Rick: Welcome to the Tuesday webinar series, “Chiropractic Economics Webinar for Doctors of Chiropractic.” I’m Rick Vach, Editor-in-Chief of Chiropractic Economics. And today’s webinar, “Behind the Light: UltraSlim and What it Can Do for Your Practice” is sponsored by Ward Photonics. And as always, our program is being recorded. It’ll be archived at Chiropractic Economics’ website, chiroeco.com/webinar, for one year. Our experts are on board today to speak with you, and when this presentation is complete, we’ll follow with a Q&A. You can submit questions throughout the presentation by clicking on the appropriate chat icon on your screen.
Our presenters today are Dr. Jeremy Landry and Judson Ward, COO of Ward Photonics. Dr. Landry attended chiropractic college at Cleveland University in Kansas City and has always had a passion for health, wellness, nutrition, and strength training. Judson Ward II is Vice President of Operations and Chief Operating Officer of Ward Photonics. He started working at the company in 2014. Over the years, he has become a jack of all trades, building devices, designing marketing materials, and working with providers across the country. Gentlemen, thank you for taking the time to participate in our webinar and for sharing your expertise. Before we get started, can you please give us a little brief background of your work with Ward Photonics?
Dr. Landry: Yeah, I’m Dr. Jeremy Landry. I’m president and CEO of Kansas City Laser-Like Lipo in Olathe, Kansas, which is a suburb of Kansas City. And I really kind of just specialize now in weight loss, clinical nutritional weight loss, and then the non-invasive laser lipo. I have a business partner that runs our chiropractic clinic, Olathe Chiropractic. We use UltraSlim in both aspects of the clinic, but I’ve been using UltraSlim for the past, going on almost a year. It’s been 11 months. I have two devices in my clinic, and we’ve done extremely, extremely well with them. I was talking with Judson a couple of weeks ago, and he’d mentioned we’re the number two clinic in the United States based off usage. So, we’ve had great, great success with them, and the results we get with our patients really are phenomenal, and it pairs nicely with the nutritional side of our practice. So, that’s kinda where we’re at with it right now.
Judson: Wonderful. And then I’m Judson Ward. I manage Ward Photonics and run the entire industry, as well as have my own weight loss clinic here in Florida called UltraYou that we’ve been running for a little bit over a year with my partner. We’ve seen phenomenal success with the technology, personally, as well as throughout all of our providers that we work with throughout the country. It’s been an honor for me to get to work with so many amazing professionals over the last, I would suppose, about eight years now. So, it’s really just great to be able to work with everybody and to help doctors like Dr. Landry here excel and grow their businesses.
Rick: Thank you, gentlemen. We’re gonna hand it over to you for the presentation.
Dr. Landry: Yeah, so we’re gonna start out, Judson actually has a great introduction video. So, we’re gonna play that video first, and then we’re gonna roll into a video that I shot at my clinic here not too long ago, a tutorial walking through how the technology works, what to expect with results. But we’ll start out with Judson.
Judson: So my name is Judson Ward. I work with Ward Photonics and have since 2015. Before 2015, I ran my own body contouring location here in Cocoa Beach. Today, I both run Ward Photonics itself, as well as one of our individual locations for body contouring, UltraYou. I operate as the COO and handle all day-to-day management here, as well as making sure that locations perform at a high level across the country.
So UltraSlim is the only device for immediate non-invasive fat reduction, as well as non-invasive touchless skin revitalization. Our technology is focused on an entirely non-invasive, non-damaging form of fat reduction that’s sustainable for patients in the long term, as well as rejuvenating the skin to allow them to look younger and feel better about themselves overall.
So, for the fat reduction portion, what we’re doing is we’re using a very specific type of red light, 635 nanometers with a variance of plus 1 or 2 nanometers, with a very high level of intensity and proprietary modulation, to allow us to deliver a high level of energy very effectively without heating up the surrounding tissue and causing damage. What this particular wavelength modulation and power output combination does is it breaks down a protective layer on the outside of the lipid droplet within triglycerides. This outer layer is coated in what’s called perilipin-1. It’s a protein that prevents lipolysis or the breakdown of triglycerides into base materials from happening. What our light does is it breaks down that outer coating, at which point hormone-sensitive lipases will enter into the lipid droplet and begin breaking down that triglyceride into fatty acids and glycerol, at which point it’ll leave the lipid droplet and enter the main body of the fat cell and continue to be broken down through the Krebs cycle from a fatty acid into ATP, the energy building block for the entire body.
Now, once it’s broken down, we’re gonna see a permanent reduction in fat. The fat is gonna be released. About 14% of it is going to be released as water through waste, sweat, urine, all of that, and then the remaining 80% or so is going to be released as CO2 through respiration. Energy is gonna be released into the body that will be actively used. The fat is removed from the cell, shrinking the cell and the appearance of the patient, while it allows the body to rebuild that perilipin level over the next 48 hours, leaving the body undamaged but the fat cells deflated, and the fat, the triglycerides, removed from those cells and metabolized by the body.
So, when we’re looking at the science behind how the skin revitalization works, what we’re doing is we’re breaking down a separate protein within the skin. Now, it takes a little bit longer for us to break down this protein. That’s gonna be matrix metalloproteinase, both one and two. The body develops more of this particular protein as you age, particularly in response to repeated sun exposure. Now, the problem with this particular protein is that as its production increases, it consumes a high level of collagen, and your production of collagen doesn’t increase over the years, which is what will create a deficit in collagen representation within the skin. Now, once we’re able to break down this protein, we’ll see a higher representation of collagen within the skin within about three treatments or about one week of treatment with the technology. That will create a much younger or youthful appearance. This protein stays broken down for quite some time, although we wanna continue doing monthly maintenance treatments to make sure that it stays at a lower level because your body will produce a higher level of MMP if you are within that older range or have had higher sun exposure all over.
The first thing I’d like to talk about is what separates our technology, from a technological standpoint, from other devices that you see out in the field. Red light’s becoming increasingly more common, and there are a lot of people who are entering the field without the proper knowledge and technical background to make quality products. So there are three primary portions of our technology that allows us to get the immediacy of the results that we have. The first is going to be our wavelength. We use 635 nanometers, and we have the smallest variance of any technology we’ve ever seen. We’ve custom-grown crystals that filter out every other wavelength of light except for 635 nanometers, with a mild variance of 2 nanometers. I haven’t seen a technology with under 25 nanometers variance. And the reason that that’s so important that we stick with that specific number is that is the type of energy that the body responds to. Anything outside that immediate range you’re not going to get the type of response that we’re looking for because the body is responding to that specific frequency that it can often produce.
Now, the second thing is gonna be our power output. And the reason we’re able to have such a phenomenal power output, particularly considering traditional laser therapies, is because we’re using non-coherent length, spreading it over a larger treatment area, and because of our third aspect, our proprietary modulation, which is the rate at which we flicker our lights. They’re not a constant beam as you would get with laser, and that allows us to deliver a high level of energy at a great depth. We can get over 10 centimeters depth of penetration with the light right now, and we’re able to do that without heating up the tissue. Now, we also found that this modulation, which is proprietary, increases the results and increases the response from the body to the technology. So, it’s something that’s safe and powerful.
Now, a lot of the technologies that you’re gonna see out in the field today aren’t going to have these aspects covered. They’re not going to have the same intensity. They’re definitely not gonna have the modulation. And more often than not, they’re going to have a wide spectrum that their LEDs are producing because it takes some very serious engineers to develop these crystals that we have to filter out the other lights. So, they’re gonna be fantastic for increasing circulation and helping with pain and inflammation, and that’s gonna be the primary focus. And that’s also why you see a lot of these technologies stray into the 800- to 980-nanometer range of near-infrared, which, again, phenomenal for pain and inflammation reduction but not effective for the reduction of fat or the revitalization of the skin.
Now, the other thing to be concerned about with technologies that are on the field is many imitators are not FDA-cleared technologies. This means that they haven’t gone through the rigorous research necessary or the technical specs necessary to ensure your patients’ safety. That means that anytime you’re working with one of these technologies, you’re risking the potential of burns, lesions, or static shocks, or even straight electrical connections to your patients, which can damage your credibility, as well as your patient’s life. It’s not something that you want to play with, and as I’ve said previously, with those non-FDA-cleared technologies, eventually, the FDA notices and sends a recall letter out, which leaves whoever purchased the equipment holding the bag as they have a recalled piece of equipment for a business that may not even exist anymore. This is definitely something that I wanna make sure that we stress to every single person who’s considering working with any technology in the medical field is always make sure it has that FDA clearance or FDA approval. FDA manufacturing standards are not the same.
Absolutely. So, before we got our first FDA clearance in 2015, we had to perform a series of clinical trials that are available on clinicaltrials.gov where we did a series of treatments treating patients with the technology in the same way that we have today. We did this as a multi-site clinical trial with several facilities, and we found that, over the course of that trial, 100% of patients got an immediate measurable reduction from the beginning to after the treatment measuring in six circumferential areas for women and five circumferential areas for men. What we saw was the average was about a 3.5-inch introduction or about 1.6 liters of fat reduced within that 32-minute period. Ninety-eight percent of all patients got 2 inches or more at that treatment. So, that was something that we were really happy to see, with a range of 1 and 6/8ths inches to a full 10 inches lost within that 32-minute period. Now, that’s a little bit of a range and that’s common for us to see with patients as different bodies will respond differently based on what their needs are and what their fat composition is. Although, consistently, we found patients lose 2 inches or more so often. Most of our locations offer a 2-inch guarantee, that if a patient doesn’t lose 2 inches or more at their first treatment, they get their money back.
Our focus has been and always will be on the providers. We were providers ourself, that’s how we got into the industry, to begin with. My growth is always focused on how can we better support our providers because I know, as they are successful, as they grow, we grow in turn. It’s a beautiful symbiotic relationship. They help their patients, their patients help them, we help them, and they help us. I’m expecting to see some massive growth over the next few years, particularly as red light therapy becomes more and more accessible and noticeable to the common audience that you’re working with. And as people start to understand the distinction between home units focused on pain and inflammation versus medical grade equipment that can really give them immediate results. At the end of the day, this is what patients are looking for. It’s something that has instant gratification with no pain, no downtime, and immediate measurable results. It’s instant gratification wrapped up in a nice buffer.
So, I remember the original device that was built, it was built on our kitchen table. There’s a Frankenstein of some existing electrical parts that we had, some high-level LEDs that we were working with as a panel, which is very similar to what we have today, and a control box that ran out of an old synthesizer that we had. And that was just what we were working with at the beginning, because we started this very small as a private company. Now, from there, we started producing our early model of the UltraSlim itself. It doesn’t look like it does today, and that was before we got FDA cleared. We would’ve started producing devices in 2012. Now, we produced our devices for quite some time, but in 2014, the FDA changed its standards and wrapped our classification of technology, low-level light therapy, into their classifications, switching us from being a perfectly fine cosmetic technology to suddenly being a medical device. Now, how we were made aware of this at that time is that they sent us a warning letter that indicated that we were now violating their new standards and had to recall every piece of technology in the field and then get FDA cleared if we were looking at moving forward. It was definitely a scary time for us as we had quite a few devices out in the field, and we wanted to make sure that we did right by our providers. They paid for this equipment, and we were gonna make sure that they had something available to them.
So, we went back to the lab for a year, set up a voluntary recall with our providers, and then started working on the new technology, which is a lot like what you see today. That was the Photonica Professional that was finally cleared in 2015 for Code GEX. When that happened, we replaced every device that was in the field already with the new FDA standard technology, which is not an easy thing to get through. Every part is rigorously tested. We had to entirely redesign it from the ground up and make sure that it passed all of their standards including just packing standards, device standards, touch voltage, everything you could possibly think of. They made sure we jumped through those hoops to make sure that every single patient was safe and secure with the technology that we were producing. So once we were able to do that, we replaced every single device in the field.
Now, over time, we were looking at ways to improve the technology. We saw some limitations, not so much from a result standpoint but from a business standpoint. There were some major limitations we ran into with control of the technology for providers, unauthorized use by their own staff members, and difficulty in tracking usage. So, in 2019, we started working on the UltraSlim Digital, which is the model that we have today, that allows for an entirely touchless approach to the technology for it to be activated from your phone and have a full portal where you have complete tracking over use of the technology, and additional data can be gathered to help the individual locations business. That’s been a big change that we’ve had over the years on that technology, and that’s why I think it’s really important to always work with technologies that are FDA-cleared or FDA-approved. These technologies go through an extremely rigorous process and are much safer for patients overall. It’s something that we have to go through, and it’s a large exposure to work with these technologies because not every single company is gonna go through the process we did to recover, become FDA-cleared, and then get back into the field.
Absolutely. So, we think it’s really important that people have a healthy level of skepticism when approaching any type of technology. That’s part of the reason that we provide demonstrations either onsite or here at our manufacturing facility where we’re able to show you the technology on your own body or members of your team, staff, or family so that you can get a firsthand experience. We have so much confidence in the technology and so consistently produces that we take care of the stay for providers who are looking at adding this to their practice, because we know if all they’re looking for is to see if the results are there, we can show that to them 100% of the time.
Dr. Landry: Hey, what’s up guys? Dr. Jeremy Landry with KC Laser-Like Lipo in Olathe, Kansas. I’m really excited to talk to you guys today about UltraSlim. UltraSlim is a non-invasive laser-like lipo device that we’ve wanted in our practice now for several years. Several months ago, we were blessed to get our first device, booked out a lot faster than what we thought we would, had some great success, got a second UltraSlim device, and now we have plans of bringing more UltraSlim devices into the clinic. I’m really excited about this video because I wanna walk you guys through and show you how the machines work, what types of results to expect, why UltraSlim is considered to be one of the better if not the best device on the market.
Now, according to Ward Photonics, which is the manufacturer of UltraSlim, they state that UltraSlim is the most powerful non-invasive laser-like lipo device in the United States, and it has been now for several years. It’s also FDA-cleared. Not very many devices on the laser-like lipo spectrum are FDA-cleared. So, they went through and got their FDA clearance. Most devices are made in China and other foreign countries. UltraSlim has no BMI restrictions. If you’ve gone in for a liposuction consultation or a CoolSculpting consultation, more times than not, people get told that they’re not an ideal candidate because they’re still too large. They have too much body fat that they need to lose first before they can use CoolSculpting or liposuction or other radiofrequency procedures. But no BMI restrictions with UltraSlim, so whether you’re small and have a couple of spots to lose, or maybe you have over 100 pounds to lose, most patients can do UltraSlim treatments.
And a really neat benefit of UltraSlim is that it’s powerful enough to tackle visceral fat. Visceral fat is the high-risk belly fat that’s back behind the abdominal muscle wall. This is something a lot of us men struggle with, some women as well, but men, we’re the ones with the beer bellies. And the more fat you get back there in between the liver and the kidneys can cause fatty liver disease, it can cause blood pressure to elevate, and it’s considered to be very high-risk fat. So, with UltraSlim, we can actually hit that visceral fat. However, I’m still gonna recommend healthy exercise. Those are always ways to increase the fat loss of visceral fat and body fat as well.
So, what Ward Photonics did when they got their FDA clearance, they had multi-site clinical trials. They had a total of 58 patients, male patients, female patients, all shapes and sizes, there were smaller patients, larger patients. And what they did on women is they measured three spots on the belly and then one spot on the hip, one spot on the thigh. With men, it was four spots on the belly, one spot on the chest. And they did a simple 32-minute treatment, which is called a WaistBuster treatment. So, they did eight minutes on the front, they did eight minutes on the back, and then eight minutes on each side, and they measured immediately afterwards. And what they found was 3.5 inches of fat loss, on average, during that 32 minutes. That breaks down to 54 ounces of fat, which is 1.6 liters. And so, I have 1.6 liters of pineapple juice in here to kinda show how much fat, on average, was draining out during those 32-minute treatments. The most they found was 10 inches. The least amount was an inch and five-eighths. So, obviously, those who are larger tend to see more fat drain out. Those who are smaller, just have a couple of spots, are probably gonna see less fat. But again, the average out of 58 people was 3.5 inches. But then, during the following 48 to 72 hours, they found another 1.2 inches of fat loss. Fat cells tend to stay open for an additional two to three days after a treatment, which is why it’s always so important to stay hydrated, get in a workout, or if you have something planned, you know, the next morning to go and work out, do it, because the more you do healthy eating, exercise, it accelerates the results.
Now, the treatments are really easy to do, and I’m gonna demonstrate this. So, I’ve got five pounds of fat sitting here on the table. We’ll pretend this is a patient lying on their back. And I’m gonna turn this on. It’s really, really powerful, bright red light. It’s at a specific frequency wavelength and very uncomfortable to look at. We do give patients goggles if we’re gonna have it anywhere near the face. But what we would do is just lower this down right over the midsection, and about the only thing the patient’s going to feel is just the warmth of the light. Like, you can really feel some nice warmth from it, and you’ll kind of feel that warmth just radiating out of the tissue. And again, there’s no skin cancer risk, there’s no UV light, there’s nothing that’s gonna cause skin cancer. But we put it about 6 inches away, and we let it run for eight minutes. Now, if we’re doing visceral fat, we do 20 minutes on the belly, shuts off after either 8 or 20 minutes, and then we have the patient go face down. We do eight minutes on the backside, and then eight minutes on the right side, eight minutes on the left side. And then the patient will lie there and, you know, take a power nap, you know, play on their smartphone. And again, the only thing they really feel is the warmth of the light. The treatments are very, very comfortable.
Now, we get asked all the time, where does the fat go? And this is according to “The British Medical Journal.” Whether you eat healthy, exercise, or do laser-like lipo treatments, the process is the same. Fat drains out of the fat tissue, so there’s no destruction of the fat cells. The fat drains out. The fat cells get smaller in size. Kind of looks like a water balloon, if you could poke, you know, 100 different holes in it, water would squirt out everywhere, and the balloon just gets smaller. That fat goes into the lymphatic system. You absorb the fat, break it down into water and carbon dioxide. So, roughly 84%, you breathe it out as carbon dioxide, 16% breaks down to water, you pee it out, you sweat it out, some goes out in your stool. So, once the weight is gone, once the fat leaves the body, it’s gone, just like with any other healthy eating program or diet that you’re doing or exercise program. But if you go back and start eating a lot of unhealthy foods, tons of fast food, too much ice cream, too much craft beer, whatever it may be, you can create more fat and put it back into the fat cells again. So you do wanna keep up the healthy lifestyle. But this is a way to help most patients see some quick inch loss without any downtime, discomforts, and the treatments being really, really comfortable. So, to learn more…
All right. So I have to admit, it’s weird watching myself on camera, but I hope that gives a nice simple explanation. I actually shot that video for patients. So I tried to shoot that on like a fifth-grade level, so sorry if I made it sound a little too simple. But the treatments are really, really easy to do, and it really is that simple. And Judson, anything that you wanna throw in?
Judson: I think you did great with it, and I think that direct customer approach to it is always one of the best ways to be looking at things, and we have that nice balance between the two. So, it’s always good to see. Now, I know that’s one that you’ve run in your area, and I assume that you’ve talked with more than a few of your own patients about their thoughts on that video as well.
Dr. Landry: Yeah. Yeah, we’ve had a lot of patients watch the video, and one thing I’ve done over the years is I created a YouTube channel because we get a lot of the same questions, you know, all the time. And I love, you know, talking to patients and helping patients, but it does get a little old when you get the same questions. And so we started shooting kinda like just FAQ videos, and that was one of ’em that we shot, and it has quite a few views. And so I’ve also found too something that’s worked really well in practice with all the different technologies we’ve used over the years, if you can get your new patients to go on, like, your YouTube channel or your website and watch some of those videos before they come in, they’re well more qualified and more likely to start services with you as well. They know what they’re coming in and what to expect with it. So, something I encourage all providers watching this, even with chiropractic services, get on camera, put it right there on your website, they get to know you right away. It’s, you know, KLT, know, like, and trust, and the more they know, like, and trust you, the better the patient they’re gonna be and they’re most likely gonna accept care.
Judson: Wonderful.
Dr. Landry: Yep. All right. So we’re gonna roll into a little tutorial video. All right. So I’ll kinda walk you through. So we shot this here a couple of weeks ago and just kind of, like, how simple it is to actually do a treatment with clients. And so what I was demonstrating here is where we measure. And so, on women, we do three spots on the midsection. So, one up high, one in the middle, one down low, one on the hip, and then one down on each thigh. And then men, four spots on the midsection and one across the chest. We always recommend female clients, and we have, technically, in our clinic, I don’t do the treatments, I have technicians that do this and some weight loss coaches, but we recommend bra and underwear for most of the female clients, and then men, they can take their shirt off and have on gym shorts.
Now, you do want whatever parts of the body that you’re treating to be exposed, and so you wanna make sure the belly’s exposed or the thighs are exposed. We lower it down. I mentioned in the last video, we put it about 6 inches away. We’ve actually started doing about 1 to 2 inches from the client to get a deeper level of penetration with the light. Since we started doing that as well, we have gotten more noticeable results and better skin tightening. But yeah, eight minutes on the belly, like we just showed, then we go on each side for eight minutes, and then we have the client go face down. We can get the back. We can get the glutes. And like I mentioned before, really the only thing they feel is the warmth of the light.
Most people take naps I’ve found from what my technicians have told me and my weight loss coaches, and even when I do treatments, I typically lay there and take a 20-minute power nap. I always do 20 minutes on my belly just to work on the visceral fat. And actually, kinda the standard protocol we have in our clinic now is we have every single patient just do the 20 minutes on their belly and then the 8 on the back and the 8 on each side. You can tackle all parts of the body where there’s body fat. You can do the thighs, the glutes, the calves. You can do the face, the neck, the arms. We’ve kept it pretty consistent, really just doing the WaistBuster treatment in our clinic or the Mommy Makeover, but you do get some clients that wanna hit different parts of the body.
Now, I know and others, it depends on the laws and regulations and the state that you practice. So in Kansas, we’re not allowed to do this, but in other states, you can do the non-invasive breast reduction as well. Breast tissue is fat tissue, and most women have fatty breast tissue. There can be some muscle there as well and just mammary tissue, but it does work well on non-invasive breast reduction. But, you know, check your local laws on that before you start advertising for it.
Judson, anything you wanna interject?
Judson: That’s definitely something that we’ve seen a really great result with. On average, we’re seeing about a cup size reduction, which is really unique and a lot less impactful to the patient. We find, overall, this is something that really is effective for the patients without causing a huge impact on their body that could be, you know, negative. I think that’s one of the biggest things about the technology is that there’s no pain, there’s no discomfort, and they’re able to see results immediately. And, you know, at my own clinic, we get a lot of excitement from that, particularly as we combine it with metabolic weight loss programs that allow them for greater long-term results. And it also means that, on those programs, we have a way higher level of compliance because patients get excited by their initial results and are more likely to continue with the program because they’re feeling encouraged, excited, and energetic after the treatment.
Dr. Landry: Yeah, 100%. And a common question I get from a lot of providers that I work with and do consulting, you know, do we do anything on the nutritional side? And my answer is 100%. Like, I highly, highly recommend just about every client that you work with, even if they have five pounds to lose, you need to do something on the nutritional side. People are inflamed, there’s a lot of systemic inflammation, gut issues, if you don’t have, you know, a healthy microbiome in the digestive system, it can make weight loss extremely difficult. So, I’ve always recommended nutrition all across the board. The key is finding the right nutritional company that actually gives you, you know, super high-quality products. There’s a few good ones out there, and actually, after this webinar, if anybody has questions on that, I can give them some direction. But yeah, much better compliance with nutrition.
Judson: Absolutely. We think that that’s a big necessity for the long-term success of our clients, which is why we’re actually providing, for this quarter, a set of nutritional programs with the technology that we’re sending out so that new providers are able to get started right off the bat. If they don’t already have an effective weight loss program in place, we’re gonna be providing them with kits so they can get started and use that in conjunction with the UltraSlim so they can get that immediate visceral result and start helping their patients train better long-term habits to maintain their results and improve their health overall.
Dr. Landry: Yep. Yep. All right. So, I know we had some, like, some questions here. Who wants to ask the questions and start running through these?
Rick: I’ll start us out, gentlemen. Thank you for that. It was extremely informative. We’ve been collecting some questions, and if you in the audience have additional questions, please click the chat icon and type them in. For Dr. Landry, will you tell us a little bit about the field you specialize in and how you got started?
Dr. Landry: Yeah, So, like most chiropractors, I started out as a chiropractor, just doing chiropractic adjustments. About a year into practice, I realized, you know, a few things, to keep people out of pain long-term, you really have to focus on getting rid of the chronic inflammation. Most people tend to have that systemic inflammation. Secondly, and this is kinda the white elephant in the room, as Americans, most of us are overweight. At one point, I was 30 pounds heavier, living on soda, fast food, you know, just not taking care of myself. But before the pandemic, 73.4% of Americans were classified as overweight according to the CDC. Now, since the pandemic has happened, I would argue that’s probably 8 out of 10 Americans. But I found, to keep people out of pain long-term, they really have to start losing some of the weight. And so that’s kinda where I started doing nutrition. And I had a buddy up in Pennsylvania that had a really successful nutritional weight loss practice. So, rather than reinventing the wheel, he consulted with me and kinda took me under his wing, and we kind of just did in our practice what he was doing in his practice. The nutritional part took off, and like I expected, patients were a lot healthier and happier, and I didn’t have to see them as often. But on the financial side, I realized I had walked into something that was going to be not just life-changing for my clinic but for my family, because I was working, no exaggeration, you know, 55, 60 hours a week in the clinic, not to mention working on the clinic, you know, doing all the marketing and advertising. And I started realizing like, “Oh my gosh, I can meet with somebody for an hour and make the same amount of profit that I was making, you know, working six or seven hours that day in the clinic.” And then that kind of morphed into meeting Judson’s dad, Terry Ward, and getting introduced into the non-invasive laser lipo, and then it just took off from there.
Rick: Thank you for that. And a question for Judson, can you elaborate a little on what UltraSlim does and the science behind it?
Judson: Absolutely. So UltraSlim, of course, we have three primary focuses that we work on, which is the reduction of pain and inflammation, the reduction of fat, and the improvement in the representation of collagen within the skin. In our case, we’re able to effect an immediate result. With just an eight-minute exposure, we’re able to break down that protective layer on the outside of the lipid droplets and allow triglycerides to start being broken down into energy that’s able to be used by the body. What we’re really doing is accelerating a natural process within the body and just forcing the body to work much faster than it normally would, essentially tricking it into thinking that’s in a state of famine. And then over the next 72 hours, it’s able to rebuild that enzyme, and it’s able to return to normal function. So, we’re able to provide an immediate result, have the fat removed permanently from the body without causing any damage right there. And the way that we’re able to do that is with a particular wavelength modulation and power intensity that we’re using with our technology. It just breaks down that outer layer without damaging any of the surrounding tissue or breaking down any other major processes.
Rick: Thank you for that. And a question for Dr. Landry, can you tell us a little bit more about your practice and the services you offer?
Dr. Landry: Yeah. So I have a business partner, Dr. Joseph Anderson, and we have two clinics. We have Kansas City Laser-Like Lipo, that’s, obviously, our weight loss practice, and then Olathe Chiropractic. And again, Olathe is the city that we practice in, a suburb of Kansas City. My business partner runs more of the chiropractic side of the clinic. That’s something that we’ve always…we wanna keep it going. He also does nutritional weight loss, does a lot of the consultations. My strength is more on the nutritional side of the practice, running the weight loss business. So, we’ve kind of divided and conquered. And so he runs that part, I run the other part, and I love it. And I think the biggest thing for me is I’ve always been more of a workaholic, and when I was working, you know, 55, 60 hours a week, running more of the chiropractic side and keeping that as my focus, it led to, you know, marital problems, not being there for my wife and my kids. And so, besides wanting to get people out of systemic inflammation and wanting them to help lose weight, I knew I needed to find some other, you know, revenue service to bring in more income to where I could kinda step more away from the clinic. And so that’s what I’ve done.
I started out actually with a different non-invasive laser lipo device. I met Judson’s dad, Terry, and that’s where I really started learning about it, but my same friend up in Pennsylvania had met with another company, and actually, you guys bought out that company about a year and a half ago. So, kind of a small world. They were also FDA-cleared and had great success. And I had more friends getting into UltraSlim. Actually, I had a buddy out in California that had four devices, and I finally took that leap of faith about a year ago. But moral of the story, I work 20 hours a week in the clinic, maybe 23 or 24 hours, depending on the week if I feel like it. It gives me more time to work on the business, to work on the marketing and the advertising. But, like, right now, I’m here at Ward Photonics, out here in beautiful Cocoa Beach. And I get to travel with my family, and we get to go on cruises. It sounds maybe kinda cliche, but I would say UltraSlim has saved my marriage, which is crazy. There was definitely a rough patch that we went through as a family, and to have that flexibility now to see patients get results, but to also be able to step back from the practice but have it thriving financially, it’s amazing.
Rick: Thank you for that. And we’ve got a question that is a toss-up for the two of you. What do you charge for a treatment?
Dr. Landry: So I’ll go first. In my clinic, we do what Ward Photonics recommends. We charge $500 a treatment. We give some slight discounts, You know, marketing 101, if something costs $500, maybe charge $497. It just sounds better than $500. We don’t do it per treatment. I do get asked that a lot by patients, “Can I just buy per treatment?” It takes more than one treatment. We find those who have that 15 to 25 pounds to lose, incorporating some healthy nutrition with this, we do 6 treatments, and we charge $29.88. Now, if we’re gonna throw some nutrition in there, you know, we’ll charge extra for the nutritional services and some other things we do in the clinic to kind of build value and add value to it. For those who have more weight to lose, you know, 30, 40 plus pounds, we start at 12 treatments, and we do give a discount on that. We charge $4,500. But when we meet with those clients, I don’t give them two options. I don’t tell them, “Well, you can do 6,” or “You can do 12.” I give them my clinical recommendations. If I think they only need six, that’s what I recommend. If I think they need more than that, I just give them the option, 12. One thing that’s worked well for us though, I tell all my clients now, you know, let’s say they have 20 pounds to lose, I’ll tell them at the 6th treatment, “If you have, you know, a little bit more that you need to lose or you feel like you’re just not quite there yet, or you wanna skin tighten a little bit more,” we’ll give them another two or three treatments, and I always let them know that. So, it kinda adds a cushion onto the backside. And we do the same thing with the 12-treatment programs as well.
Judson: Absolutely. And at our clinic, in particular, we focus on transformations, not transactions, just like Dr. Landry’s saying here. We focus heavily on creating an overall care package that’s ideal for the patient. It’s usually based on a $500 per treatment model, but we’re not gonna do any package less than 3 treatments because it’s not gonna satisfy the patient’s needs. Our average package is gonna be closer to about $4,200 because we’re gonna be including some long-term weight loss with that, as well as the treatments, and typically do about a series of 6 depending on the patient’s needs. Some need less, some need more, and that’s just kind of individualized as you work with them. And, you know, that’s what we found has worked really well for us here.
Dr. Landry: And I’ll throw in one more thing with that. What I like about UltraSlim and what’s really transformed our practice, the other technology that we used to use, it’s recommended two to three times a week. And so you have clients coming in two, three times a week, which is fine if they’re gonna purchase extra, you know, shakes or nutrition, whatever it may be. UltraSlim is once a week. I mean, patients get amazing results at once a week. You can do it twice a week, but you’re going so much farther into the fat tissue that, you know, 4 inches on average versus 1/2 inch to 1 inch with other devices, a lot more fat is draining out and they get amazing results doing it once a week. You can see a heck of a lot more people that way as well and sell more packages.
Rick: Thank you. And a question for Judson, how do patients utilize the other aspects of UltraSlim such as reduction of pain and inflammation and skin revitalization?
Judson: Wonderful. Well, for me, the skin revitalization is one of the most amazing parts about the technology. Now, we’re gonna see it primarily used on two separate types of skin on the body. One is the face itself, which is ideal for anybody aged 40+ that may have crow’s feet, thin lines, and wrinkles that they wanna deal with, or just tightening of the cheeks and getting a fuller look. Now, what we’re able to see is our patients report looking about 15 years younger after a series of six treatments. Now, it’s three treatments a week for two weeks. So, in that two-week period, they’re able to see a substantial difference in how they look and to really turn back that clock and have that younger, more youthful appearance that they’re looking for. And that helps, you know, build their confidence and as well as it brings a lot of financial opportunities.
But something else that we’ve seen that’s really phenomenal about it is the use on the body itself. Now, this is really ideal for patients who have, you know, looser skin, which can be really common with patients who have already started a weight loss journey and gone from being particularly obese, closer to their ideal size. And what we’re able to do is we’re able to treat, and not just reduce the fat, but also tighten the skin so that you don’t end up with the hanging skin that you find very common in bariatric patients. We often work with bariatric patients who have had fantastic results from bariatric surgery but have had the unfortunate side effect of that loose skin left over from where they had overstretched their skin and then brought it back in. So instead of having an expensive and dangerous and painful procedure to cut off the skin that can leave unsightly scars, what we’re able to do is actually tighten that. I think that’s one of the really amazing things about the long-term transformations that we perform, is that you don’t see our patients with loose skin even after they’ve lost 20+ pounds, because we’re able to tighten the skin while reducing that fat.
As for the pain and inflammation, we’ve seen phenomenal uses for that in a bunch of different areas. We’ve done some interesting clinical trials focused on pulmonary inflammation to help patients breathe better, reopen capillaries that have collapsed, and really take control of their life again when they’re not able to move around as readily, as well as we find a lot of surgeons will use it as a post-surgical option to help heal and reduce pain after surgery or after injections. We also find that really common with locations that also utilize IV therapy. So, really it’s an amazing tool, and we keep on finding new and interesting ways to use it, as well as our providers keep on talking to us about new discoveries that they’re making every day working with their patients directly.
Rick: Thank you. And a question for Dr. Landry, what led you to start a nutritional weight loss practice?
Dr. Landry: You know, kind of what I mentioned earlier, just early on in practice, I wanna help people. And I think as every physician that’s out there, at least probably 99% of us, we wanna do the best job we can do for our patients. Now, in the chiropractic field, we get that stereotype of, well, once you get to a chiropractor, you go the rest of your life, or, you know, they’ll have you come two or three times a week for eight months, or whatever it may be. And so I knew I wanted to do whatever I could to just really keep people out of pain as long as possible, and I knew that would have to be from a nutritional approach. So, that’s where really the nutritional clinic started with the help of my buddy in Pennsylvania.
Now, what kind of prompted me into, you know, the red light therapy, we call it laser-like lipo, I knew I had to set myself apart from every other clinic down the street. In Kansas City and just the Midwest in general, there’s a lot of big-name nutritional weight loss businesses. Some of them are nationwide. We see ’em on TV all the time. So my message, as I was advertising and marketing on television, radio, social media, kind of gets, you know, lost with all the other ones. But in Kansas City, there’s not a ton of people doing the red light therapy or the laser-like lipo, or if there are people doing it, they’re not advertising it. So, it became that thing that really set us apart from all these other clinics, and it got a lot of people in the door. Now, the really cool thing about that, once they’re in the door, then I can talk nutrition with them. So, I have a captive audience at that point where I can be like, “Look, you have 100 pounds you wanna lose. Yes, we can help you with UltraSlim or some of our other technologies, but also, you know, you gotta focus on nutrition.” And so, for us, it became that, I guess the word would be the sexy hook that, you know, gets them in the door, actually delivers amazing results, but we can talk nutrition. And so, it’s kind of just morphed into chiropractic for me into nutritional weight loss, doing both chiropractic and nutrition, into this empire we’re building now in Kansas City where I don’t do any chiropractic, in the sense, I’m not adjusting people, but just focusing on seeing as many nutritional weight loss patients as possible.
Rick: Thank you. And another question from our audience, “Side effects. I’ve heard headaches or fatigue happen after treatment.”
Judson: I’ll be happy to work with that one. So, in our case, we don’t see any adverse outcomes. We’ve done quite a bit of testing on the technology as part of getting FDA-cleared. Now, we definitely do see that some people who are exposed to bright light may have temporary redness in the region as their circulation is increased. Some people do talk about headaches whenever they look at bright lights. You can talk to people who stare at screens all day. As far as fatigue, that’s definitely not one that I’ve heard. What I tend to find is that after we’ve dumped 1.6 liters of fat worth of energy into the body, actually, patients tend to be pretty energetic. They’re excited afterwards, and often, we’ll find that they’ll go and take that energy and turn it into something constructive right after the treatment. But we see no pain, no discomfort, and just that immediate result from the body that we’re stimulating through natural processes.
Dr. Landry: Yeah. And I’ll say what we warn our clients about, and this is so rare, but photosensitivity. And so, they’re probably gonna see some redness, like Judson mentioned, blood flow circulation, but that’s pretty normal. But photosensitivity, if somebody is on a medication that causes photosensitivity, we advise ’em, we wanna be a little cautious with it. We’ll sometimes, you know, just do, like, a little spot treatment on their arm for eight minutes just to see if anything happens. And it was funny, so we went like four and a half years because we have other technology that we use without seeing any photosensitivity, and I was having a conversation with a nurse one day, she was a new patient, and I was like, “It’s been four and a half years.” And so we get down to consultation and my staff pulled me aside, they’re like, “Hey, you know, such and such had a little bit of a rash on her belly today.” And I was like, “Gosh, dang it.” Of course, you know, I would jinx it. But it is so, so rare to see any of that.
In regards to headaches, I’ve never had a client give me feedback that they had a headache from it. I mean, obviously, it’s really bright light, you don’t wanna stare at it necessarily. If you’re doing a face treatment, you wanna have goggles on. But I haven’t heard of any fatigue, headaches, at least not in our clinic.
Rick: Excellent. Thank you. And another question, are there clinical trials to back up these findings?
Judson: Absolutely. We performed our original clinical trials back in 2014 to go and improve the efficacy of the technology before getting our first FDA clearance. During those trials, we saw that 98% of patients lost 2 inches or more, as well as we saw that the average patient was losing 3.5 inches or about 1.6 liters of fact just at that very first 32-minute treatment.
Dr. Landry: And I wanna throw in something too, because, in practice, you always wanna fall on the safe side of advertising, you know. And most of these manufacturers, at least, that I’ve looked into don’t have the clinical data to back it. I think there’s maybe one or two other companies. But for us, what makes me feel good about advertising is I can use those stats that are on clinicaltrials.gov that backs up, you know, what the machine actually does, and it keeps us safe with our advertising. Not only that, patients see it. You know, if somebody goes on our website, we have all that data on there. And it’s reassuring to your clients that, “Hey, this is backed by research.”
Rick: Excellent. And a question for Dr. Landry, how would you explain UltraSlim to new patients?
Dr. Landry: Yeah, my layman’s terms, we’re using really powerful bright light to trick the fat cells into opening. I think that’s the simplest way I explain it to clients. But like Judson had mentioned in the video, I mean, literally, it’s light at 635 nanometers, which is a very specific color of red light. Now, outside of the frequency, you gotta have the power behind it to get that depth of penetration. But yeah, the fat cells, you’ve got about 30 billion of ’em. They look like clusters of grapes under a microscope. Those transitory pores, which are the little doors and windows on the surface, pop open. The liquid fat that’s inside, which is triglycerides, begins to leak out. It collapses like a water balloon or it shrivels up like a raisin, so like a dehydrated grape. And then the lymphatic system picks up all that liquid fat, which is water, glycerol, free fatty acids. You breathe out 84% as CO2, and you pee out and sweat out the rest as water. And so once it’s gone, it’s gone, just like anything else. But if you go to McDonald’s every day, or Burger King, or Chick-fil-A, I love Chick-fil-A, I mentioned craft beer in my video, I also like craft beer, great craft beer here in Cocoa Beach, but if you’re doing a lot of that, you’re gonna create fat again and shove it back in there at some point.
Rick: Thank you. And a question for Judson, is this the beginning of a wave, or what does the future of medicine look like for UltraSlim?
Judson: Well, I’m really excited about the potential, you know, uses that we have for the technology. We’re doing constant research to see additional applications for the technology. Since we released it, we originally only had one indication for use, and we’ve been working on adding additional indications for use over time with proven clinical research to help provide greater value for our providers and give them a way wider berth of services to offer their patients that has a solid backing from the FDA and from clinical research. As I said, one of the things that we’re particularly interested in is focusing on pulmonary inflammation over the next few years, as well as my number one focus always is not just the clinical side of things but also learning more about the industry, helping more of our providers enter into this industry and finding it a nice streamlined process. So a lot of our time goes towards development of internal systems and procedures that our providers can utilize to help their businesses grow faster and steadier and continue to perform at a high level. You know, I’m hoping to see that we can make some really huge strides not just for the businesses but as well as in the way that we understand the human body over the next few years.
Dr. Landry: And I’ll kind of add on, one of my thoughts on that, just impacting the future of healthcare, especially in the chiropractic profession. I know there’s, like, you know, the diehard chiropractors that just wanna do chiropractic, you know, the straight chiropractors, and then you have the mixers, like myself, that like to incorporate different technology. But I really find, you know, the more technology you can put in your clinic that’s non-invasive, it doesn’t cause discomfort, it’s safe, I think, you know, the happier, the healthier patients you’re gonna have.
And I think most chiropractors watching this realize insurance reimbursements are probably the lowest they’ve ever been. Premiums are as high as they’ve ever been. Yeah, you can go to a cash-based practice with chiropractic, and you know, it’s difficult for some because you’re in an insurance heavy market. But, you know, bringing in that extra revenue source tends to be a blessing, at least to a lot of the clinics that I work with and help with consulting. But even if you just wanna run your chiropractic business, you can use UltraSlim to work on the chronic pain and inflammation, like Judson spoke on. So it is a great chiropractic tool as well, not just weight loss.
Rick: Thank you. And I’m told that you have a special offer to share with our audience.
Judson: Absolutely. So, for anybody that’s viewing this right now, if you reach out and you have an interest in UltraSlim, what we’re providing for everybody here is $5,000 off of whatever the ticketed price of the package you choose is, as well as, as I had said previously, we’re gonna be providing an additional 10 packets of metabolic weight loss program at no additional charge so that you can get started and get ready to start entering the market from a personal level, as well as from an immediate and weight loss standpoint.
Dr. Landry: And I was telling Judson, you know, any viewers watching this today, if you want to visit with me on how we’ve been successful with UltraSlim, I work with a lot of new UltraSlim clinics. I work with clinics who’ve never even touched anything on weight loss, let alone nutritional weight loss. Talk to me. I don’t charge for any of my services. I love doing this stuff, that’s why I’m out here in Cocoa Beach, plus, I wanted to see, you know, the beach and the ocean, but I love, love, love being out here. But anybody that has questions for me, contact me. My direct site is ultraslimprofessional.com. My number, my phone number is on there. You can call or text that number. You can shoot me an email. But I’m here to answer questions. I don’t charge for any of my services, so feel free to take advantage of me and let me help you out.
But I will say, Judson, when we got on board with UltraSlim, it’s very turnkey, very, very simple to get going. You know, we had some experience running a laser lipo clinic going into this, but the training was phenomenal, and you can implement it right when you get back from training. It really is that simple.
Rick: Great. Thank you. Our audience member, Heather says, “Thank you,” with two exclamation points, “for the presentation and answering all the questions.” And at this time, we’d like to thank our sponsor, Ward Photonics for today’s webinar. And thank you for all attending. Remember, this webinar, including our speaker’s PowerPoint presentation and the videos, had been recorded. We will alert you via email when the webinar is available online. Thank you for attending, and we look forward to seeing you next time. Have a great day.
Judson: Thank you.
Dr. Landry: Thank you.
