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Pain-relieving machine may help treat diabetics

Study allows some patients to walk again

By Leanne Libby Caller-Times
January 9, 2005

Daniel Galvan, 55, was barely managing his diabetes with pills. He begged off insulin, asking his doctors to give him a little time to try diet and exercise. He also enrolled in a small-scale study to test the ability of an electrical-stimulation machine to help diabetics.

Six months later, Galvan says he no longer needs his pills. Instead, he places electrodes on his body every night and kicks back in front of the TV while the machine, invented by local podiatrist Dr. Donald Rhodes, goes to work. The hardest part, he said, is staying awake during the 80-minute treatment.

The machine, called a Dynatron STS, was approved by the Federal Food and Drug Administration in 2001 for chronic pain. When a local physician, also a diabetic, wondered aloud if the machine would help that condition, Rhodes began assembling a team to find out.

Rojerio Garcia relaxes Thursday while hooked up to the Dynatron STS machine, approved by the Federal Food and Drug Administration in 2001 for chronic pain. Invented by local podiatrist Dr. Donald Rhodes, the machine appears to help diabetes patients regain sensitivity in their skin, allowing some to walk again.

The year-long study, which began in July, started with 25 diabetic patients and now has 19. At 30 day intervals, each participant receives a battery of tests, including blood work, retina exams and vibration perception, which tests skin sensation, often diminished in diabetics.

Dr. Marian Hendricks,a local primary care physician, is overseeing the study, which she said could provide hope to many members of the diabetic community.

"More than half of my patients have diabetes, and my practice is non-exceptional that way," she said.

Rhodes said many patients' skin sensitivity has returned and their blood-sugar levels and kidney function have improved as well, and nearly 50 percent of the participants no longer need diabetes medications. Rhodes and the other physicians involved in the study plan to submit the results of the first six months of the study for publication after conducting the next round of tests this week.

Hendricks said the study idea intrigued her but the results have surprised her.

"I was expecting to see improvement," she said. "I wasn't expecting to see it as rapidly or to such a degree."

Hendricks said a larger study would be needed to see if the small-scale results could be duplicated. Meanwhile, she encouraged her fellow physicians to give the unconventional treatment a chance.

"Some of them will raise their eyebrows," she said. "All we ask is that folks have an open mind and consider this another tool in the toolbox."

When the study began, Galvan said he had no feeling in his feet, which he thought were just callused. Now he makes sure he wears shoes when he's in his yard because the sensitivity in his feet has returned. He said learning how to use the machine was easy.

"Everything is color-coded," he said. "I just look at the chart and place the magnets."

It's not a cure, Rhodes stresses, but for those who can commit to using the machine daily, it could be a powerful new tool.

"More people are looking for complementary or alternative manners of treatment," Rhodes said. "Others would prefer a pill or a shot."

Not Dwight Gwynn. Disabled in Vietnam and plagued with a bad heart and diabetes, Gwynn said it was a struggle to walk more than 50 yards at a time. He couldn't take out the trash, and a simple trip to the mailbox was a challenge. Gwynn's wife, Brenda, said the ulcers that developed on her husband's feet were so deep they looked like holes. Not that Gwynn, who had lost feeling in his feet, noticed.

"I was grilling steaks or something and went in and told (Brenda) the meat smelled funny," Gwynn recalled.

It wasn't until the next morning, he said, that he found the angry burn blisters on his toes, caused by stepping on a piece of hot charcoal that had fallen while he was cooking.

Dr. Donald Rhodes consults with a patient Wednesday at Bay Area Hospital. Rhodes invented a machine that helps treat diabetics.

Gwynn said he was skeptical when he heard about the study, but, with his health in such bad shape, he figured he had nothing to lose by trying it.

Lounging in a recliner at the Coastal Bend Chronic Pain Center on Tuesday morning, however, Gwynn showed off his pale, healthy feet and said the study has given him hope.

"I've been able to pull back from my meds a little," he said. "I still get ulcers and they heal slowly but they heal. To be able to feel like I can walk somewhere means a lot to me."

Contact Leanne Libby at _886-3618 or libbyl@caller.com