Everything you need to know about lasers and fertility. PLUS…we discuss the difference between LED, lasers and red light.
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SEE TRANSCRIPT BELOW OR CLICK ON THE IMAGE ABOVE FOR THE FULL VIDEO.
Aimee Raupp:
Hello, everyone. How are you? I know I said I was coming live at 8:00 PM, but we decided to come live a little earlier just because it worked better for our schedules. And also, I know these are all recorded, so it's fine. But I am going live, once he comes on, with Dr. Lorne Brown of Acusimple.
Acusimple, that's my electronic health record system. Of AcuWellness.
Lorne and I are both acupuncturists and herbalists, but Lorne also has a specific expertise in lasers. And I guess, we could say laser therapy and how he uses it in his clinic to help with fertility. And so, let's see. I don't see him live yet. I want to just keep waiting for him. But anyway, I want to pull up the study. There was a study out of Japan in, I think, it's 2012. Yeah, 2012.
Let me just see. Is he on yet? Come on. Where's my Lorne? I'm going to just see if he's on. Acu… You are not on yet. What is going on, Lorne? There he is, okay. Yay. At GoLive. You did it. Let's see, did that work? I…
There we go. Hi.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
All right, I figured it out.
Aimee Raupp:
How are-
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Hi, Aimee.
Aimee Raupp:
How are you?
Dr. Lorne Brown:
I'm doing pretty good. How are you doing over there on the East Coast?
Aimee Raupp:
I'm good. We just had some dinner. How about you on the West Coast?
Dr. Lorne Brown:
We're not quite ready for dinner yet, but the sun started to go a little bit low here. So, it's a nice sunny day in Vancouver.
Aimee Raupp:
Oh, that's so nice. What's the weather like? What's the temperature?
Dr. Lorne Brown:
12 Celsius. I don't know what that is Fahrenheit for you, but it's a nice spring day.
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, that's good. I love it.
So I was actually just telling everybody I was pulling up the study from 2012, the one Oshiro study, Personal Overview of the Application of LLLT in Severely Infertile Japanese Women. But anyway, I should first probably introduce you or let you introduce yourself. Why don't you tell everybody who you are and all of your things?
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Yeah. So like Aimee, I'm a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. We have a focus in fertility in Vancouver, clinic is Acubalance. Friendly clinical hypnotherapy, have a big passion for low-level laser therapy, also known as photobiomodulation. And I'm the host of the Conscious Fertility podcast.
Aimee Raupp:
Okay, I love it. I need to get on your podcast. I didn't know you had a podcast.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Yeah, get you on there, for sure.
Aimee Raupp:
So tell us… Anyway, I want to back this up. We've already done a live on this actually once before, probably two years ago I think at this point. But in more recent times, I had seen some posts on social media, people talking about the more of the red light therapies like, I hate to say brand names but like Joovv or Celluma. And then quoting this actual study, the Japanese study, and saying this is equal to that kind of thing.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
I guess.
Aimee Raupp:
And from what I understood from talking with you and everything I've learned about lasers, that it's not exactly the same. So I texted you and I was like, “Hey, I just want to clarify with you.” And then you and I were texting, and I said, “You want to come on live so we can just share with everybody?” I think before we go any further too, no judgment or anything negative against the red light therapy devices out there. I think they can be helpful for certain to improve circulation and blood flow. And as we would say, warm the child's palace and bring warmth and blood flow to that area, to the uterine and reproductive area.
But what was done in this study and you were telling me, we were just talking on the phone before, another study as well, that it's different. So maybe, you can describe what are the differences so people could understand.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Sure. We'll start with just some, like the terminology and maybe a little bit of history behind that Dr. Oshiro's study. The scientific term is called photobiomodulation. A lot of people… And we still use the term because most people know it as low-level laser therapy. They refer to that as cold laser as well, so the non-heating types of laser. These are low level, meaning they're not going to cut or burn you. They're not the type we use for sculpting or hair removal. You don't usually feel anything with low-level laser therapy.
The red light therapy, that term is a form of photobiomodulation. So in low-level laser therapy, there's a spectrum of wavelengths. So, colors. The most common when it comes to clinical infertility is using either color red or infrared. Those are wavelengths. And infrared goes deeper than red just because of the wavelength. It can go deeper into the tissue. And then there's LEDs and then there's lasers.
And so, they're not equivalent. If somebody's saying, “I have one of those red light therapies that's off the body, doesn't even touch the body.” Because a lot of the light will reflect when it's off the body, so you're not absorbing that much either. For it to have an effect on the body, so the modulation, the impact on the body, the tissue has to absorb the light. So if it doesn't absorb the light, there is no therapeutic effect.
Aimee Raupp:
Interesting.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
So, it doesn't matter that the light's coming at you. If your body's not absorbing it, then there's probably not going to be any benefit. And then there's a whole dosing. How many joules to create a therapeutic effect?
Aimee Raupp:
Joules, okay.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
But your question about the Oshiro's study, I'll mention what had happened in this study and just say… You can't say it's equivalent. They're both using photobiomodulation but red light therapy is LEDs. And in that study by Oshiro, he used laser, not LEDs. His wavelength was infrared at 830 nanometers, and red light would not be 830 because that would make it infrared. So it would've been in probably in the 600 somewhere, is the red light. And then-
Aimee Raupp:
So, that all is a big difference, though? Or is-
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Well, it's not the same.
Aimee Raupp:
Not the same.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
It's like saying… The broad spectrum, we have pharmaceutical drugs, right? That's like photobiomodulation, so it's a spectrum. And then somebody did a study with a certain drug with a certain dosage, and then somebody else says, “Well, I'm doing the same thing as that drug.” But they're using a totally different drug, right? It's-
Aimee Raupp:
It's not the same.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
They're both using pharmaceutical drugs, but that's it. Right?
Aimee Raupp:
Right. Okay.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
So it would be a big reach to say that they're doing the same thing because that Oshiro study, the proximal Oshiro study, he did treatment around the vertebral artery, and brainstem, and then the carotid, stellate ganglion, and then what we call red 12, just between the belly button in the zygote process. And his reasoning was to engage the parasympathetic to increase blood flow everywhere. So in this case, getting blood to the ovaries, which is what we do a lot with acupuncture.
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, but via engaging the parasympathetic nervous system. So via these different points, not directly over the ovaries.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Yeah. He didn't even do it over the ovaries in his study, no. And it was an accident. So, he discovered this by accident. So what happened is-
Aimee Raupp:
I love this story.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
… in the '90s, Oshiro was treating a woman who was already in menopause for back pain. He would always treat up around the neck to create the parasympathetic response, to create blood flow head to toe. In doing so, if she had back pain or if it was knee or foot pain, you're going to bring blood to that area which will support healing. In this case, he did his treatment around the neck, then he would go locally and treat the back. And he did a series of treatments and he resolved her back pain, and her cycle came back. She started bleeding.
Then, her period came back. She bleed four to five days for several months on a monthly basis. He thought it had nothing to do with him. And because she'd already been in menopause, he suggested she see her gynecologist because, “You're bleeding, and make sure everything's okay.”
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, menopause.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
He just said, “Yeah, not me. It's just a fluke. Coincidence.” But in the same calendar year, another woman who was in menopause, treated for back pain, her period came back. So he said if we're bringing blood flow head to toe, then what he suspected was happening is we're bringing blood to the ovaries. So maybe, we're helping rejuvenate or support the ovaries by bringing blood flow.
So they did a pilot study of 74 women. The English translation was Severe Infertility, so… I don't remember the details but somewhere around, average age, 39, 9 years of infertility-
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, that's it.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
… 15 ART cycles.
Aimee Raupp:
You got it all. Average, 39. I have it right here. Nine years of infertility.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Good. Okay, I remembered. And then the first group, they had a 22% pregnancy rate and a 68% live birth rate. Pretty good for that demographic. And then they expanded the study to just over 700 women-
Aimee Raupp:
700, yeah.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
… and they got similar 22% pregnancy rate again. And this time, 50% [inaudible 00:09:56].
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, higher miscarriage rate. Correct.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
But in his dosaging, it was all over the place. Some got twice a week, some got once a week, some got every other week.
Aimee Raupp:
Okay, lots of variables.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Yeah, lots of variables. But hey, still pretty good. What I would share with the audience is there's two things that we know. There's the mechanism that has really good science, which shows promise. Promise that it could help with fertility, and we can discuss what the mechanisms are. The other part is, do we know how it helps? There are not a lot of robust studies showing how it improves fertility. We got the mechanism, so we're using it because the mechanism makes sense. But there's been studies on rats. We saw some rat studies that were put through IVF that showed the improved embryo quality, so that was exciting.
Aimee Raupp:
Promising.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
There's been stuff, in-vitro as in Petri dish, and lasering uterine tissue and showing a certain dosage will cause uterine receptivity by seeing certain gene expression and chemicals and enzymes being released for uterine receptivity. There's been some studies using it for polycystic ovarian syndrome, studies for dysmenorrhea and endometriosis. So, we're seeing things. But to say…
I get asked like, “What home system do you recommend?”
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, that's massive.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
I say, “At this point in time, based on the science I understand, the mechanism, you still need a professional system.” Why? Because they have the power, so you can get the right dosage to the target tissue. Because it's not enough just to get photons there. You have the right wavelength but you have to leave it on for a certain amount of time to get the dosage there in order to create a therapeutic effect.
So, a lot of the home systems probably won't get the dosage there. And a lot of them are off the body, so you're losing… There's, let's say, they bounce off. They're not being absorbed. They're reflected off. The mechanism is exciting, it holds promise, but nobody's done enough studies to say if it works. And when somebody asks me about the home systems, I will look at certain home systems and say, “Yeah, you can do this. This is what I would do. But nobody studied the home system to say that it did anything.”
Aimee Raupp:
That's it. That's why I was upset when I texted you that day. I'm like, “This is upsetting me that they're saying X equals Y, but I don't think there's actually been any research.”
Dr. Lorne Brown:
No.
Aimee Raupp:
And I just feel like these girls… We're speaking to you guys. You are invested so much and there's so many things you want to try and so many things you want to do, and I think it's our job to deliver the best information we can to you so that you can make the most appropriate decisions.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Yeah, it's kind of experimental. It's like PRP. There's not robust data. There's data.
Aimee Raupp:
There's data.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
But there's not robust data and there's conflicting data. The mechanism, okay, let's try it. It's a do no harm. But to say, “Do PRP and it's going to work,” it would be misleading. To say, “Do laser and it's going to work,” would be misleading. And you and I know, and your audience knows this, that in Chinese medicine, we say, “Nourish the soil before you plant the seed.” And so when we look at the soil, what are the things that could impact the soil? Soil being here, the metaphor for cellular health, the ovarian health that's going to support the follicular genesis. So, egg quality.
If you have oxidative stress, that's not good for egg quality. If you have inflammation, not good for egg quality. If you have toxins, not good for egg quality. Poor blood flow, not good for egg quality, for that cellular environment. So the reason the laser has promise is a couple of things, and I'll go each one and if you're okay with that, I'll just elaborate a little bit. But the first one that we get excited about is that low-level laser therapy, photobiomodulation, when it reaches the target tissue… So, it has to reach the tissue. We're not convinced we can get the light to the ovaries yet because that's pretty deep compared to the laser.
Now, the manufacturers all say this depth, that depth. Don't believe them. I think they're overstating all the [inaudible 00:13:59].
Aimee Raupp:
Okay. So, what I have here-
Because when I talk to PowerMedic, she had said something like, “Red light only penetrates a few millimeters. Laser increases ATP, increase blood, increase immune. And it goes 10 to 12 centimeters.” She gave me a very specific number, which either way, even if she said a centimeter to a millimeter, I think there's a difference there.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
I don't know how much we want to go into, but I'll share with you. With me talking to manufacturers and researchers around low-level laser therapy… I'm actually heading off to Europe this summer because I'm going to be the chair of the photobiomodulation fertility track. They have a fertility track and they brought some experts in from Japan.
Aimee Raupp:
How amazing.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
So, we'll see what we'll learn from them. But to share with your… That was a sidetrack because it just reminding me of the mechanism. So, here's some of the mechanisms we know. Then there's some other mechanisms that we're learning about that's very new, that's kind of like, “Whoa, we didn't know we could do that.” And then there's things that we are seeing it get results but it does not make sense from science because the photons can't be reaching that level of the tissue, and yet, we're seeing a change at that level of the tissue.
So, that's why I'm saying we don't know. But to say-
Aimee Raupp:
Is it because it's helping mitochondrial function though even at a higher up, if you will, or more cellular level?
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Here's why I think it works.
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, go ahead.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
I think it helps with the soil. So, I'll start off with… Remind me to talk about the mitochondrial health because that's the most exciting but it's also, I think, the most difficult to impact by reaching the ovaries with the light.
So, low-level laser therapy has been shown to help regulate inflammation. Think of endometriosis, think of PCOS has an inflammatory component. Just think of inflammation. Chronic systemic inflammation leads to accelerated biological aging. We want to be as biologically young when we're trying to conceive, right?
Aimee Raupp:
As we possibly can, yeah.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
And so if it can help regulate inflammation, then that's going to have cellular health. So this can help you as a individual on many levels to bring down the biological age, and hopefully lower your risk for disease including infertility.
These are all speculations, right? We know it helps inflammation which is why it's used so well for painful conditions, for injuries and pain. It helps with the inflammation. It's a regulator. And it's a regulator, it's not like taking an anti-inflammatory which shuts down inflammation. For example, there was a nice study the NIH talked about recommending PBM, photobiomodulation, also known low-level laser therapy for back pain. Why? When you take an anti-inflammatory, it gets rid of the pain. But it shuts down not only the pain part of it, it also gets rid of the pro-inflammatory cytokines we need for healing. When the laser does it, it helps get rid of those uncomfortable painful chemicals without shutting down the healing part of it.
And so when you take pain meds, you end up getting rid of the acute pain and end up often with chronic pain. Where the low-level laser therapy is going to help with the inflammation that's uncomfortable but it doesn't stop the healing response, so you still get healing from it. This is not to say laser reduces inflammation. Probably, not fully accurate. It regulates inflammation. It downregulates some of the cytokines and upregulates [inaudible 00:17:19] that we need for immune health and healing. It's been shown to improve blood circulation. So in the Oshiro study, he did thermophotography. And in his photography, he had somebody and he took pictures front and back, and showed the hot spots and cold spots in the body. Circulation. And after the 5th session of low-level laser therapy, the person head to toe was full of circulation. So, it had this ongoing improvement of circulation when you have a series of treatments.
It can help soften scar tissue adhesions. So, that can be exciting for certain things. It's been shown to help with the gut microbiome. That was done in a Parkinson's study when it's over the gut. Where Parkinson's, there is now a link between the gut microbiome, and [inaudible 00:18:06]-
Aimee Raupp:
And acromancy, yeah.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
… inflammation, and Parkinson's. So they treated the gut and the brainstem, and they did some genetic DNA sequencing so they could see that the microbiome changed with the laser therapy. So, it can help with the gut microbiome. So, just think of what the laser is doing. And then, there's…
That, you get from a systemic effect. You put the laser on certain areas, it's irradiating the blood, you're regulating inflammation, you put it into certain areas to increased blood flow. We just learned now that the blood may have these free mitochondria that then is traveling to other parts of the body. So maybe, that's why it can help the ovaries, right?
Aimee Raupp:
Maybe, yeah.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Because there's so much we don't know. But with that mechanism… The mitochondria, the reason that gets everybody excited when it comes to fertility and using photobiomodulation, and this is why people take coenzyme Q10 and alpha-lipoic acid, is the mitochondria as we age, they wear down. The ovary has lots of mitochondria, more than any tissue in the body. The heart, you think the biggest muscle would have all the mitochondria. The most mitochondria, I mean, because they're the battery of the cells. We need that energy. But no, it's the ovaries. And when the embryo is dividing, that's coming from the female line, their mitochondria to the embryo, and it requires a lot of energy. So when it's dividing in an IVF in the lab, or in the fallopian tube if it's happening natural that way, that takes energy. And we need mitochondria for that.
And then, implantation takes a lot of energy. That's the mitochondrial health. And a lot of the chromosomal errors that we see when we're doing the PGT-A testing and just the issues with embryos is due to we think, we as the Western science, impaired mitochondrial function. So when a plant receives sunlight, it uses photosynthesis to convert it to energy. Well, when the human cells, cytochrome c absorbs red or infrared light, it converts that into ATP. So what happens is the cytochrome c absorbs the photon, it dislodges nitric oxide and it improves the ATP production. More energy production, which is what we want.
Here's the kicker, though. The tissue has to receive that light. So, we're not convinced if the light is getting to the ovaries. What do I think the future is? You know how women have… They can do a natural follicle count and they'll put the probe in vaginally, and then [inaudible 00:20:36] light.
Aimee Raupp:
We could just do the laser right there.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
If somebody could build a probe with the infrared light on the probe and then put-
Aimee Raupp:
Marie, you're on here. Just listen.
Go ahead, say it again. “If somebody could build…”
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Build a probe and then point it towards the… Because the ovaries aren't where they usually are in a textbook. They move around a bit, right?
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah. I know my right one is always… He says it's in China.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
So sometimes, we're putting laser over the abdomen. Maybe, the ovaries is not even in that area. And there's intestines and things are in the way when we do that. So, are we getting the light directly to the ovaries directly? Don't know. But here's other things that we've learned for other diseases like kidney diseases. There's things… They're doing dementia, it's going through the skull now, and other brain diseases for transcranial. There's a cascade of events that's happening. [inaudible 00:21:26] So when we put it on the body, it seems like it creates a cascade of events, and then these reactions continue on after the treatment.
Aimee Raupp:
That's right.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
And when you have a series of treatments, you get that momentum going, and it creates a cascade of events. So, there's so many things happening. We're regulating inflammation, we're irradiating the blood. And maybe if you're getting it over the abdomen, you're doing the microbiome. This could be what's… It's a holistic approach. Now, nobody here-
Aimee Raupp:
More like acupuncture almost. Like, what we're doing.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Acupuncture.
When I learned about this… Because there was an IVF study, a small study abstract that was published. The first abstract was published around 2008 or '09. That was the American one where they did laser, acupuncture in transfer day, acupuncture in transfer day, sham laser in the control group. And the laser group had a 15% increase in implantation. That was just on transfer day. And that was using laser acupuncture on acupuncture points. That's why [inaudible 00:22:27]-
Aimee Raupp:
What kind of laser were they using? Were they using like this level?
Dr. Lorne Brown:
They were-
Yes. Their laser was a 500 milliwatts. So just so you know, Oshiro's laser was 60 milliwatt, the probe. And the probe for that study was a 500-milliwatt probe. So, going back to the mechanism. I learned about that study, so we started using it in our clinic back in 2008 just for transfer day. Lots of things happened that made me get curious about what else it could do. I discovered that Oshiro, he was doing it around… Like I said, the carotid, which we also realized he's addressing the vagus when he's addressing the carotid, thumbed it around the cervical so get to the brainstem, hopefully stellate ganglion, and then an area on the abdomen that can increase parasympathetic response, blood flow.
Then I heard about a group in Denmark, which everybody keeps calling it a study. It wasn't a study. It was just professionals that use the laser, reporting to the manufacturer they're fertility accessories. Because people keep talking about the Denmark study. It's not a study, it was just self-reporting. They had some great results, but nobody's replicated that study yet. We almost did it for frozen transfer in Vancouver with the Gigaa Laser, and we opened up the study for recruitment after we got approval from Ethics and everything at March 2020.
Remember, March 2020?
Aimee Raupp:
Oh, I'm sorry.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
The funding went and we never got to do the study, but it's on our to-do list.
Aimee Raupp:
So, what kind?
Dr. Lorne Brown:
But what they did, which was really cool, is they shared some really good results. So I started thinking, why was that so good with the Gigaa Laser from PowerMedics? Why did that do so well? Because he didn't do up around the neck. It was all in the lower abdomen.
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, I have those studies. What's her name? [inaudible 00:24:21] Just from [inaudible 00:24:25] here with me.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:24:25]
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:24:25]
Dr. Lorne Brown:
It's just case reports, right? Case studies that practitioners sent in, right? And so I was thinking, first of all, it's a huge area. It's not like a little diode. It covers 500 centimeters squared. So, it's getting a lot. A lot of-
Aimee Raupp:
It's a big-
Yeah.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
And it's powerful. It's a powerful laser but it's off the body, which at first I did not like because it's off the body, which you lose a lot of absorption. But it's so powerful and you're doing it for 23 minutes, you're going to get some photons that are going to reach some target tissue.
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, it's going to-
Dr. Lorne Brown:
But I think, A, it was local. And as we said, there's a cascade event, so we're hitting locally and I think it's doing stuff locally. It's getting to the blood, for sure. So, you're irradiating blood in that long period of time. And what I, they, maybe seeing good results and why we like it in our clinic is it's over the gut microbiome. And the gut microbiome impacts our hormones-
Aimee Raupp:
It's everything, right. Yeah, gut microbiome.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
… impacts inflammation, our immunity. This is huge if you can impact the gut microbiome. And then I went to Australia and visited the clinic there, and they do a lot of fertility. One of the clinicians there had talked about using it for patients with endometriosis, that they saw she saw symptom relief. And also, a lot of her patients with endometriosis, infertility, conceiving naturally. And she worked on the sacrum. She did it all on the sacrum.
And then I [inaudible 00:25:50]-
Aimee Raupp:
With the same laser? Is that the Gigaa Laser?
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Not that. Different laser. Different. But if you know math, you can replicate it. But that means you got to have similar wavelength within, and you got to know what the power is and the radiation, like how many joules per centimeter squared. There is math. We have many different lasers in our clinic and I use… I have a bachelor of science in math, I still need a calculator. I used to be an accountant, a CPA. Now, Chinese medicine.
So I sat and just figured out what the math was, and then I do my best to replicate that over the system I have.
Aimee Raupp:
Wow.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
It's not perfect but we can try to make it similar. And then I went and visited Fred Kahn before he passed in Toronto. He's the BioFlex. Because he and his book… In the book, he was quoted by Norman Doidge's The Brain Way of Healing. There's a chapter on laser therapy for brain injuries and he talked about women that had adenomyosis and endometriosis. He doesn't call the disease but he describes terrible pain with scarring and adhesions, and they're needing surgery. So, adenomyosis or endometriosis. And he shared how many of them were able to cancel their surgeries because of this.
So, I went and flew there to see what he was doing because he couldn't put it in his systems when he sold it because it wasn't studied that way. He gave me his protocol so I could program my machines that way, and he did the sacrum and also locally. So I decided, what we're going to do is we're going to combine Oshiro's, the gut, and the sacrum. And so in our practice, we do… It takes a while but we do all of it. And I ended up meeting, getting connected to Dr. Nakamura in Japan who is an acupuncturist that does laser therapy with acupuncture in IVF clinics. And at the time, this was pre-COVID, they had 10 years of data.
Funny story, Aimee. What I did is I really wanted to talk to Oshiro, so I wrote a letter, introduced myself and wanted to talk to him, put it through Google Translate into Japanese and sent it to about 12 clinics that I googled that had the name Oshiro in it. I got no responses. But then I met a colleague of ours from California, originally from Japan, speaks fluent Japanese, English, and he knew this clinic in Japan. Nakamura. So, I interview him and I have my translator with me.
And first of all, the translator… I showed him my letter. He goes, “You know there's a whole respect hierarchy when you talk with Japanese.” He goes, “I'm not surprised nobody responded to your letter.” So I guess, I was a little… My letter might've been a little bit offensive [inaudible 00:28:27]-
Aimee Raupp:
Little American, no. Oh, sorry you had to wait up. A little aggressive.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
… the way Google translated it. But Nakamura, when I talked to his clinic, they had 10 years of data where they showed they were doubling blastocyst rates-
Aimee Raupp:
What?
Dr. Lorne Brown:
… when they did the acupuncture with low-level laser therapy. So in Japan, I don't know if it's still like this now but this is pre-COVID, they don't do donor eggs. They're not allowed to. So they keep trying and doing things, and mini stims everything until they either stop trying or get a baby because they can't move to donor eggs. So, they get really tough cases. And so, people will do multiple cycles. And there, they'll do herbs, acupuncture, nutrition, and laser because they'll do anything they can to help these women. And in his data, they had doubling blastocyst rates. Now, this would be 14 years of data. But back then, it was 10 years.
Here's the kicker. We do a lot of modified Victorian-standards protocol for the blood flow, so we'll treat constitutionally but we'll add some of the acupuncture with electrical stim in an IVF cycle to help with blood flow. He did that. And then he did Oshiro, he did local over the abdomen, he did the sacrum.
Aimee Raupp:
Wow. So, he did all of it.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
He did what we were doing as well but he figured out 10 years before, and I didn't have data yet because we were only be doing it for a short period of time and weren't really looking at the data. And he was able to share that we were definitely on the right track. Now, he has a different machine, right?
Aimee Raupp:
Right.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
But again-
Aimee Raupp:
Do the math.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Well, do the math. And I try to get the math but I said, “How long do you do it over the ovaries?” Because he has a higher-powered laser which can burn, so you have to move it all the time. It's not low level.
And he said, “When it gets uncomfortable, we move it.” That would be hard to do a study because we can't replicate it because they don't give us any real dosaging. But to do a study, so anybody that's planned to do a study, we want to make it. We want to be able to repeat it.
Aimee Raupp:
Replicate it, yeah.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Replicate it. So we need to know the wavelength, the power, the time, where you're holding, how long, how many joules, the irradiance. But from the public's perspective, I will share this, there is no magic bullet. Laser is not going to be the-
Aimee Raupp:
Best thing.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
The end-all be-all. I look at it as… The metaphor I like to use is horse carrying a carriage. You're in a carriage, your fertility journey is a carriage, and you're trying to get on this long journey which has mountains, ups and valleys, ups and downs. It's a long distance. And if you have one horse, you may not get there at all. If you have two horses on your carriage, that's increased your chance. Three, even better. Four, even better.
So acupuncture is a horse, herbs is a horse, diet lifestyle is a horse, supplements are horse, IVF is a horse. So, you're doing everything you can. To go back to Chinese medicine, it's to nourish the soil before you plant the seed. We're doing everything we can to make that soil optimal so the egg and sperm can reach their peak fertility potential. And that is improving mitochondrial function, reducing inflammation, increasing blood flow, reducing the stress hormones, supplementing where we have deficiencies, removing toxins. This is what we're doing.
Aimee Raupp:
The [inaudible 00:31:34] things.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
And so there's not like, “Do this or do that.” We have people call us, “I want to come… I'm 50 and I want to do laser.” Don't. I don't think it's that kind of miracle. And even Nakamura, when I talk to him, in his data and other studies we see, unfortunately, it's still the same thing. The 30 to 40 benefit the most. Once you get over 40s, we see less benefit, and those are the ones that really need it. Even the PRP, I think the data so far isn't showing any miracles for the ones that are 45 and over trying to use it.
So, we're still there. But if you're looking to do anything and everything, there's things available, so yes, I get why you're going to want to do anything and everything. I just want to make clear, because I know how much people want this to work. I don't think anything's a magic bullet. Low-level laser therapy, if it's done with good laser systems, has the opportunity to nourish your soil to do so many things that can improve the cellular environment. That may be what puts you over the edge from some [inaudible 00:32:36] result.
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:32:38] But so then-
Dr. Lorne Brown:
And the home systems are-
Aimee Raupp:
Go ahead. The home systems, that's what I want to get to.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
If you could get to a professional using the home systems in between, maybe. We don't know because nobody's studied them, right?
Aimee Raupp:
Right.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
And these are all LEDs, the home systems. Just so you know, they're not lasers, they're LEDs. But the beauty is you can have them on you for a long time and you can do it regularly rather than once a week or twice a week. You can do it four times a week. If you have a home system, I wouldn't recommend you do it every day. The cells need a chance to rest and do something with the light, so don't do it every day. When I do my consults for people that contact me with their home systems, more is not always better when it comes to energy and photons. There is a happy medium, too.
Even with lasers, a superpower for laser, too much isn't good either we see with the tissue. It's like cooking a turkey. A lot of the home systems-
Aimee Raupp:
Oh, in study, yeah.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
A lot of the home systems, the power is so low it's like putting a turkey in your oven at low. It's never going to cook. It'll be frozen on the inside but it's never going to cook. And a super high power is like putting it on broil in your oven. You're going to burn the outside. It's not cooked on the inside.
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, and not cooked inside.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
So, there is a happy meeting. Now, it's a very generous one, but just by buying a red light thing off at Amazon, that could be a low cooker. It may be a waste of money. Or maybe, I don't know, because nobody's studied it. The mechanism, you can still irradiate your blood which is beneficial from the regulating inflammation if you're doing it. But again, nobody has studied that home system that I'm aware of, so I don't know. So when people ask me the couple of home systems I recommend, I've looked at it and I've created protocols that I would do with them, but I'm clear, “This is theory only. Nobody studied it. I don't know.” If you can get access to a professional laser system, then yeah, get it. Try it at home. If you have the money to afford it, do it. But if you can get…
I don't think it can replace a professional system, yet. They're not that good, yet. They're not there, yet.
Aimee Raupp:
What about the smaller ones that are like… It's still expensive but the $5,000 ones? Like, the one I know… There's a couple of different brands out there of the lasers, the ones that… Because there's a group of girls that are in the [inaudible 00:34:55] community, and they're going to pull together and buy one.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Usually, the money tells you it could be a good laser, but it's not. That doesn't mean it's a good laser just because of the money. The question is what's the wavelength? Is it programmable? What's the power? So, if you're using it… And I like… Oshiro's laser was 60, but don't forget he started doing that in the '90s. That was a powerful laser back then. If you're going to get a low-level laser therapy, you want something over 100 milliwatts, ideally. My lasers could go up to 500 milliwatts and they're programmable, so I can modify how much I'm doing. Because depending on where I'm putting it on the body, I'll change the dosaging and how much time I put on each spot because I'm not only lasering the area, I'm looking for a reaction.
As in like when I do the carotid, this is based on time, less about joules, because I want to irradiate the blood. So, I want to hold it there long enough that the whole blood circulates once that it irradiates. But when I'm doing… When he did the area over Ren 12 for us, that is you're trying… And also the stellate ganglion, there, you need power because you're trying to knock out a structure here so it goes offline to engage the parasympathetic. I did this once for a woman that couldn't take… They just sedate you here for retrievals. You're not unconscious, only fentanyl and painkillers. And she couldn't take the medication for various reasons for her retrieval. So we're like, “All right, here we go.”
And she come to our clinic for acupuncture and I asked if she's willing for me to use the laser because we've seen it for next studies where if you overdose the mitochondria around the spine, you can knock out the pain response for 12 to 24 hours. So, it can take away pain. So I went and just overdosed along the lumbar and sacrum. They go and innervate the vagina and the ovaries. Just overdosed it, and she did not feel a thing. It was pretty cool. End of one, case of one, right? It wasn't a study.
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, but that's it.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
But we've done that with acupuncture, too. Electrical acupuncture for pain, right? We've done that for retrievals.
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, totally.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
And this was just easier because we could do it before she went in. It didn't have to happen during the retrieval. So, we did it half an hour before retrieval. We just dosed her up. But you would need a good laser for that high power.
Aimee Raupp:
So, what are you using in your clinic? I know you have a bunch. What's… I don't know.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
We have some and we got… We have some sent to us because they want us to study, but we got the Gigaa in there, we got the BioFlex, we got Luminex, we got PowerMedics. We've got many systems.
Aimee Raupp:
So if there was a practitioner like me that was interested in buying one, is there a specific one you tell from a professional perspective?
Dr. Lorne Brown:
There's no perfect laser, yet. So I'll tell you that's why in my clinic, sometimes I have 60 to $70,000 worth of lasers on somebody [inaudible 00:37:54] COVID. And I laugh because they're like, “How come your acupuncture laser is expensive?”
Aimee Raupp:
The Gigaa is like 40. What? 42,000 or something.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
40,000 US dollars. So, there's a couple of things. If you're asking what do I like, I like the BioFlex system because it's programmable, it's really nice. I like that one, so we have that. They're razor-nice. I like the Gigaa as well because of what the case reports were from all the practitioners.
So again, if those are true and can be replicated, then this one covers the microbiome, I also like it from an acupuncturist perspective because I can put it over and I can put my needles because all the other systems are good.
Aimee Raupp:
I like that, too.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
They have to be on the body. But if I want to do abdominal acupuncture, I can put the needles in, add the electrical stim to the needles, and then you can put a Gigaa over it, right?
Aimee Raupp:
That's… Yeah.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
And I've talked to you and Mark, as well our friends, that I would modify what they've done with the Gigaa when they did their case study, what Anne Marie Jensen, who shared in her book. She wrote a book on laser. I wrote the English version forward for her book. I would do it a little differently now that we know about the sacrum and other stuff. You can play around with programs. I like the PowerMedics probes as well because you can move around the neck and touch the body. So, the PowerMedic-
Aimee Raupp:
That one probe, I think it's the handheld unit, right?
Dr. Lorne Brown:
You'd want two because two sides of the neck, you got along the spine [inaudible 00:39:28]. So if you're a professional, you're going to want two of them. It also help you with time because it cuts your time in half, right?
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, totally.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
So, I like that. I'm familiar with the BioFlex systems. I've gone to conferences and I've looked enough at the Gigaa. I'm very familiar with the Gigaa, and I've talked to them about programs where I would use it.
Aimee Raupp:
They're on here right now, too.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Hey, Maya [inaudible 00:39:51].
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, I think Maya's on. I saw her come on the other-
Dr. Lorne Brown:
So, if you want to-
I spent years learning about the laser and talking to manufacturers. And when you get a system, there's some systems really that you can program, but you really got to understand it. That requires time. The Gigaa is, if I may say, kind of idiot-proof. There's six programs. So you just go and put on this program and put it over. It's expensive. From the practitioner's perspective, there's a cost to it. But day one, you can use it. You don't have to understand and you can still use it.
Aimee Raupp:
And then for clinically you're doing it, you're treating fertility. I know you were saying all the things and I like all the horses on the cart analogy. That it's not just one thing. So it's really hard to measure to say, “Yes, the laser is what's making the difference in my practice.”
But obviously, you're still using it. So I think you feel-
Dr. Lorne Brown:
I'm still using it.
Aimee Raupp:
You feel good about using it, and you-
Dr. Lorne Brown:
I feel good about it. I like it for two reasons. One is it doesn't work for everybody. There's some people… Like, the herbal… There's some people who are doing acupuncture, we're not seeing the results. Then we add herbs, and poof, it makes all the difference. Some people, it's the diet and supplements. Poof. That's the horse that does it right for them.
So what is off for them in their soil that's causing the issue, right? Somebody has a vitamin D issue or a thyroid issue. If you address that, you fix the issue and the soil is better. So, it depends on what you're doing. By the way, lasers used to be told not to use for thyroid, but there's now studies using it for Hashimoto's thyroid conditions as well. Also, paper just came out recently. It also been shown to impact blood sugar in a positive way. So again, that helps with inflammation. So-
Aimee Raupp:
And hormones.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Well, it regulates the hormone, for sure. Once you start affecting the gut microbiome, affecting inflammation-
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, all of it.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
… affecting blood flow. But we've seen people where it shouldn't happen but we've seen their atrial follicle count and AMH increase. So, we see it. From a Western perspective, impossible, but we've seen it.
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:41:56]
Dr. Lorne Brown:
But I've seen that with herbs and acupuncturists sometimes.
Aimee Raupp:
But that's it. I've seen that, I feel like. And I'm not using lasers, but-
Dr. Lorne Brown:
So, I never get stuck on the tool.
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, that's been on you.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
I've always been, “What's nourishing your soil?” And so, the first thing you got to do, the diet, you got to do lifestyle. Lifestyle is adequate rest, moderate exercise, and movement. Sorry. Rest, sleep, movement. And then, stress reduction. You have to have that horse on your carriage.
Aimee Raupp:
Have to. No matter what, right.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Then, you start bringing in things like acupuncture. I'm an herbalist, so I like to use herbs when it comes to gynecology. If you have menstrual pain, you've got clots, you've got bad PMS, you got acne PMS, it's an herbal case for me. I really want to see that. If you're in your late 30s, 40s, yes, we want to use herbs even in an IVF setting. Personally, that's what I prefer. So when you say, “Is it making a difference?” I think it's making a difference. It depends on what's the issue with the soil.
When I see people that come in that are highly inflamed, and you can see these high sympathetic, highly inflamed, they respond well because I think Oshiro thought it was the blood flow of the ovaries that made the difference. Personally, I think it's ability to regulate inflammation and immune system. I think that is why people were doing so well with Oshiro and with the Gigaa Laser from PowerMedics. I think it's because you're impacting inflammation. And with the Gigaa in particular, you're impacting the gut microbiome. And so if you're addressing the gut health and blood flow to the reproductive system, you're reaching the vertebrae that are coming off to innervate the uterus and the ovaries, you're hitting the blood flow and the vagus nerve. There's just so much you can do to increase blood flow, regulate inflammation, support the immune system, regulate blood sugars. And maybe, we're directly improving mitochondrial function through the mechanism laser.
But if not, if we're regulating inflammation and increasing blood flow, I think, and lowering oxidative stress, then that may be also helping the mitochondrial function in an indirect way. Just like stress reduction indirectly increases blood flow to the reproductive system, I think laser indirectly is increasing blood flow and improving mitochondrial, I think, I don't know, in the reproductive area. And down the road, I think if somebody developed a device or…
I see them now. Rather than a sex toy, somebody developed a device that somebody could vaginally insert for 5, 10, 15 minutes-
Aimee Raupp:
That is a laser.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
… that's putting out light that can get in. Because the tissue-
Aimee Raupp:
The tissue, it's so fine [inaudible 00:44:38].
Dr. Lorne Brown:
… between the vaginal to the ovary is a much easier distance than from the belly to the ovaries.
Aimee Raupp:
100%.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
And when it comes to energy photons, the further the distance, the more you lose.
Aimee Raupp:
Right. Because it radiates.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
So if you're using a device that's really flat on top of the belly, you can't push it down. When you use a probe, you can push it down towards the ovaries. And that may, in theory, get more photons at a therapeutic level there. So, there is…
The mechanism is excellent. Excellent as in it's got a good mechanism, it's exciting. We don't know-
Aimee Raupp:
The delivery.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
We don't know what is the right protocol. We don't know what is the right dosage. We don't know, we don't know, we don't know. So to say with confidence that somebody should do this or with confidence, “My device is like that Japanese study,” I think that's probably a little overstating. To say that the mechanism is there and that it holds good promise, that's fair, because the mechanisms are there and it holds good promise. And the women that we're seeing today don't have time for the study that's going to come out in five years.
Aimee Raupp:
Right. Yeah, it's today. Exactly. And I think clinical data, I know you know that too, of just… Obviously, it motivates the research, but the anecdotal is just as important because it's the individual. You know what I mean?
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Yeah.
Aimee Raupp:
It's moving the needle. And the more we can give them to support them, the better, as long as they do no harm.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
And one last thing on the home system, there's a system out there that everybody's promoting for fertility. I don't want to give names because I don't-
Aimee Raupp:
No, we're not going to give names.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
But there's a system out there that everybody's all excited about. It's LEDs. People take it and use it at home. And I have a photon measuring device so I can measure to see if I do this, to see if the manufacturers are on track or not. Because they all say, “This is the power.” But I can measure and say, “Is this really the power?”
So, I check all my laser. I'm like, “Yeah, right on track. Some are a little bit more powerful than they even say.” But that one, I couldn't get a reading off of it. So either I got a faulty system because I got one of theirs or it's not giving off any light. And colleagues of ours will say, “It works great. I'm seeing great results.” But again, I don't get it.
Aimee Raupp:
Is it just the warmth? Is it…
Dr. Lorne Brown:
I don't get it because I'm not reading photons. But here's the thing, I interviewed one of the manufacturers doctors in their company. And they had shared, this was a couple of months ago, that now what they're noticing is when we send in the red or infrared photons to the cell, the cell sends out a yellow or green photon. Like, it communicates.
Aimee Raupp:
Oh, response. Wow.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
So I said… And then, that creates a cascade of things because before, they're measuring chemicals, they're measuring ATP. But this is now going to quantum. And I literally said, I go, “What did you call that?”
He goes, “It's basically quantum biology. We're sending light into the body-
Aimee Raupp:
And it responds.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
“… and then the cells receiving it, and the cells are sending out light. So, there's a whole quantum healing response.” And he goes, “We don't exactly get what that means, but that's pretty cool that we're seeing on a…” You call it energetic. I don't know what you call it on a quantum level.
Aimee Raupp:
Quantum level.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
So, the reason we were dismissing these home systems at first is it has to impact the mitochondria.
Aimee Raupp:
It has to get deep enough, correct.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
That tissue has to receive it, and it has to be at the right dosage to dislodge the nitric oxide which causes vasodilation, improves the mitochondrial, the ATP production. But now, there's another mechanism that we've just learned about where we really don't understand. I don't understand either. That they're saying, “This is happening.” So-
Aimee Raupp:
It can't hurt.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
… like this little beams of light. But you're getting red infrared from the sun, by the way. We're getting it and our body's doing stuff with it. So, it can't hurt. So far, the light therapy can't hurt. That's true that we haven't seen anything that it can hurt.
Aimee Raupp:
Other than sometimes, [inaudible 00:48:43] pocket, the spending.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
You could just spend money, and that's the thing. So, I have more I don't know than I do know.
Aimee Raupp:
That's what we love about you.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
And we're waiting for studies. I'm excited about it. We're talking. But when patients call me, they go, “I want to travel to your clinic.”
I go, “Don't do that. Don't get on a plane to this. We don't have enough data. We don't know.”
Aimee Raupp:
For real.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
But locally, our patients like it. And we get to combine it with the acupuncture, so we're… The only patients that get only laser therapy in our clinic or laser acupuncture are those that have incredible needle-phobic. If they have severe needle-phobic, then we do laser acupuncture and photobiomodulation therapy. The reason I say laser acupuncture is photobiomodulation therapy is using it based on PBM theory, like how Oshiro did it and how all the people I mentioned did it. Roberta Chow in Australia, Fred Kahn in Toronto.
Laser acupuncture is what we do onsite for transfers where we're stimulating the acupuncture with photons, with a laser. So if I did it with a needle, it's acupuncture. If I do it with my hand, it's acupressure. If I do it with heat, it's moxa. And if I do it with photons, it's laser acupuncture. So when we do onsite transfers, and here's the last little data case that I can share with you, we do both laser acupuncture and some acupuncture before and after transfer. And we've modified our protocol because they're mostly day-5 frozen. The clinic did do a chart review of two years of our patients, and they looked at only genetically-screened embryos. Those that had Acubalance onsite, for those, and those… And compared to those that didn't. So, all of patients over two years.
The reason they looked at genetically-screened embryos is because they wanted to see if it's uterine receptivity, non-embryo issue. So, if there's-
Aimee Raupp:
Right.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
And just to highlight this, when we do transfer day treatment, all we can help is uterine receptivity. The embryo quality set, it's in the lab.
Aimee Raupp:
The quality set's done, yeah.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
So, our patients had a higher pregnancy rate and a lower miscarriage rate for those that had genetically-screened embryos transferred. And then when we looked at the chart reviews, for those… Because some people come from other clinics that we do the onsite treatments for at the clinic, we can only see ours. So again, this is not a study. It's just trying to figure things out by doing a chart review. The patients that did a series of treatments leading up to transfer had even a higher-
Aimee Raupp:
Better success, right.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
… pregnancy rate and lower miscarriage rate. And you know that the July meta-analysis for acupuncture-
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, [inaudible 00:51:10] the same thing.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
This is acupuncture [inaudible 00:51:10]. This is not laser. I'm talking of acupuncture. Their meta-analysis of July 2023 showed an increase in pregnancy rates and live birth rates with the acupuncture. And same thing, those that did a series of treatments leading up to transfer had a better result than those that's just on transfer day. And that makes sense. It's [inaudible 00:51:30].
Aimee Raupp:
Totally. For the same reasons, it's like regulation to the whole… The soil, the same reason.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Yeah. Look, if I eat salad once, that doesn't make me healthy. If I go to the gym once, it doesn't make me healthy. So usually, if you're doing a little bit before, if you do it before retrieval, then you're working on egg quality. So, embryo quality. And then if you do it leading up to your frozen, at least during those three weeks leading up to your frozen, to help with uterine receptivity. And if you have PCOS, endometriosis, or other conditions or repeated failures, then you'd want to do it probably even months before you start your estrus.
I don't know. Did that answer… Did we geek out [inaudible 00:52:11]?
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, I think we covered so much. So those of you that came on at 08:00, just so you know, we actually started at 07:30. So, there's the whole half-hour you missed, but we talked about a lot. Lauren, you're just so full of information. And I mainly listened and I appreciate it.
But no, I think this is really helpful and it's obviously a lot of information, and I think scientific information. But I feel like the big takeaway is these at home devices aren't hurting anything but they're not lasers. And I think-
Dr. Lorne Brown:
No, they're LED.
Aimee Raupp:
But also, we don't know that the lasers-
Go ahead, I'm sorry. You finish that. They're LEDs.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
They're LEDs, they're not lasers. And I don't know…
And just having one, does… When you know better, you want to do better. So look, when I first started-
Aimee Raupp:
There you go.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Yes. Standing in front of a red light sounded exciting. Now, I know about the microbiome, the vagus nerve, irradiating the blood, the nerve root. So to me, sometimes some people send me their… And don't do this because I don't respond anymore. But people send me, “What about this system? Should I use this system?” Home systems that you get on Instagram.
I'll do consults. We do schedule those. But-
Aimee Raupp:
For free.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
… some of them, I used to say, “Do you have a Christmas tree? Because stand in front of that, that's about same difference.” So, most of them are like…
They're LEDs, right? Stand in front of your Christmas tree and they're probably going to do the same thing. So I think you do those at home, you feel like you're doing something. If they're not going to break your bank, go for it. I think if you're the red light, if you're getting to the superficial area where there's a lot of blood flow behind the knees, the elbows, then you may get some good benefit. The other benefit is that you get to do it four times a week. So maybe over months on a long period, you'll have benefit.
But I just don't know. I don't know if the home systems are enough. But your question at the beginning, which I say, “That is an overstatement,” you can't say these systems at home are like that Japanese study by Oshiro. Absolutely not. Those are LEDs at home, they're off the body. Oshiro used a laser system. It was on the body, and he targeted specific features and points around the body to engage the parasympathetic. And so, it's a different protocol. It's just too much of a reach. They're both photobiomodulation but it's a total different…
It's just not fair. It's just like if somebody did a study on a home system, it didn't work, it would be wrong to say photobiomodulation doesn't work for fertility.
Aimee Raupp:
That's right.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
You can say that home system didn't work for fertility, but each system and each protocol, it's got to be looked at on its own. And even if we did a study with a laser system, it didn't work, it doesn't mean another laser system wouldn't work.
Aimee Raupp:
Doesn't work, yeah.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Because it's all about wavelength, dosage, time. And so, there's so many variables that can impact it.
Aimee Raupp:
We're thinking about getting the Gigaa. I feel like leaning towards it, for sure.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Patients like it. It's easy from a practitioner. It'll break your wallet but it's easy as a… But you know what? It's so worth it for the patients, and they come and eventually get it paid off.
Aimee Raupp:
I think, too, there's only… In the US, there's only a Gigaa. There's somebody in Long Island who he's been seeing some of our patients, Boston, Baltimore, San Francisco, I think there's only four or five Gigaas in the whole US right now, which is also fascinating. You have the Gigaa, so…
But anyway, I appreciate this and I appreciate your knowledge so much, and it's so helpful. Yeah, it's good to see your face.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
And if you have friends that can make a probe, I'll talk to them [inaudible 00:55:44].
Aimee Raupp:
Well, that's it. I feel like that's a great idea, yeah, definitely. Of like-
Dr. Lorne Brown:
That would be exciting.
Aimee Raupp:
That would be exciting. Some kind of… We use the same kind of wand that they're doing ultrasounds with. Why can't it be that ultrasound wand and we fill it with diodes?
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Yeah, but it's got to be studied because for safety, right?
Aimee Raupp:
Yeah, of course.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Because nobody's done it that way. But on the body, that's been done a lot. They've done that for skin issues, they've done it for pain and injury. So, we got a lot of data putting it on the skin, around the body. That is [inaudible 00:56:13].
Aimee Raupp:
But not necessarily inside.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
No. But they've done… Just so you know in Europe, they've done it for uterine cancer and stuff. So, they stick a device in and then it opens up inside. They've used it for ulcers inside the stomach going in, and these are medical devices done by medical doctors because they have the scope to do that. But it's being used inside the body, so it's being done.
Aimee Raupp:
Okay, cool. All right. You go enjoy the rest of your night with your family and I'll talk to you soon. Thank you everyone for tuning in. And if you guys have questions, you can DM, and then I can get Lauren back or we'll figure it out.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
And we'll get you on my Conscious Fertility podcast, Aimee.
Aimee Raupp:
Do it. Let's do it.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Let's set that up.
Aimee Raupp:
Okay, sounds good.
Dr. Lorne Brown:
Okay. Bye.
Aimee Raupp:
Okay. Goodbye.
END TRANSCRIPT.
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Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that I am not a medical doctor. I have been a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine for over 17 years and I will be speaking from my clinical experience helping thousands of women conceive. The office of Aimee E. Raupp, M.S., L.Ac and Aimee Raupp Wellness & Fertility Centers and all personnel associated with the practice do not use social media to convey medical advice. This video will be posted to Aimee’s channels to educate and inspire others on the fertility journey.
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