(upbeat music)
- Hello, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- And I'm Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And together we are the most famous
physical therapists on the internet.
- I think, in the universe.
- In our opinion. - Yeah. (Brad chuckles)
- We have to qualify. - Yeah.
- All right. What are we going to talk about today?
What are we going to tell the folks?
- We are going to talk about something called iontophoresis,
which is something therapists use on a regular basis
and don't let the term scare you off.
I have that with patients.
I say, "We could do some iontophoresis with you,
and treat this", and they look back and say, "Whoa."
And then, I talk about it being involved
with some electricity, and that even kind of scares them off
a little bit more. - Sure.
- So, what we want to do is educate you
and find out how simple this treatment is
and as well as being effective. So-
- And we want to know that this is not a fad, by the way.
This has been around for
quite a while already. - Right. Right.
- And physical therapists have used it for,
for many, many years.
I think some doctors use it. - Sure.
- Do chiropractors use it?
- I haven't heard of that yet,
but they may. - Okay, sure.
- Let's get into the name "ionto",
they're just referring to the base name, "ion."
And I'll talk about that in a little bit.
- Ions, yeah. - Yep.
- And then "phoresis".
- Which means transmissions.
- Right. - So we're transmitting
ions through the surface
of the skin. - Right.
Okay. So here is the diagram, without me talking about it
it probably looks like an angleworm
or something of that nature. - Huge mess.
- Yeah. It's a mess, but let's break this down.
This line represents here-
- This is the skin.
- The skin, the surface of the skin
as we have it labeled here, okay.
Now there's a patch, which I'm going to show you right now,
comes in here. (packaging rustling)
- This is the patch right here.
Right here.
- Okay. And that's going to go
on the skin. - Right.
This represents this patch, okay?
So hold- be patient. Be patient.
This will all be clear.
The patch is here. There's going to be a wire-
This represents the wire that clips onto the patch, okay?
And we put- I use dexamethasone, okay?
And we're going to put that right in here
and I'll show you how that works in a little bit too.
Dexamethasone is a negative ion, okay?
The source right here, this electrical source
is DC current, direct current.
The current flows in one direction, as opposed to AC
which comes out of your outlet.
So we got direct current, all the ions go one way,
we got- in electricity, negative ions flow.
That's the only way that electricity works.
You got the negative ions flowing through here,
they come through the patch,
and then you're going to have another patch in another area
of the body so that you have a complete circuit.
As the current goes through here, it goes
to the skin and goes over to the other patch.
Well, these negative ions are pushing
against the negative ions of the-
or I should say, the electrical negative source is pushing
against the negative ions
of the medication. - Of the medication.
Yeah. - And they repel each other.
If you take two magnets, the north poles, and you push,
they repel. Same thing here.
It's pushing the medication into the skin.
And that's the whole concept of that.
You put this over the inflamed tissue,
you push in the anti-inflammatory into that area,
it settles down inflammation, decreases the pain,
improves progress, and treatment is done successfully.
- How long does the treatment take, Brad?
- That can vary.
Typically I can set my unit up for a 10 minute treatment
once I get it hooked up, okay? - Okay.
- And we'll demonstrate the actual use of this
in just a minute.
- Sounds good.
- Generally, what we're going to use this for is some type
of "itis" right, Brad? - Right.
- Yep. Exactly. - Itis means inflammation,
I-T-I-S, and if you want to think about it,
there's three general ones we use it for.
Arthritis, bursitis, and tendonitis.
So that- are three areas.
Today we're going to
use it on the- - Elbow.
- An elbow, which is a lateral epicondylitis.
You don't need to know all that,
but if you have tennis elbow or golfer's elbow,
this is an area where you might want try it.
- Exactly. So what we have is,
you take the two patches, okay?
There's a pad that's medicated, okay?
Now sometimes I pull this out,
I don't have the medication with me
because you actually put-
I put two and a half centimeters of dexamethasone,
it's a liquid.
Okay, and from there, there's like a cotton pad here,
and you put the liquid right on there and that'll absorb it.
It's amazing how you can get that much liquid into that.
It just sucks it right up.
Just like a little diaper.
- Hmm, sure.
- So, and this one, there's no medication on whatsoever.
Now what I'll do is find out exactly where
the sore spot is, okay?
I'm not going to ask you to do the treatment
because there's a cost involved here.
And for education purposes that-
you'll do just fine without actually doing it.
But this is going to go right over that tender area.
Now, there's adhesive around the outside of this
and there's two layers.
I pull off the backing and that'll stick right to it
and will seal that area, okay?
And then from there, the second pad that I referred
to up here, goes three to four inches away from there.
And we put that there, the electrodes positive
with this medication, dexamethasone,
which is a steroid by the way, so it's a little strong,
it's a nice potent one, got to get the job done.
And then we put this here. Okay?
So we have these two like that.
And I set up the machine for four milliamps.
Now some people, you'll feel some tingles like
pins and needles, and if I cannot set the current up
to four milliamps- at four milliamps it takes 10 minutes.
If the person only tolerates two milliamps and they say
"Ah, I'm uncomfortable with that."
Then it's going to take 20 minutes. Takes twice as long.
I would say 95 percent of the people
that can go up to four milliamps and there's no problem.
Particularly they'll say, oh it's a little uncomfortable
at first, but within 30 seconds you had me into it,
things are just fine.
So it's really a pain-free treatment,
takes 10 minutes at that dosage,
and once it's done, you simply take
off the pads and you will see a little red patch.
- I'll see sometimes a little irritated skin.
- Yep. That's nothing to get excited about.
Within 20 minutes the redness should go away
and that's fine.
Now, if it doesn't go away and it gets irritated,
itches, or is uncomfortable or painful, you're allergic
to it and you cannot use this treatment anymore.
I've been doing this for 15 years.
I've never had an irritation from dexamethasone.
- Oh yeah? - No.
- Wow. - I had had one person
actually irritated from that adhesive on the-
on this pad- - Sure.
- for the positive.
- I have had people adhesive-
allergic to the adhesive on tape.
- Right.
What I do, and there was a study done on this,
is if I know they're not allergic to the medicine,
the second time I do it, I will say
"Leave the blue patch on for two hours after you leave."
That allows the medication more time to get into the skin,
into the irritated area.
Most of it's delivered through the ionto treatment itself,
but takes no more effort
to leave it on there. - Sure.
- You get a little bit extra, and-
- How often do you do a treatment like this, Brad?
- I'll go three times a week to start with.
- Okay. - And-
- And how many total would you offer?
- Well, within two to three treatments
you should see some-
- Benefit. - Progress. Exactly.
And if I don't see any after three treatments-
- It may not be right.
- I'm barking up the wrong tree.
We need to get after it in a different manner, so...
In general, there's certain things that I like it on,
where I won't use formal freezes
which is something else we just talked about.
So there's applications for this and that's really
for your therapist or your doctor to decide.
So it can be a really effective treatment.
- Cool.