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Lessons From the NFL

Lessons From the NFL

Julian Whitaker, MD

Terrell Owens, celebrated All-Pro wide receiver, had a banner year in 2004. His team the Philadelphia Eagles went 13-3-0 that season, and he averaged a touchdown catch per game. Then on December 19, T.O., as his fans call him, sustained a severely sprained ankle and fractured fibula that required surgery.

His doctors estimated his recovery would take 16-18 weeks, and it looked like he would be watching the February 6, 2005, Super Bowl from the sidelines. However, he shocked the football world by announcing that he would be ready to play. Sure enough, just six weeks after his injury, T.O. was a starter in Super Bowl XXXIX. Although the Eagles lost to the New England Patriots, he had a great game with nine receptions for 122 yards.

How could this athlete defy the predictions of his physicians and cut his healing time by two-thirds? His miraculous recovery can only be explained by the use of two extraordinary therapies.

The Body Electric

One of these modalities is microcurrent therapy. This treatment delivers extremely low-frequency electrical impulses that stabilize and energize injured tissues. The rationale behind this therapy is somewhat foreign to those who think of medicine from a mechanistic, biochemical viewpoint. However, we’re more than a collection of tissues and organs. The human body, like all living things, is electric! Every thought, sensation, and movement require electrical impulses. Interrupt these, and you have a problem.

It’s easy to see how injury would disrupt the body’s delicate bioelectrical field. But you may not realize that there are therapies that balance and energize these electrical fields to rapidly facilitate healing, cell growth, and tissue repair. I suspect that the failure to recognize this is one of the biggest gaps in modern medicine’s approach to healing.

Frequency Specific Microcurrent

A number of therapies harness the healing power of bioelectricity. Acupuncture corrects its flow in the body. Orthopedists use electrical stimulation to accelerate the healing of fractured bones. Neurologists employ it in nerve regeneration. And TENS units (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) and microcurrent are proven therapies for pain.

The microcurrent apparatus used by Terrell Owens and by patients at the Whitaker Wellness Institute is called Frequency Specific Microcurrent (FSM, also simply referred to as microcurrent therapy). It’s a passive therapy. You simply sit or lie in a recliner while targeted, exceptionally low currents—so low you can’t feel them—are transmitted to strategic locations via electrodes. The premise behind FSM, according to leading authority Dr. Carolyn McMakin, is that all cells and tissues have unique electrical signatures, and when these specific frequencies are delivered to affected areas, healing occurs.

The results speak for themselves. T.O. received his first FSM treatment only hours after his surgery and continued treatments for an hour a day, six days a week for six weeks. By the time Super Bowl Sunday rolled around, he was fully healed and pain free.

Ordinary People, Extraordinary Results

You don’t have to be an NFL superstar to reap the benefits of FSM. At the clinic, we have had success treating a wide variety of pain syndromes. David’s diabetic neuropathy was so bad that when he arrived, he was hobbling on a cane and relied on his wife for support. After his treatment course he was able to walk the mile-and-a-half from the clinic to the hotel on his own—and he tossed out his cane for good. FSM relieved Lorraine’s fibromyalgia after all other treatments had failed. Emma reports that she can now walk without constant pain, and Velma said, “This therapy has relieved the pain I have suffered for 20 years.”

Targeted frequencies have also been identified for virtually all tissues and organs. For example, we have FSM protocols for everything from gastrointestinal disorders to insulin resistance to anxiety, and in the three years we’ve been using FSM, it has rapidly become one of our most highly rated therapies.

FSM works so well that many of our patients chose to continue this therapy at home, either with a practitioner in their area or with an at-home microcurrent device. Bea noted, “I was skeptical at first, but after 25 treatments, I was convinced I definitely needed a home unit.”

Dynamic Duo

The benefits of microcurrent therapy are multiplied when it’s coupled with other modalities. Terrell Owens also gives due credit to hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). In fact, he actually has a hyperbaric chamber in his home. (He’s shown it off on TV.) After his surgery, he moved his chamber into his living room and began using it on a regular basis, and he believes it contributed to his unprecedented recovery.

HBOT is the delivery of 100 percent oxygen under increased pressure. When administered in this way, oxygen concentrates in the tissues and staves off infection, reduces inflammation, and improves blood flow to injury sites. We have been using HBOT at Whitaker Wellness for more than 12 years to speed healing of injuries, wounds, surgery, brain trauma, and burns, to mention just a few of its many uses.

T.O. is just one of a growing number of professional athletes who recognize the benefits of FSM and HBOT. Both therapies are used by a number of national football, basketball, and hockey teams, as well as by motocross pros and Tour de France cyclers. Here’s what former NFL linebacker Bill Romanowski, perhaps the most outspoken proponent of alternative therapies, had to say in his autobiography about HBOT, “…I kept wondering why these machines were not in every NFL training room. …[These] teams are missing a critical device that could help rehab their $85 million-payrolls.”

He went on to say that HBOT is “a new frontier, machines that athletic trainers did not learn about in school.” The same can be said of FSM—and of physicians. Broader use of these therapies could reduce overall health care expenses and improve patient outcomes. But don’t count on your doctor to tell you about them. Do your own research, seek out treatment, and get started on the road to recovery today.

Recommendations

  • To learn more about receiving treatment with microcurrent therapy or hyperbaric oxygen at the Whitaker Wellness Institute, call (866) 944-8253.
  • For information on purchasing a microcurrent home unit, call (800) 810-6655.

References

  • Curtis D, et al. The efficacy of frequency specific microcurrent therapy on delayed onset muscle soreness. J Bodyw Mov Ther. 2010 Jul;14(3):272-279.
  • McCraig CD, et al. Controlling cell behavior electrically: current views and future potential. Physiol Rev. 2005;85: 943-978.
  • Romanowski B et al. Romo: My Life on the Edge. HarperCollins Publisher, New York, NY. 2005.

Modified from Health & Healing with permission from Healthy Directions, LLC. Photocopying, reproduction, or quotation strictly prohibited without written permission from the publisher. To subscribe to Health & Healingclick here.

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