RESOURCES
- Buy the book “The Pain Free Formula: Solving The Puzzle of Muscle and Joint Pain Without Surgery, Drugs, or Injections” on Amazon
- Visit Stacey Roberts Website newyouhealthandwellness.com
- Watch this episode on YouTube
- Listen to this episode on iTunes
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro Snip
00:43 Introduction Stacey Roberts
02:57 What area of Stacey Roberts’ practice brings the most joy?
06:07 What does traditional pelvic health physical therapy include?
06:34 How does softwave shockwave therapy accelerate healing?
09:00 What other areas of the body can shockwave help people?
10:50 Does shockwave diminish sensation?
16:38 What is the technology behind shockwave… how does it work?
19:37 What does the shockwave procedure look like?
19:54 What does softwave feel like?
20:30 How much improvement can a patient expect with a treatment?
21:25 How deep does shockwave go?
22:15 When did shockwave become a treatment?
26:45 How does shockwave help skin conditions?
29:28 Are there concerns of creating new inflammation in an inflammatory condition?
31:01 What are the contraindications for shockwave therapy?
34:19 How much does shockwave therapy cost?
36:40 Are people hesitant to share their sexual dysfunction?
41:00 Tell us about your clinic “New You Health And Wellness”.
43:42 What is your point in your book “The Pain Free Formula”?
44:20 What is the difference between medicine and functional medicine?
45:38 What can we expect to learn from “The Pain Free Formula Podcast”?
TRANSCRIPT
educate yourself on, what you may be utilizing now, especially if you still have pain after many years, your body should have had the ability to heal it. So you really have to ask yourself why it has it. Like
what’s perpetuating this pain
You are listening to the Dr. Haley Show, the podcast dedicated to helping you optimize your health. Each episode there will be an interview or a message to help you discover better health. We will be featuring health radicals on the show to bring new ideas to the table, as well as doubling down on key fundamentals to support you living your best life.
Your host is no other than the founder of Haley Nutrition Dr. Michael Haley.
This is the Dr. Haley Show podcast. I’m Dr. Michael Haley your show host and today’s guest, Stacey Roberts. Stacey is a physical therapist and holistic registered nurse
practicing in the Milwaukee area. She also does telehealth. Stacey uses functional medicine and physical therapy to help her patients achieve their optimal health goals. For over 30 years. She’s been helping patients with pain reduction, hormone optimization, gut health, and weight loss, among other things.
She uses high tech treatments like softwave or shockwave therapy, which is what we’ll be discussing today. She is a published author. Her upcoming book, that Pain Free Formula will help you find relief from pain without surgery or drugs. Stacey Roberts is a musculoskeletal specialist pelvic and sexual health physical therapist and functional medicine specialist. You can find out more about Stacey on her clinic website
newyouhealthandwellness.com Stacey, welcome to the Dr. Haley Show podcast. I was kind of thinking of what direction we would go in this discussion because you have so many areas of expertise, which I love from the skin health and the gut health and the weight loss. And you talked about, you know, pelvic wellness and sexual health and physical therapy from pain and anywhere from neck and back pain and all of these things.
I really only have one question prepared for this podcast, and then we’ll see what direction it goes, because I myself, you know, I help people get well. And the reason I do what I do, really it’s a little selfish. I love what I do because of the feedback I get from my patients customers. It just kind of really gets me charged up because it’s kind of like Dr. Haley, you’re the only person that could help me with this.
I’m wondering, out of all of the areas of your expertise, what brings you the most joy and satisfaction in what you do? Well, thanks so much Dr. Haley for having me on the show. I really appreciate it. And what a great question. I guess the best way to answer that is to say, you know, anything that, like you, when my patients get better or they have significant improvement, like, I’ll give you an example.
A patient who had pelvic health issues called vaginismus. So fear of intercourse due to significant pain or dyspareunia or pain with intercourse and we saw her in a typical physical therapy. Plan of care for that would could be anywhere from 12 treatments, up to 20 treatments. You know, you have to go very slow because the patient is afraid, you know, because of previous either trauma or pain or things like that.
But when we utilize softwave technology along with pelvic health physical therapy, we’re able to get her feeling better in, four treatments versus 12 to 20. Oh, and I reached out to her. Yeah, I reached out to her, about a year. Year and a half. I called her and her husband picked up the phone and, and never met him before,
And, it’s unusual these days that somebody else picks up somebody’s phone, and he said, I saw that it was your name on there, and I,
you know, just wanted to talk to you. And I was like, you know, talk to the patient. Yeah. I don’t know how she’s doing. And he goes, I just wanted to say thank you.
You know, thank you for giving me my wife back. And I was, you know, choked up. And I still get choked up even talking about it as you know, the to be able to have that intimacy again in a relationship and, you know, it goes far beyond what we do in the clinic of how it impacts people’s lives.
So when I get,
feedback like that, whether it’s for,
intimacy or, you know, patients able to pick up their grandchild or they’re able to play pickleball and socialize with their friends, you know, all that stuff just really keeps me going. I’m kind of chuckling at the one thing you said because I, recently joined the pickleball cult.
Yeah. You’re so funny. Yeah. I’ve watched and I played a little bit, but I haven’t dove into, like, any leagues or anything yet. I’m busy in the clinic right now, but I’m sure that’s coming because a lot of my friends are into it. Yeah, yeah. That’s great. I left early last night to play right after work, so I’m a junkie.
So I get, let’s talk about the, pelvic health and, sexual health area then. And I also like the fact that, you know, you called it intimacy, which to me is so much bigger and more important. And, not that you have to have sex to have intimacy, but that’s one of those components that’s very dear and important to people.
You mentioned the shockwave therapy only taking like four treatments. What other kind of treatments would they have had to go through that would have taken 12 treatments. And we’ll talk about what shockwave is in a moment. Sure. So traditional pelvic health, physical therapy, where they would do internal treatments, and external treatments, really. And a lot of, breathing exercises, manual therapy, they look at the pelvis and the low back and the hips, see what potentially could be contributing.
We help with stress management, all those things. Were still in those four visits. That the person had. But when we added softwave to it, which is a type of shockwave, it just accelerates the healing and accelerated the ability for me to do internal work. That would have been excruciating or, you know, even off limits for a period of time.
So I was able to do that work without the pain that the patient would typically experience. So it was more effective because
it was more comfortable for the patient.
and just the,
effects of shockwave therapy helped to accelerate the healing process in this case, many times, the pelvic floor is what we call upregulated.
So lots of tension or tone in the pelvic floor. And what happens as a result of that is there’s decreased blood flow to those muscles. If I kept my biceps in a, you know, contracted position all day long, it wouldn’t have the blood flow coming and going like it would normally. So that’s, that can be what’s called Ischemic muscle, where it’s like in blood flow.
So softwaves significantly increases that blood flow immediately with treatment. So that I was able to do internal work on the first treatment that, like I said, sometimes doesn’t happen for weeks. When you’re doing just traditional pelvic office therapy. So it really moved everything along for the patient. Yeah. And if I’m summarizing what I think I’m hearing, internal treatment would be potentially painful, kind of like penetration, which is why they’re avoiding intercourse.
And if I’m understanding correctly, you’re able to do that because of starting with an external treatment with shockwave. Yeah. Our treatment with shockwave is external. So thank you for bringing that up. we just set it right on the perineum, which is between the vagina and the anus. And just aim towards that pelvic floor. And it usually is completely painless.
There may be a couple trigger points in the pelvic floor where the patient might feel a deep ache or like a deep massage to that area. And if it would ever become too painful, it can be turned down, so that, you know, it’s we want that patient be comfortable because we want the blood flow to go there.
We don’t want them to be, you know, afraid and
contracting because that pushes away the blood flow. Okay. Right off the bat for the listener, I want to open up their mind to the other areas that this might be, applicable, meaning we seem to be focused already on, women. Vaginal tightness type pain.
What else is this used for? So it can be used for any musculoskeletal issue and specifically for men it can be used for Ed. So I have a portion of my clinic where men come for Ed treatment, where we use our softwave device, again, which is the type of shockwave but it’s really important for men and women to understand that not every device is the same.
You can go to Amazon and buy something that’s kind of like a muscle massager, and they call it, you know, shockwave. Or you can go to a clinic and get, you know, softwave with, pelvic health physical therapy, plus treating the, you know, lumbar sacral spine where the nerves come out of to innovate the genitals. And those things are something you just can’t do with a, cheaper version of a device that doesn’t even produce a shockwave.
Besides sexual and pelvic health, we can do pelvic pain and addition. But besides pelvic and sexual health, we can treat pretty much any joint in the body with it that is painful or inflamed. And again, we get a lot of significant acceleration of healing as a result. It helps to heal scars or help decrease pain with painful scars.
There’s just it’s really left up to the
clinician’s imagination because it treats, musculoskeletal issues. So any of those, you know, shoulder tendinitis, frozen shoulder knee pain, arthritis, hip pain, back pain, you name it, pretty much any body part can be, treated with it. Okay. We’re going to get into the how it works.
And I think this question is going to bring us right there because and for the question, we’ll focus on intimacy and that type of pain. Because in treating pain there might be a fear if I treat the sensory nerves and decrease sensation. Is that what I’m doing when I’m eliminating pain? And then intimacy wouldn’t be as pleasurable? Or what’s the mechanism?
It’s the exact opposite because we’re bringing blood flow to the area. We can make the nerves more sensitive. So for example, recently in our protocol with Ed, I helped the company that whose device I use softwave to help them create and expand their protocols. And recently we started treating pudendal nerve, which runs, comes out of the sacrum, runs into the butt, dives down towards the sit bones, butt ischial tuberosity and then branches out and innervates, the genitals, both male and female.
So by treating that area, by bringing more blood flow to that area, we’re actually increasing blood flow and sensation through that nerve to the genitals. So it significantly increases not just blood flow to the penis by treating the penis with shockwave, but also increases the innervation or sensation to the genitals, or again, either in the male or female.
So it actually improves that, intimacy due to improving sensitivity and good sensitivity. Right. Not like painful sensitivity. Yeah, that’s great. Do you have the instrument for those that are seeing this on YouTube? I don’t have it with me today, but I can certainly give you that for the show notes to put in there and even, like a video if you’d like.
We can probably edit in and a photo of it, but could you describe it? Sure. It’s softwave is an electro hydraulic, broad focused shockwave device. So there’s several different shockwave devices out there. Most of the shockwave devices, if they’re true shockwave, the energy comes out like a laser. But this one comes out like a flashlight.
So we’re getting that focal point in the middle like the other ones do. But we’re also treating the area around the, the area that is sore or the area that we want to increase blood flow to. That again results in the patient is a bit more comfortable as a result. And the mechanism of action is increasing blood flow to the area, modulating inflammation.
So if the inflammation is too high, it brings it down. If the area needs to be, stimulated or it needs to improve that sensation like we talked about. It can help do that. With scars it can help with pain and also smoothing out the scar, the scar tissue revascularizes brings blood flow to that scar tissue to make it less painful.
And new research is showing that’s actually changing the type of cell in the scar tissue. So,
it’s a modality that me as a physical therapist over 34 years has never seen the acceleration of healing. As a matter of fact, as extremely skeptical about it. So much so that four and a half, five years ago, when my friend brought this to me and said, hey, have you ever heard of this?
I’m like, no, I’m sure it’s not going to work because I’ve been in this business for a while and I’ve never heard of it. And, you know, look at that thing. It looks just like a space age ultrasound. It’s not going to do anything different. So she promised me a free lunch. So I went to, treatment with her, and I had treated her for her shoulder in the past, and she had.
She was fine. But at the end of the range, I should sleep on her arm. Wrong. She would have pain, and she wanted to get rid of that, so I said, okay, well, I’ll go with you. Make sure at least it’s safe. Plus, you’re going to take me out to lunch after. So, we go and the first person does the treatment, and she raises her arm up and she goes like, that pain’s gone.
And I’m like, okay, talk to me in like 2 or 3 days. I’m sure it’s going to back. And really, it’s a two and a half years for her to need another treatment because of pickleball she went and play pickleball and messed her shoulder up a bit and then came back to me for, more treatment with softwave. But and unless I had seen it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it.
And then for me, I’m a big skeptic, so. And I had to dive deep into the research. And it was during the beginning of C…d
So that allowed me at the time to do it. And now I teach courses about it. And, you know, 90% of my patients, get that treatment because it’s so effective.
you enjoying the show thus far? One of the many health secrets that we have covered on the show is all around aloe vera. Specifically drinking raw aloe vera. Our aloe vera has helped our customers effectively heal their gut, increase their intestine health, lower inflammation in the body, eliminate and or decrease acid reflux, have glowing skin and hair, and so much more.
Now, as a frequent member of our audience, you will be exposed to exclusive specials and coupon codes for the awesome products manufactured by Haley Nutrition. That’s right, for simply being awesome and tuning in. You can get a mini discount to help you optimize and better your health. To see how we can help and support you on your health journey.
Tune in to the episodes and listen for coupon codes that you can use at haleynutrition.com. Before you make your orders of raw aloe vera. Once again, it’s www.haleynutrition.com. Now back to the show.
I truly appreciate the skepticism too, to me, you know, when you start looking this into something with that and then you find out, wow, this is real, it’s all the more real.
It’s not the placebo effect, right? You kind of eliminate that with your skepticism. So I love it. I’m unclear on the technology, though. Meaning, you know, we have, like, ultrasound uses sound waves, and those red light therapy uses light, and there’s, you know, percussive waves and different kinds of energy. What is what is this using.
So it’s using shockwaves. So basically what happens you know like when you have an explosion there’s, you know, a wave that comes off as a result. That’s called a shockwave. Not a vibration, not a vibration. It’s just a wave. So if you, a volcanic eruption, for example, comes up and there’s a huge shockwave that comes out as a result that is not electric shock.
Correct. It’s a result of in this particular device, it’s a result of a spark. So it has like a electrode inside the device, which when it clicks, there’s a little spark that’s created. So I guess you could say it comes from that electrical spark, which is like a mini explosion. And then the wave comes out of there.
Now because it’s electro hydraulic, it’s traveling through water. So that makes it travels five times faster than through air. So it has a big push behind it. And it originally was used for, lithotripsy or breaking up kidney stones. That’s why they took that. You know, that energy like a volcanic eruption that kind of comes out like a flashlight or an explosion that kind of goes out wide.
And they made it into a pinpoint area, and they focused all of that energy into one area so they could break up the kidney stones. So once it enters the body, it turns into an acoustic wave. But it’s much more pointed and powerful and high energy to break up those kidney stones. But the interesting thing they saw was the vertebral bodies behind the kidneys were or
to the side of the kidneys were starting to become more dense.
So they knew that it was able to increase the density of bone. So they wondered what it could do on fractures that weren’t healing. Lo and behold, when they start treating the fractures with it that were in healing, it accelerated the healing process of those fractures. But both of those procedures needed to be under anesthetic because it would have been so painful.
So then they brought it down to low energy. And but they all of the devices, except for the one I have still came out like a, like a laser, whereas what I have more comes out like that flashlight or so that wave, that’s shockwave, that’s traveling through the water. Once it hits the body turns into an acoustic wave.
But it can get much deeper than ultrasound and ours in particular. It can and even in comparison to some lasers, can get deeper and definitely deeper than the red light. But, as far as the therapeutic effect goes, so we’re hitting that area that’s again wider and deeper than the other devices. And frankly, I mean, I’ve seen modality after modality.
You know, prior to this that did pretty much nothing. Or again, it I could use it in conjunction to my physical therapy, but it didn’t accelerate the process. It would be about the same number of treatments. Whereas this is really moving the needle for patients because
it accelerates their progress so quickly. Is the procedure similar to ultrasound or red light therapy or it’s similar in that
the therapist is applying
the technique to applying the applicator to the skin, but very different experience.
So for example, in our device you’ll hear clicking and you’ll feel tapping on the skin. And then but you only feel tapping on skin that’s not irritated or inflamed or over an area where tissue underneath the skin is irritated or inflamed. Once we get over that area, the patient goes, oh, wait a minute, now I can feel that.
So it’s either they say it’s like a pinch or poke, or like a deep ache or a deep massage. It doesn’t have to hurt a lot. Sometimes I see people turn it up and patients are like wriggling around and it hurts. And that doesn’t have to happen. My patients experience, you know, out of ten of tens, the worst pain you’ve ever experienced, they might, you know, experience a four and then during that treatment or five during that treatment time, the pain actually goes down.
So they’re 50 to 100% better when they stand up afterwards. Oh wow. That will last. Yeah. That will last for a few hours up to a few days for the first treatment. And then with each treatment it should be getting subsequently better for longer. Is that 50% better just from the shockwave or after the internal work that you do following the shockwave?
50% better just from the shockwave and then even up to that 100% better in conjunction with the physical therapy and manual therapy that we do. Wow. That’s impressive. Yeah, it’s I mean, again, if I was on the other side and you were telling me this, I would’ve been kind of rolling my eyes on the inside and going, yeah, right.
So it it took me for me to see it and utilize it to really see the changes that it can create. Yeah. And you know, you mentioned it being used for kidney stones at some point, which tells me it goes pretty deep. Correct. So depending on the device, there’s a few different true shockwave devices that actually produce a shockwave that can go anywhere from an inch deep up until potentially like the size of a
Soup can depth ours goes with the with like soup can and others go just like a laser pointer. So, like I said, our softwave is more comfortable. And I feel more effective. I’ve tried all the other devices prior to landing with softwave and the difference between softwave and shockwave. Softwave is the name of the company.
Shockwave is the technology. I gotcha, and when was this technology, made available for treatments like this? Softwave has been around for 20 years with shockwave, and it’s been variable. Kind of, morphed into more of, now, in there, chiropractor, physical therapist, outpatient clinics, you know, trained then New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, the LA Dodgers, New York Giants, New York Rangers.
So it’s now really gaining in professional sports as well too. So, and, you know, when they’re using it for both treatment and prevention, you know, we know that that it works obviously. Yeah. The hardest things for me as a chiropractor to treat have probably been shoulder’s. And you already gave an example of that. And also knees.
What are some knee stories that you’ve seen. Got a perfect one of my own knee stories. So was at a wedding about three years ago. I had shockwave for about a year, year and a half, and I do some occasionally in different parts of my body. But I went to a wedding and, I was doing the polka with my son because I saw him do it on the dance floor, and I was like, oh, he needs to.
He is not very good at that. So he was 21 at the time, and so I wanted to teach him how to do polka. So I went out there and I don’t wear big heels at all. I might have had a little wedge heel. And we’re doing the polka all of the sudden, big pop in my knee. And that was the knee that I had, ACL, repair probably.
Well, 1986. So let’s just say almost 40 years prior, and it swelled up like a balloon. I felt like somebody took a, a knife and jabbing it on the inside of my knee. I could barely walk. So I, you know, drag myself off the dance floor, blew up like a balloon and dragged myself back to my car, leave the wedding early and piling ice on it, had to drive home.
Thankfully, my son was with me because
It’s my right knee, so I couldn’t drive and immediately put softwave on it. And I actually have a video on this too. I could barely put weight on it. And then after the first treatment, put some weight. By the third treatment, I was off crutches completely.
And that wouldn’t have happened that quickly. But here’s the interesting thing. As a physical therapist, I wanted to know what that pop was, right? So I was like, what was that? Is something like the screw break. You know, there’s a couple screws on that knee. So I went to a doctor and, had an MRI. I had a, an X-ray, finally met with the doctor and sat down with her and she said, and I said, well, what was the, you know, the pops?
You think after looking at this because I couldn’t see anything on the MRI or the, X-ray and she said, it doesn’t really matter, you know, is full of arthritis. You need a knee replacement. I was like, well, well, wait a minute, I haven’t had any I haven’t had any pain prior to this cycle. See your knees full of arthritis?
I’m like, I can see that. But if I don’t have pain, I don’t care how much arthritis is in my knee, right? So the point with that was my
Patients think that arthritis always has to hurt. And it does. It can get the inflammation down to a point where yes, there’s arthritis. I’m not saying that this my knee suddenly doesn’t have arthritis in it.
But again I don’t have pain that’s associated with it. So I can be as active as I want. So I, have been to, if you want instance, pain free and an injury free. Although I do have to say
they’re, dangerous places for 50 plus year olds, because every wedding I’ve been to so far, I’ve at least got one patient out of because they hurt themselves, while dancing on the dance floor.
Yeah. And did you say you have a, you already ruptured your anterior cruciate ligament in the past? Had that surgically repaired in college basketball? Yep. Yeah. And I would have thought the pop was a new rupture. And that’s probably what you were concerned about. Exactly where it was. I didn’t think it was the ACL. I thought it was more of the medial collateral ligament in the medial meniscus.
But looking back at it now
and still kind of where it hurt, probably was some old scar tissue that just popped, but was also that scar tissue that had been also supporting my knee in some way, shape or form at that time. So the MCL
did show sprain. But my meniscus are pretty much trashed.
But again, I it doesn’t bother me because I don’t have any pain with it. Well, interesting. I think I heard also that shockwave was used for skin conditions as well. Can be so wounds especially softwave in particular. Has a clearance by the FDA for treating diabetic foot ulcers. So it can help to not only accelerate the blood flow to the wound to help with healing, but it breaks the biofilm up of the bacteria.
So if they’re resistant to antibiotics,
the shockwave can break open that bacteria and then allow the body to do what it’s supposed to do and getting rid of that bacteria. So you see a significant wound healing. I had a, patient with, a wound about the size of a half dollar on his big toe, and he was going to have the amputated.
He also had osteomyelitis in that same toe, which is a bone infection. And, they had done six months of antibiotics. Nothing worked. And we thought, let’s give it a shot. The next step is amputation. It completely cleared up. The osteomyelitis went away. And we saw new blood flow, new vascularization coming from
his hip, his inner thigh.
I was treating his toe. So the body was trying to grow new blood vessels down to that area to be able to give it a new blood supply. It was is amazing. So he didn’t have to have that toe amputated, which was fantastic. But skin also, you know, you have burns, lacerations, things like that. You know, really, really beneficial, very versatile tool.
What about, scars from tummy tucks to C-sections and that we’re starting a pilot study right now. There is
just general information about painful scars. But we want to be very specific about C-section scars because they can often be real painful, even years after, when I was training a, physical therapist how to use the device, she had a person who had a three year old C-section scar that was still painful, causing her a lot of, issues.
A patient who had this. And as we were doing softwave, suddenly the patient set up when we hit a certain area of her scar, and I was like, oh, was that painful? She’s like, she’s hurt. Her eyes welled up with tears, and she’s like, no one’s been able to find that spot in three years. And she’s crying. I’m crying.
You know, we’re all for. And by the end of the treatment, you know, the pain was gone. And then by the end of three treatments, it is completely resolved, which again,
is extraordinary. You know, so, pretty much for any of these musculoskeletal and scarring things, I’ve had some, you know, tremendous stories
of how I can help.
Yeah. You mentioned the the nerve. I forget which one it was that, you know, the men and women off the pelvic coming from the sacrum area. What? Which nerve was that? pudendal nerve. If you were treating, male that had an issue there, do they have to be concerned about, say, prostatitis or, you know, increasing inflammation?
So if you do, too high and that’s why you need to go to a practitioner that knows what they’re doing. If you do it too high, you can flare it up. So what’s happening is
It’s moving the patient from a pro-inflammatory phase to an anti-inflammatory phase so we can support the healing process. Right. So then the body will heal
if the energy is too high and too long on one place, you can really upregulate that pro-inflammatory response and that patient can be sore for a long period of time.
So you want to make sure that you’re seeing somebody who’s
Now, again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing from a standpoint of healing, but it really stinks when the patient is extremely sore for, you know, weeks or, you know, days after. So when we’re treating where I’m looking to shift it from that pro-inflammatory sore phase to the anti-inflammatory phase where they’re not really feeling, you know, significant pain, and then the body can go ahead and heal.
So we always get a shift from, let’s say, that subjective complaint. Somebody tells me it’s that feels like it’s about a 4 out of 10. And then we look during the treatment to get that pain down to a 0 to 2 out of ten, which there is significantly, reduces the chance of them having a flare. So as long as you go to a person who knows what they’re doing, knows the anatomy in the area, there’s, you know, really no risk
of having any sort of significant injury by any means.
What are the country indications? So three absolute contraindications across
shockwave is, not over a pacemaker. Not over a pregnant uterus and not over malignant tumor. There are some studies on tumors in hospice patients that where shockwave has been applied to those tumors and those tumors have shrunk. And there’s some, ongoing research on utilizing shockwave with cancer in Europe, but it is completely off label, and it’s still an absolute contraindication.
Yeah. And it sounds it sounds like I’m not saying this, but it sounds to me like everything there’s, you know, contraindication cancer, it’s one of those unknown areas. So for that reason, because it’s cancer, we’re not going to mess with it. So it’s a contraindication, but it actually might be just the opposite. Right. And because we’re always worried about if we bring more blood flow to an area that has cancer, is that going to feed the cancer and allow it to grow more quickly.
But because shockwave is upregulated in the immune system, what they’re finding in the very preliminary studies is that upregulation of the immune system helps the body address that, that tumor. Now, again, it’s very, very new. And there needs to be many, many more people, or animals studied in order to, lift that contraindication. But in no way, shape or form would I recommend it at this point to treat any type of tumor.
Yeah, yeah. You know, I that makes sense.
As a thank you for being a fan of the Dr. Haley Show podcast throughout March of 2025. Enjoy 10% off your entire purchase at Haleynutrition.com The coupon code is xxxxxxx X X X X X X X because we are XXXXXXX to have aloe vera back in stock before the month is over. In the meantime, we thank you for your patronage of our other products.
Consider combining this coupon with our already discounted and on sale bundled products, and enjoy the rest of this podcast.
I’m in the aloe vera business. So my the picture behind me is an aloe vera field. Awesome. It’s interesting because it’s, it’s reminding me of some of the things that aloe vera does as far as, like, increasing blood flow. And, up regulating the immune system in the sense of, you know, increasing tumor necrosis factor and interferons and interleukins and things that help fight cancers, although it’s not a cure for cancer, it’s something that can help.
And I can’t wait till there’s more research on aloe vera in cancer. And it sounds like shockwave, too, so yeah, need to read it. Yeah. Because doesn’t aloe vera also help with the mucosal membranes as well to it does a lot, but I’m not sure of the necessary mechanism. In other words, is it because it increases blood flow and it helps in that way?
Is it because it
up regulates the immune system? Right. You know, ingesting it helps you absorb your nutrients better. There’s so many mechanisms that it can, you know, help with the various things, the increased blood flow. Maybe that’s why it promotes healing when you ingest it, I don’t know. Right. Interesting. Yeah. Shockwave, how much does it cost as insurance cover it?
So insurance. Well, there are CPT codes for it. And insurance at this time does not cover it except in some areas and some max. Medicare is getting reimbursed for Ed treatment. However, and there are a few places that also, you can get reimbursement for wound treatment. But because there’s so many different devices and so many different protocols and some of the devices are not getting the best outcomes, like
our softwave device gets some great outcomes.
It’s a perfect reason for insurance to say, no, we’re not going to cover it because there’s inconsistency across the board. So for right now the majority is not covered. But what patients are finding is because it’s decreasing the amount of time that they would have to spend in, in physical therapy or chiropractic or whatever. Anyway, it’s really can be more economical and save money.
In some cases, my patients will take their, super bills that we provide. And if they have on a network provider, they put that against their deductible. So there are possibilities that can be that the cost be, you know, used for HSA, FSA, those types of things as well to that would make sense, especially if there’s CPT codes, which, you know, getting the coding is a huge process that takes years.
I wonder how long those codes,
the musculoskeletal codes been around for a while because it used to be they, related to high intensity, but again, never really been paid. And softwave was one of the pioneers who pushed through the CPT code for ED. And we’re trying to do the same for
women’s pelvic health.
And so they’ve really I think it took about a year to get the Ed one through, and we’ll see what happens with the pelvic health. I’m doing. Just finished an IRB supported, single, blinded, controlled study, dyspareunia with softwave. So if we can get more of that data, behind it, then there’s more of a chance for, it to be number one shown that it’s safe.
Right? And the number two, that it’s effective. So, once we have that data, I’m confident that in softwave, we’ll be ahead of the game again in trying to push for more CPT codes for that. Yeah. I would imagine some people are probably hesitant to open up with their, challenges in the area of sexual health.
It can be I mean, it’s much, much better than it was so ten years ago. An even better five than five years ago. Right? So more people are understanding that something can be done, but there’s still people going to physicians who are like, it’s because you’re aging or you know, oh, that’s normal. Well, the pelvic pain, sexual dysfunction, maybe common but not necessarily normal.
Right. So we really have to have, medical professionals educating patients about, hey, there are these other options. But to your point, it’s still difficult. In our society to talk about those things in general. So what I find is patients who come in to see me for musculoskeletal issues. We have a question on there, whether they’re having
any pelvic health or sexual health issues.
And sometimes they put it on there, sometimes they don’t. But after they, you know, develop a rapport, with myself or the other, my colleagues, are working with me. Then they can open up about those things, right? Or they see that we have brochures about it and they might bring a brochure and be like, hey, I see you do this stuff.
So sometimes it just takes a little bit of that building on that rapport. But it can be uncomfortable, to bring it up. But we do our best to make it as comfortable as possible to talk about it in the clinic. I’m laughing because I’m thinking about a patient that I had probably 30 years ago. And I have the questions on my form too.
Are you having any challenges in this area? And you know, the answer was no. But he had back pain going down his leg and neck pain going down his arm. And in his case, I adjusted him incredibly. I mean, it sounded like sitting on a bag of potato chips when the bones all moved and everything, and in that case released a nerve pressure.
And I’ll never forget him. The next day saying, Dr. Haley, something you did? And I said, what’s going on? He said, well, I don’t have any neck pain going down my arm. I don’t have any back pain going down my leg. Something you did? I said, what’s going on? And he, you know, kind of leaned in and he said, I can have sex again.
Yeah. I said, yeah, I’m the form. You didn’t, you know. Yeah, that I didn’t know it had anything to do. How long you been having that problem? Ten years. Wow. Yeah. He was willing to go ten years without addressing the issue. Probably out of fear, discomfort or whatever it was. And it was a simple fix, right?
Yeah. And it is. It’s education wise. I don’t know that you can do anything about it. Except especially if they don’t want to take medications or maybe the medications don’t work for them. So it’s again, there’s a stigma in our society. So the best thing I feel we can do as practitioners is just leave that door open right?
Just be let them know that it’s okay to talk about things, that are a little bit more uncomfortable, right.
in my clinic, we have more time. I spent, you know, 30, 45, 60 minutes with patients. So
we can sit down and talk about those things, and develop that rapport so that they feel comfortable speaking up about it or even asking the question.
And you’re still doing the telehealth, right? Yep. I do telehealth as well. That would probably be an easy way for someone to discuss it. Right? Exactly. And with telehealth,
we kind of go through what the patient can do at home to improve their situation. And then if they
still feel they need softwave therapy, then we help them find somebody in their area.
That’s great. Now, I did take a peek on your website which was newyouhealthandwellness.com, and it looks like you have a pretty happening clinic there with other health care practitioners working with you. And I saw a huge variety of areas that you address. Tell me a little bit about your clinic. So the clinic we have another physical therapist.
We’re hiring another one now we have an exercise physiologist, personal trainer and then myself and then we are expanding to a nurse practitioner this year as well. And we really look at the whole person. So if you’re coming to me for
an issue with your joints, and we talk about, you know, what you can do with your biomechanics and softwave therapy, but if that’s not improving, then we have our functional medicine program because pain can come from, you know, being in perimenopause or menopause.
So pain can come from hormone issues for men or for women. So for men, I have this guy who’s 35 years old and he had bilateral hamstring pain right at the insertion on the sit bones. And he was told over and over, you know, there’s inflammation, there’s inflammation there. They couldn’t give him a reason why. And I said I think he might have we need to look at your hormones because softwave was working a little bit.
But then it would come back and he’s like, oh no, how could I? I mean, I’m 34. He doesn’t have any sexual issues or sure enough, because he was just frustrated. He asked a doctor for testosterone tests and he got those done. His testosterone at 34 was significantly low, so we needed to work with him on naturally improving his testosterone production in order to fix the, musculoskeletal issue.
So that’s why we do that, where we look at the biomechanics
and that first localized information first and then move on to the functional medicine if it’s a systemic issue. So people that come to see me for functional medicine or for menopause or perimenopause, if they might have joint pain, because what women don’t realize is that the more popular symptoms, like vaginal dryness and hot flashes are just as common, or joint pain can be even more common in menopause than those that we hear about all the time.
So again, it could be an issue where they just need some localized treatment on that area. Or again, more of a systemic treatment where we look at hormones with gut health. We look at food sensitivities, all those types of things that could be contributing to pain that’s not resolving or hasn’t resolved for a period of time. I think that’s great.
And especially, you know, when you look at things like hormones and gut health and you know how it all works together, you can be tunnel vision and say, okay, you need this therapy here, and I’m not going to look at those other things. Let’s just try this therapy. But you never really get to the root of the health challenge, the overall person, without looking at the diet and the gut health.
Yeah. And that’s exactly what, my point is, of the pain free formula is to look at number one. How’s conventional medicine dealing
with pain now why people aren’t getting better just with that model and then what they can do instead. So we talk about biomechanics, we talk about softwave, but we also talk about hormones and gut health and food sensitivities and even stress and how stress can impact our pain to, you know, I can treat your skin conditions, but if I don’t address your gut, we’re probably going to be treating your skin conditions forever.
For a long time. Yeah. And that’s unfortunately, how dermatology in the medical conventional model, whether it’s based on basically. And, you are practicing functional medicine. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about how that’s different from the medical approach. So just exactly what you said a few minutes ago is it’s looking for that root cause.
So the root cause of something could be inflammation. But then we’re looking at the root cause of inflammation. Right. So conventional medicine or creams and topicals and all that stuff treats the inflammation. But if you don’t get to the trigger of what’s causing the inflammation, then just like you said, it’s most likely going to come back. So we want to get to that underlying cause or the root of the root, and really address that specifically.
And it may take maybe a couple things. It might be optimizing hormones and then doing that through working on the gut. Right. It might be, you know, through working on the strength in your hip to help your knee, but also looking at food sensitivities that might be contributing to joint pain. So it could be a combination of different things also.
And that’s why the functional medicine aspect of it just again, really is diving down to the root cause of the inflammation to figure out, you know, why hasn’t it gone away yet? Yeah, yeah. Stacey you’re brilliant. You have a lot of information. And if I want more of your information and I want to learn from you, I understand you have a podcast that is up and coming.
Absolutely. By the end of March of 2025, we’ll have the pain free podcast. Our pain free formula podcast, coming out to all the popular podcast channels, and launching with just some general
information about inflammation and, and how to address pain. And then I’ll be doing interviews like, hopefully with you, Dr. Haley, for, different topics.
And, and really, we’re going to expand not just for muscle and joint pain, but, you know, emotional. I mean, I have a psychologist come on, to talk about how to deal with chronic pain or trauma or things like that. So anything that causes pain, whether it’s physiological, physical or psychological in our life, we’ll be talking about, on he pain free formula to help people.
Excellent is the best place to get in touch with you. If I wanted to do telehealth, do I go to a newyouhealthandwellness.com Yes. Or you can email info@newyouhealthandwellness.com. Or you can give us a call at (414)Â 299-8121. And we’ll be happy to help you and see, how we can serve you and, and help you feel better and be as active for as long as possible.
Okay. You know, is there is there anything that we didn’t talk about that you really were hoping that we would? Gosh, you got a couple more hours? No, I think I think we, hit really all the topics about alternative ways of looking at things, which should be, first line instead of, totally ignored
or the last thing tried.
But one thing I just wanted to point out is, you know, if conventional medicine, if pain medication has worked for you. But it’s potentially causing other issues, you know, the like NSAIDs, can affect the kidneys is something that we know now, but it also can you’re taking these for long term. It also can increase your sensitivity to pain.
So even if you’re taking these because you think it’s helping your pain be better, it’s actually making you more sensitive to it. Same with pain medications as well. So one of the things that, may be working to kind of put a lid on your pain may still be causing you pain as they wear off and an increased level of pain.
So just, you know, educate yourself on, what you may be utilizing now, especially if you still have pain after many years, your body should have had the ability to heal it. So you really have to ask yourself why it hasn’t. Like
what’s perpetuating this pain and, and being accountable for your own health to keep seeking answers is really important as well as, you know, the functional medicine approach.
You got it. Yes. If you haven’t tried that, people try that and we’re not treating the symptoms. We’re getting to the root of the problem. The cause of your symptoms. Stacey Roberts, thank you so much for joining me. And, I know people are going to benefit tremendously from this, and I hope people that are shy about their issues or, you know, whatever it might be or that have been hesitant, I hope they give you a call so that you can lead them in the right direction.
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. It was great.
I hope you enjoyed that episode today on the Dr. Haley Show. Make sure to hit subscribe on whichever platform you are listening to this. If this episode made you think of someone, go ahead, take a screenshot and share this exact episode with them. You can catch the show notes for this episode on drhaley.com. If you want to geek out with Dr. Michael Haley on other radical health topics.
Be sure to check out his YouTube channel where he posts exclusive video content. All the details are at drhaley.com and we can’t wait to hang out with you on the next episode.
———————–
