The LMD Podiatry Podcast
Board certified in Podiatric Medicine and Surgery, Dr. Dabakaroff completed her training in Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Dr. Dabakaroff has been published in textbooks and has done research for various foot conditions. Dr. Dabakaroff brings with her new methods, both surgical and non-surgical, for treating multiple foot and ankle ailments.
Dr. Dabakaroff launched a podcast to educate and keep her community informed about various aspects of podiatry. Her goal is to offer a valuable resource to people while establishing new connections both within and outside her community.
To learn more, visit: LMDpodiatry.com or contact (954) 680-7133
The LMD Podiatry Podcast
EP #20: Healing from Within: The Power of Regenerative Medicine
The world of podiatric medicine is evolving beyond temporary fixes and Band-Aid solutions. In this enlightening conversation between Dr. Lauren Dabakaroff and guest Dr. Wadehra, we dive deep into the revolutionary field of regenerative medicine for foot and ankle conditions.
"Harnessing the body's ability to heal itself" is how Dr. Wadehra describes this groundbreaking approach. Unlike cortisone injections that merely mask symptoms temporarily, regenerative treatments like Wharton's jelly injections provide the body with essential building blocks for actual repair. As Dr. Wadehra explains with his drywall analogy: "You're going to buy a drywall patch kit that has all the ingredients to fill that hole. That's exactly what Wharton's jelly is—giving the body the ingredients it needs."
We explore the powerful synergy between multiple treatment modalities. MLS laser therapy stimulates cellular energy production, while EPAT/shockwave therapy breaks up scar tissue and improves blood flow. When combined with biologics like Wharton's jelly, these treatments create an optimal environment for healing. The results? Recovery times cut in half compared to conventional approaches.
Both doctors share their unique protocols for conditions ranging from plantar fasciitis to neuropathy, discussing the importance of proper immobilization during treatment and the challenges of navigating insurance coverage for these advanced therapies. Though often not covered by insurance, these treatments offer something invaluable—genuine healing rather than endless symptom management.
Whether you're struggling with chronic foot pain, recovering from surgery, or seeking alternatives to medications for neuropathy, this episode provides a comprehensive look at the future of foot and ankle care. Ready to explore treatments that actually fix problems rather than just masking them? Visit LMDPodiatry.com to learn more about getting back on your feet—for good.
Welcome to the LMD Podiatry Podcast. Trust us to get back on your feet. Here's your host, Dr Lauren DeBakeroff.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone. Dr Lauren DeBakeroff here with the LMD Podiatry Podcast. We have a special guest today Dr Ashna Madera podcast. We have a special guest today, dr Ashwin Madera. He is a colleague of mine and we do a lot of the same stuff and we're going to kind of run through all that.
Speaker 3:How are you doing, Doc? Good, good Thanks for having me on this.
Speaker 2:This is great. All right, so tell us about yourself a little bit, so everybody knows who you are and where you're from.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I practice in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. I'm in a city called Birmingham, Michigan. I started a kind of like a hybrid concierge practice a couple years ago, really specializing in minimally invasive foot surgery but also regenerative medicine, which I know you and I are going to talk about quite a bit here shortly.
Speaker 2:Regenerative medicine, which I know you and I are going to talk about quite a bit here shortly. Very exciting. So why don't we just, like I like, to, always open with what is regenerative medicine and why is it different than the conservative approach that everybody's been used to for the past many, many decades? So basically, regenerative medicine is, I like to call it like harnessing the body's ability to heal itself. Like a lot of things become chronic, like plantar fasciitis becomes chronic, sometimes Achilles tendonitis, people have chronic sprains and things like that, and then there is not much in the world of traditional medicine that gets those areas to heal. And that's when regenerative medicine comes in. We use things that have special qualities and properties that kind of wakes up those cells on the cellular level to heal. What do you so, what do you use in your office, dr Bodera? Those cells on the cellular level to heal.
Speaker 3:So what do you use in your office, Dr Badera? Yeah, I think you put it really well. I like the way you describe regenerative medicine. That's how I talk to my patients about it too. The body is very smart. If you give the body what it needs, it truly can heal itself. But to answer your question, we utilize a you know a variety of different methodologies. One is shockwave therapy or EPAT therapy. We do a lot of laser therapy in the office too, but my favorite really is utilizing different biological injections not steroid, but biological injections Right, because steroid it won't actually heal the area.
Speaker 2:So let's say you take the plantar fascia it's a very tight band on the bottom of your foot and fascia doesn't stretch. And then what the steroid does? It actually just removes some of the inflammation and it doesn't actually heal that structure at all. In some cases it can help, like it'll take away a lot of that inflammation, allowing kind of like for the environment, a good environment for the foot to heal, but it doesn't actually repair anything and then when it comes to other things like, or if you inject the steroid around tendon, it can be very harmful.
Speaker 2:It could actually weaken the tendon, weaken the ligament and cause other damage and puts you at high risk for tears and ruptures down the line. So that's what we kind of want to avoid, but unfortunately traditional medicine goes there a lot of times. So I think you and I use the same biologic Use the DPMX injection.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I use a variety of different injections. Now I do utilize them from time to time, but I've been kind of dabbling with different types of Wharton's jelly products along with the exosomes and actually products that even contain live cells. But yeah, again, to answer your question, dpmx is definitely one of those that I use quite often.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Again to answer your question, DPMX is definitely one of those that I use quite often. Well, what? Are the other ones that you use, you've been utilizing Basically like a Wharton's jelly. I explain it to patients that just say it's the thickest part of the umbilical cord that's the most rich in native or stem cells, and that they have all these properties that are pro-inflammatory and they basically tell the body to heal itself on a cellular level.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that's exactly the way that I describe it to patients as well. It's almost like you know. I'll use the analogy sometimes. You know, and I'll come back to cortisone for just a second. You know, cortisone, like you described it, all it is is like a Band-Aid approach. It turns the pain off for a little bit, but we haven't, never we haven't done anything to actually heal the, the issue at hand, the root cause.
Speaker 3:So what I'll tell patients is you know, when you inject something like wharton's jelly, it has all the ingredients that we need to truly repair the problem at hand. So an analogy I'll use sometimes is imagine you have a hole in the drywall. You're going to Home Depot or Lowe's, you're going to buy a drywall patch kit that has all the ingredients it needs to fill that hole. That's exactly what Warden's Jelly is is giving the body the ingredients it needs to patch the hole, patch the fracture, whatever it is truly giving the ingredients, versus just putting a Band-Aid on it and then hoping something happens. But, as you know, most often when you do that to patients, they come right back through the door saying doc, it worked for a little bit, but now I'm even in more pain yeah, I've, I see that all the time, all the time.
Speaker 2:Um, so I personally like to use the wharton's jelly in conjunction with laser and I actually have higher success rates with it because most of them pay. Like most patients don't listen in a bad way, but like, like I had this guy, I gave him the Wharton's jelly injection. He felt for his fascia. He felt so good. He started like climbing the Canyon, the Grand Canyon, I don't know what he was hiking over there. And then he uses ladders at work and then I actually do a lot of diet and mouth imaging in my office and I have an ultrasound and I took a look at his ultrasound to see why he was in so much pain. It was amazing. In three, three weeks the fascia actually shrunk in size the normal way the fascia is about.
Speaker 2:You know, his was bad, his was like seven millimeters or more and then it was already down to like five and a half millimeters, which was amazing. But you saw all this inflammation around it. It's like great I got. I gave you this medicine to get your body to heal itself and it's doing a good job, but you're aggravating it. So once I like forced him to kind of go in a boot and I had him do six. I used the MLS laser. We did six sessions of the MLS. I never saw him again. He was fixed. He gave me a testimonial and everything. And ever since that I don't let patients get the injection without it, because I love the MLS laser. It tells the mitochondria and your cells to make more energy and it takes away a lot of the inflammation. And I actually have found a lot of studies that it actually enhances the ability of the Wharton's jelly injection and all those type of biologic injections to work better. So do you use that in conjunction or you do it separately?
Speaker 3:No, I very routinely will package it with Wharton's jelly with a combination of MLS, laser and shockwave therapy. I find the two, especially with heel pain, I find that, uh, the MLS plus shockwave actually compliment each other very well. And then you throw the injection on top of it. You create a really nice sound uh environment for some really good healing.
Speaker 2:So in what cases do you do the shockwave for? Or you just use all three modalities for?
Speaker 3:it really primarily my like uh soft tissue type of uh tendinopathy, so achilles tendinosis or plantar fasciosis will utilize the combination of the two. Um, I mean very rarely am I doing just shockwave alone or just laser alone. Um, I mean, of course, neuropathy patients, those are probably just getting a laser alone. I mean, of course neuropathy patients, those are probably just getting a laser alone. Or post-surgical patients. We do lots of MLS. But again, for these chronic conditions that patients are dealing with again soft tissue-wise, I like the combination of the two, the shockwave plus the MLS laser.
Speaker 2:Well, what is the? I know you use the E-PAT right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I use E-PAT. I don't have that machine.
Speaker 2:Okay, so how like? How is it different than the extracorporeal shockwave?
Speaker 3:It's under the same family. You know, essentially there's no sound waves that are being pushed into the patient without the use of any sort of electromagnetic again type of product, but the idea is the same. The idea is that we're stimulating you know, I call it exogenous inflammation, if you will. You're creating inflammation on purpose to jumpstart the body with the shockwave there or EPAT therapy, and so we're bringing good blood flow to the area. We're breaking up scar tissue, we're bringing the body's own natural stem cells to the area. I find that you pair with mls mls, similar. It'll bring good blood flow to the area, but it'll then flush out all the bad cells. The histamine releases that. We get the bad. You mentioned mitochondria, right? Uh, we basically recycle the bad mitochondria, bring fresh mitochondria to the area and the mitochondria releases ATP.
Speaker 3:So I found that the two together really created a really great environment, and then you hit it with some Morton jelly on top of all that.
Speaker 2:So how do you separate them? You do the shockwave first and then MLS, and then how long do you like separate it?
Speaker 3:So it's a good question. I've been playing around with different type of protocols and talking to colleagues, but what I found work that works really good in my hands. If you were to just you know. If you do like utilize these three types of modalities, let's use plantar fasciitis or fasciosis for a second. I typically will start them with. I'll start with plus EPAT first and that same. As soon as we finish the EPAT round, I'll hit them with MLS laser and I'll do two to three of those and then have them on the third visit.
Speaker 2:In the same time that they're there.
Speaker 3:Same time they're there. Oh, Same time they're there. And third visit we'll have them come back and we'll just do the injection that day. We won't do anything else. I'll wait two weeks and then start the process back over again so you do the epat and the mls the mls in the same setting.
Speaker 2:And you do what?
Speaker 3:three in a row, each one a week apart yeah, I'll do two to three first, and then two or three. First two to three weeks, uh, and then, and then back in for the injection, wait two weeks and then give them three more rounds of that I spoke to uh dr spear he's also one of our colleagues.
Speaker 2:He said that he does the uh epat, uh three in a row, and then he does the wharton's jelly and then he does another three epats and he gets really good response from that.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, I've heard some people just do three rounds of epat and then wharton jelly and call it today. So we don't really have any. You know, quote unquote good protocol protocols, yet it's all anecdotal.
Speaker 2:I know, I know Cause regenerative medicine. It's a brand new field, the whole point is is, like we said, just to get the body to heal itself.
Speaker 3:Do you?
Speaker 2:so I'm very I'm a stickler for immobilizing the patient. Do you put them in a booth?
Speaker 3:Yeah, do you put them in a boot? Yeah, I do, I do, I recommend it. I mean, do patients listen to me? That's the other, you know, that's the other half, Right? So you just, you know, I tell them this. I said, look, the boot is to do two things. It's number one to give that foot just a break from life so that we can truly allow it to just start healing. But it allows you to stay mobile. The second reason I like the boot is because you know, it keeps that injection pretty much where I want it to be, versus spreading out. Now, the foot's a small structure, so, you know, would it actually spread out and it'll lose the area? I don't really think so. But I like the boot because it truly just gives them, it reminds them that they had something done recently too. So they should just take it easy. But again, like your patients, my patients sometimes will listen to me they want to get back to life. You can only educate, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean I think I always make the analogy. I tell patients like all right, this is the problem with your foot. I tell patients like all right, this is the problem with your foot. And then I tell them you know, if you sprained your wrist or dislocated your shoulder or something, you'd stop using it for a couple weeks and you'd feel better. And then the problem with you, know us, our field, you know foot and ankle specialists nobody stops using their foot. And then I just keep kind of reinforcing, like how do you expect your body to heal itself if you keep using your foot? All the time.
Speaker 2:Time like your foot, like the pain, is the signal. It's a blessing from your body. It's your body telling you please stop using me. So you have to listen to your body, like you can't just walk this off, um, and then you know, with the regenerative medicine, healing time is pretty much half of what most people expect. Like Like I do it a lot for sports medicine injuries and I've had really good results. Like some people that have a really bad ankle sprain, whether it's the ATFL or the deltoid, I confirm it with MRI and give them the injection, put them in a boot and then I actually see. You could actually on the ultrasound see only three weeks later that everything is filling in, whereas traditional immobilization for ankle screens maybe in six weeks it'll close. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool that's cool.
Speaker 3:You can see that on ultrasound. Um, I agree with you on that that acute injuries, injuries. It works really, really well. Are you utilizing Warden Shelley for post-surgical patients?
Speaker 2:That I'm not there yet because, it's funny, down here in Florida patients don't want surgery, they don't want time off, they don't want a boot, they would rather live with their pain or I don't know it should. I mean, I know you do minimally invasive surgery in your office I do. The surgeries that I do are mostly like I do some like bunions and hammer toes and things like that at the surgery center. But yeah, I have been. The only thing I encourage post-op is is the MLS laser, because it does help the incision heal a lot better and a lot of patients have a lot less pain after surgery and they heal a lot faster.
Speaker 3:If you started to add yeah, I saw I had a lot. I do a lot of wort and jelly post-surgery for my patients. So after I put my last stitch, instead of hitting them with, you know the common cocktail we all used in residency. Or you know other practices. You know a little lidocaine or with some Dax at the end. You know I just do orange jelly at the end and I have found that I mean the patients that sign up for that versus don't. It's a night and day difference because you know, even with minimally invasive surgery you're still dealing with pain and swelling. That never goes away regardless, but it really does decrease the edema I see with patients. Also, just overall, pain-wise pain is substantially decreased. I'm seeing unionization on x-rays faster with these patients too. And then, of course, I use MLS all the time for post-surgical patients. So again, the two really create a great environment for for patients to heal fast. I think mls alone is phenomenal. I I love mls laser. It's a great. It's a great modality I love it.
Speaker 2:My patients are so happy. It's like, especially the neuropathy patients, they it's like it's like a gift because you, there's this new technology, there's this technology. The technology has been around for a while, like I remember, yeah, laser from when I was in college, when I was in podiatry school. They were like they had them show us how to use that laser and what it does yeah, yeah, I wish they would show it more.
Speaker 3:You know, back then we were all skeptics, you know, uh, but, but we're not in the field practicing, talking, talking badly about low-level laser therapy.
Speaker 2:And then the MLS is different because it's like it's a double beam. It's a double laser beam, so it's a healing laser as opposed to the other lasers out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's definitely the premier laser. And you know? Here's another thing I tell patients because sometimes we're skeptical, and I go this company, cutting Edge and we're not sponsored by Cutting Edge, by the way, just FYI. If your patrons have seen this, I want them to know. We're not getting paid to say this. I'm just saying this because I truly believe in the laser, but if Cutting Edge wants to pay us, I'm sure we're here for that too. Anyways, that company was actually designed for veterinarians. I don't know if you know that for six years, I've heard about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I heard. You cannot fool an animal. There's no such thing as placebo in animals. Uh, if your dog had just an acl surgery or something you know, a fracture, etc. That, or if production fixation or they just are having bad arthritis because animals do. This laser really helped a lot of these animals. Now finally, six years later, they bring it to human medicine. You can't trick an animal, and I'm you know. My patients who go through it also just swear by it too well, when do you not use the wharton's jelly injection?
Speaker 3:honestly, I, you, I try to use it for everything. I don't I, I do. I don't use cortisone in my office. If I have a patient that is asking me for cortisone, I actually will just refer them out because I don't believe in cortisone. I truly don't. No, I don't, I don't believe in it. I can count on one hand how many times I've used it since I started my practice here. But ortho group, I use it all the time.
Speaker 2:But I saw a lot of bad reactions with it, so I refer people out. So I still use it, mostly because I don't have the hybrid concierge model that you have. Yet I see a lot of insurances and people want what is covered by insurance and that I tell them you know wardens, jelly fixes your. The only thing that's covered by insurance is talking to me a prescription for medication, physical therapy and a steroid injection.
Speaker 3:Well, it may be, we don't even know. Nowadays, with insurance, they're cutting everything. Now, you know, sometimes even physical therapy is not covered by insurance anymore. It's actually kind of ridiculous.
Speaker 2:They limit it like per year. Yeah, even physical therapy is not covered by insurance anymore, it's, it's actually kind of limited like per year. Uh, yeah, it's, it's sad, but you know that's I tell patients it's kind of sad that like medicine is advanced and there's actually evidence-based medicine to support all the things that we are doing, especially um the, the wharton's jelly injections. I've seen a lot of studies on it, but but you know, these Medicare guidelines are not keeping up. They're like, oh, they're so backwards.
Speaker 3:Don't ever expect a regenerative medicine to ever be covered by insurance. It's never going to be. It's it's you and I. I can have a whole different talk with you about insurance, but I, I hate health insurance. I have health insurance, but health insurance in our country nowadays, I truly. By 2030, the average deductible will be $10,000. That's what we found out. So your health insurance is truly for catastrophic reasons at this point. God forbid. You're a life-threatening accident, you need to go to the hospital, you have a life-threatening illness, you have a baby those are reasons to have it but to come see you and myself, your health insurance really is not going to be applicable. You're going to be paying a high deductible a deductible to see us anyways. So why not use that money and use it towards something that's actually going to help your health, versus something that's going to put a bandaid on it versus something that's going to keep you coming through my door over and over again.
Speaker 3:You're going to get frustrated with me.
Speaker 2:Doc, you keep giving the same injection over and over again. Why am I not healing? Mrs jones, remember what I told you steroid is only a band-aid. It's not to me. It's truly going to help you. You know, I actually use. There's an example I use on myself. It's like a sad example. I don't like to talk about my personal life too much but uh like I need a fertility doctor to help make babies right and according to blue cross blue sheet, like I have, I have insurance.
Speaker 2:And according to Blue Cross Blue Shield, like I have, I have insurance. And according to the insurance guidelines of my insurance company, it's not medically necessary to have children, so they refuse any fertility. And like that's, that's where, that's where this, that's where society is going, and it's like you're in a birth rate decline. I hate talking about it. It's sad. You know what? I took out my credit card.
Speaker 3:You paid for it.
Speaker 2:I paid for it. Sometimes it was successful. Thank God I have a beautiful three-year-old daughter. I had lots of failures before her. I had a couple after her, but you know it is what it is and I paid for it because it's something I want. So, like I tell my patients, if you want, you don't expect your insurance to pay for everything. You know it's patients. There's like this mentality that they want insurance to pay for absolutely everything and it's not reality.
Speaker 2:It's not reality so I I first of all thank you for being vulnerable and appreciating the story.
Speaker 3:That's, uh, you know that's not easy to share, um, but to your point, right, um, you paid out of pocket for something that you truly believed in and you, you, you have a daughter, right, three-year-old daughter. That's amazing, that. That's a blessing. So you know, if you truly believe in something, you're gonna do whatever it takes to get. That's amazing, that's a blessing. So you know, if you truly believe in something, you're going to do whatever it takes to get it.
Speaker 3:That's how I, that's my you know, that's how I, my personality is. So you know, I think, I think that's you know the way the message is to our patients too. It's, it's that, look, there's a lot of great modalities that are healthier for you, right, that's. The other thing is we don't talk about side effects. These insurance companies will cover the blood pressure medication, the statin, whatever, okay, but there's no talk about the side effects, the illnesses that come and follow this medication, just because it's covered by insurance. Let me take it Right, but let me now educate you on all the bad things that can come with it and you let me know if you still want this medication.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I tell patients with neuropathy like I tell my patients all those like gabapentin and Lyrica it doesn't fix your neuropathy. We have to do things to wake up your nerves right, because that's the whole point of regenerating the nerves, regenerative medicine. So for neuropathy I do do a combination of vitamins, cbd cream and the laser patients feel better with like the third or fourth session.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's phenomenal Any medications and I encourage patients to exercise more. It really helps stimulate the nerve to wake up. But all those other pills they just put band-aids on it and they have.
Speaker 3:Even today. Why did they put me on an antidepressant for my neurosis? Yeah, that's, but they do that. No, they do that, they do that. Uh, that that's. That's actually a very common practice nowadays. Uh, you know again these docs and again I'm not. I respect all all our colleagues, okay, okay, yes, so do I, but people like you and me.
Speaker 2:We're in this for I guess we're out-of-box thinkers and that's why I started the whole regenerative medicine game, because I really want, I like to fix the root of the issue, the root cause, the root cause. Even with pancreatitis. You know if patients, if their calves are extremely tight.
Speaker 3:Actually it is.
Speaker 2:You know if patients if their calves are extremely tight. I actually use my shockwave machine to loosen up their calves and break up all the adhesions in the abdomen. You told me too. That's why I started using it as part of my protocol, because if they're tight and they did physical therapy or they're too lazy to stretch at home, one or two sessions of the shockwave just on the leg, the back of the leg, loosens everything up and it takes so much pressure off the fascia. So that's why every patient, case by case, I have to see what's causing the tendonitis, what's causing the fasciitis.
Speaker 3:Are you doing? Are you so, if you the patient that comes in with a fascia, a plantar fasciitis, are you doing the, the calf or the aponeurosis first and then the heel at the same time?
Speaker 2:Yes, I am. I am doing it at the same time, like if it's like I was just thinking, I had someone on Friday. We just did the legs cause she just had the tendonitis, the Achilles tendonitis but for fasciitis I do both the calf and the fascia okay when I do the shock wave, the patient. Most people sign up for shockwave because there's no downtime versus getting the wharton's jelly yeah, yeah so.
Speaker 2:So that's like they actually feel better right away. The shock wave, uh, it breaks up all that. So the adhesions, uh brings new inflammation to the area. I also tell patients not to take anti-inflammatories. I tell them you know you want the inflammation. It's good for you, it'll help heal. But that's the and. Every time I tell patients that with the Wharton's jelly injection they need the boot, they kind of they deviate from that. I know, I know, I know what you mean.
Speaker 2:There's something I don't know what it is there's something about wearing a cam walker for two weeks.
Speaker 3:It's just. It's just like you know it's almost like I don't understand that.
Speaker 2:Especially the driving foot, it kills them. You know people don't want to be limited.
Speaker 3:I guess it's inconvenient it's inconvenient, but but then you got to paint picture right. It's like look, it's two weeks of your life versus. Two weeks of your life is a drop in the bucket compared to how long we live as human beings. So two weeks to truly try and get you out of pain, I think, is something you can do for yourself.
Speaker 2:I actually have a patient. She has. Have you ever seen these like peg leg walkers?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I've seen them.
Speaker 2:It's like you put your knee in and like you have a peg leg and then your foot's hanging up in the air.
Speaker 3:I've seen that.
Speaker 2:She's like I get a lot of looks at the store but it works. She finally, like kept off her foot and her fasciitis went away. She's so happy.
Speaker 3:That's great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, any other nuances before we sign off?
Speaker 3:I was actually going to ask you what's your neuropathy protocol for MLS.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I do 12 sessions of MLS to start with, first three sessions in the first week to create the buildup effect in the cells because you have to wake them up. And then I do the EBN6 vitamin from the EBM company. It's a great vitamin. It helps glycosylation and renewal of the nerves. And then I encourage patients I also started physical therapy, especially the older population physical therapy to just do like gait training and balancing just to try to get them more mobile um, and then if and then.
Speaker 2:The other thing is I really like the cbd cream and if the patient doesn't want to pay for it, then they go get some over the counter capsaicin cream that works as well.
Speaker 3:I see. No, that's very similar to what we do.
Speaker 2:There's also a machine that sometimes I prescribe if the patients have insurance. It's called the Zynex machine and it has an inter. It's like a tent unit but it has an interferential currents on it and it stimulates the. It's like a 10 unit but it has an interferential current on it and it stimulates the nerves to wake up and heal and it helps a lot with the symptoms of neuropathy as well oh, that's interesting, so you do.
Speaker 3:So. You do the, you do three. You do three sessions of mls the first week, and then you do one session per week after that no two two per week, I do two, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I tell patients, the more they do it closer together, the faster the nerves wake up. I actually had one neuropathy patient that did five in a row and felt like a million bucks.
Speaker 3:Awesome, awesome. And are you doing their protocol where you let the robot go over the dorsum of the foot and then you use the trigger point laser to hit the legs? Is that your protocol?
Speaker 2:no, I actually just I do each leg. I do the right leg, from the common fibular nerve all the way to the dorsum of the foot, and then I do nine minutes on each leg like that, and then I do, and then I put their feet the bottom of their feet together and I do nine minutes on each leg like that, and then I do, and then I put their feet the bottom of their feet together and I do another nine minutes with the bottom of feet together.
Speaker 3:Okay, and you're using the roller as a robot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a robot, like it's. I didn't hear you what.
Speaker 3:What I think you said M7. You got the M7, the robotic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have the robotic one, so it has the handheld piece and it also has. So we just do the setting. We do the whole entire leg, both legs. It runs for nine minutes. We scan it and we run each leg for nine minutes and then the bottom of the feet together another nine minutes. The patients are here for about half an hour but, it really does work.
Speaker 2:And I always crank it up, I always double power it because I want to do right by my patients and get them the most relief. And, um, my patients, I also do that for chronic arthritis. I have someone I actually treat knees down here. Sometimes I have like a mailman with bone on bone knees and he really doesn't have time to have a knee replacement and he just comes in, gets a couple he did the initial like six in a row and he comes in about once a week for maintenance and he feels a lot better.
Speaker 2:He doesn't have any scoots in and out of his mail truck and you found a way to get his pain under control, without surgery, without injections, without pills, and he's very that's great, so I use it for a lot of things that's really nice.
Speaker 3:Knees are great any arthritic condition.
Speaker 2:Great for it and end up using less pills, cause it's amazing. And then it's just interesting how all my colleagues use them differently and how like. What I do is. I just give the injection first and then I do 10 or 12 MLS in a row with the boot for about three weeks. That's my protocol, but it's not. I could see where doing the shockwave and the MLS at the same time works a lot better. I didn't even think of that before, so it's really cool, very interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just. You know, like I said, there's a million ways to skin a cat right. So that's the same thing here. Is that there's so many ways to achieve the same results, if you will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right. Well, thank you so much for coming on my podcast today. I love collaborating with other colleagues and seeing what they're doing and, uh, you're. We're doing great things together. We're just helping other people all the patients with pain and dr wadera. Thank you so much for your time and for all the people in michigan. Hopefully they'll get around to hearing us together thanks for having me on. I appreciate it thank you so much. Have a great, have a great day See you next time.
Speaker 3:You too See you next time, bye.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the LMD podiatry podcast. For more information, visit LMDPodiatrycom. That's L M D P O D I A Tiatrycom. That's lmdpodiatrycom, or call 954-680-7133.