About Us
PhotoMed Technologies, Inc
Our mission is to bring relief to people who remain underserved by current technologies.
Why PhotoMed Technologies?
By Allan Gardiner, Founder
PhotoMed and its quest to solve intractable pain and impaired functioning result from seeds planted by family and neighbors in my childhood. We spent time together as we overcame their obstacles from paraplegia, polio, and chronic pain.
My favorite uncle, Joe, was paraplegic from an accident. We went fishing and boating. Uncle Joe never mentioned being disabled.
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A neighbor, Mr. Wright, had hands like soft rubber from his polio. He taught my 9-year-old hands how to make home repairs and to do wiring. My reward was fresh cookies and milk. Mr. Wright never mentioned being diabled.
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My friend, John, had juvenile diabetes. His tomorrow wasn't a sure thing. Our conversations as teenagers may have been different from our friends who knew all the baseball statistics. John shared his gratitude each time we met. Technologies kept him from going blind at 18 but didn't relieve his numb feet. After his heart attack at 23, he made the intensive care nurses laugh because "they needed to relax".
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Each person and many others showed me problems that needed to be solved. Their hope was that someone might solve the basic problems endured by millions.
I've got to thank my dad for teaching me the value of failure. He was a research chemist. He taught me the joys of experimentation. The lesson was simple. A successful experiment is finished. A failed experiment begs new questions. Dad quipped that at least I would not be burned at the stake for making discoveries.
My first startup was central to putting the silicon in Silicon Valley. The company created measuring tools needed to make the early hard disk drives. Later, the company created tools that kept Intel, AMD, IBM and others on Moore’s Law. I successfully exited in 1998. The company successfully exited in 2000 for $320M.
My next chapter followed quickly. I was introduced to light-based therapies. The new therapy was called infrared therapy that is now called photobiomodulation therapy (PBM).
My friend Wayne's dad had diabetic neuropathy that was more complete than my friend John's. His feet were painfully cold. The coldness ended upon a few hours of infrared therapy when his ordinary foot comfort resumed.
I asked the practitioner; how did you choose the wavelength for the therapy? The practitioner Constance Haber, D.C., replied it’s the only one I’ve got. However, it was the thermal imaging of his feet that caught my technical attention. With the imaging feedback, we could make the therapy more efficient.
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Inspiration struck.
I asked, what if you could select any visible wavelength and vary it? 6 U.S. Patents have been issued.
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I formed a team to develop the inventions. The team of nerdy engineers and I didn't know that what we observed was impossible by conventional medical thinking. The anesthesiologist, neurologist, and neurosurgeon advisors were puzzled that the outcomes of the nascent therapy seem so normal. They reported that their tools didn't work that way. More data, please. The team developed sophisticated recording systems to document unpredicted events. You can see a few steps along the trek here: https://www.photomedtech.com/history
It was exciting to watch and heart-wrenching when the therapy didn't work. How could unrelenting pain from complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS or RSD) appear to vanish at the instant when cold fingers or feet began to warm? How could the same therapy improve gait and normal swallowing resume after a single session with the new variable-wavelength therapy? How could the same therapy prompt non-healing wounds to resume while you watch as fresh exudates begin to flow?
The team did as engineers do. They made models to see if any wavelengths worked "best". They found only that many different wavelengths could prompt the same outcomes. It would be a decade before understanding what the patients said from the start; I feel normal again. But how could a few photons prompt the return to normal functioning? That would take another decade to develop a model that appears to account for the observed outcomes. https://www.photomedtech.com/how-it-works
Today, the real-time recordings of unpredicted events show possibilities that open new frontiers. Like the first 4-minute mile, breaking barriers are more about other people's futures than the person who breaks the barrier. Fortunately, the events are replicable using the Varichrome Pro. Researchers can now record the next unpredicted events using PhotoMed's Instant Verification System.
I look forward to questions, comments, and challenges that may advance the understanding of non-invasive therapies to address the needs of underserved patients.
