Military Health Insurance Helps a Veteran Get Their Life Back with Dr. Matthew Bennett and Todd Davies

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket. I'm excited to share an episode that we're doing as

[00:00:05] part of a series with Mainstay Medical on treating the cause, not the symptoms. Our series on

[00:00:11] restorative neurostimulation, it's a marathon, not a sprint. We're sharing physician stories,

[00:00:17] patient stories and in this particular episode, we have the privilege of talking on the first

[00:00:23] part of the interview with Dr. Matt Bennett and he shares how reactivate fits into his clinical

[00:00:29] algorithm and how it's helping him change his practice for chronic low back pain as well as

[00:00:35] his patient's lives. The second part of this interview is with Todd Davies. He was a patient

[00:00:40] of Dr. Bennett's and he talks about how the therapy really took him from chronic low back pain,

[00:00:47] huge suffering to ultimately changing his life and even starting his own business.

[00:00:53] You're going to enjoy this two part session, so thanks for joining us and enjoy this interview.

[00:01:00] We're going to kick it off with Dr. Bennett first. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket.

[00:01:07] I'm so excited to host another episode today. We have the outstanding Dr. Matthew Bennett.

[00:01:14] He is an orthopedic spine surgeon in upstate New York. He's been doing spine treatments for

[00:01:20] 20 plus years and it takes a holistic approach to spinal pathology and spinal problems,

[00:01:26] even working in the areas of neuromodulation. We're excited to host Dr. Bennett on the podcast

[00:01:32] as part of this series. Dr. Bennett, thanks for joining us. Hey, thanks for having me.

[00:01:37] A true pleasure, a true pleasure. Look, we'd love to find out a little bit more about you

[00:01:44] and what inspired your work in back pain and what was the catalyst for you taking this

[00:01:49] holistic approach that you do? Back pain is such a huge problem and

[00:01:56] it hits just about everybody at some point. There's always been a lot of

[00:02:02] fear and apprehension in patients with back pain. Frankly, in my training,

[00:02:08] you see a lot of docs having a lot of fear about, oh, another back pain problem or what are we going

[00:02:14] to do about back pain? I just took it as this is an area where I want to explore. I want to try

[00:02:21] to do better and frankly, I think it's an area where we can do better and we are doing it.

[00:02:25] I love that. You're a great example of that. We had the opportunity to have a podcast,

[00:02:30] which by the way, folks, you guys will all have an opportunity to hear our interview with

[00:02:34] Todd Davies and his experience. There's an opportunity to do better out there. With your

[00:02:39] holistic approach, Dr. Bennett, Reactivate has a place there. Can you talk to us about how it

[00:02:46] fits into your clinical algorithm? Sure. When I first see a patient who comes with back pain,

[00:02:51] one of the first things that I'm trying to figure out is where is this pain coming from?

[00:02:56] We look at a few different types of things. We look at the way people move. We look at

[00:03:00] things that bring on their pain. We look at things that relieve their pain.

[00:03:04] We find that there are certain patterns we see in people that have got this

[00:03:08] multifidus problem. If we can identify that multifidus problem, boy, then we just try to

[00:03:14] work the process. Right out of the gate, I've got great relationships with my manual therapists

[00:03:20] in my organization and we really have a particular algorithm that we've got set up

[00:03:26] trying to help these patients from a physical therapy perspective, trying to get that neuromuscular

[00:03:31] control back. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't work and we've identified

[00:03:37] the multifidus as being a main problem, that's where Reactivate really fits in.

[00:03:43] Thank you for that. It makes a lot of sense. It's a very clear algorithm.

[00:03:47] Really, just looking at how it's been able to re-establish that mobility, reduce pain. Talk to

[00:03:55] us about how it's changed the lives of your patients. Some of these patients, it's amazing

[00:04:00] when we can actually fix the problem rather than cover it up. Typically, we're bandating

[00:04:05] problems or we're trading one problem for another. That's the story of Spine. We're now

[00:04:10] starting to get some treatments where we get to actually fix the root cause and here's

[00:04:15] one of them. It's so funny that in our training, we never really touched on how important multifidus

[00:04:22] was. It turns out it's critically important not just for us as orthopedic surgeons but even the

[00:04:28] physical therapists are so overwhelmed with how important the multifidus is and it's a little

[00:04:34] underplayed in their story too. I think once we get to treating this multifidus,

[00:04:40] we get to bring people back to normal function. It's been really helpful for those people,

[00:04:44] able to get back to the things they want to do, back to exercise, back to playing with their kids,

[00:04:50] picking up their grandchildren, just walking on a day-to-day basis without pain. There's been

[00:04:56] success stories like that that are really heartwarming.

[00:04:59] Yeah, for sure. We were sharing before we started recording the podcast. You see it all

[00:05:05] the time but for those that don't typically see patients and don't have the opportunity or

[00:05:10] maybe you're a patient listening to this. I had a chance and you'll have a chance to listen to

[00:05:15] the second part of this podcast where one particular patient literally changed his life by being able

[00:05:22] to hold his baby again. It was just such a touching story to hear that he was able to pick up his

[00:05:28] child and spend time with his child. It's game changer. When you take a look at chronic

[00:05:34] low back pain, it's super challenging. Sometimes physicians run out of options. How has reactivate

[00:05:41] change your outlook as a physician on the treatment of chronic low back pain?

[00:05:45] I've been going down the pathway of really correcting the problem. Can we avoid a band-aid

[00:05:52] sometimes? Can we really cure the problem? This just reinforces that this is a great

[00:05:57] place where we can do that. It's been really good that way. Love that. Look,

[00:06:03] one last thing here to conclude, Dr. Bennett, I really appreciate your responses and your time here today.

[00:06:09] Is that military health insurance help get this veteran's life back? Talk to us about that path

[00:06:15] to approval and most of the time there's a lot of bad speak around insurance but actually

[00:06:21] there's a lot of good happening too. Talk to us about that opportunity that you had and any

[00:06:27] advice you'd give to people either considering the approval of this or trying to get approval for

[00:06:33] their patients. Yeah, insurance is a big issue here. There are a lot of carriers that just aren't

[00:06:40] covering this particular issue. Now there are a lot that are but there are some that

[00:06:44] just believe it's too new even though we've got five years of great data. This is not

[00:06:49] experimental anymore. We've got better data on this than many things. In this case,

[00:06:54] the military was really great in identifying that they could help this man and with their approval,

[00:07:00] we were able to change his life. It was pretty easy and straightforward once we got to the right people

[00:07:06] to get it approved. Yeah, appreciate your comment there, Dr. Bennett. Look, for everybody listening,

[00:07:11] the opportunities now as Dr. Bennett mentioned, there's five-year study on this particular

[00:07:18] procedure, the outcomes, the improvement in pain, the improvement in function. There's an

[00:07:23] opportunity to do more for these patients. There's an opportunity to do more for physicians like Dr.

[00:07:27] Bennett looking to do better for their patients and certainly appreciate the shout out there for sure.

[00:07:33] Look, we appreciate your coming onto this podcast. Any closing thoughts

[00:07:38] for our listeners as we conclude our podcast today? Sure. If you're a patient with low

[00:07:44] back pain that might be multifidus related, chase this thing down because work hard.

[00:07:50] If you can get this neuromuscular reeducation to happen on your own and you can get the brain

[00:07:56] to reconnect to multifidus, great. If you can't, this is a really great option.

[00:08:02] I'd say if you're a spine doc and you're not doing this, this is a great procedure.

[00:08:08] There's a lot of good that comes out of this one and it's one that you actually treat the patient

[00:08:14] where they almost don't need to come back and see it too much more.

[00:08:17] It's really fulfilling from a physician perspective.

[00:08:22] That's great to hear, Dr. Bennett. We'll really appreciate your closing thoughts there.

[00:08:26] For everybody listening, thanks for tuning in to this episode on our series with Mainstay Medical.

[00:08:32] It's a long game. Stay with it and really appreciate your time, Dr. Bennett. Thanks for being with us.

[00:08:37] Thank you.

[00:08:38] Well, folks, that was our session with Dr. Matt Bennett. Just incredible work that he's doing

[00:08:45] and phenomenal that the military health insurance helped get this veteran's life back.

[00:08:51] And now join me in the interview that I did with Todd Davies to hear more about

[00:08:56] the particulars of how he got rid of his back pain with Reactivate. Enjoy.

[00:09:02] Today, I have the privilege of hosting Todd Davies with us. He's a former U.S. Army

[00:09:09] serviceman. He's retired. He's a father and also a husband and somebody that received

[00:09:16] the Reactivate therapy. We're going to talk about his experience with the pain, how it happened,

[00:09:21] and just some of his insights around everything that we're dealing with today.

[00:09:26] So Todd, thank you so much for being with us.

[00:09:29] Thanks. Thank you for having me here.

[00:09:31] It's my pleasure. It's my pleasure. So look, just to set the stage, I'd love to learn more

[00:09:36] about how the injury happened. And first of all, thank you for your service. Appreciate what you

[00:09:43] have done for our country. Talk to us about the injury and how that led to chronic low back pain

[00:09:49] suffering. Yeah. So initially, my initial injury, I was on my first deployment. I was in

[00:09:55] Zabo province, Afghanistan. And we were out on a normal mission one day and an IED went off.

[00:10:01] The IED itself didn't get me, but we have on the front of our vehicle some mindroller,

[00:10:07] which is just a big stone wheel pushes down on the road. And basically when the IED went off

[00:10:13] and the mindroller pushed down on the road, it collapsed it underneath us and we rolled.

[00:10:19] And in that, I ended up damaging my L4 and L5 vertebrae. But I tried to tough it out

[00:10:28] and ignore it and get back to work kind of thing. Got to the point where it was completely unbearable.

[00:10:35] I was having my wife put my boots on in the morning before I went to formation. And it just, if

[00:10:43] it got to the point like I would go to my leadership and I'm like, I don't know what's

[00:10:47] going on. I can't move. I can't walk. I can't even breathe sometimes. It feels like it hurts

[00:10:51] so bad. Unfortunately, my first response was met with while my back hurts to get back to work.

[00:10:57] So I put it off for a little while longer and then eventually I started getting in the process.

[00:11:01] So I was like, no, something is seriously wrong. And then started the whole process.

[00:11:06] Med boarded out. I went through a bunch of different options, chiropractor, acupuncture,

[00:11:12] physical therapy, occupational therapy, hydrocortisone injections, all kinds of muscle relaxers on

[00:11:19] the market, all kinds of different stuff. And they were all giving me like very temporary relief

[00:11:25] and or no relief at all. And so I was getting pretty hopeless.

[00:11:32] And I just eventually got to pain management and I saw a reactivate sticker on the wall.

[00:11:41] And that was, that's what started my journey to reactivate was just a poster on the wall.

[00:11:45] Wow. I was looking into like artificial disc replacement at the time. And that was like

[00:11:52] going to be the next step. And then I saw that and spinal stimulator ended up being around.

[00:11:58] And I was so glad I went with that route. Trust me. Yeah.

[00:12:04] Wow. And man, it's challenging, right? You highlighted just some of the difficulty

[00:12:09] and your wife helping you with your boots and just toughing it out. And just,

[00:12:14] it's just a very challenging thing for that pain, right? Dealing with that pain.

[00:12:21] Yeah. So you saw this sticker when you were in pain management. So you saw it, did you ask about it?

[00:12:28] Tell us about that. How did it go from the sticker to actually having the procedure approved and done?

[00:12:36] Talk to us about that. Yeah. I was actually in to get results read for an MRI. And so looking at

[00:12:45] the results with the doctor, essentially your muscles under an MRI are supposed to look like steak.

[00:12:51] It's supposed to look nice red and not a bunch of fat and marble. Mine looked completely calcified.

[00:12:59] The whole lower back was just all white dead muscle basically. And so from there, it was like,

[00:13:06] he basically said your nerves have been dead for so long. Your back has been injured for

[00:13:10] so long that your muscle, your multifidus muscle was not, your fast twitch muscles basically

[00:13:17] aren't activating when they need to. And so he suggested trying a spinal. He was trying to,

[00:13:24] he was calling it something different and he was starting to look it up and I'm looking at the

[00:13:28] wall and I'm like, is it reactivate? Is that what it is? And then he was, that's it. And he

[00:13:32] looked it up and we will be started going through it. And yeah, he started telling me about

[00:13:36] basically they're trying to revive my back and it's done wonders for me so far. I'm about a year

[00:13:46] out now from the surgery. Amazing. And one of the things that appreciate you share in that,

[00:13:52] we wanted to bring up on today's episode is that military health insurance paid for this,

[00:13:57] right? They approved it. They took care of this for you. And yeah, yeah, the other VA

[00:14:04] is a process in itself. The VA is, from my experience, it's hard to get the ball going,

[00:14:10] but as soon as it gets going, they take care of you. Every time that I've gotten into the VA and

[00:14:15] had to be seen for something, progress has been made. It's just getting that,

[00:14:21] getting in there is a tough start. But yeah, at the beginning. But once I got to pain

[00:14:25] management, once they referred me and allowed me to, because first I had to go

[00:14:30] hour and a half to go to a nearest military installation because I was under like tricare's

[00:14:35] jurisdiction. But they allowed me to switch to called Martin's Point, which is like

[00:14:40] a subsection of tricare basically that removed those restrictions and allowed me to go see

[00:14:45] someone local. And once I got in with the local guy, the ball really started moving. And

[00:14:51] once I got approved for the surgery, I'd say it was maybe within a month I started to

[00:14:57] see results already. So fast. And because like all the other times that I had tried things,

[00:15:04] I knew is this working a bit or is this not working? Like instantly I knew, okay,

[00:15:07] this isn't working. But with this, I was so clunked where I was walking around and my back

[00:15:13] was so tight all the time to where like I could feel like, okay, it's about to go out on me.

[00:15:19] And after I would say two weeks, three weeks, that feeling started to dissipate

[00:15:24] where I was like not having to be worried that, okay, if I sneeze right now, I'm not going to be

[00:15:30] able to walk and like stuff like that feeling started to dissipate. And I was like, oh,

[00:15:35] well this might actually, this might be doing its thing because I'm feeling it internally

[00:15:41] like it's starting to do something to me. And then from there, I my wife and I had been

[00:15:48] working on building a home gym down in our garage. And so

[00:15:52] from there I started working out again. That's awesome. And I started to bench pressing

[00:15:58] dumbbell exercises, things where I could control like isometric movements and stuff where I won't

[00:16:05] be moving my back too much. I can be under tension. But now I can do pull ups. I can do deadlifts.

[00:16:13] I can yeah, I can do it all now pretty much as long as I can still sense I can still feel

[00:16:20] when it starts to build up like it's going to hurt. So then I can I ease back and I'll stop my

[00:16:24] workout or whatever. But those are getting like fewer and farther between even now, like I'm still

[00:16:30] improving. And that's it. Yeah, really great. Hey, so this that's great progress, Todd. And

[00:16:36] I'm so excited and happy to hear how well you're doing the improvement. What would you say is

[00:16:41] the biggest way that reactivate has changed your life? Hold my kids again, definitely.

[00:16:51] I like when my son he's seven now but when he was a newborn, he was very needy at night. He

[00:16:58] always wanted to be held. And I remember nights where I just would be crying. I just couldn't

[00:17:04] hold them couldn't pick them up. And now I can I go and I play on the playground with my kids

[00:17:10] and I pick them up. No problem now. Yeah. And then hopefully this coming up next couple months or so

[00:17:19] I'm going to hopefully start working again too, which that's a big step in itself. I haven't worked

[00:17:23] since I got out of the military. Yeah, so I'm going to try to start my own business.

[00:17:28] Amazing. What do you want to do? What kind of business do you want to start?

[00:17:31] Pressure wall sheening exterior cleaning, nice,

[00:17:34] jacks, driveways, all that kind of stuff.

[00:17:36] We can love it man. That's so cool and really exciting. Really appreciate you sharing that.

[00:17:41] Oftentimes we don't think about those little things and I say little things, but they're actually

[00:17:47] big things like holding your kids, my son seven and he still jumps on me and just to be able

[00:17:53] to hold them is a joy. And we've had the opportunity to talk to other people that have

[00:17:57] gotten this therapy. Todd, I know you listened to a couple of those episodes as

[00:18:01] we were sharing before we started recording here being able to go to the grocery store,

[00:18:05] being able to work out again. Some folks doing Ironman, like how do you do an Ironman after

[00:18:11] that kind of pain and to be able to get back to work is huge. So really excited for you and Todd,

[00:18:16] we're rooting for you on our side for the people listening today, whether it be physicians or other

[00:18:22] patients, other people, what message would you share with them about what they're experiencing

[00:18:27] with chronic low back pain? I would say to at least consider it. If you have an MRI and it's

[00:18:35] showing that you have a lot of dead muscles, dead nerves, things like that, give it a try because

[00:18:43] to me, I was out of options. I felt like I didn't have any route left to try. And thankfully

[00:18:50] this worked for me. And it's simple enough of a surgery that if it doesn't work, get it removed and

[00:19:00] go on with your life to try to find another option. But I think it's definitely if I had gotten,

[00:19:05] I tell people all the time if I had gotten reactivate while I was still in the army before

[00:19:09] I had retired, I might still be in right now. Because I feel like now I could still do my job

[00:19:17] at this point. And like a couple of you told me that a couple years ago, I'd be like, no,

[00:19:21] I'm done for like there. I'm not working again the day of my life. But now just to have some of that

[00:19:28] normalness back in my life is worth it. Like I still get back pain. I still have some pain. I'm

[00:19:35] not pain free. That's for sure. But I bearable pain now to where I can function and I can

[00:19:42] will still live my life. Like I call it normal pain. Because my other pain was completely unbearable.

[00:19:52] And so I would say give it a try. Thank you, Todd. Yeah, hopefully give it a try while

[00:20:00] you're still in the military because it was never even mentioned to me while I was still in.

[00:20:05] So hopefully there's ways to get that word out to soldiers while they're still in because

[00:20:10] I had a bunch of other treatments while I was still in it. But that was not even an option on the table.

[00:20:15] So maybe if that was more possible for active duty soldiers, that might keep people in and save them

[00:20:24] from retiring early like I had to. Yeah, Todd, for sure. And we appreciate you sharing it, right?

[00:20:29] It's testimonials like yours that help spread the word on a therapy that's very effective.

[00:20:36] Maybe you didn't have to leave the military. And maybe a lot of folks, you might be listening and

[00:20:42] you may not have to leave because there is an option and thinking about leadership as

[00:20:48] leadership seeks to retain active service personnel. There's options out there to

[00:20:54] be able to help now with the reactivate therapy. So certainly something that's very

[00:21:00] exciting. And Todd, really just want to say thank you for sharing your experience with us

[00:21:06] in this series. We really appreciate that you doing this and we're excited for you,

[00:21:11] your family and your progress. Yes, absolutely. I enjoyed it. Thank you.

[00:21:15] Thank you for having me. Well, I hope you all enjoyed today's story. A former U.S.

[00:21:21] servicemen recovered from chronic low back pain. A doctor that really looked at a therapy

[00:21:29] that really helped improve his patient's lives. This is Life-Saving Care and we're excited to

[00:21:33] be covering it on the Alcoms Rocket. Thanks for joining me and until next time, we'll see you soon.