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The 'Real' Deal
Author: What Do You Do When the Medications Don't Work?
After exhausting most traditional medical options - general practitioners, large clinics, and specialists - local residents suffering from chronic pain may visit Michael Johnson as a last resort. Johnson, a chiropractic neurologist and clinic director for Apple Medical Clinic in Appleton, WI, makes use of a technological innovation called Real Eyes to treat his patients. Real Eyes is actually a scubalike pair of goggles with an infrared camera attached. Like a regular eye exam, he will test one eye at a time, observing movements. "It's the applications of this technology that are changing people's lives," he said. The technology remains more of a diagnostic tool than a treatment tool, particularly for patients with vertigo, migraines, and other chronic problems. Johnson sets up a video camera and tapes the eye movements of patients. He has them look into lights, follow a line and spin in a chair, among other exercises. Through it all, the camera records whether the pupil constricts and whether the eye "bounces," signaling that the brain is sending too many or not enough impulses. When the procedure is finished, Johnson plays back the video and discusses his findings with the patient. "It's an education tool," said Diane Miles, vice president of Illinois-based Micromedical Technologies, the company that makes Real Eyes. In a time when the public deems medical practitioners too busy to explain their conditions to them, Real Eyes works on the basis of doctor-patient interaction, she said. Helen Brown, 69, of Appleton, WI, went to her doctor complaining of back and leg pain. "They told me there was nothing I could do, I would just have to live with it," she said. "I saw an ad for Dr. Johnson and thought, 'I have no faith in chiropractors, but what do I have to lose?'" In March 2000, Brown saw Johnson for the first time. By June she hardly noticed a problem. "I was gardening, I was bowling, I started taking my walks again," she said. "I'm not saying we walk on water by any means," Johnson said. "But people are sure relieved afterward." He credits the technology for allowing detection of small movements that were "very hard, nearly impossible" to detect before. It has sped up the diagnosis process and therefore treatment, he said. "As cameras become smaller and smaller, we have the ability to mount them on people's eyes," Miles said. This replaces the need for practitioners to stick electrodes or other equipment on patients' faces, she said. Johnson, one of about 550 chiropractic neurologists out of 60,000 chiropractors worldwide, was attracted to the idea of Real Eyes because he practices "non-pharmaceutical-based neurology." The difference between a chiropractic neurologist and medical neurologist is that the latter prescribes drugs and performs surgical procedures. "There is a drug for vertigo, but it doesn't work for everybody," he said. "There is a pill for migraines, but that doesn't work for everybody either." With continuous reports of drug-related side effects, Johnson finds more patients seek natural healing. Chiropractors count as just one area of health practitioners that use the technology, Miles said. Micromedical also works with neurologists, ophthalmologists, physical therapists, and ear, nose, and throat doctors. Once Johnson makes his diagnosis based on the goggles, he uses techniques such as auditory and visual stimulation to treat conditions. Brown listened to a metronome, which counts beats for piano players. She now listens to classical music and watches a checkerboard pattern on half the TV screen a couple times a week. "These were some very unorthodox methods," she said. "But the pain hasn't come back." Several months after symptoms stopped, she put on the goggles to see the difference. "He went through it to show me what my brain was doing," she said.
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