Daniel: Welcome to “The Future Adjustment,” Chiropractic Economics podcast series on what’s new and notable in the world of chiropractic. I’m Dan Sosnoski, the editor-in-chief of Chiropractic Economics, and our guest today is Dr. Perry Nickelston.

He’s a graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic and he’s the founder of his practice, Stop Chasing Pain located in New Jersey. His primary focus is on performance enhancement, corrective exercise, metabolic fitness, and nutrition. He’s also an advisor for the American Institute of Medical Laser Application.

He hardly needs an introduction as he’s a frequent lecturer, trainer, writer, and instructor both in the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Nickelston, you’ve been a contributor to Chiropractic Economics and a blogger on our website and we’ve followed your career over the years, so it’s a pleasure to have you with us today.

Dr. Nickelston: Thank you, Dan. It’s an honor to be on the show.

Daniel:All right. Well, let’s just jump right in. You know, you have a kind of interesting backstory. Like so many other doctors of chiropractic, you chose to enter the field as part of a personal journey. Could you tell us what led you to develop your practice in the form that it exists today?

Dr. Nickelston: Sure, absolutely. Yeah well, it’s hard to believe I graduated Palmer College in 1997, time goes by so fast. But probably, like many others, I got hurt and that chiropractic was really the only thing that was able to help me at the time. I was a very hardcore bodybuilder back in the day and you know, I was competitive and I hurt my back squatting like many people do, even today.

And I honestly, I did what most people still do. I just said, “Maybe it’ll go away,” and oddly enough, it does, but it kept coming back. And then, eventually, my training partner at the time said to me, you know, “Enough is enough, I want you to go see my chiropractor,”because I was never seeing one at the time.

And I went into him and you know, I walked out with the significant relief of pain and was hooked ever since. And it wasn’t until maybe four years later that I approached him and said, “You know, I love what you’ve done for me, and I’m really not happy in my current career choice and I’m thinking of going back to school and becoming a chiropractor. Do you think that that’s something I could do?”

And he was very encouraging and he said, “Absolutely.” And just like most people, you’d go where your chiropractor went to chiropractic college. And that’s how I ended up going to Palmer College in Davenport, Iowa. And because I got into it through bodybuilding, all my fitness and chiropractic places are located inside gyms.

So that’s kind of my business model, where I’m inside of gym locations.

Daniel: Okay. Well, you know, I picture you in person and you’re in terrific shape. So you definitely walk the walk.

Dr. Nickelston: Well, thank you very much. I mean, chiropractic definitely allows me to keep doing that. I mean, I turned 51 this year. You know, because of that chiropractic, I’ve been able to keep going all these years.

Daniel: Yeah. You know, located very close to our offices here at Chiropractic Economics magazine, there’s a CrossFit gym. And sometimes I just look through the open door and watch what those guys are doing in there and I think to myself, “Boy, hope all of you guys have access to a good chiropractor.”

Dr. Nickelston: Well, it’s really a testament to the amazing things that the human body can do. And I mean, I work quite closely with a lot of people in the CrossFit community and they do use chiropractic on a regular basis to do what they love harder, faster, stronger, and longer.

Daniel: Got you. You know, one of the things that you’re really well known for is your expertise with laser therapy. You’re, you know, one of the kind of the pioneers, really, of people who are in that specialized modality. And right now, I’ve been seeing there’s kind of a movement now where people are really focusing on what they’re calling Cellular Photobiomodulation.

Can you tell us a little bit about how you discovered laser and began using it in your practice?

Dr. Nickelston: Sure, I’d love to. Yeah, I mean, I guess, you might call me an early adopter of it. I’ve been doing it for well over 10 years now. And, you know, the technology has changed a lot over the years from when it first started, but I got into it personally, for myself because my back had a flare up at the time, and I just wasn’t able to break through that plateau, even through traditional means.

And a friend of mine was using laser and he said, “You should try it. I’m doing it on my back on myself and I’m alone.” And at that at that time, I decided to get one and I started using it on my complicated cases basically for pain, on anything and everything, really. And the results were really astounding. So, like many therapies, I started using it because it helped myself first, and then I started really looking at the technology and then purchased one.

And then, really just seeing the results that my patients and clients were having. And it’s really beautiful to see that the technology itself has come so far over the last decade with much more research going, and it’s really been highlighted a lot in some of the neuroscience books. I think Norman Doidge has The Brain that Heals Itself book or something like that one.

He’s got a couple of them but he has a whole chapter dedicated to how laser therapy is making such a profound impact on people with chronic pain, which is really, really nice to see. So, you know, things are catching up in the research world by things that I’ve been able to see anecdotally and practice for over a decade. So it’s really nice when those two worlds meet. Now, I use it all the time, every single day when I’m in the office for every single client that comes to see me.

That’s one of the biggest things that they seek me out for.

Daniel: Yeah. And to reiterate to our listeners, I’ve heard from a lot of docs that they say that if you really want to be successful offering the modality, be sure to try it on yourself and understand how it works. And so, it’s nice that you’ve kind of been on both ends of the laser, so to speak. I know there are a lot of the way that the laser works is it activates the adenosine triphosphate mechanism and it reduces inflammation, but I’ve also seen that you’re using laser also for mild facial tissue treatment.

And I’m just going to ask you, are there specific conditions where that’s where you want to go with it?

Dr. Nickelston: Yeah. I mean, I pretty much use the laser for any type of muscular or skeletal condition that comes in a monitor [SP] so that’s really what it’s cleared for, at least clinically, in the United States. But because fascia, as we know it, wraps around everything in the body, no matter where you use the laser, you’ve got to deal impact fascia, and it’s such a huge neuro sensory network into the body.

I mean, how far they’ve come in research in fascia over the last decade has been tremendous. But yeah, I’ll follow a line of fascial connection from the side of pain to many other different parts of the body. And one of the things about the laser that’s so helpful is that it massively increases vassal dilation and vascularization in the body, so you’re able to make a big impact on any area that you use the laser to facilitate whatever sequence you’re going to do afterwards.

So, for me, I always laser first and then I do my chiropractic treatments and things post-laser. It’s a really nice combination because you can think of it, and kind of like a layman’s terms, that, “I’m just relaxing things down, loosening the area up so it’s much more malleable for the things that I want to do in relationship to my manual therapy and my chiropractic adjustments.”

Daniel: Would you say that the results that you’re getting that way are comparable to what you might get with Instrument-Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization?

Dr. Nickelston: Well, they’re really two different animals altogether, honestly. And that they’re really finding that even with the instrument-assisted that they’re really not changing the structure of fascia in and of itself as it takes a tremendous amount of force to have any type of fascial deformation. They’re saying it’s more a neurosensory input at the moment.

So, the tools are very helpful for that. And then, that’s also why the laser that way. Because I have a special adapter for the laser where I can put the laser light in contact with the skin through an optical round massage ball so I can put physical pr