterday really was to listen to the younger physios and they were saying look, Ian, with respect in your degenerating and we're not.

[00:23:14] I went, yeah, I get that, but you just mean it a different rate. I understand. I couldn't argue with them. I said, look, again, but this is interesting because the actual damage that you can see it doesn't have to be painful. So I said, let's let use this as the vehicle for understanding.

[00:23:33] So everything we, the strategy really is education, knowledge, search for knowledge. Describe that knowledge. Fit, fit it into our world. How does it fit? Where does it come into play? Where does it fit as a jigsaw puzzle piece. And so we, we use this vehicle as an understanding.

[00:23:49] They have to see to believe because they haven't got the experience that maybe we have. And with our younger physios, they had to see the patients coming through my clinic. 

[00:23:58] Speaker 4: Yeah, 

[00:23:59] Ian Andrews: and they're going actually I've heard that. I can't understand that. How does it work? So it's been the vehicle, it's been very much the vehicle for increasing knowledge base.

[00:24:07] And when you understand, a deeper level of pathology, then again, we have three types of scenario in our brain. We use a very simple model. We have a trigger that might be age, genetics, biomechanics, illness, whatever. And then there's a reaction, which is generally. Long term low grade inflammation, and then there's tissue damage.

[00:24:28] So when tissue damage comes in we are not looking at the damage being the cause of the problem. We are looking at the damage being the result of the problem, which has been triggered by something. So we use that very simple framework and we use that to explore the different levels of pathology and understanding.

[00:24:43] So when people can understand it, my younger physios. When the question comes so what is it? How does it work? What can it do for me? Then they can not only take talk on a general level, but they can talk on a specific level to the pathology that comes in to the person in front of them on a personal level.

[00:25:01] But that, that accelerates that awareness. So if we hadn't have had MBST, we never may have got to that level of understanding with the physios. We could have been, still using deep transverse frictions for tendinopathies. We could have still been given exercises when exercises weren't appropriate because the inflammatory phase was active.

[00:25:20] We use this as really way important. It's been way more than, MBST, it's been the absolute necessary vehicle to increase the physios. Framework of understanding. 

[00:25:31] Speaker 4: Yeah. 

[00:25:31] Ian Andrews: Which has then allowed them to put simple comp, or simple, explanations to very complex situations.

[00:25:38] Because you can't explain a very complex, detailed pathology in very simple terms unless you understand it. And this has provided the opportunity for that. 

[00:25:47] Katie Bell: And I think that's really interesting, Ian, because we see, or I certainly see coaching lots of clinic owners and also being a clinic owner myself, lots of the physios and the sports therapist and the osteos coming through are very rehab focused.

[00:25:59] Which is great and it has a place but it feels like we've moved from manual therapy being the only solution. And I come from a really hands-on, I did everything with my hands and still do really. To a shift in all the new grads coming out. Being rehab is the only solution.

[00:26:16] Deload it and load it is all I ever hear and for me it just feels I guess there's 

[00:26:20] Ian Andrews: a missing piece, isn't there? Yeah. 

[00:26:21] Katie Bell: Massive missing piece there in the middle. But by filling in that missing piece, getting them educated, teaching them a much deeper understanding about what's going on at cell level, I guess they can still rehab, they can still do.

[00:26:35] The things that they wanna do with the right people at the right time, rather than it being one size fits for all kind of method. 

[00:26:43] Ian Andrews: Sorry to jump in James. But yeah, EE effectively that was exactly how it really is for us because again, we were all over patients and someone can, we had one young.

[00:26:51] Physio yesterday, he said, do you know what, when I was here three years ago, he said I just wanted to do a needle of the wall and I just want to do eccentric loading for distal tendinopathy. And and I said okay. I said, what's the difference now? He says, because the difference now is that we can explain that inflammatory product or that inflammatory problem is not just a, tendinopathy level, it's systemic.

[00:27:12] Speaker 4: Yeah. 

[00:27:12] Ian Andrews: And to explain that to patients that we're not just dealing with the problem that comes in, but if we don't deal with the underlying cause of this. Yeah. Then rehabilitation really is just changing light bulbs. 

[00:27:23] Yeah. 

[00:27:23] So we have to get to the cause of the problem, which has been triggered by something and the cause of the problem results in low grade inflammation.

[00:27:31] And that's what we have to downregulate. That's what slows the brakes on the healing process. That's what potentially triggers and amplifies other pathologies. So rather than being ransom to what. Comes through the door, get to the origin. What is the trigger? If we can modulate that, we'll do that. If we need any further investigations, it's bloods or further investigations, mri, ct, whatever.

[00:27:52] But then let's down-regulate and let's modulate the inflammatory process. And if we can't do that, then we're only ever gonna be physios and short term responders. And that was the re reason why I couldn't walk past MBST because now for the first time, we're dealing with the heart of the problem. And if we can understand the pathology, we also know we can downregulate that inflammatory response.

[00:28:16] We can reduce the level of damage, we can take away some of the pain, but most importantly, we can now activate a really strong healing response. So without talking about MBST. MBS t's become the vehicle. But what this is really about for our patients is the deeper understanding of how we can apply our knowledge to that person in particular in front of us.

[00:28:36] Right now, 

[00:28:38] Katie Bell: a big question that's, I know my listeners are gonna be perhaps wanting to ask Ian with what you've just said, and this is gonna come from a place of business. Not okay from what we do is best for the patient. So what you've described is a situation now where we're really actually treating the root cause of the problem and therefore I'm assuming getting much better patient outcomes potentially discharging quicker, sooner.

[00:29:05] The question then is, do we then have a really big churn of patients? So we have to be better at marketing because actually we're getting people better and they're then leaving the clinic rather than just dripping them on for sessions, after sessions for months and months.

[00:29:19] So is that happening and therefore, how does that impact how you do business?

[00:29:25] It's not just a one time you. You have 12 sessions, six sessions, and then you are done. Is this something that you work with patients who have got arthritis that you've studied and yours is still gross on an x-ray, but you are pain free. Do you still have top ups? Do you still have. Weight of? 

[00:29:43] Ian Andrews: Yeah, really good question.

[00:29:44] For us, James talked about marketing really, beautifully as he always does. But what we tend to do in terms of, the marketing we just advertise. To our patients individually. Yeah. We look at those patients that come in and we see if they're relevant or where does it fit in the journey.

[00:30:00] It might be the right treatment at the wrong time, but for them it's a, it is the understanding, it's the education about their pathology. It's the education about where their trajectory is taking them. So we don't really market we just really do. What we do, this is another tool in the bag that we use, and if it's relevant for a patient then the thing that the patients take away is the trust in us.

[00:30:22] So they come into us to see us and we offer them multiple. Treatment options, which MBST will be without any shadow of doubt. Part of that, that offering. 

[00:30:33] Yeah. 

[00:30:34] So when we're, when we are looking at, say the advertisement we don't it, it's hang on a minute, when a patient comes in.

[00:30:41] I'm gonna be advertising their potential treatment only to them because their treatment is specific and it's individual and it's just for them. So when we do it, we just talk at individual level every single time because I can't talk to people about their treatment options like advertising to people about, it's great for tendinopathies when tendinopathy might be another coexisting pathology.

[00:31:03] So we tend not to advertise. We tend to treat. Individually the patient. And when we treat an individual patient and they're happy and they go away and they don't come back with the same problem, that's success in itself. But when they do talk to everyone they come into contact with, we're seeing all those patients too.

[00:31:20] Yeah. So we're not interested in keeping a hold of a patient. We are not interested in in, in a patient. We want the patient quicker, fitter, better, and without resolution, without any problems later on. And if they do, they know where to come because we don't hold any ownership of that.

[00:31:35] We just say, look, we are good at what we do. We love with the passion what we do. If you think we're good and we can fix you, then you come here. We're not shouting from the rooftops about this. We're just good at what we do. Amazing. 

[00:31:46]  James Scrimshaw: And I also think that the pathology varies. That, that the pathologies we treat varies.

[00:31:51] So for example, in, in MB ST has a remarkable effect on acute injury. And we're seeing that in lead sport at the moment. I'm sure we'll talk about that later. So you are getting return to play, twice as fast as would normally be the case with everything that that a medical team has to offer.

[00:32:07] So we see, so some of those cases heal extremely quickly, very quick discharge. But because of the nature and the newness of the technology, we do attract chronic moderate plus. Pathologies arthritic joints, et cetera, who don't want invasive procedures or who can't have invasive procedures.

[00:32:27] And then there are the milder pathologies that respond really well and you're able to discharge them. And then there are the more complex pathologies that need, the rehabilitation. It's worth mentioning the M bst very much. Benefits the results of M bst, always improved with rehabilitation, be it exercise, supportive care some pain relief, sometimes shock.

[00:32:49] So there's a real blend of patients that you see and a difference in the, the pathology and then the actual discharge time. Some patients you're still working with for a long period of time, but you're able to. Support their repair process with MBST in a much better way than you would be, where if you didn't have that tool as Ian said I, I downgrading the inflammatory process at cell level versus not, I couldn't think of running a practice now without technology.

[00:33:18] I'd feel naked without it. I feel like I was doing a third of the job, if I'm honest. In a lot of cases not to completely dismiss 20 years of working without it,

[00:33:31] the rehabilitation side of it does. Definitely improve the results. You've got other structures. You've got the nervous system, circulatory system coordination, strength that you need to bring back. So in many cases you do the MBST and then you start the rehab process afterwards, which supports a hands-on practice as well.

[00:33:49] So from a business perspective, you've actually still got the hands-on aspect to the clinics just with the underpinning of the MBSD treatment at the outset or at certain point throughout the course of treatment for the patient.

[00:34:02] Katie Bell: We could talk all day. , Episode.

[00:34:08] Think about a key lesson that you have learned that if maybe somebody listening to this is on their journey of exploring MBST as a possible option for them in their clinic or that they've listened to for the first time and are really interested in doing some more research. What's been, and the main lesson that you've learned?

[00:34:27] From bringing this tool into your toolbox and utilizing it in your business, maybe a positive or a negative lesson. Ian, I'll start with you. 

[00:34:37] Ian Andrews: Yeah. Thank you for that, Katie. The biggest lesson I've got really to to share with potential other healthcare professionals is that we need to treat as close to we can, the origin of the problem.

[00:34:50] This is. The lesson I've learned, without a doubt, is that this will take you on a journey of understanding of pathology in a deeper level. It will provide you the tools that you need to get the job done. Without it, it's very difficult. You can, you things get you closer. But when we look at a simple question, a simple question, where does the inflammation begin?

[00:35:13] So someone comes in with, say, an osteo technique and someone's talking about VMO and they're talking about superficial structures. And then, but they say okay, why? It's not healing. Why? Because it's inflammatory. Why? What's causing that? There's triggers. We'd look at those and we keep going down as far as we can.

[00:35:30] And when someone says where does this inflammation begin? Oh, so it's really chondrocyte level. It's really deep. It's it's really Oh, so you're telling me that laser can get down that deep? No. Can that short weight? No. So you're looking at what is the tool to treat the level of the problem.

[00:35:47] And the biggest lesson we've learned is this is the only tool. We can find that consistently represents great response and great sort of recovery times, because previously we couldn't get down deep enough. It's the tool. It really is. The lesson I've learned is without this tool, it's really.

[00:36:08] Really difficult. It, at this present impossible for us as a clinic. We would never, if there was a fire in this place and we were strong enough, it would be the first thing we'd pick up and run out the building with. We can't because it's 500 kilos but it, that's the importance of it.

[00:36:22] That's the level of importance we place on MBST without it. As James quite rightly said, we're naked without it. We are toothless. We are, we've got all the knowledge, but no application of real change. 

[00:36:34]  James Scrimshaw: Yeah, 

[00:36:35] Katie Bell: absolutely. Love that answer. James, what? What's your key lesson? 

[00:36:37]  James Scrimshaw: Without showing too repetitive, I had a patient this morning who has responded to MBST for a wrist arthritis.

[00:36:43] Spinal arthritis, who recently did a full body, she's in her late seventies, and she came in, she said, everything's better, everything's calmer. I don't have to hang off the bed for my back every morning for half an hour. And I bit like Ian was saying, I was explaining that, age and other factors, stress cells we are starting to, have a feeling that it's body wide.

[00:37:06] But that the and she said it beautifully. She said, so what do you mean my wrists and back, the canary in the cage and I.

[00:37:14] Exhibiting the symptoms of, cellular change. And what we're understanding through the path, pathological understanding and the quantum biological understanding we have is that if you can get control of the of the inflammatory processes, if you can change the biochemical processes at cell level.

[00:37:34] That, that take the cell from a catabolic degenerative state to an anabolic regenerative state and support the repair processes, you have a foundation with which patients can go on to do what, in my opinion, they would never have been able to do again. So needless to say, we're massive fans of MBST.

[00:37:54] The understanding we have and the application we've seen. I was on a meeting yesterday, we doing some amazing work, bath rugby. I was on the meeting with head of medicine there and he's been using the technology three months and he said, I can't. I can't imagine approaching a case now without this.

[00:38:09] Wow. Because they're seeing mind. We've yet to release a lot the case studies, mind blowing results. So it is, I'm extremely bullish about MBST in where it's gonna be in five and 10 years time. We're at the very start of it now. There's a lot of studies that are being planned, but we've got a great foundation of studies already.

[00:38:30] The learning process is amazing. It's an amazing opportunity for anyone at that point in their career or brave enough to look into it and take it forward. Yeah, but it's certainly hands down been the best thing I've ever done. Both from a learning professional development perspective, but also a clinical perspective.

[00:38:50] Katie Bell: You've answered my next question, James, which is for those listeners now who are literally hanging on your every word. 'cause I am, I'm so invested in this conversation. It's great and I'm, I feel like excited, which is. Clearly coming across in both from both of you about how excited you are about this this tool.

[00:39:07] What would be your one piece of advice for listeners who are interested, they wanna explore a bit more. What do they do next? 

[00:39:16]  James Scrimshaw: Okay. I'll shortcut that from my perspective. MBST Health, they've got an amazing website. Okay. Very detailed. On that website is supported by research, which is also on the.

[00:39:29] And from there, Liz and Charles are extremely amicable and great to talk to. And if it stops at that conversation, so be it. But in terms of knowledge base, understanding how it works and then you've got people like Ian and I who can talk to you clinically in terms of real time practice integration, et cetera.

[00:39:46] But that would be my advice. Thank you James. Ian. 

[00:39:49] Ian Andrews: Yeah, wonderful James. Effectively you could go on the MBST website and you can location a clinic near me. So you could actually, connect with a local practitioner and if you can contact someone, email, telephone. But the best way really is to come in and see a practitioner because MBST is not for everybody.

[00:40:08] And it's important that every case is treated individually. If we can get people to come in to see a practitioner, because if they do need further testing, they do need further investigation, then that's done before any treatment is considered. So it really is a brilliant treatment but always starts with face-to-face consultation to rule out any of the potential of the pathologies or unknown pathologists.

[00:40:30] And that's where we always start. And we always start with a face-to-face consultation. To run through any other potential investigations before we get down to the the treatment itself. 

[00:40:40] Katie Bell: Fabulous. Great. So from a patient perspective and from a business perspective, yeah. Use the website because that will navigate you down that your kind of next steps.

[00:40:50]  James Scrimshaw: Yeah, I think from the patient perspective. Yeah. Very much your local.

[00:40:54] You divert my patients because you know this, we are digging around, we are busy in clinical practice. We don't have all the studies, we do, but files, et cetera. So MBS T Health is a great foundation of knowledge. They've covered every base in terms of. Patient and also clinician education 

[00:41:14] Katie Bell: and listeners, for those of you who are at Therapy Expo, MBST do have a stand there.

[00:41:19] So go and have a chat with the team. And if you are a Thrive member, they will be at our live day in November in Coventry where you can have a chat with Liz and some of her team as well. And they will also be with us at Clinic Growth Live next year. So plenty of opportunity to just open and start that conversation.

[00:41:36] Ian James, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast. Thank you for giving up your very valuable and precious time to inspire other clinic owners on just the amazing benefits MBST can have to your clinical practice. 

[00:41:49] Ian Andrews: It's been pleasure. Thank you very much. Thank for the opportunity.

[00:41:52] Thank you, James. 

[00:41:53] Katie Bell: Thanks cheer. 

[00:41:54] Ian Andrews: Thank you. Bye.

[00:41:55] Katie Bell: Thanks for listening to the Treat Your Business podcast. Hit subscribe now and keep joining me for bigger insights, older conversations to help you build a clinic and a life you love.