Ellen and I use quite a number of devices and contraptions to support our efforts at keeping well. I thought it might be good to generate a list of what we use and what we use them for to give the newsletter readers self-support options in their own lives. Most of the stuff we use I bought off Amazon. Amazon does not allow product links to be put into email newsletters, so going to the web version of the newsletters Here will provide the links to the products we bought. These links also provide us with a 7% bonus if you should use them. 

By popular expression, everyone's favorite tool is the Jeanie Rub vibrator. This is what I use on each of you at the end of your treatment in the office. Its shape and size significantly affect how it does what it does. All vibrators jiggle the tissue to stimulate blood flow and lymph flow. Bringing fresh blood in brings oxygen and nutrients to help heal the tissues. Stimulating lymph flow helps push the toxic waste products out of the area. But I use the Jeanie Rub for completely different reasons. The large surface area of the Jeanie Rub stimulates massive numbers of mechano-receptors in the skin and muscles. These are specialized nerve endings that tell the brain how tight the muscles are and the position of the joints. When slowly moving the Jeanie Rub over the whole back, this acts like white noise to erase the old pattern settings in the brain so that it will adapt to the new positions I have created through my corrections with the Activator adjusting tool. Additionally, by moving the Jeanie Rub at a speed of less than 1 inch per second I stimulate the Vagus nerve which induces relaxation. It feels good, but it also helps the adjustment hold better.

Sometimes I use a percussor tool. Unlike a massager which forms orbital circles of motion in the same plane as the skin, a percussor pushes in and out into the muscles very rapidly. This tool is suitable for breaking up spasmed muscles to allow blood to flow into the affected area. These are becoming very popular home therapy tools. Mine came with a variety of impact attachment heads to produce different shapes of stimulation. 

In keeping along the same vein of home therapy, I recommend a guasha tool for working on old scar tissue and adhesions. When you injure a muscle or tendon, the body lays down a fibrous glue to hold things together. Ideally, the scar is temporary and later slowly replaced by new healthy tissue. Unfortunately, this frequently does not happen. In the early stages, the glue is supposed to be broken up by normal motion. But if the damaged area is immobilized to aid healing then this scar tissue gets stiff and hard and permanent. A guasha tool is for breaking up this scar tissue. Rapid strumming of the scare tissue with the edge of the guasha tool for 15 to 20 seconds will break it up bit by bit. You do not want to get too vigorous as you will create unnecessary pain. Just do a bit at a time to gradually break down the scar tissue.
 

Another fabulous tool for treating tissue injuries is a focused red LED light at the frequencies of 660 nm and 850 nm. I first learned about using these frequencies of light while I was back in college at UC Davis. The veterinary school was researching low-level lasers to treat horse fetlock injuries with great success. Lasers became all the rage back in the '90s for Chiropractors to use to treat joint injuries. But then more research came out showing that there was no difference between using a laser and using a regular LED for your light source. This made treatment at home easy, as anyone can buy a home LED treatment device. I use 2 types, the focused torch type  and the wide-angle flood lamp type, depending on the area being treated. Ellen uses the torch type for treating her sinuses and teeth while we both use a full-body flood lamp panel  every night to treat everything before we climb into bed. I have recommended using a regular flood lamp type  to various patients to spot-treat knees, necks, shoulders, and low backs. With this type, 8 minutes is usually the right length of treatment. The torch type is stronger and treatment is usually limited to 3 minutes. Interestingly, if you treat too long you reverse the benefit and get nothing at all from it.

While we are on the subject of light therapy, another type of light therapy we use 3 times a week is an ultraviolet irradiation panel. This light is specifically designed to stimulate our skin to produce its own vitamin D, just like spending time out in the sun. Why not just use the sun you say? Well, that is a great idea for the summer half of the year. But in the winter half of the year, there is not enough ultraviolet reaching the earth in Sacramento to do any good. Plus this gives us much better control of our exposure, so we can be sure not to create any burn. Why not just take supplements? That too is a good idea, and we do that as well. But supplements do not generate the pro-vitamin sulfate form of vitamin D that the skin produces, and this has a whole set of benefits that do not come from supplemental vitamin D. Our panel is called the Sperti KBD UVB phototherapy light. It is manufactured right up the road in Reno. 

Another favorite home treatment tool for all conditions is an electric frequency stimulator from Russia. I was so impressed that I was importing them at one point. Now you can find them on Amazon, so importing from Russia is no longer required. The device is called DENAS which means something in Russian that I don't know. It is like a whole emergency medical kit in electronic form. You can treat everything from headaches to tooth abscesses to low back pain to hormonal conditions. It uses different frequencies and wavelengths of direct micro-current to reprogram cellular function. Basically, it speeds up healing wherever it is used. However, different tissue types need different treatment frequencies and wavelengths. 

Ellen and I use our whole-body vibration plate for 10 minutes daily to stimulate lymph flow, exercise muscles, and build bone mass. Many studies have shown that vibration plates slow down the progression of osteoporosis and help build bone. Likewise, vibration plates provide a very low-impact way to stimulate muscle growth. Both of these are vital as we age.  Doing simple squats while on the vibration plate or stretch cords attached to it add a different dimension to muscle building. Besides, the stimulation of the circulation just plain feels good. Right beside the vibration plate we also have a wide assortment of rubber tubing-type exercise bands. Ellen pulls on these while sitting in her wheelchair to strengthen her arms. 

Along the same line (and in our living room just a couple of feet away) as the vibration plate is our mini-trampoline. The mini-tramp provides a different type of bone-building stimulation as well as really helping the circulation in the legs, strengthening the leg muscles, and providing a balance challenge. Since Ellen has had very little functioning in her left side since her stroke, we bought a type of mini-trampoline that has a balance bar to help stabilize her. 

On occasion, if either of us picks up a bug affecting our lungs, we will use a nebulizer filled with colloidal silver. If I suspected Covid, I would also add in a drop of eucalyptus oil as it knocks out the SARS virus nicely. Colloidal silver will kill most any bug that might try to colonize our lung tissue. The nebulizer atomizes the water with ultrasound waves so the water stays cool and does not burn your delicate lung tissue.  While on the subject of bugs, we found a terrific brand of thermometer that is both easy to read and only takes a few seconds to get a good under-the-tongue reading. It is the Vicks Speed Read thermometer. 

The last at-home therapy tool we use is a new acupoint stimulator. This device is for finding acupuncture points and treating them with micro-current. Additionally, the treatment head has a little laser in the tip for treating the points with the laser. This simple little tool can also be used to treat auriculo-therapy points in the ears. To be useful you would need to look up what points to treat for various conditions. However, that is not what we use it for. Real skill at acupuncture takes years to develop. No, what we use the point stimulator for is to treat just one point – the ear lobe vagus nerve stimulation point. The vagus nerve is the main communication from the brain to the organs to tell them to heal. More important for us is that it also tells the body to relax. We can treat the ear lobe in order to unlock tension patterns and chill out...very simple. In particular, when Ellen notices her diaphragm has locked up and she can't get a good deep breath, she can treat her ear lobes to open up her breathing. 


Speaking of breathing, an air purifier is also a home therapy device. The air in Sacramento always rates as some of the least healthful in the US. This produces health issues all over the body by compromising the lung barrier. The blood-brain barrier and gut wall barrier are tied to the lung barrier, and issues with any one of them affects the other two. Here is the 5 stage air purifier that I chose for our house. 

Well, scanning around the house, that pretty much covers all the therapy tools we have laying around that we actually use regularly. Yes, I have a lot of other stuff I have collected over the years, but I rarely pull them out and put them to work. Because of all the self-healing work we do, we rarely need the services of a traditional medical doctor. Ellen needed that for her gallbladder and liver surgeries and I needed that for my prostate. But aside from that, we stay pretty healthy. I attribute that to our proactive stance on health. It is our job to stay healthy and tools support this process. Doctors are for support when needed, but they are not authorities in our health, we are.

Take care,

David