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To DMD Parents: I would like to take this opportunity to clear up a few misconceptions. I must state from the beginning that my staff and I have been overwhelmed with requests from parents of DMD children in the last few weeks. I am doing everything I can to return phone calls and answer questions, while still running my practice. If you have called the clinic and have not received a return phone call, please be patient with us. Also, please be patient with our web site as well. We are in the process of upgrading our server as our traffic has increased a great deal. I realize that there is a strong community of DMD parents and from what I understand there has been much discussion about the treatments we have been utilizing in our clinic. I am working on putting together an online forum where I can host a question and answer session within the next couple of weeks. I had hoped to have this session sooner but I am traveling abroad and won't be back until next week. In the meantime I feel that there are some issues that need to be addressed right away: First, there seems to be some confusion regarding the Dynatron STS which was originally used in my clinic and VECTTOR which is the new method of treatment. I am the inventor of the STS and stand behind it as an excellent treatment for chronic pain. While it is possible to purchase the STS from a Dynatronics dealer (with a physicians prescription), this is not something I would recommend. Allow me to give you a brief history to explain. As you all are aware, I am a podiatrist. I opened my practice in 1973 and for years performed complex foot surgery in addition to typical podiatric care. In 1992, I had a post surgical patient who developed a painful nerve condition called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome (RSDS or also known as CRPS Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome). This patient was my first experience with RSDS and I very quickly learned that there were little to no treatments available for this debilitating condition. Feeling a sense of obligation to my patient, I was determined to help her to the best of my ability. I had always been interested in electrical stimulation and its healing effects on the body. I began to investigate this mode of treatment for my patient. Specifically, my research focused on the medical literature that demonstrated the ability of electro-stim to produce certain neuropeptides. It was well established in medical literature that healthy production of these neuropeptides was essential to proper functioning of all bodily functions. After extensive research studying the effects of these neuropeptides and many trials and errors utilizing electro-stim to augment their production, I was able to effectively use electro-stim to achieve remission for my patient. Because RSDS is a disease with very little to offer in the way of treatment, word began to spread of my patient's remission. Slowly, my podiatric practice became increasingly devoted to patients with chronic pain, such as RSDS. Because I am a podiatrist, my scope of licensure limits me to treating pathologies of the foot. RSDS often, but not always, manifests in the foot. However, even patients who had only upper body symptoms still presented with pathologies in their feet. In my opinion, this is due to the systemic oxidative stress caused by the lack of the above mentioned neuropeptides. This oxidative stress can have devastating effects throughout the body. During the early years of my work with electro-stim I was utilizing as many as 8 different types of machines to treat my patients. I knew that, in order to ever have my treatment widely available we had to simplify the process. In 1999 I worked in cooperation with Dynatronics Corporation to create and develop the Dynatron STS. The STS was launched in 2000. It was a vast improvement over all of the machines I had been utilizing in my clinic. However, although the STS was released to all physicians and physical therapists, it became apparent that without my direct guidance in changing beat frequencies and pad placements, results were only somewhat successful. One relatively simple way of measuring autonomic dysfunction in the body is by measuring the temperatures of the extremities. Invariably, persons with autonomic dysfunction will have toes and fingers that are either too cold or too hot. They might also show a significant difference in the temperature of one extremity when compared to the opposite (left vs. right). Through trial and error I was able to utilize these clues to determine which particular pad placement protocol and specific beat frequency a patient needed based on his or her temperature response to the treatment. Until very recently we would use the STS to run the treatments, but the STS was guided by information that was obtained from the patient's skin temperatures at various points during the testing or treatment cycle. Decisions as to which protocols to utilize were made based on the patient's individual response. While this method proved to be very successful, the problem was obvious. This temperature testing and guidance could only be accomplished in our clinic. Once a patient was sent home it was impossible to gauge how well he or she was responding to the treatments. This often necessitated a return visit to the clinic for further testing in order to get back on the right track. It was obvious that we had to figure out some way to automate the testing process so as to eliminate the need for the patients to be seen in the clinic so frequently. This is why the next generation of this technology, called VECTTOR, was created. Unlike the STS, which simply provides the electro-stim, the VECTTOR treatment unit is equipped with special temperature sensors that are constantly monitoring the fluctuations in the body. The internal computer program is designed to calculate this information in order to determine the proper beat frequency and to ensure that the patient is on the right treatment protocol. When a new protocol is needed, the patient needs only to contact the clinic and we send a new protocol (drawing which indicates proper pad placement) via fax or email. Please understand that the VECTTOR is only in the prototype stage right now. At this time, we are not even able to keep up with the demand of our current patient population. We are working as hard as we can to decrease production time but it is a long process with many delays. As it stands right now we hope to submit VECTTOR to FDA for approval in early September. While we have the eventual hope that this unit can be prescribed by any physician, at this time, it can only be distributed in our clinic. Just to reiterate; the DMD children who have been under our care who were using STS were doing so with a manual temperature sensing device. Their parents were then reporting the data to me to analyze and alter their treatment course as needed. Anyone attempting to treat with the STS alone will not have the ability to temperature test and, therefore, will have no way of knowing the correct beat frequency for their child. Neither will they have any way of knowing which pad placement protocol to use. There also seems to be some misconceptions regarding our position on steroids. It's widely accepted that steroids have undesirable side effects. However, as with anything in medicine, one must always consider the risk vs. benefit. Just as we would never tell a chronic pain patient to abruptly stop taking narcotics, we would never tell a DMD parent to stop their child's steroids. Any reduction of medications (steroids or narcotics) would only be considered after noting a considerable improvement in the patient's condition and then only with the cooperation of your regular physician. The same holds true for respiratory assistive or any other device upon which your child is dependant. We would never recommend discontinuing anything prescribed by your regular doctor, without first consulting with them. We are always happy to discuss our observations with your physician, but ultimately the decision is not in our hands. On a final note, I would also like it to be known that I would welcome into our clinic any DMD representative, physician, physical therapist or any others who might be interested in learning more about the work that we are doing. I hope this helps to clarify some of the concerns that have come to my attention. I look forward to speaking with many of you in the future and hope to address further questions at that point. Respectfully, Donald A. Rhodes, D.P.M., F.A.C.F.A.S.
