Pain Care Labs
Leveraging Cutting Edge Discoveries to Reduce Pain

Our body’s capability of handling pain is as old as ice or rubbing a bumped elbow. Understanding how motion nerves block pain signals, however, only began in 1965. Blocking excessive pain posed glaring difficulties as modalities struggled with finding the right nerve or the right interrupting stimulus. Our heads turned to pharma companies for a solution to chronic pain, and they came up with opioids.

What was the problem?

Opioids are addictive, so much so that over nine hundred people die every week because of opioid overdose. An alternative solution, especially one that can be used by patients without much medical supervision, is something Dr. Amy Baxter created while returning from one of her emergency shifts in 2004.

“My hands were vibrating on the steering wheel while I was driving,” recalls Dr. Baxter. “When I reached for the door to my house, my hands were completely numb. I realized that by combining a specific frequency of vibration and ice the two different natural pain relief circuits to could block even intense pain.” Two years later, she started Pain Care Labs; within three years, she got a National Institute of Health (NIH) grant, and “ten years after the NIH grant we are in over 5000 hospitals and clinics in 29 countries,” adds Dr. Baxter.

Pain Care Labs was able to identify and patent the frequency that triggers/ stimulates the right nerve to block pain six years before the research results measuring nerve response frequencies came out. In fact, research proving the optimal nerve for neuro modulation pain relief was only published by scientists in 2017.

Their first device, Buzzy^®, was designed to control needle pain caused by chronic injections like insulin and biologics, vaccination, or IV Access. “After 35 million needle procedures had been done, a colleague used Buzzy^® to avoid opioids after knee replacement surgery.

I gave up practice to become a full time CEO. Now we have the VibraCool^® product line for post-operative pain, injury or recovery. The frequency can alleviate the pain from a restricted muscle like tennis elbow; ice or heat can be added to reduce inflammation or spasm,” says Dr. Baxter.

The efficacy of Pain Care Labs’ product range has been repeatedly demonstrated, with over 50 peer-reviewed clinical trials published by independent researchers. Two recent studies evaluating VibraCool^® after surgery were presented at the November AAPM&R meeting. In one ACL reconstruction pilot, VibraCool^® with ice reduced opioid use to 10 pills, and 87 percent of the participants were off the opioids by the fourth day. Dr. Baxter says, “this is incredibly important, because the risk of addiction begins rising on day four.” The effectiveness of VibraCool^® in reducing pain during physical therapy was compared to an industrial TENS unit by an independent researcher in Wisconsin. In the randomized crossover trial, 20 minutes of VibraCool^® without ice relieved pain 317 percent better than the clinical strength electrical unit, and for surgical pain, it was 324 percent better.

The offerings of Pain Care Labs are helping hospitals reduce the dosage of opioids, especially at a time when discharge times are shrinking. VibraCool^® is being dispensed to patients as the easy-to-learn, postoperative pain reliever that they can use in the comfort of their home.

“The physics of our technology means that there are multiple different products in the pipeline specific for a different injury, location, and use case,” informs Dr. Baxter. She anticipates that within five years, every medicine cabinet will have one or more of Pain Care Labs’ devices, and their new category of pain relief solutions will become the standard of care within ten years. Her most recent National Institute of Health Help End Addiction Long term grant incorporates PCL’s proven frequency with other frequency patterns into a new low back pain device. “We’re studying whether it can reduce opioid use for chronic lower back pain, and anticipate that this product will launch in 2021,” says Dr. Baxter.