The Future Adjustment Podcast Episode 1: Josh Silver and PEMF

Audio Transcription Below

Daniel: Welcome to The Future Adjustment, Chiropractic Economics podcast series on what’s new and notable in the world of chiropractic. I’m Daniel Sosnoski, the Editor-in-Chief of “Chiropractic Economics.” And our guest today is Josh Silver, the CEO and President of Pulsed Energy Technologies. And he’s here to help us understand the exciting treatment modality of Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy or PEMF.

So, Josh, I understand you got started in this field when a company from Greece started clinical trials of PEMF in the U.S. And you know, a very common story that you hear in chiropractic is a person became a chiropractor because they had a personal experience with chiropractic that helped them when nothing else would. Many supplement makers have similar stories. People who sell therapeutic devices often say that they developed this device themselves because they couldn’t find anything else on the market that worked for them. And isn’t that kind of your story as well as you were getting started with PEMF?

Josh: That is exactly my story Dan. I never had any intention or desire or need to get into the healing world. Never crossed my mind. I always looked at Biology and Physics as a fun hobby. Some people are geared that way in their brain and they liked to do it. And that’s what I liked to do as a side thing but never thought about going into it until I had something come up. And you know, what they say, “Everyone’s opportunity is like circumstance meets coincidence.” And I think that’s what happened to me.  I worked for this company that had just come over to the United States doing the clinical trials with what we call the “Ford Model T.” The first version of the technology. And for the first month and a half, I worked at this company. I was setting up their internet, and their networking, and all that. Because in the year 2000, it’s not as simple as plugging in a couple routers into the wall and saying, “Click, click. Okay, we’re live.” It wasn’t that simple. One thing I had done in college to make extra money was wiring houses for the internet.

So I worked at this company for a month and a half, and I saw this huge 300-pound box that made this weird clicking noise, that they were basically treating little old ladies with back pain. And the little old ladies would come in with the walker and they were taking 10 minutes to walk in the door, and when they were done they were running out of the front door. They were running out the front door and they were feeling incredible. Made me go, “Huh.”Made me go, “Okay, that’s great.” But I didn’t think it could anything for me. I had a dental issue, I had a dry socket. In my senior year of college, I had my wisdom teeth removed. I had a couple of them that came in late. And when my back-left one was removed, the hole in my mouth ended up not healing.

I was a Broadcasting Major, I went to school originally to be a sportscaster. That was sort of my background. And I needed my voice, I needed to be able to speak freely and clearly. The dry socket didn’t heal. I literally walked around for a year doing this, Dan. “Hey, my name is Josh Silver. Nice to meet you. Forgive me, I’m drooling out of the side of my mouth.” I had to do that about every 5 or 10 seconds. It was a nightmare.

Daniel: Well, that would stand in the way of being a sportscaster, wouldn’t it?

Josh: It was. And I was in the middle of a Fox Santa Barbara internship. I was right at the point of making demo videos and stuff like that. And actually, I made a demo video that I showed my family and they thought I did it as a joke because of the slurping. They thought I was trying to be funny. And I was like, “No, that’s because of the dry socket.”

So anyways, I went to the dentist every week for a year and they filled my mouth with gauze, with seal, with all these different things. As you imagine, nothing sealed the wound.

So flashing forward to working for this company that had this big box. The gentleman that brought it over, sort of the kingpin that started everything in the United States was a guy by the name of Chuck Wallach. And basically, he said after six weeks, in this very deep bellowing voice, he loves me, he loves having me around. But gosh, darn it, he’s really sick of hearing me slurping everyday, all day long in his offices. So he was a 6 foot 5 gentleman, and he boxed me into a corner basically, and said, “You’re using this machine.” And just about forced me to use this technology. And two days in a row I did maybe 10-minutes sessions. Just sort of putting it on my face. And after the first session, my face was really tingly. I was like, “Okay, that’s weird. My face is really tingly.” After the second 10-minute session, I put my tongue into where the hole in my mouth had been for the last year, and the hole was gone. Sealed completely.

It was such a shocker to me and this is what really got me. All these years later that I think about it is I spent the next couple of hours with my tongue searching in my mouth for the hole because the hole could have not possibly closed in 10 minutes. It must have moved, it must have something or it’s gonna pop back open. And lo and behold, I never found the hole, Dan. It was gone and it’s still gone.

Daniel: Let me pause you. Can I…?

Josh: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah, let me pause you right there. There are several FDA approved uses of PEMF. It’s not entirely experimental, it’s been in development and in clinical trials in the U.S. When I first heard about it was in the 1970s. And treatment of bone fractures, treatment of persistent wounds that do not heal, and later on depression. So you were right in that sweet spot of the things that it’s known to be exceptionally at treating.

And also, you mentioned Chuck Wallach. And I just wanted to share with our listeners. You can go to YouTube and just type in Chuck Wallach, last name W-A-L-L-A-C-H. And there are videos of him demonstrating and introducing PEMF. The man is incredibly charismatic. He’s no longer with us, but I would strongly recommend just watching him present because, boy, was he able to make a good case for PEMF as well. And I understand that you got to work with him.

Josh: I did. I basically was if you will his right-hand man, his assistant for the last three years of the use of that technology in the United States. We clicked and connected and I got a really chance on a detailed if you will, medical level to see the application technology at its birth. And the point being is, is now I understand and I can see why it’s at the forefront of chiropractic nowadays. Because it had its roots and it had its seed 15 years ago because like you said, it was a little bit experimental. But now that we’ve had long-term clinical success where we can pick up the phone and we can ask a chiropractor in North Carolina, “Hey, you’ve had this for 10 years and you’ve treated 10,000 people. How is it on low back pain?” And his answers are less subjective than me who I’m gonna tell you how great the machine is because I happen to own the company, right?

Daniel: Gotcha.

Josh: And that is the big benefit.

Daniel: Well here’s something that we need to be really clear about is that PEMF is compatible philosophically, with chiropractic in a profound way because it doesn’t actively treat or heal itself, but it stimulates the body to martial its own healing resources the same way that the adjustment does. When you mentioned getting a treatment and you felt your face tingling, that’s similar to what the staff here at Chiropractic Economics experienced when we tried PEMF the first time ourselves. All of us who had an injury of some point and all three of us did have health issues that were nagging at us. We all had the same experience. When the PEMF wand got close to our body, the injured part started to tingle and resonate. You could almost feel like fingers reaching in and probing at just the injured part of the body. And that’s the mechanism of action as I understand it.

Josh: Yes, I mean, that’s it right there. It’s a big part of it. And you hear how I’m talking about it’s really stimulating the body to do the healing? That is why there are so many clinical reports on a wide of variety of conditions. Because it’s not like another therapy that’s curing this or healing that. It is empowering the body to do the work.

Daniel: Yeah. And that’s why chiropractors, I think, are embracing this technology because it fits right.

Josh: Yeah, what they were trying to do is to get the body to heal itself with its own innate intelligence.

And just one other thing I just wanna throw there is that what we have learned from the chiropractors in the field now is that they are getting not only just a better result with their adjustment, but the adjustment is holding longer. It seems to be enhancing what they are doing as well and that is a big benefit because if normally an adjustment resolved is 72 hours, using the machine maybe makes it 4 or 5 or 6 days which is obviously a major benefit.

Daniel: Gotcha. Yeah, and one more thing I’d like to just into briefly is that one way that you can usually be sure that there’s good science behind any kind of a healing modality is when professional athletes embrace it. Because the pro-athletes, you know, there’s millions of dollars on the line. Their coaches, their trainers, they don’t have time to mess around. If something is, you know, quasi-effective but it doesn’t achieve positive results, they’re gonna move on to the next thing. And I understand that PEMF has really exploded in the professional sports world. Isn’t that right?

Josh: It really has. And forgive me if I name drop a little bit but…

Daniel: Go ahead.

Josh: …it’s on the legitimacy of the technology not who we are. But 15 years ago, we would have never thought that the Chicago Cubs would have five machines. The Phoenix Suns would have three machines. That the Atlanta Braves players would pick up the phone on their own and say, “Hey, I used this when I was with another team. Can I buy one now for my new team?” These things that are happening and we never thought. And just to a point, is now we are actually getting the chance to work with these clubs to better improve PEMF.

And I was gonna use this platform to make a short announcement that on Saturday we’re gonna be delivering to the Chicago Cubs while there are in town to play the Dodgers. The very first of what we are calling the PEMF Recovery Suit. It is a new applicator that has a little bit designer focus that nobody’s ever done before. Instead of just treatment of injuries, they wanted exactly what you said. Something that can be more efficient and that can treat multiple things at once because time is money. So we’ve developed a suit applicator that basically they can put a player in there and systematically, take care of a bunch of issues at once. So for the very first time, we’re gonna try that on Saturday with pro-baseball team and we’ll see what happens.

Daniel: Wow. So this is like treats the whole body at one time?

Josh: Treats the whole body at one time, but also has targeted specific areas based on the nature of the sport, right? As an example, a volleyball player, a baseball player, a swimmer, and a football player. They are all gonna have three or four or five key hotspots that are different from each other. So this first one is just for baseball only, to target those spots that are key to baseball. As we go further we’re gonna develop it for football, for basketball, for other sports. That way again, you know, you get a sweet spot and you hit a home run every time with the treatment.

Daniel: Very interesting. If you will be so kind as to develop a press release from that I would love to share a photograph and a brief write-up with our readers because I think people would like to take a look at that. If that’s possible.

Josh: Absolutely. I definitely will.

Daniel: And since there’s a lot to lean here and a lot to discover, is there a website or a URL that listeners can go if they wanna see a machine and read some of the research behind it?

Josh: Yup, absolutely. You can check us out on the web, pulsedenergytech.com, it’s P-U-L-S-E-D…the past tense of an electromagnetic pulse. And you can also just Google Pulsed Energy and we will come up with a variety of different websites. We have a mobile app that has all the information you can download from Android or from Apple. We have Facebook, Twitter. We are all over social media. So I think if you just type in Pulsed Energy, you’ll find us as well.

Daniel: Very good.

Well hey, thank you so much for spending some time with us today Josh. It’s always a pleasure to talk with you. And this has been very informative this afternoon. You’ve given us a really exciting look at The Future Adjustment. I’m Dan Sosnoski, we’ll see you next time. Take care. Bye bye.