 I'm Letitia Sharpe and I'm here today with a very special guest to talk about brain health and some ways that we can treat some of the things that plague our society today. I would like to introduce Christopher Blackburn, the founder of TMS Solutions. Christopher, how are you today? I'm doing well. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you. I'm so grateful, really, that you've been able to take time to come today because this is such a huge issue and topic on a holistic way of treating our bodies. And it's only been really the last couple decades where we've been able to have these huge breakthroughs in brain health. And knowing a little bit more about how our brains work and how we can find out what's going on in there. So let's just start with you telling a little bit about what you've been doing. This is TMS. A lot of people, I wasn't familiar with it. And even after I was familiar with it, I didn't really couldn't remember what it was. I just knew it was something to do with brain waves and nerves. It stands for Transparenial Magnetic Stimulation. And it is based on Faraday's theory from the 1800s, where if you collide two magnets within a tube, it creates an electromagnetic pulse, which is different than what people would recognize as ECT, which is electric shock therapy. This actually utilizes the same type of energy that your body creates. And it actually goes in and fires a neuron and gets that neuron to fire. And then if you remember back in 10th grade biology class, neurons that fire together wire together. So it creates a chain reaction. And when that neuron fires, it then fires the neuron behind it and behind it and behind it. So you're getting the brain to fire and function the way that it was designed to and intended to. So it's more like a stimulation then. It's something that just kind of stimulates the nerves. It does. Yeah. When the magnets collide, it sends off a pulse. And that pulse then engages the neuron. And when that neuron engages, then it continuously fires the neurons throughout the brain. What they call a normal functioning brain typically fires those neurons fired about 10 hertz. And when there's a decrease in that neuron output, that's when you start to see some of the conditions that we're going to talk about today as well as hundreds of others. So is it kind of like when you jump start a battery in a car? I would say more like rebooting a computer. When you have a bunch of windows opened and then you go in and restart, restart everything, just sort of reboots, reboots and then engages the energy again. Okay. So one thing that we discussed that I have a little bit of confusion on is you're saying that when you do a brain scan on somebody and say one part of the brain is operating at a certain level and another part of the brain is operating at a different level, how does this therapy help that? So the treatment takes place over 30 days. And over that 30 days, it actually trains the brain and gets it to fire and function again the way that it was designed to. So over that 30 day time period, all of those neurons that were firing at less than 10 Hertz, then engage back up to 10 Hertz. Does that make sense? Okay. So it's kind of like when we have three radicals in our system and we aren't like full of our key energy. I'm speaking in the language I know. And then say we get Reiki or we get, you know, some other kind of energy work in our key or even just sunshine and nature, then our key energy is like refilled and then we can operate more optimally. Is it similar to that? Or it is. It is. Yeah, absolutely. And what does it like? What does it look like? Do they shave your head and put no? No, it's completely non evasive patients drive themselves to and from treatment. The coil, it sort of looks like a paddle and it's concave and convex. So you can actually use it on soft tissue as well. So there's been a lot of work in chronic pain for on the soft tissue side. But the paddle just sort of fits on your left or salateral prefrontal cortex when you're treating something like depression and you go in and you locate the motor strip. And then once you locate the motor strip, you send one single pulse to the motor strip. And what you're looking for is a twitch in the contralateral thumb or forefinger. And when you get that twitch, then you increase or decrease, you want to find the lowest amount of energy that will get that contralateral thumb or forefinger to twitch. Once that occurs, then you move the paddle about 5.5 centimeters anterior. And then that's your area of treatment for depression. And the area of treatment for depression is about the size of a silver dollar. So you have a little bit of movement there. And then once you engage those neurons, then over that 30 days, then they start to all increase up to, they titrate up to about 10 Hertz, which is what we're looking for. And so it can go right over your hair. You can go out to lunch afterwards. You don't need to like take nap or no, no, you can drive yourself to and from treatment. You know, the first few days, we often ask recommend the patients take like an Advil or something. And I always sort of refer to it back in, you'll remember this being from Colorado when you went back to school and you didn't get to wear shorts anymore. And you had you had to put on jeans. And usually we all wore Levi's at that time. And they sort of rubbed your legs. After a little while, your body gets used to that. So after about the third or fourth day, it doesn't bother the patient. And actually, they actually want to engage it because it's really the first tool that fixes something like depression as opposed to putting a band-aid on it. I'm not knocking antidepressants, but the efficacy of TMS is significantly greater than prescription medicines. It's FDA approved, it's covered by Medicare, it's covered by all insurance companies. When we got started, there were about 30,000 lives covered. And by the time we finished with insurance companies, there's over all insurance companies now covered over 300 million lives. Wow. Wow. Oh, that's great. So it's an actual. Okay, so that gives me another question. What about, does it happen over in time? Like, is it accumulative? Like you get your treatment every day? You do. The FDA protocol is five days a week for six weeks. And there are some patients that need a reintroduction over time. Some patients want to come in and just do what they call maintenance and get two treatments a month. And some patients never need to come back again. Our very first patient back in 2014 has been completely in complete remission since then with one round of treatment. Wow. So, and that's for six weeks. How long did the treatments last? The treatments, we usually schedule about 45 minutes. Once the patient comes in, they get comfortable in the chair. And then the technician places the paddle in the area that the physician had mapped. And the treatment itself is about 15 to 20 minutes. Okay, so I guess that's all the technical stuff. What, let's talk. Okay, so we talked a little bit about depression. I know, and I'm not saying that I know it's probably not okay to say that it heals certain things for whatever purposes. But I know several instances where people were having suicidal thoughts and maybe they hadn't ever acted on them. Then they had this treatment and it was phenomenal. It just, it changed. They never had another thought like that again. And like, how could that be? Like, it's just your brain just doesn't... It's life-changing technology. It really is phenomenal. When we have a patient that is in suicidal ideation, if we treat that patient for, do three treatments a day for two to three days, they, after three days, they're saying, I don't know why I felt like that. I have no desire to be in that position again. It's, it really is life-changing technology. It's, yeah, it really is changing lives. And that's that brain health part that just we didn't have access to before. Do you have to get a brain scan? You have to have a brain scan before you do it? Or is it just kind of like trigger point therapy? Suppose like, these are the patterns and, you know, that's what we kind of follow unless our body tells us different. Right. We know, we know the different areas of the brain that, you know, that engage. For instance, that we're treating the trailhead to the limbic system. So the trailhead that we are treating, it goes deep down into the brain where things like the serotonins are released. But again, it's, it's engaging those neurons to actually fire and function to get those deep, deep in that limbic system to be functioning correctly. So here's kind of a technical question because you said that insurance covers it, but I'm not so sure that many people who are having these thoughts, like maybe they don't express them out loud. Like maybe nobody knows that they have those thoughts, but themselves. How would you, like, what kind of a prescription does somebody need in order to be able to get help with this? And do they have, I'm hoping that they don't have to actually, like, have attempted or something like that. You know, a lot of patients that are, that are having that type of suicidal ideation have been suffering from depression. And they are familiar with, with, you know, a lot of the folks are familiar with, with their particular friend or family member or colleague that has suffered from depression. So I think when someone is suffering from ideation, it sort of at times just goes along with the depressive diagnoses. And it's unfortunate, but I think a lot of people suffering from major depressive disorder have those thoughts. And so what, would you say, I mean, do they go to their psychiatrist? Can they go to a psychologist? I mean, psychologists don't prescribe. So does that have to be an MD? We don't, you don't even have to have a referral. If some, we do a psych evaluation with a psychiatrist and make sure that there are no contraindications and make sure that the patient is a viable patient. When we got started, there were, there were requirements by the insurance companies and Medicare that the patient had to fail for antidepressants and being in top therapy. And over about a five year period, Medicare recognized that the treatment was safer than prescription medicines. And the efficacy was so much more significant that they reduced the requirements from four antidepressants down to one and unlimited lifetime treatments. So it, you know, when, when you recognize something like that is, it's significant. Unlimited lifetime treatments? So if a patient, if a patient responds to treatment, then, and they have another, another depressive symptom or another time that they're depressed, they can come back and get treatment again. Wow. That's like such a blessing. Absolutely. Softened. That really softened my heart. And I mean, I think that depression is just a close family member to anxiety, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Is that a different part of the brain? When we treat anxiety, we treat the right prefrontal cortex and we treat that with a single pulse instead of a rapid pulse. When you're treating depression, you're, you're sending rapid magnetic pulses, about 40 pulses per second with, with a burst of four seconds. So when we treat, and you're at 10 hertz, when we treat the right prefrontal cortex for anxiety or even PTSD, we treat that at one hertz and we treat at one pulse per second. And the interesting thing that one of the areas where we stand out as a company from other TMS providers, we were the first, and I believe the only civilian group to get the Department of Defense protocol, I can't, at the time we were, I don't know if other groups have gotten it or not, but when we were treating those veterans, we were treating their depression and then we were treating their PTSD and doing what's called bilateral treatment, treating the left and right side of the brain. And what we recognized with those patients is we saw a 17% increase in their response and remission rates. So now we treat those, those all of our patients with bilateral treatment with, you know, no additional charge or anything like that. And then the other thing that, that is important is there was about 17% of patients that didn't respond. And when we take those 17% of patients that didn't respond, and we give them another 10 to 15 treatments, 95% of those patients responded or remitted. Oh, good. So yeah, you stayed the course. Absolutely. Yeah, the course. Absolutely. I think some people get a little frustrated at a physician call me who's going through treatment the other day and said that, you know, they've been in treatment for two weeks and it wasn't working. And, you know, we, I, the way I explained it to her was that you don't stop surgery halfway through, you know, you really need to stay and complete the 30 days of treatment. Yep. That's, I mean, and that's an important part too, even when we are doing non-surgical, when we're doing non-invasive treatments, sometimes they are, you know, they take a little bit longer. And what I like to tell all of the patients that I work with is, well, I mean, how long did it take for you to get that not? Absolutely. How long did it take for you to continually, you know, reinforce this, you know, shoulder issue or this hip issue or whatever? Well, and it's the same thing with patients with depression. Most of our patients have, you know, failed 15 to 20 antidepressants. And typically those span out over decades. So when we talk to the patient about coming in for treatment, they say six weeks, but then you recognize that in six weeks, the chance of responding or remitting is so much greater than that of another antidepressant. There was a study done called the STAR-D study and they followed 4,000 patients through four different trials of antidepressants. And what they found was that the first time a patient takes an antidepressant, they have a 28% chance of efficacy. And by the time they've failed three antidepressants, they have less than 7% chance of efficacy, which in modern medicine is just ludicrous. So these patients that have, you know, been on three medicines or they've either titrated or changed the prescription or augmented with the second or third medicine, they are just going through the, going through, I sort of, I don't want to say it's a crapshoot, but it really, the doctors are trying to figure out what is best to use. Right. Not to mention what it does to the rest of your body. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. So when you, you said something about pain management with this therapy, do you put that on the brain also or does that go on different parts of the body? No, on soft tissue. For instance, my mom had sciatic it and couldn't walk up the stairs. And we treated her sciatic nerve with it. And, you know, she, I think she had three or four treatments and was out walking again. My college roommate had plantar fasciitis. We played soccer division one soccer together. After, after treating that, he was out running again. So it's, it's, you know, all it's, it, the, the body, it has all these little neurons in it. Each one of those neurons has a little battery pack. And sometimes when we have pain or something that it just needs to have that battery recharged. What about like, say, maybe an internal pain, like say internal intestinal pain or stomach pain. And you don't really know, maybe the doctors haven't found where that's coming from. Yeah. Those things. I wouldn't want to speak out of school with that until, you know, there was the study studies done or something. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, the pain inside is, you know, is what we've treated is, is a nerve and then muscles. But as far as an organ, I would be a little reluctant to. So I think it, yeah, maybe it goes back to what you were saying, like when the nerves start operating in a healthy way, then the body knows how to heal itself. Right? Right. Yep. Absolutely. I shouldn't mention that when I talked about the efficacy of the antidepressants, I should talk about the efficacy of TMS. Our response rates are about 80%, meaning there's a reduction in symptoms by 50% or greater. And our complete remission rates are over 50%. So when you consider that after decades of antidepressants, that's pretty significant. And over a six-week period. It's like, yeah, that's a breakthrough. It's massive. So in this show, we, I feel like our listeners and our viewers find comfort in their own healing through a sharing about our vulnerable, our vulnerabilities and our healing. And I know that you've had experiences in your life that may have created some sort of, you know, stress and PTSD. And I was wondering if you feel open today to talk about that in a vulnerable way and let us know, like, your experience and how you were brought to TMS. Sure. Absolutely. I was a field operative doing ground intelligence work in the former Yugoslavia young. I was recruited at 19 years old and trained for several years and then was over there during the Balkan Wars and saw horrible, horrible things. The genocide was going on. Really what took place when Yugoslavia was broken apart was the people in power really became a state-run mafia. And when I came back, you know, to survive in a situation like that, you really sort of cut off all feelings and emotions. And it's a survival mechanism. Well, when I came back, I had a family and I never wanted any of that to surface, you know, if I had a bad dream or if I had night terrors or anything like that, I just continued to push it down and push it down. And then at one point, I was a single dad for quite a few years and never wanted my kids to see that. Well, when they left for college, about a year later, all of that sort of started to surface. And I didn't want to sleep. And for about 18 months, I was sleeping, you know, 15 to 20 hours a week. I'd go walk, I'd go read, I'd do anything I could just to stay awake so that I didn't see that. And it was brutal. And in September of 2022, I found myself on a Saturday sitting on my couch, just sobbing thinking I can't continue to live like this. I'm so exhausted. And I did, I called back East and they flew me out on Monday and gave me some of the some of the tools to compartmentalize some of that. But also they recommended TMS for PTSD. And I ironically, you know, for whatever reason, always trying to help everyone else and never utilize the device when I should have. So I did go through a round of TMS and I still do. I'll continue to get a couple treatments a month. And it does, it helps to be able to recognize and keep yourself in a good spirit and recognize when things are starting to go a little bit A wire. Thank you. Thank you so much for really opening up and sharing that. And I mean, I feel like that can give our viewers hope also that there's something out there. I mean, at one point you're just like, I don't know. I don't know how I'm going to do this anymore. And what I find fascinating is your tool was right there. How long had you been working with TMS? Years years years. I started the company in 2014. And again, it's just, you know, I think people suffering from depression are the same way. They can't recognize how to get the help that they need. And I mean, I had worked with hundreds of veterans. And we have a contract where we can treat veterans anywhere in the United States as soon as we open up. And it just wasn't registering. And part of that is, oh, I can deal with it. I can deal with it. And then again, you find yourself just in that position of being so broken down and exhausted that you can't function. Thank you. Thank you. That's really, I mean, that's even that's healing for me too, because I've been in situations in my life where, yeah, I just didn't even share those thoughts with people and had to find my way out. And if this, the more that this treatment is publicized and gotten out there, I mean, the more that people know that there's an option for them to be able to at least try it, you know? Yeah. And I know there's a documentary that you were a part of what was the name of the documentary so that maybe people can look it up and see. That documentary was on trauma and it was called Quiet Explosions. Our patient during in that documentary was a two-time former NFL Super Bowl MVP winning quarterback who had, he grew up in Canada. Of course, has had, God knows how many concussions and was in suicidal ideation, was violent, was self-medicating and, you know, after treatment, he actually sent two of his family members in for treatment and started a foundation. He no longer has suicidal ideation. He's, you know, thriving in life and, you know, thanks us every time we see him and has been a spokesperson for us in the Pacific Northwest. Beautiful. Yeah. I love that. So Quiet Explosions, he said. Is that right? Yes. Quiet Explosions and you can find it on Netflix or Amazon or something or? Yeah, it was on Netflix. I haven't, I have not watched it for a little while, but it was at one point on Netflix. In 2020, it did win an International Film Festival award as being the most important documentary of the year. And, you know, it had not just athletes, but women who had a cadet at Annapolis who had been raped. And another lady who was in the military, the same thing had happened to her. There were a number of different incidences of trauma that they highlighted. Thank you. Thanks for sharing. Just one last, is there any, maybe choose, of course, no names or anything like that, one situation or one patient that really stands out to you that maybe you could share to help identify? Ironically, our very first patient was a woman in her 50s, had depression for decades. She was on six high dose antidepressants, mood stabilizers, anti-anxiety medicines, was self-medicating, had suicidal ideation, and actually had attempted to commit suicide earlier that year. Her PHQ-9, which is a measurement for depression, it was a 27, which is as high as you can go. When I was talking to her and her husband about the treatment, she just sat and sobbed, stated, you know, she was typically in bed all day. And long story short, over a two-week period, she started to drive. She had not driven in months. And at the end of that six weeks of treatment, she'd had her hair done, her nails done. She was exercising three days a week. She'd read three books. We were able to get her off of those six high-dose antidepressants and mood stabilizers and anti-anxiety medicines that had such an effect on her systemic side effects. And we were able to keep her on one low-dose antidepressant that didn't have the side effects. And, you know, she's just been thriving, no longer self-medicating. Her husband came in three months later with tears in his eyes and came over and gave me a big hug and said, Chris, we took our first vacation in 15 years. And when you hear something like that or a little 85-year-old lady who called me the day after Thanksgiving and said I've had the best Thanksgiving I've had since I was a little girl. And, you know, when you hear that and you recognize that the technology is working and that it's changing lives, it just motivates you to work that much harder. Yeah. And I feel like that, I mean, of course that's heartwarming and it puts a smile on my face and in my heart. It's just, it also really speaks to quality of life, right? They can get back to their quality of life. Yeah. Well, that's what was bittersweet about that 95-year-old lady was that, you know, she had been suffering since she was a teenager and she got a few good years left where she was happy and, you know, feeling like wanting to live. And it was, it was bittersweet to recognize that somebody had suffered that long without being able to get treatment. Right. But it's here and it's available. And your website is www.tmssolutions.com. Is that correct? Yes. Great. And I mean, no matter where people are in the United States or in the world, actually, they can contact you and maybe you can help them get in touch with somebody close to them. Absolutely. Absolutely. When we first got started, we were helping, we had a strong web presence, stronger than the device companies. And I was helping a gentleman in Australia who was a war correspondent, get help for his tinnitus. I helped a lady in New Jersey who, we fought for insurance all the way to the New York Department of Health and she wasn't our patient and ultimately got 325,000 lives covered because of her. And, you know, absolutely, I would be thrilled to be able to help anyone. And if you want to give my email address, it's Christopher at tmssolutions.com. So it just doesn't go to one of the, off, you know, one of the other email addresses on the website. Okay. So Christopher at tmssolutions.com. And that goes directly to your email. Thank you so much Christopher for just for showing up completely for having a full heart, mind, body, spirit, presence in all of this. It's people like you that really help us all lift higher in the vibration of, you know, our shared existence and lives together. So thank you so much for taking the time to come on. I really appreciate your kind words. Thank you so much. Thank you. And thank you to think tech Hawaii, all of our sponsors and our donors. If you like this show, please like and subscribe and you can get more of these conversations. Appreciate every single one of you. And please go if they happy, healthy and whole life until we meet again. Aloha and Mahalo