Dr. Brett Brodbeck Highlights the Benefits of EPAT For His Patients and His Practice
[Modified Transcript]
Dr. Lee Thomas:
Hello Columbus! Dr. Lee Thomas here. Host of Maximize Your Health radio. We've got a great show lined up for you today with a special guest with me that we're going to be interviewing for the next half hour on some of the most incredible treatments I've ever seen.
I want to get right into it cause we don't have a lot of time. Dr. Brett Brodbeck is with me. I'm super excited he's here. So in our practice and our realm, we see people with all different types of problems and issues.
One of the things that I always personally struggled with was to help people with the issues that we're going to talk about today. Things like elbow pain and tendinitis, foot issues like plantar fasciitis, and I'd always have problems with them.
So if I ever had patients who had these specific issues as I was taking care of them, I'd always send them about eight miles from my practice to someone named Dr. Brett Brodbeck, who's sitting three feet from me now. And he was like a wizard. He could help these people in like a month where I'd send them to physical therapy for 12 weeks or they'd go get injections and never really have great benefits with these issues. And so about about six months ago, he actually joined our practice and we've been practicing together now. The results he's been getting have been incredible.
So what I want to do on the show today is go through some of the most common ailments that deal with regards to elbow health and foot problems and things like that. How normal treatments aren't actually working or getting down to the cause of the problem.
So without further ado, we'll start talking with Dr Brett here. Nice to see you here. Are you excited to be on the show?
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
Really excited to be here and excited to share the message of how we can get the body to heal naturally; putting the body under the right conditions so that it can heal itself. You know, so much of what I see, and I've seen growing up in athletics myself and then taking care of patients, I see that there's very much of an outside in approach to a lot of soft tissue treatments.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
Yup, totally agree with that. I actually saw you like four years ago now for my elbow. From adjusting all day, I had developed tendonitis and I tried to treat myself, which didn't work very well. I literally probably spent $3000-$4,000 at other doctors before I was like, well, I'll just give him a call and see what he can do. And within a month, I was better. So why do the normal things people do like stretching and icing when they have tendonitis and other problems not work very well?
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
So we tend to be creatures of habit, so we tend to do things repetitively. A lot of times when we're talking about elbow pain, sometimes we call pain on the outside of the elbow tennis elbow. Most people actually don't even play tennis who get that. These are people who lift something and have pain or who do repetitive typing-with all of the technology. I know you see a lot of that.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
A ton of it. And I see people with carpal tunnel syndrome and outlet problems there. And I know that it's not that they have true carpal tunnel--I know there's some other underlying cause. They're spending six grand on surgeries to have releases done and they're still not better.
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
Exactly. So what happens is that these tendons in the elbow, they are treated historically because people are trying to fight inflammation. So inflammation is not actually a bad thing. Inflammation is your body's ability and the way that your body works to heal the damaged tissue. And what happens is when we're doing things like cortisone shots or taking loads of Ibuprofen and other types of over the counter medication is that we're actually stopping the body's natural ability to heal.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
Right. So the more you take those things, that just kind of stops the inflammation from being there. But inflammation is blood flow.
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
Exactly. So temporarily we can get some relief, but ultimately it's not getting to the underlying cause. So what we actually have to do is stimulate the tissue. We can form new blood vessels to the area. We can enhance stem cell migration. We can decrease any amount of scar tissue and overall allow healthy tissue to go in and heal.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
Wow, that's awesome. So like if someone comes in and they say, “Listen, I have tennis elbow, I get pain on the inside of my elbow or the outside, or I'm getting carpal tunnel. I feel like my wrists are constantly bothering me and I've been doing these things.” What would be the thing that you'd be doing that so vastly different? I know you're saying you've got to stimulate and regenerate the tissue but how do you do that? Like what does that mean?
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
So what we do is something called EPAT, Extracorporeal Pulse Activation Technology. So it's a big, long, fancy word to say that we shoot an acoustic impulse into the tissue to stimulate healing. So it's different than ultrasound and different than electrical stem. It's an FDA cleared treatment to decrease healing time and enhance healing.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
Okay. Now how is that different? So for example I’ll have patients that come in that say, I'm going to a doctor and they're going to do a cortisone injection, which usually I freak out because I think the cortisone just masks the pain. Can you talk to that? Because a lot of people probably might have had that done.
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
So when it comes to plantar fasciitis and tennis elbow and these types of tendonitis cases, what we find is cortisone may work temporarily for maybe a couple weeks or even a month but then the person has to get another injection. The reason is is that it temporarily masks the problem and it doesn't enhance healing. And the problem with cortisone overall is that it’s more invasive than people think. It actually over time decreases the ligaments’ integrity and causes a greater chance for reinjury.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
So I have less pain, but I'm more likely to hurt myself in the long run.
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
Exactly.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
That's like if I had a sprained ankle and I can't run, but I take enough that I could go run a marathon. I'd probably do more harm than good.
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
Exactly right.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
I’m talking with Dr. Brett Brodbeck who is a soft tissue and extremity specialist here at our practice, Riverside Family Chiropractor.
We’re going through the most common ligament and tendon injuries that people have like tennis elbow, carpal tunnel problems, foot issues, like plantar fasciitis--and just talking through some of the things that are very common.
Dr Brett, I'll kind of brag a little bit. Within usually three to four weeks of seeing someone, you’re seeing people not just out of pain but increase the range of motion and increase their muscle strength. You know, I've sent maybe a hundred patients to you over the past four or five months and like 95% of them have seen results within just a few weeks. I used to send people to physical therapy and it was eight to twelve weeks. And they weren't really seeing the results there. And that was just for one body part.
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
It’s nice being able to address things in a short period of time. What I really love about EPAT and the activation technology that we're using is that the visit times can be expedited, the treatment plans can be expedited and ultimately, we can get people back to health and healing faster than they could any other way--better than traditional means.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
Cool. So, walk me through it.
So someone comes into our office, I know at the end of the day you have a protocol that you do in the beginning. I know that one of your big strengths and I've sent people to you who have come in and said, “I visited my doctor and this is the problem.” So all you deal with all day are neuromuscular and skeletal issues and you see it all day. So I know what you go through. A lot of the time you find out that patients were actually misdiagnosed by someone who's not really a specialist in that.
Can you walk through the process from when someone first comes to see you and how you help them understand exactly what the problem is and how you create a protocol for them?
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
That's a great point. I'm glad you brought that up. A lot of times what I see when people come into the office is that they've been kind of through this merry-go-round of care, whether it's a plantar fasciitis and foot issue or an Achilles tendon issue, or if it's an elbow issue and tennis elbow. Patients come in and they're traditional. The typical story is, “I went to my doctor. Before he even talked to me, he took an X-ray. He was with me for 30 seconds, told me what I had and told me to go to physical therapy. I went to physical therapy. I tried things. Maybe it helped a little bit, but then I stopped physical therapy and my insurance didn't pay for it anymore so I came back.”
So it turns out that they end up seeing you, Dr. Thomas. And then they come over and see me. And it turns out they were misdiagnosed from the beginning and that their treatment pathway did not align with their injury. So a lot of these patients, after physical therapy is unsuccessful, then they go for the cortisone shot. And I usually see them six to 12 months later and then we start expediting their healing, getting them better within typically four to six weeks.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
Yeah. I remember when we were talking about a patient the other day who came in, Julie who you took care of. And, literally, I mean, she came in and she told us, after we started taking care of her and helping her with her plantar fasciitis and she goes, “If you can help me with this -- I've already spent $20,000 doing that medical merry-go-round. I've had physical therapy. And cortisone injections and, and that was not working. So I'm looking down the barrel of having a surgery where I can't even work for six months or so.” And that's just an awful way to go down that road.
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
Yeah. That particular patient, she was in a boot, remember six weeks before she came to us. So she tried resting it for six weeks. She tried orthotics. She had tried the nighttime splints. She had tried icing, rolling on the water bottle, stretching. Yup, all of those things. She had tried everything and honestly, she was disheartened and she was ready. She didn't know what to do. It was very humbling for me to be able to do the treatment that we're talking about here today.
And within a matter of the first couple of visits she seeing results and that gave her hope. Ultimately we got her back to work, which was awesome.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
Hey, you can't do things if you can't work. I mean, at the end of the day, you know what I mean? You've gotta be able to work, take care of your family.
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
And then, not to mention what things like plantar fasciitis and Achilles tendonitis can take out of your personal life. For her, it was being able to take a walk with her husband and with her grandkids.
And that was, one of the biggest things that she told me was one of her goals in the office that she wanted to do and what this was keeping her from doing. So it was, it was very humbling for me to be able to take care of Julie.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
Yeah. That's awesome. So I'm again sitting here. This is Dr. Lee Thomas. I'm here with Dr Brett Brodbeck. We're talking about the most common muscle and ligament issues, especially in the elbow with regards to tendonitis, very commonly seen carpal tunnel syndrome, as well as foot issues like plantar fasciitis, a lack of mobility where you have pain in your feet all the time and you can't walk properly.
Just going through the different approach that we have in our office of not just masking the symptoms, not just treating someone to make them feel better today and tomorrow--then have the problem come back a week from now or a month from now and be worse. What we're talking about is getting down to the cause. We're talking with Dr. Brett Brodbeck here about the most common extremity injuries and issues that just plague people. The elbow tendinitis, the wrist issues, the shoulder problems where your shoulders just nagging and not healing properly, plantar fasciitis, which is a huge issue.
I had problems, I met Dr Brett four years ago. I had elbow tendinitis. I couldn't even work on patients anymore--couldn't even do a pull up and literally within like four to six weeks I was unbelievably better. I had spent thousands of dollars with other doctors and four years later, he's in our office now helping not only our patients, but he's made an impact on the community. To kind of brag about him for a second. He works with about 12 surgeons in the area. So when they have a complicated case or a case that's not quite surgical, he’s the first one that they call to make sure that we get to the underlying cause of these things. I know we're talking a little bit about the therapy that you used, the Extracorporeal Pulse Activation Therapy, which increases blood flow and stem cell migration. I just want to talk to you for a minute openly about how that works to help people, how that gets to the underlying cause of their problems. Because you know, people with plantar fasciitis do all those different treatments we're talking about and never really get answers or better.
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
Yeah, that's, that's a great point. We call it EPAT for short. With this technology, what we're able to do is stimulate the body's tissue via a pressure wave-- that's different than ultrasound, different than electrical stimulation. What I really enjoy about this treatment and treating people and what patients seem very happy about is that there are no needles--nothing that needs to be injected. There's no cortisone shot that stops and blocks the inflammatory process, which is helpful for healing. But actually it stimulates the body's own ability to heal. So we want to put the body under the right conditions, the optimal conditions, to heal from the inside out.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
Right. It's just so easy to take a medication, but you realize at the end of the day, you're actually making yourself worse. That's the difficult part. And you're one of the only doctors that I know of in this part of Ohio. Is that right? Where you can actually do this type of therapy?
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
Yes. I am the only doctor in central Ohio that can provide this type of therapy. And there's one other doctor in the state that has this as well, but he only addresses one region of the body. So we are able to address multiple regions.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
With your background as a physician, it's not a therapist applying it, it's you so, you can go wherever you need to. And there've been some incredible, like we were talking about it just last week with some of the research on this thing. Like they're talking, I mean it’s being shown for treatments for frozen shoulder and for rotator cuff injuries and tendonitis. There’s so many different things that it can be applicable for that you can help things with. Like when I have a complicated case of someone with an issue, I just say, “Go see Dr. Brett!” How does it work so well in all these different areas with all these different elements. That's my thing because it just sounds awesome.
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
So my biggest thing on the very first visit is coming up with the appropriate diagnosis because any treatment rendered to the wrong diagnosis is not going to give you the optimal outcomes.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
Someone goes to them, they push on them really hard and they're like, “yeah, that just really hurt and I didn't get better.” Right. That's a misdiagnosis. They're like, well, you're pushing on the wrong area. You're working on the wrong thing.
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
You got it. You got it. So with this technology, it's been used in Europe for the last 25 years. The technology EPAT was originally developed from the technology used to break up kidney stones or we'll call lithotripsy. So they refactored the amount of pressure to make it appropriate for soft tissue. And what they did was they came out with this EPAT technology to be able to cause new blood flow, enhance stem cell migration, break-up scar tissue, and really target and pinpoint pain for inside out healing.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
Okay. Gotcha. That sounds awesome. I'm talking with Dr Brett Broderick. I’m Dr. Lee Thomas. We’re going through the most common injuries and how we actually get to the underlying cause of them naturally. My one question to you now. So we're seeing, and I'm seeing it more in my practice than ever. I'm seeing more carpal tunnel syndrome. I'm seeing more elbow tendinitis. I'm seeing more plantar fasciitis than ever before. What do you think we're doing in our daily life that's causing us to have more of these, I would say, chronic injuries that aren't seeming to heal themselves. What do you think people can do to avoid it but also know what's causing it in the first place?
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
Yeah, that's a great point. So really there's two main things. The first thing is going to be the use of technology.
We all love our technology. I don't know what I would do without my smartphone, but I can tell you it causes issues. People are texting and I'm sure you see this quite a bit with what it does to their spine and people looking down and texting. And when you're typing on a computer that causes your hands to be turned over and you're overusing the muscles on the underside of the arm and not using the muscles on the top side of the arms so you develop this muscular imbalance. So really that's what I see a lot when it comes to tennis elbow, carpal tunnel, and the upper body issues. When it comes to the foot and ankle, whether it's the Achilles tendon or the plantar fascia, it has to do with the amount that we're sitting per day.
So typically with plantar fasciitis, what people will say is, “I sat down. I got up and tried to walk or I slept and I got up and I woke up the next morning and my heel was killing me.” It hurts those first few steps. They have to stretch it out. What happens is that the muscles get all bound up from that amount of sitting.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
Wow. I really thought you were going to say that it was like we're on our feet too often and here you are telling me the exact opposite. So it's under use really. And then we injure it and then that injury, we don't give it a chance to heal or we just take painkillers.
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
And then it hurts to use it. So then we use it less and then it's this never ending vicious cycle. It's “do I wear a brace on my elbow? Or with my feet, do I wear the night brace or do I get the orthotics or do the physical therapy or roll with a water bottle or try the injection and do I do everything here and there and I never come to a true solution. So do I get surgery?” Well most people don't want surgery.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
But even when it comes down to and for all those things, it's not like orthotics are the worst thing ever. I think orthotics can be helpful, but it's that they're not actually fixing the underlying injury. Even if you got orthotics, but you still had injured tendons or ligaments in your foot and they haven't healed properly because they have bad blood flow. Even if you get orthotics they’re not going to be beneficial. So doing something like this doesn't just help you feel better, it gets to the underlying cause. So all the other things that you might do that might be beneficial to your foot can actually have a better effect.
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
That's exactly right. So what people have, what I usually find is when people come to me with an elbow, wrist, foot and ankle injury is that a lot of the things they've done up to the point before they see me, if they have had the right diagnosis, a lot of the things they’ve done are conducive to healing.
So they're doing a lot of the right things already. But what we need to do is really address the underlying cause as an adjunct to what they're already doing to go ahead and expedite that healing process.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
What else do we need to talk about with regards to all these things? Yes. We hit a lot of the high points, but I feel like you’ve got so much more to tell me and teach me.
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
Well, you know what I found that I enjoy most about utilizing this technology, like we talked about, is the results within four to six weeks. And in the short treatment time, it allows people to get back to doing what they love and really returning to their lives.
And that's what I like most about being a doctor. I'm sure you can agree with that.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
I mean, I see people all the time where they come into my office and they were told, it's going to take two years to heal. I think the adage is healing takes time. And I agree, healing does take time, but it doesn't take that much time. You know what I mean? I think there's a lot of these kinds of adages when it comes to our health, that kind of perpetuate, and we realize after maybe like six months of doing something like, wow, this isn't working. I'm just being fed a line. Where if we get down to the cause--I mean we've shown that nerve tissues can regenerate themselves in 120 days completely.
And so we know that if we're not working well, you know, if we're working well with someone, we should be able to see results within 4-8 weeks. And a lot of times people are coming in who have done stuff for years and they're still in their mind saying, “No, but it just takes time.” And it drives me crazy because they're just not actually doing the right thing. They're actually making themselves worse throughout it.
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
And with those types of conditions, a little bit of direction and treatment can go a very long way.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
If you have any questions for us, you can check us out at facebook.com/askDrLee asked your questions on there, myself or Dr Brett, will get back to you and answer your questions.
I want to thank you guys so much for listening in this weekend with Dr Brett here, who's a soft tissue and extremity specialist.
Dr. Brett Brodbeck:
Thank you so much for having on the show. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
Dr. Lee Thomas:
And if you have questions or comments, give us a buzz. Let us know how we can best help you get to your best health this year and years to come. Thank you, guys. Take care.
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