Navigating Burnout and the Power of Alpha-Stim

welcome to the holistic counselor podcast I'm your host Diana and today I'm excited to share a journey that began back in August of 20120 when I found myself completely burnt out emotionally mentally and physically like many during that time the pandemic unresolved childhood trauma my role as a therapist in an alternative high school the Heartbreak of teen suicides struggles in my marriage and even living in a house with mold left me in a deep state of

anxiety and depression it got so bad that I had to seek help from a psychiatrist for the first time now I've always believed medication should be a last resort not the first so I asked Dr ranata if she had any alternatives that's when she introduced me to something called the alpha stem a cranial electrotherapy stimulator she suggested I come in every day for a week to see if it would help by day three I already felt

a shift and after that I decided to get my own Alpha stem and use it daily I also made sure to practice what I teach going outside more journaling and making space for self-care for year four years later I'm happy to say I'm in a much better place I hardly use the alpha stem like I needed to back then but it's still part of my toolkit I've even used it with a few clients and they loved

it too it's a fascinating tool that worked for me even though I wasn't sure how it was working that's why I reached out to the company behind it electromed products International Epi to bring someone on the show who could dive deeper into how this technology works and today I'm thrilled to welcome Ryan Gober a medical science liaison with Epi Ryan holds a PhD in translational Neuroscience from the University of Miami School of Medicine where his research

focused on neuroinflammatory processes in neurological disorders like schizophrenia and Alzheimer's his passion for nonpharmacological I always say that word wrong non pharmacolog treatments that offered personalized effective care without side effects of traditional medication led him to EPI and their Innovative device Alpha stem right here I have it which offers drug-free solutions for anxiety insomnia and pain so let's dive in and learn more about how this non-invasive brain stimul stimulatory device could change the way we think

about mental health treatment so Dr Gober thank you for being on the show yeah thanks Diana I appreciate um you having us on the show and for giving that really nice background too uh covered most of my background there to begin with but um really excited to be on the show today and uh have the opportunity to dive into a little bit more depth on the science behind our our device the alphasim product as you were

mentioning and uh kind of go into some of our clinical data and you know provide any questions that your listen or answers to questions that your listeners might have and you know love heing your testimonial from using the device too and you know great story about you know medications last trying to look for non-pharmacological options first really resonates with my backgrounds and interests there so yeah was happy so I mean I know you're a scientist right

that's what you're right and so before going into the Sciences um what made you go into that like what what sparked your interest in this field in medical science and and they working with a device like this no problem so I guess it really you know everything links back to Childhood right like uh I grew up here in Florida actually up in Jacksonville so kind of up the coast I'm now in Miami but grew up in

Jacksonville just next to the beach we had a forest in the sidey and stuff and so I was just always kind of a a curious kid really always loved to be outside and you know really interested in Marine Bio just kind of how things work so I was always kind of scientifically minded there then as I got older you know my class classes during High School nobody likes their classes in high school but I always found

myself doing really well in science and just you know really loved all the courses I was taking went on to college and just said you know I love the research process just getting to answer some of those questions that I was developing in a very methodical way so really have just had this long-standing passion for science looking for answers and uh led me to research and you know the research process is really exciting where you get

to dive into specific topics and you know you can spend years and years and years exploring one specific scientific topic but kind of what led me to wanting to work in industry and now with Epi was you can spend all those years on a topic but you actually want to see real world impact so you know I kind of always knew that I want to work in the drug development and Med device development space just where

I can make like a tangible impact with my research in a way that's going to affect a patient kind of that next day so you know we can dive into it a little bit more but Epi was there they had a product that was already on the market FDA cleared for anxiety insomnia and pain and I saw this great opportunity where I could continue to learn and research but work with a device that can already be

put into people's hands and start making a difference too so that's my kind of roundabout you know s background there how I got here now but yeah loving it so far too that's wonder how long have you been working for the company um so I've been working there for almost half a year now I just published my PhD in Neuroscience actually this past uh December of 2023 so congratulations wow okay yeah I mean my son is

working on his doctor in bioarchaeology so yeah bioarchaeology yeah so that's what I'm saying I'm fascinated by scientists because I raised one I swear he's like Sheldon and I'm like his mom in a way but not that extreme on both ends oh that's awesome so he was out there running around in the woods and on the beach digging stuff up too then yeah exactly exactly to talk about oh no you two probably would get along great

because he has a bachelor in neuroscience and behavior and two Bachelors that he graduated at 18 with two Bachelors uh yeah that's what I'm saying he's very intelligent in that manner and uh um um sometimes we me my husband and I wonder like how did he get that but I just turned 29 and just finished the PC so he can he can run right past me before he's my age so we'll see we'll see what happens

yeah um but he actually had a in previous episodes people if they've listened would know that my son had a traumatic brain injury and that's how I got really in 2012 he's well he's doing well now he's he'll be 26 in December but he um this whole brain thing like this is why when Dr Rado talked about alphastem and I'm like okay I've studied you know different things and I know back when he had a situation

I was like and I put it on him I actually put the but he didn't feel it it was weird like I felt it like after one and now this is where I'm want you to start explaining because people are going wait after one well this whole device can you explain that some like why why am I saying like I couldn't go past like one and a half because I started feeling like I'm on a boat

yeah so that's that's a really good talk track too but so the device as you were mentioning and for those listening there's six different settings on it so it uses a um it's so a little bit about the device before we jump into that aspect too it's a form of a nonin non-invasive brain stimulatory device So within that category of devices we have a whole you know list and range of devices that fall within this kind

of non-invasive brain stimulatory category you know you have electric convulsive therapy you have deep brain stimulation DVS TMS transcranial um magnetic stimulation just a whole field but Alpha stem is within a field that uses cranial electrotherapy stimulation or CES it's a very low grade uh low level of stimulation compared to some of those ones that I had previously mentioned there that use much higher levels of stimulation but with that said the device as Diana was mentioning

uses six different settings of that microelectric current there or cranial electric uh simulation but each one of those settings is in the microamp range so a very low amount of current but everybody responds a little bit differently based on your sensitivities we all have different physiological um kind of uh you know builds and biological builds but with the uh ear Clips being attached to your earlobes it's close to the vestibulo clear so it's one of our

cranial nerves that we know is very involved in balance and kind of uh that vertigo feeling you get so people will have different levels of vestibular sensitivity we like to say where you know we're trying to actually stimulate those cranial nerves so you know you want to be able to feel that rocking sensation before you tone it back down to a but for everybody it's just a little bit different you know we have a lot of

veterans and Marines and military personnel that love to use the device too and they're always challenging each other to pump the device all the way up to six and it's like you can do that but it's not quite necessary either so we always go up to that comfortable level that's kind of that personalized frequency for you can can you should point because this is going to be on video too so for the listener that's on the

it's listening you can go on YouTube and actually see the video can you point to the vesicular what was it called vesicular yes I have of better words you got your ear Cliffs right and without going into a full anatomical uh dissection your vestibular clear is kind of further down your ear canal so you got your ear loes and then a little bit deeper through there if you were to kind of put your finger through your

ear if you pushing another inch or two you'd be so these two things go on the earlobe because I you know oh well first you wet it down you have this special stuff yes yeah the conducting solution so it's basically just a proprietary Bend that's going blend of um solution there that's going to help that stimulation kind of conduct a little bit more efficiently to the ear Lo there okay and then yeah and so then because

I'm the reason why I just want people to see how easy it is okay and it's not a difficult thing and I swear it's just like a little tiny you know it was it became my best friend actually during during all the stuff and then you put it in and then it hits those nerves in the brain and then like he said I remember them teaching me because I need specific easy layman's terms words right the

stuff onto the ear things and and then until you start feeling like you're on a boat and then you make one go back so one and a half was my sweet spot yeah and everybody has their own little sweet spot there and and you know we always emphasize we get this question a lot to we always emphasize to put it to a comfortable level like we know that it's a safe and effective form of um stimulation

so you could go all the way up to the maximum setting um and you know it's going to be safe to use it at that setting but we always encourage to use it at a comfortable level uh largely because a lot of our clinical data that we have and we can talk about a little bit more later on but many of the clinical studies that were done with the alphasim device were actually done at a fixed

setting which might have been that that one or two setting there so we know that there's been several studies done with the lowest setting possible of the device and they still had clinical Effectiveness so wow okay so more is not more like right like because some people think like that's how we think sometimes like you know B pollen let's take a whole tablespoon and then all a sudden you're puffed up because you should have started with

one granular yeah exactly that's 100% it and we always just lean back and say you know what we know there's trial data out there where people use the lowest level possible on the device and still got the clinical benefit so okay you know you find your comfortable level you might be able to get a higher therapeutic dose if your level is at four or five on that device but if you're somebody that's sensitive to it you

know one is going to get it done too right yeah right so let's talk about the clinical studies now like when you say that like because it's FDA approved I'm really impressed that it's FDA approved right and how long did it take and how did you start like did you just go like where did you where did the company go to say all right humans here we are I need 10 like how did it start yeah

so it's FDA cleared for anxiety insomnia and pain and on those original indications the device has actually been around for several decades and it's kind of one of the devices that you know we think of a lot of modern uh pharmacotherapy or drug options that we have today too started with you know a compound that we found to be clinically effective and then work back from right so alphasim was kind of the same exact category where

um the head scientist for the company you know way back before I started figured out that you know electric electricity applied to the brain we know that the brain is an electrical organ you know you're using pharmacotherapy or drug options are largely trying to influence the way the electrical patterns in the brain themselves just using a compound um so the founder basically said what if we use electricity to interact directly with the neurons that we know

are electrical so it was kind of some trial and error but they found a patented wave form that like many drugs tested it on humans and it had a clinical effect we knew it was safe from um you know pre-clinical studies but once applied to humans we're like oh it's reducing anxiety kind of than the ways that we thought and then since then it's kind of been working backwards to figure out now how exactly does it

work why does it work and so the last 10 to 15 years have been really exciting in that category because our mechanism of action or how it works has largely been resolved too so there's been a lot of you know Recent research that's helped us to understand how such a such a small amount of current is able to make those large differences in brain pattern activities okay do tell do tell that I could understand it that's

probably my PhD scientific background just jumping right into the weeds but it's okay it back a bit but um yeah so you know as I was saying with drugs a lot of drugs that come out you see a clinical benefit and you're working backwards to understand how it works with this technology saw clinical benefit and we're working back to kind of find out like what in the modern day research could give us an idea of what

networks or brain brain regions that were interacting with that could help to reduce anxiety in the ways that we're seeing in our clinical trials and essentially we found that there's been research over the past especially two decades that have pointed out this brain Network known as the default mode Network that's overactive in anxiety yeah so the default mode network is largely it's several brain regions that all work together to kind of control how we have that

like ruminative inward thought process so it's active we're having that kind of self-reflecting ruminative like you know reflecting on yourself and how you're interacting with the environment so that's healthy usually if you're in a social setting or something you're usually looking around and going hey how am I going to adapt to this you know social setting that I'm in right now making sure I'm saying the right things reading you know reading how you're interacting with others

you're self-reflecting on your actions now in anxiety that network is overactive is what finding so it goes from a healthy level of being like hey let me make sure I'm having a good interaction to you know paranoid looking around I think everybody hates me you know this crippling worry so we basically found that with research given where the earclip electrodes are we're able to show with um with essentially a a study a functional MRI study for

a lack of better words you know what brain regions we are hitting and we found with this study that we were hitting a brain region that's largely involved in that Network what was the name of the brain region because some some you know like what part of the brain so the temporal loob one of the one of the several yeah think about it it's largely it makes sense given where the proximity of the ear Clips are

for it to be hitting that brain region which is then involved in that Network that we were okay so I kind of like to use it for layman's terms as kind of the circuit breaker because we know that all these brain regions talk to each other so if you can hit one brain region in that circuit you can disrupt that P that overactive patterning a little bit right okay and and so that makes sense because anxiety

insomnia and pain like they are all connected because when you're not sleep like for me as a therapist right what I do it's like I'm challenging the thought processes I'm trying to get people grounded I'm trying to get you know tools after tools after tools and talk therapy you know they just I'm a place where they feel safe to let stuff go from the past and stuff but I'm trying to get them to function from this

point forward right because the brain what what it does it doesn't know that you're here or there it just does it's just right it just turns on and then it's trying to keep you safe yeah exactly it's yeah it's it's largely in we're saying talking about as you're saying like a healthy process that's just out of whack in a condition so to speak right so Alpha stem what what I remember like I was highly anxious that

rumination that over and then it's it it goes with the depression so I it does say on mine insomnia and depression but um you know on this one and because they are together to me it's like these are symptoms not you know even though we like to diagnose it in my field they are symptoms and your body's trying to wake you up or trying to get you hello pay attention I need help right I mean there

is a level of anxiety and depression that is kind of normal like sadness when someone dies that's normal like you know because I I get a little bit upset with my field because we like to just label it and now we're we're actually disabling a lot of humans by saying you have clinical depression when I'm like wait a minute your dad died you lost your job this is normal this is a normal feeling like for what's

happening having to cope with it but it's proba clinical form of depression like depress biology to begin with or a chemical balance that's been there for long standing so no that's a great example of it and and for your device there that you might have um so Alpha Sim used to be cleared for depression as well but again you know with non-invasive brain stimulation being this upand cominging field there's been many iterations and kind of you

know overlooks of the data and what was basically found was that our strongest data was in anxiety so we're okay exactly what you're saying with depression we're largely targeting those I related Pathways or comorbidities and depression as well okay like to clarify there as well yeah but as you pointed out coorbit anxiety is such a big factor in so many other disorders including insomnia and pain are other two indication those psychological aspects of pain especially so

okay I myself from my research background I'm really you know I would encourage anybody that's interested in the device out there at all to really look into our anxiety data because that's where some of the strongest you know well-designed modern studies have been conducted in so far I love that it's always ongoing yeah that's what science is right like you're questioning things constantly it's not a just a one shot like I mean look at what happened

with the serotonin reuptake and depression medication and now they blew that out of the water with some of the signs that came up going yeah so you know okay so let's go back to the research a little more it's been researched for how many years because I want the audience to really understand that this stuff has been researched yeah so it's actually been around for um you know research-wise for about three decades now over 30 years

wow over 30 years so the safety profile and you know we if you go on the website and stuff you can see all of the clinical research as well as pre-clinical research that we have over the years and you know sometimes people point out and go oh that's a really old paper you know wasn't the strongest design study that was done back in the90s why do you have it there I'm like well it's really good to

speak on the safety profile yes of the device so you have all that safety data we're just you know expanding on the number of people that have used it throughout the years seen clinical benefit but most importantly have proven the safety and safety profile of it but you know since that time too research has been ramping up especially on the Alim side where we've had a lot more modernized clinical trials done especially you know our what

we say is our pivotal study or our kind of main study that was done in anxiety was back in 2014 so you know research is a big mix you get a lot of people that are conducting independent research with devices and stuff you're getting a broad range of quality so if people are interested in I always say to start with you know our the that company's pivotal study first and work from there and use is kind

of a supplementary materials so all the all the studies and everything will be on the website correct yes okay so I will put the website in the show notes for sure so is there any kind of side effects that people might need to be aware of or like who who might need to be cautious or avoid using it sure so Contra we'll call it contraindications for providers you know it's contraindicated or should not be used with

implanted electrical devices that can't be turned off which makes sense because it's still an electrical device and you don't want interference with a pacemaker for instance okay thank you I'm like what do you mean it's and you know it's not saying that there we haven't seen a reason to know say that there might be a horrible effect there but it's just this abundance of caution you don't want it to be interfering with a life-saving device so

we always say anything that's implanted that cannot be turned off so in some cases if you're using a different stimulator um we get questions about like spinal cord stimulators that can be turned off if that device can be turned off while you use Alpha stem should be fine and then it's contraindicated against pregnancy as well and that one's largely due to just kind of lack of research it's very difficult to get a trial right a trial

designed and done in a pregnant population just because risk versus reward profile you know it's tough to get studies approved for that so those are the two main ones but then the side effects we say they're mild and self-limiting so those are going to be kind of skin irritation from the electrodes kind of that sensitivity maybe if you're somebody that has kind of eczema type symptoms or gets kind of just breakouts from having ear Clips on

that might be one side effect and then just headache as well too so sometimes what will happen and we'll see know treatment sessions are supposed to be 20 to 60 Minutes depending on what current level you're at but we always encourage people to finish treatments because there can be this kind of as we were describing earlier kind of vertigo related Sensation that can you know cause a little bit of anxiety and give you a headache so

we try to have people finish the entire um procedure until the very end because that will resolve about halfway through it we see or at least with the patients that report that side effect okay so with the study because I did see that this was a lot of veterans like some of the videos and everything like that when I first because I do I I will re before I put anything in my system I really want

to know about it before I take the plunge you know like take and and use it because for I I know I'm an electrical being you know and so and I'm a highly sensitive person that's probably why I can't go past one and a half yeah and so to me like tell me about the the veter I think there was a veteran study or you have a lot of veterans and that how much it's helped them

right so the veteran population is by far one of our biggest active populations that uses Alpha stem um so a bunch of our clinical researchers been done in ba settings as well especially for pain treatment uh I think I might have sent you that 20 2019 retrospective study that was done uh in a VA Clinic that was specifically looking at nonopioid alternatives for treating pain so that's kind of how we got roped into that one and

uh so yeah that population's extremely popular with them largely because uh veterans I mean you we can appreciate that veterans are going to be some of the most burdened by chronic pain anxiety and a couple of other off label indications that I can't go into but you know lots of mental health disorders in that population's chronic pain especially uh interfacing with that so it just seems to be a population that's benefited from it um quite a

bit compared to other groups but um you know I'm trying to think with Veterans as well it's we've just had a good relationship with the VA systems um lots of great patient test testimonials coming from them so it just been this positive collaboration and we're still continuing to do research trials right now with some of those centers is there any other um populations maybe like First Responders or anything like that exactly that's another great one we've

actually been really pushing um within the first responder patient or yeah I guess patient population at that level but uh within first responder populations as well we've seen some really great effects and you know it's nice too for that group we can appreciate again like the trauma related uh work that you're doing if you're a first responder as you mentioned earlier especially during covid times yeah anxiety and insomnia especially are going to go hand inand with

that population so we're seeing some really great uptake in that group um yeah and then the other thing with First Responders and Veterans too for why it's been a popular option as well as military service members is because you know they're those are populations that are looking for non-drug Alternatives right if you're taking a drug especially in a first responder setting or in a military setting it might affect your ability to do that job or you

have to be placed on medical leave for a period of time so it's highly popular in those groups because if you can avoid taking a drug that's going to hinder your working capability in these hazardous settings or military settings you know it's a great option to help reduce that medical load and then the you know the operational difficulties that can cause as well by being on medications I think that always were highlighting with those groups yeah

for sure so is there any like populations others like maybe women with anxiety or you know what I mean or like eating disorders or I don't know are you guys going into that kind of trying to figure out how to study that as well yeah so in terms of specific you know as I said we have ongoing research right now and a number of topics but you know and the ones that you just mentioned maybe not

as much but I can speak on another topic that we're looking at kind of going into a subclassification too is we are starting to look at younger populations kind of the college age older adolescent you know as we can appreciate mental health has been Mental Health crisis has been on the rise with you know younger College age kids right now and and Adolescence and young adults so we have an ongoing study with UNC Chapel Hill Psychiatry

Department looking at generalized anxiety disorder so kind of a know more specific indication within anxiety within that you know 18 to 24 year old population there I love that because that's that's actually the population I work with a lot a lot of 18 well actually I have a lot 20 I would say 21 to 41 year olds that you know and a lot of them are I would say 80% are female with anxiety oh yeah and

I'm sure you we'll be we're running this large scale trial right now so that will be an outcome measure that we can look at as well you know how do you get part of your trial you have to be seeing a psychiatrist at UNCC or something or you know what I mean like one of them to bring is that how because sometimes they have uh National trials like the Psychedelic research at John Hopkins will say Hey

you know if you're willing to come up here but for this trial with alphastem is it just through UNC yeah so for this one recruitment's run through that team there it's largely in the regional area so if you're in kind of that region and you're interested in a trial you know I I don't run our clinical trial there but you can absolutely ask a a local provider and say hey I'm interested in the alphasim device heard

there's a trial ongoing can I look at getting enrolled in that as well so I know that they're still enrolling for that one up there and um yeah that one's still ongoing so we're hopefully going to have data from that one starting in 2025 where we can look at you know enrolling over 100 patients plus as the target so we'll be able to look at different factors as you mentioned you know gender and there specific age

groups just comorbid factors uh there we're aiming to have EG readouts too to kind of start expanding on our mechanism of action too so that trial so that means that while they have the device the Little Machines going like that what that means e so doing kind of a readouts before and after treatment to understand you know to kind of bolster our evidence surrounding the default mode Network which brain regions are important and just seeing you

know which pattern shifts led to the best clinical outcomes too so kind of just trying to piece in all those little details that we had mentioned that research is always ongoing and trying to do okay so my question if this has been around for 30 years right this this wonderful little machine why is it not known yeah so I think it was um you know largely the field of non-invasive brain stimulation um or nibs we'll call

it for short has been on the up and up for a long time and I think it was just people were less familiar with it it was a new technology way back when and there wasn't as much research done at the time for how it works and as i' mentioned um you know in the last 10 or 15 years we finally have the research techniques available to let us start studying how these technologies that have been

around and have shown clinical Effectiveness how they're working um so I think that was one of the large reason reasons that there wasn't as much uptake for so long just because it was just this fundamental understanding of how at work that was increasing so as ID mentioned you know some major key findings that happened especially in the 2000 kind of 2008 to 2012 Range in Neuroscience there's always this question of how you know cranial electrotherapy stimulation

CES or what Alpha Sim is using is a very small amount of current which is wonderful because it's safe but there was always the question of how is this tiny amount of current leading to such large scale changes in brain activity and major findings in the earlier 2000s or in that 2008 to 2012 Range there were great like these really cool findings where it showed that by triggering one specific neuron in a pathway so just one

neuron you could alter the entire brain Network there so just one neuron would alter an entire emotional pattern or brain pattern there wow so that yeah that's pretty cool and and that's one thing I do work with with my clients is rewiring the brain right naturally without wires but just thought processes or like cont continually getting them to go from Big Time negative to so I'm thinking this thing might help my clients and with what I'm

doing too wouldn't that just rewire the brain quicker and faster maybe yeah a little bit there I mean I think it's it can definitely be used you know we have a great study that I can share with you as well that was showing that um using Alpha stem alongside Psychotherapy to kind of boost those Psychotherapy out comes and I think it's largely because it's going to help people interact with their therapy sessions more if I had

to guess and you can you know whatever thoughts you have let me know as well but I've always thought that you know if somebody's having anxiety before going into that therapy setting maybe it's a first time they're just enrolling in it for the first time if you can help reduce that anxiety leading up to that session I would imagine that you can get a lot more out of it if you're having a better interaction and not

kind of getting your own way so that's about the level of depth that I put those two together there so far yeah logical circuitry right not as much there for me to speak on but well I love it too because to me it empowers the client you know it's like I had to go to the office for the first few days to try it out to check it out and then once I saw that oh like

by the third time I went you know and there is this the placebo effect I'm going to bring that up because that's how we are as humans right so to me but I felt it it's not like I was hallucinating it I I felt it and then I felt the calmness and everything but I also did other things to hurry up to because I'm a therapist people were relying on me this is my how I pay

my bills right and so I had to get to a a good space quickly and that really helped me without me having to take anything anti- anxiety but I took eleanine you know what eleanine is right to come it's a I mean know no acid so it's like these certain things that I was really you know but that's the thing like every human has their own biology right and and we always say like speaking on that

every human has their biology aspect I I was talking to a provider a couple weeks back who had this really great line about it I'm like it's stuck with me but they're like oh I love alphasim because you know if you take a drug it's got a halflife you know you ingest something it's in your stream it has a half like it takes a while to get broken down so if you start having a bad effect

you're kind of strapped into that roller coaster until the ride's over it's like I like alphason because it doesn't have a halflife if you start not enjoying it you can uncp and you're done so yeah I think that that's one nice thing like as a tool that it has to be able to have that rapid Anxiety Relief without the worry that if you know if you're not enjoying your session you're going to be stuck with those

side effects for the next four to six hours or day or two or metabolic side effects whatever but right and that's another thing like that doesn't give you like you know like we forget because we have our own we take something and then all of a sudden like you take C you know drink a cup of coffee or Coca-Cola or something else and the next thing you know your whole system is going out of whack and

now you're trying to figure out what caused it and then now you have side effects and then you need more things for this to deal with the side effects and here we are like you know and then what's not go with the opiate crisis like that right there like people were having pain and now look at what's happened in our whole society that breaks my heart you know having to deal with those that you know with

the pain and everything so to me like I would rather say hey okay so I have a listener right now right and they're listening and they're like what is this Alpha Sim where do I get it do I go to CVS what how do I like where would I start what would you say to them yeah so it's prescription based so if you're working with psychiatrist or a psychologist that can um and a lot of times

they'll work in reference with one another too so even for therapists you can often say Hey you can go get this if you go see a psychiatrist and ask them about the device we have a form medical necessity that they can fill out and basically get you the prescription for that device um through those needs and if you're interested in it too you know I'm more the like scientific and clinical background so I don't have as

much information on like the cost breakdowns and the different I know there's rental plans available uh you know really just contact anybody at the home office and they can at least put you in contact with the right you know we have some really great clinical support teams at the office who will walk a patient through exactly how to get it they're on the phone 247 basically um they'll walk through that process but uh no another thing

I can speak on for that I know that there is a 30-day money back guarantee and you know I'm not in the sales department there but what I can speak on for that is I love that policy so far because if you check out our pivotal study and anxiety that I was describing you know we saw our maximum clinical benefit at five weeks so within that four-week period you're going to be able to find out whether

or not you're a responder to the device or not whether or not it's going to be an effective option for you before you make that cost you know justification for yourself there okay so do you have a list of providers that are like Alpha stim friendly you know what I mean because honestly like I I have people in the field that I'll and they're like what are you talking about they have no clue when I say

Alpha stem and they're so how are you getting yourselves out there more with clinicians so yeah so we have a list of um K's or key opinion leaders so these are all providers across the country that you know have been using the device for quite a while have seen clinical will benefit with it with their patients so we have that list um of providers that work pretty closely alongside us to okay they'll work uh dinner program

sometimes they'll hop on a guest webinar so we'll do a lot of topical guest webinars maybe once a month that you know patients or providers anybody interested can tune into so if you're interested in those topics feel free to hop on our um kind of our email list serves there but yeah they'll do webinars once or twice every month I think we did one last actually last month on use and First Responders so we had a

a psychologist who was previously a first responder who's been you know using the device quite a bit she's a huge advocate for it so she'll hop on and give a webinar but quite a few of those so we've got our our roster of different providers across the country that are using it so it's only psychiatrists and medical doctors that can prescribe or can anyone in the like me as I remember in the very beginning four years

ago I there was a thing where I was able to fill out the prescription form I think that might have changed it varies from state to state that's the other layer of complexity on this too so okay you know it's every different every different state has their own set of rules on it um sometimes you have to you know you do have to refer through a psychiatrist and then in other states it's much lower barriers to

entry there so it's kind of a caseby case scenario there depending on what state you're in okay all right so can a person just say they are seeing a psychiatrist already can they just say hey I want the aliston you can you even if they don't know about it you know what I mean like kind of push the psychiatrist like hey can you okay I just was wondering how ask your you know as the the famous

drug commercials always go you know you can ask your provider about okay you can ask your provider about Alim and know generally again maybe if they're not even familiar with it like you can look into it and go okay this looks like a safe enough option for my patient they're passionate about it we haven't had too much issues with um push back from providers just going no I don't want to give you that device for it

all right yeah all right that's that's interesting all right so as we're wrapping up I just want you to share maybe one story or a person that you know that alphasim totally changed their life that that this is why you keep doing what you're doing like is there anybody or without naming them of course because of privacy and confidentiality so you know what I mean like is there any where you heard that like oh my gosh

this is why I love this job as a scientist at EPI and I want to continue this work yeah so for myself as a medical science liaison I'm kind of in this unique situation where it's like I have a PhD background so I'm not a you know have never been a provider and then also I have to stick to like the research and data behind the device so I don't have that powerful patient testimonial there members

of our team and K roster that probably do but you know what I can speak on for myself and why I'm really enthusiastic to be working here and in this field is that it goes back to kind of when I was finishing up my PhD as we had mentioned in neuroscience and I was studying schizophrenia basically knew that I wanted to go into this career path afterwards as an MS cell where I'm at now but I

knew in order to get the skills to do that I would need to get more clinical exposure so not treating patients but understanding the diseases I was researching so I participated in a lot of clinical shadowing and as phds we were always taught you know let's find a drug to solve this issue let's find a molecule to treat this disease so I was wired that way but as I started clinical shadowing you know I started to

notice that especially in schizophrenia the non-pharmacological or non-drug factors were so much more important than I realized or previously realized for how those patients are going to do in the long-term outcomes whether that factor was the family Network they had behind them um you know was a an app that they were using to help manage their wellness and just overall mental health or just their kind of Life settings too you know if you were in a

comfortable setting had that support network you usually adhered to your medications better and had a better outcome so I had a huge appreciation for non you know non-drug treatment options I'm like wow these are powerful so Along Comes EPI and Alpha Sim and I got really fascinated with well what other non-drug options are there that aren't going to have the horrible side effects I was witnessing in the clinic and you know Alpha Sim has been this

great option where it's kind of fulfilling all those boxes in my head as a research de or a researcher where you're seeing these clinical benefits you're not getting side effects and so I'm just really passionate about you know uh even as a research background like okay options like this where we can limit the amount of medications that somebody's taking to help them get over this mental health barrier are incredibly powerful so it's a field that I'm

know passionate about I'm excited for the next uh decade of research is going as well we are working on a depression device as well um wow technology but yeah it's just non-invasive brain simulation has made major strides and you know I don't think it's stopping anytime soon yeah no I don't think so is and and I guess what I'm thinking too like we have so much electricity nowadays right like just just thinking about that that this

would Comet while we have Towers right over our heads that might not be calming us at all honestly like I'm always telling people to go outside and touch grass I mean honestly like because we're in we're not we're human beings we're not meant to be in this you know forever 247 because that causes a lot of anxiety so to me it's like go outside touch grassp put on an alpha stem do your 20 minutes in the

morning as you do breath work right like why not like incorporate because to me like for this podcast I want to just find as many tools I can for The Listener and make them understand that there other ways to Mental Health right exactly there's other options no I I think that that's awesome that you really Hammer home those subjects and you know you're a big advocate for looking at all of our options especially non-drug options before

you know taking you a whole cocktail of different medications to try to solve an issue that might have been solved with non-pharmacological act options such as therapy that was obviously the lwh hanging fruit I forgot to touch on with my clinical shadowing the ones that were going to therapy consist L you know maybe if you could do that or use a device that is going to help you interact with those therapy sessions better yeah you don't

have to take that medication or right you know obviously there's patients that still need to stay on their medications but now maybe instead of taking three different ones you can take one or two exactly exactly it's trying to find your balance in a in a holistic way in understanding that you are a mind body and spirit and that we we need each other I mean this is why we're on Earth together and we're not supposed to

be these people like on our own Island and sometimes we feel like that and this is why it's important to understand like there are there there are ways that we can learn from different communities outside of our ethnocentric American mindset mind you I love being an American I'm an American but at the same time we have we've created this very narrow-minded way of being and thinking and a lot of people are suffering and so this is

why I came after you guys going you want to be on my show you know because it so it's it's exciting to be you know you know hosted on this and I'm just still elated that it's like I get to apply everything that I talked about that I learned for all these years way too many years of school into something that you know I find really interesting and I get to talk about it on a daily

basis like this so yeah no it's great and it's great that you were able to come on and and actually explain it in a way where someone like me can understand it better and more complete you know I was just trusting it and now I'm like okay that makes sense now oh in the brain okay and I'll probably go look up that part of the brain the vestibular or whatever because it'll come up on the transcript

so yeah is there anything you would like to share with the audience to encourage them before uh we say goodbye yeah sure so I you know appreciate anybody that was tuning in too but I think from my end that uh you know if this is a topic that you're interested in or the alphastem device itself you know I definitely encourage you to kind of do some of your own research on it too um you know look

through our our website uh search up non-invasive brain stimulation just in general and start coming through the research on your own and if you're interested in it you know start bringing the topic up with your providers more because I think that this will be a field that is going to become larger and larger so it kind of falls on us to start getting this word into the provider's ears too so that we can start to build

more momentum so you know encourage you to do your homework you know reach out to the alpha Sim team if it's something that you could find interesting and no thanks for tuning in yeah for sure all right listener thank you for tuning in like he said and just remember to trust in the Lord guard your heart and renew your mind bye and now for the disclaimer to make sure you understand that you are responsible for you

the content provided on the holistic counselor podcast is for entertainment and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice diagnosis or treatment always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical or mental condition never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast the views expressed on this podcast are my

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