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RR oger Gibson's surgicalwound stretched fromhis sternum to his

pelvis when it "dehisced."That's medi-speak for 'openedup.' Doctor Randy Merrickspreads his thumb and forefin-ger about two and a half inch-es apart to demonstrate thewidth of this gaping slit inRoger's belly. He uses thesame measure to show its

depth. Then he holds hishands about 14 inches apartto demonstrate itslength….dehisced downthrough the skin and fat to themuscle. Roger says it lookedlike "two pieces of steak lyingin my belly." It was ugly.

The usual treatment forsomething like this is to "packand pull" with sterile gauzewhile the body gradually fills in

rent standard of care for family medi-cine…because it would be irresponsibleand possibly harm the patient." But theexciting possibilities for laser are bothpromising and seemingly limitless.

"We're at the tip of the iceberg with thiskind of technology," continues Dr. Merrick.

In other parts of the world, doctors areusing laser therapy to treat diabetes andheart disease. "They started laseringthem, just putting the things right overtheir heart and built new blood vessels.Angina went away. How cool is that?" hequeries, adding it was done "without thebypasses and all the drugs."

He's talked to doctors who have treat-ed stroke victims with laser, resulting in80 percent recovered brainfunction. "It gives us an ideaof the plasticity and the abil-ity of recuperation." He'stalked to an Israeli surgeonwho has watched, through amicroscope, severed nerveaxons actually close the gapin terrorist bombing victims.

But it is still a tough sell inthe U.S.

On a closet door in thecramped lunchroom atMerrick Family Medicine andLaser Therapy are tapedseveral checks fromAnthem. One check is fortwo cents; another is for apenny. Someone hasscrawled the words, "Wework for peanuts," under-neath one of these insults.The irony of it all is not justthat Anthem refused cover-age and spent 42 cents to mail theseworthless pieces of paper, but that it willpay much much more for an inevitablesurgery that might have been healed witha light at a fraction of the cost.

"It's so new that a lot of people in theinsurance industry, Medicare, Medicaid,they don't even know what it is," shrugsDr. Merrick. "We have to charge for itbecause insurances won't pay. So it's allout of pocket now." Still, at $45 per halfhour session, it's a bargain if you arefaced with carpal tunnel surgery such asMary Ellen Bruno faced recently.

Thirty one years of repetitive stress asa dental hygienist is what did it to her. "Ireally thought I was going to have to giveup my career because I did not want tohave that surgery and I had seen toomany horror stories." She points to the

machine. "I said to Dr. Merrick once, 'If itwas a person, I would have kissed it.'"Debby Hanny chimes in, "I think one ofthe hardest things about this is to managepatient's expectations, because we're soenthusiastic about it."

As Dr. Merrick sees it, "The problemthat it's going to be, to bring this intomainstream medicine, is the willingnessof the allopathic world to think out of thebox, without relying on the scientific stan-dard which is the double blind placebo-controlled crossover studies that aredemanded by medicine to prove that any-thing works." And the allopathic world,which is the regular traditional communityof physicians in this country; they are the

ones who control the Federal DrugAdministration.

"It goes back to what I keep callingenergy medicine," says Dr. Merrick."Acupuncture is a way to tap it. Laser is away to tap it. There are people who canactually transfer energy through theirhands. We call them touch healers.People laugh at that." He pauses and cor-rects, "Don't laugh at all. It works. And if aperson has the knowledge and power todo it, they can do it…I am looking lateral-ly to my colleagues in osteopathic, chiro-practic, homeopathic, nature-pathic,physical therapy, massage therapy, allthese others because they're healers aswell. And they have a lot to teach me. Ihave a lot to learn from them."

And they too may have a lot to learnfrom a light that heals.

It’s not magic, it’s SCIENCE

A LIGHT that healsPart of laser therapy involves placing a red-lightemitting diode over the affected area. Laser therapyis painless and has no known serious side affects.

Photo by Phil Audibert

A typical treatment involves three devices: one diode that emits red (visible) light, the second, an infrared diode, emits invis-ible light, and the third, known as the 3B (demonstrated here) focuses penetrating infrared light. It is painless, but becauseit is stronger and invisible, eye protection must be worn.

Photo by Phil Audibert

Part of laser therapy involves placing a red-light emittingdiode over the affected area. Laser therapy is painless andhas no known serious side affects.

Contributed photosBefore, during and after laser therapy, after only five treatments.These photos come from a power point presentation that Dr.Randy Merrick uses to educate others about Low Intensity LaserTherapy (LILT).

Actually it's a light...a cold laser. Anotherterm that could be used is photo therapy. You

might even call it high-tech acupuncture, exceptinstead of needles, you use photons.

For many, it is a miracle.

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the gap with granulation tissue…a process thatcan take 15 to 20 weeks. "We had it closed intwo and a half weeks, skin to skin with very lit-tle scar," says Dr. Merrick.

That's just one story. How about the patient,the one they call "the living miracle." He had asacral ulcer big enough to swallow your fist thatRegistered Nurse, Debby Hanny says is theworst she has ever seen. "You could see rightdown to the bone," she shudders. That too hashealed and even more significantly, thepatient's damaged spinal cord is "responding."

Just ask Don Waugh who came back to workjust three days after he broke some ribs. Or,Frank Walker, ask him how soon his left handreturned to normal size after a Copperhead bithim. Or ask his wife, Bernice who suffered ter-ribly from sciatica. "I am pain-free," she testi-fies. "It's not magic; it's science."

Actually it's a light...a cold laser. Anotherterm that could be used is photo therapy. Youmight even call it high-tech acupuncture,except instead of needles, you use photons.For many, it is a miracle.

When you use the word laser, images of ared-hot, focused beam of light boring throughanything and everything come to mind; some-thing the Borg would use to carve up theEnterprise like a roast. This is anything but.

"A lot of people are scared," says Mary EllenBruno, one of Dr. Merrick's laser therapists."'Am I going to get zapped? Am I going to feela lot of pain?'" they ask. She reassures themthey won't. "It feels like putting a nice warm hotpack on you."

What they're doing at Merrick FamilyMedicine and Laser Therapy in Orange is notradiating you, but sending pulses of red (visi-ble) and infrared (invisible) light to the affectedarea. And for some reason, in most people, theaffected area heals.

Doctor Merrick tries to explain it as simply aspossible. "In our cells are little organelles calledmitochondria…the analogous cell in plant cellswould be the chloroplast. As a matter of factthey are about the same size…The mitochon-dria have photo receptors in the membranesthat can accept photons," he explains. And forreasons not entirely understood, these photoreceptors stimulate the cell to produce a sub-stance known as ATP.

"If we shine the right light at the right wavelength at the right power to the cell, we will seeexcitation of that chemical in the mitochondrialmembrane that will then generate ATP," contin-ues Dr. Merrick. In layman's terms, ATP caus-es cells to "get off their duff and do what theyare supposed to do…So all the tissuesexposed are going to wake up and do theirthing whatever that thing is that they do;whether it's build bone, build cartilage, buildblood vessels, serve as a nerve, serve as a

muscle cell…So, this is not magic; this is sci-ence."

The problem is, it does not lend itself well tothe U.S. medical community standard for test-ing. But still, laser therapy has proven itself towork. "If we're going to deal with evidence-based medicine, there is evidence that itworks," says Doctor Merrick, confidently."Wounds and acute injuries are almost 100percent responsive." Even in what he calls"chronic hard nuts" such as arthritic joint prob-lems, he has seen an immediate improvementin 10 to 15 percent of the patients on their veryfirst session, with another 50 percent to 70 per-

cent experiencing improvement over thecourse of several treatments.

That leaves 5 to 10 percent who do not seeimprovement. Dr. Merrick thinks that has some-thing to do with the machine's preset wave-length. "My theory is those outliers, the 5 to 10percent who don't respond to laser are proba-bly outside of that wavelength, and if I couldchange that wavelength, I would capture themtoo."

Low Intensity Laser Therapy (LILT) is not theend-all, cure-all. "I can't work on tissue that'snot there," he warns. If you've got bone rubbingon bone in your knee, you need a kneereplacement. But if there's still some cartilageand synovial fluid in that joint, "I can actually

get the cartilage stimulated to resurface thebone. That's huge, and that's been shown tohappen."

Dr. Merrick also quickly adds that in patientswith what are known as deteriorating condi-tions, "you helped the cells out, but you'regoing to still deteriorate over time …So you dotune ups like you would change the oil in yourcar."

Dr. Merrick has noticed something else…evi-dence that cells may share bio photons. Forexample, when he treats for psoriasis on bothelbows and knees, he'll treat only one spot, yet,"it disappears on all four limbs." And he has

noticed, "a patient will say 'you know, my neckfeels better since we've been working on it, butI feel better all over. I generally feel better,'which is a phenomenon that we often hear. Andthat's probably because of that shared energyissue, that this bio photon can travel."

Undergoing laser therapy is so non-eventfulthat many patients fall asleep. Yours truly vol-unteered for three treatments to alleviate shoul-der pain that dates back to an injury on therugby pitch many years ago. I was 18 and fool-ish enough to think I could put a Welshman onhis butt without the benefit of pads. To this daymy right shoulder is a little lower than my left.

So I gave LILT a try. Armed with a diagnosis,the computer designed a protocol, and a

strange looking contraption called a diode wasplaced over the affected shoulder. There it satand glowed for a specified amount of time.Then, Debby Hanny moved it and set it to goagain. A rather pleasant sensation of warmthpermeated my shoulder. When it came time toput the second diode on, the infrared one, I feltnothing. In fact some patients summon thetherapist and say the machine isn't working.The final stage of the treatment involves wear-ing protective goggles while the therapistshines a focused and more powerful beam ofinfrared light to penetrate deep. Again, you seeand feel nothing.

After one treatment, I slept all the waythrough that night because the pain was gone.It came back, but to a lesser degree, and afterthree treatments it had significantly subsided,but not disappeared. The problem here may bethat this is one of those "chronic hard nuts."After all we're talking about a 41-year-old injuryhere. Also, patients typically require more thanthree treatments.

When you come back for your second treat-ment, laser therapists Debby Hanny and MaryEllen Bruno will ask you some simple ques-tions: Did we make you feel better? Did wemake you feel worse? Or did we make you feelabout the same. If you answer 'yes' to the firstquestion, they leave the dosage alone. If youanswer 'yes' to the second, they will lower theexposure, because sometimes it can causeminor soreness. A 'yes' answer to the third,they will raise the exposure level.

It's interesting to read the patient directivesthat they send home with you. For wounds, theyrecommend not doing most of the traditionalthings, such as treating topically with anti-bac-terial salve and swaddling it in bandages."Leave the ulcer open to the atmosphere,"reads one directive, "that the wound be allowedto be exposed to the air, as long as it's cleanand relatively moist." Another says, "Relievethe wounds from pressure and irritation suchas padding, dressing etc," and don't be smoth-ering it with goopy bactericides."Pharmaceuticals locally, intravenously andorally applied should be avoided as much aspossible," it concludes. Dr. Merrick explains thatantibiotics "may impair some of the normal cellfunction," and anti-inflammatories impede thebody's natural healing process.

There are no known permanent or seriousside effects to laser therapy. However, "Wedon't laser cancer tumors and we don't laserfetuses." (This makes perfect sense; the lastthing you want to do is wake up cancer cells)"Everything else is fair game and we can do noharm," he continues, "but those are the twothings that we don't know whether we do harm,so we don't do it."

He also says he will not go "outside the cur-

It all startedwith ahorseOOne day Randy Merrick noticed a

German friend of his treating alame horse with an odd looking

device. He asked what he was doing andthe friend replied, "I am healing zee ten-don."

Widely used today in Europe, the tech-nology actually stemmed from the develop-ment of laser surgery in the Soviet Union.This is the smoking hot beam that cutsthrough anything. "The cut a laser willmake is not only cleaner but it cauterizes asit goes, just a real handy tool," points outDr. Merrick. "But these wounds healed 10times faster than a scalpel wound. Why?"

Well, it turns out, "Something's going onwith that scattered light. It was that red andinfrared light that was hitting the tissuesfrom that laser. In other words the scat-tered light was low intensity as you movedaway from the hot light."

A couple of years later, a Hungarian sci-entist named Endre Mester ran an experi-ment to see if low-level laser exposurewould cause cancer in mice. He shaved thehair on the mice, exposed them to the light,and found that not only did they not devel-op cancer, the hair grew back on the testmice more quickly than on an untreatedgroup.

One thing led to another. They startedtreating for diabetic ulcers that no one elsecould heal. Now, the technology is widelyused in Europe, Japan, China, and Canada."The United States is behind in this wholescience." Doctor Merrick buys his BioFlexlaser equipment from Toronto-based,Meditech International Corporation.

He arrived at laser therapy from twodirections at once. Upon graduating frommed school and completing his residency,he set up his family practice in Orange, not

a dozen miles from where he was born andraised outside Gordonsville. For the past 20years, he has earned a reputation as anuncannily intuitive and accurate diagnosti-cian. He has also been highly dedicated toalleviating suffering, working closely withHospice of the Rapidan, making the lastdays of dying patients as pain free as pos-sible.

"I've beeninterested inpain my entirecareer," saysthe good doc-tor. "The rea-son is the suf-fering ofhumanity." Helooks up andasks the ques-tion, "Whatbrings you tothe doctor?It's pain,right? It's ano-brainer. "Then he asksa n o t h e rr h e t o r i c a lquestion, "Ifwe are willingto treat thedying for painthey cannotstand, whyshouldn't webe treatingthose thathave to liveh o r r i b l echronic pain?"

Ironically,Randy himselfstarted suffer-ing chronicacute pain inhis neck, the kind of pain he was trying tohelp "manage" in others. "I was in horribleshape," he rues. He tried everything: chiro-practic, physical therapy, injections, "and Iwas talking to neurosurgeons, and one ofthem was saying I'd have to fuse you (thecervical spine) on one level, and anotherone was saying I'll have to fuse you onthree levels. And I went, 'Ahem, let methink about that one gents.'"

He went to San Diego to learn aboutlaser therapy from a Dr. Leonard Rudnick.And in the process of learning about it, hewas treated for his neck problem. "After fivetreatments I was 75 percent better. Thepain was leaving my arm. The numbness

was leaving my hand…and then after fivemore treatments, 95 percent of my painwas gone."

Randy Merrick wears many hats.Protected and adored by his employees, hehas a tendency to overextend himself.Although he won't take credit for it, hefounded the Free Clinic. He is also Orange

C o u n t y ' sM e d i c a lE x a m i n e r ,W o o d b e r r yForest's physi-cian, and heteaches visit-ing med stu-dents fromVCU, his almamater. Activein many phil-a n t h r o p i ce n d e a v o r sfrom the Boys& Girls Club tothe RescueSquad andG r y m e sSchool, he isstill focused oncontinuing hisfamily practicein Orange. Notlong ago,Randy won astanding ova-tion at theInternationalL a s e rConference inToronto.

"I'm happywith the hatsand I'm happywith my life,"he says whenasked if he'll

expand his laser therapy clinic to othercommunities. Not willing to give up hisfamily practice, he is encouraging others toopen clinics. Just recently his older brother,Gordon established Albemarle LaserTherapy in Charlottesville. Something saysboth brothers will have their work cut outfor them as word catches on about LILT.

"It is the future of medicine," says Dr.Merrick with deep commitment. Heremembers Meditech's President and CEO,Dr. Fred Kahn asking him a question once."'Randy, why are you talking about manag-ing pain when you can cure the conditionthat's causing the pain? Which one wouldyou rather do?'"

Photo by Phil Audibert

The laser therapy team: from left to right, Mary Ellen Bruno, Dr. Randy Merrick, and DebbyHanny. Sometimes patients, like Mark Bruno (seated) just fall asleep during the painlesslaser therapy process. The squawking chicken in the corner alerts therapists that treatmenttime is up.

Photo by Phil AudibertDr. Randy Merrick was born and raised in this area. Hecame back as soon as he finished his residency toestablish a family practice in Orange.