Restoring Lives
Keywords: allostasis, allostatic loading, homeostasis, nostos, nostostasis, nostostatic, R2N, Huntington's Disease, C5/C6 quadriplegia
The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees. – Erwin Schrödinger
Allangardiner.com is under construction, formatted for computer screens, and many pages are out of date from advances in my trek from complexity to simplicity.
Preparation
My father was a research chemist who taught me the delight in experimenting without knowing the answer. And how each "failure" could lead to new questions.
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My mother taught me about caring for your neighbors near and far. I had a helping role with people having physical and mental challenges.
In college, I volunteered at, and helped build, a camp for handicapped kids of all ages in the Santa Cruz mountains.
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Uncle Joe rode a wheelchair but that didn't stop us from weekends on his cabin cruiser with his incessant leading questions.
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Uncle Fred was a civil, electrical, and mechanical engineer. He took me to job sites. He taught me the basics of solving complex problems, welding, and machining.
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Everyone asked questions that stoked my sense of wonder at the simplicity of nature cloaked in what others see as complexity.
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Nature movies and books introduced me to multiple perspectives about ordinary things.
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My parents supported my hobbies of making stuff, photography, and color printing.
Allan Gardiner
University of California - BS Mech. Eng. 1970
Professional Engineer, California M15780
U.S. Commercial Pilot, Type Rating CE-500
In retrospect, my early experiences built a foundation for inventing and developing therapies that provide relief by being like nature.
My dad gave me books about the lives of inventors and discoverers who thought differently about the world they lived in. For example, the quote from Schrödinger. Dad quipped that "at least you won't be burned at the stake" that primed me for not worrying that my discoveries would not please everyone. I am sure that he would have been excited that the therapies I have invented challenge notions about pain, neuroscience, and the business of medicine.
"Ahaa" moments that shaped my quest
I was walking, hand in hand, with a new friend who happened to have been blind since birth. We were hiking in Cub Scouts (4th grade) in nearby Tilden Park. That clear fall day was intense blue with sharp white clouds passing by the sun. The trees had a few leaves that cast shadows on our faces. My new friend, time has erased his name, asked, "I know that the sky is blue and there are puffy clouds that block the sunlight. What does blue look like?"
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I learned that some questions may not be answered. That's okay.
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I hope that I can never personally know what chronic pain feels like. Or the pain of being told, no one can help you. Or get used to your "new normal."
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I remember the night. It was a clear night punctuated by the lights of San Francisco across the Bay from my home. I was in eighth grade after I had almost dropped out of school. I couldn't keep up with my assigned schoolwork. I had to repeat classes. My friends told me that the work was easy. It was a nightmare.
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Standardized testing showed the dean that something was wrong with me. I didn't play ball sports for being clumsy, couldn't play catch, and was constantly being struck by the ball and moving objects. The dean told my mother that I probably needed glasses. We received my glasses in a week. I remember the instant when I saw San Francisco twinkling in 3D for the first time in my life.
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Suddenly photography and color printing aimed me to put 3D back into 2D with just the right blue that I could see but not describe to my friend who had never seen blue.
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I could not know then that 60 years later, a therapy (the Relaxation Mask) that I had invented prompted 3D vision to return to a women 10 years after she had gone blind in one eye after an otherwise "successful" surgery. The ophthalmologist was thrilled that her vision returned and his surgery turned out to be a success after all.
My neurologist advisor suggested that her eye had been working in 3D since the surgery, but her awareness did not come back online as it should have. This is called "learned non-use" similar to guarding to prevent pain.
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For 25 years, my team and I have mused about how so many seemingly unrelated maladies could return-to-normal functioning while you watch. Real-time recordings show chronic pain as it appears to vanish. Gone. The person switches tense from the pain "I have" to the pain "I had."
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But normal is unremarkable. Referrals dry up as people get on with their lives. Unlike a car that you still have, there is nothing to talk about despite years of being focused on the unrelenting treatment-resistant chronic pain.
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My "ahaa" in 2024 was that there is no medical terminology for an abrupt return to normal functioning that we call R2N. Why? Because the notion that "chronic" means that healing will never happen introduces a false dichotomy logical error.
Replace "chronic" with "delayed healing" to remove a false dichotomy that makes return-to-normal outcomes feel like magic or a miracle.
Parker Lapp, my linguistics advisor, and I filled the linguistic void by inventing nostostasis from the Greek nostos that refers to a homecoming after an epic journey. Nostostasis names a fundamental principle of biology: the change-of-state to return to normal functioning after homeostasis shifts to a "new normal" set point. Figure 1.
Figure 1 Nostostasis names a change-of-state when a "new normal" state of pain and impairment switches back to normal functioning. A change-of-state can occur at any time, such as during the "acute" phase. However, it is the delay and ongoing pain that makes nostostasis feel like magic.
Nostostasis lets everyone think beyond "chronic"
With the barriers presented by "chronic" out of the way, my focus expanded to reexamining hundreds of real-time recordings with the hope of teasing out common factors.
I checked out earlier concepts to find out if they might have been more broadly applicable than I had thought at the time. By 2005, a variety of change-of-state concepts were guiding the development of the sophisticated real-time recording systems. The recordings were made possible because of the short time between starting therapy and a response, if any, measured in seconds to minutes.
Figure 2 Nostostatic change-of-state events do not feel special from an electrical standpoint. A switch closes and a light comes on. The therapy prompts the body to end a delay rather than "treat" a malady. Could the recordings confirm how that "switch" might work?
I checked out earlier concepts to learn if they might have been more broadly applicable than I had data to confirm at the time.
By 2005, a variety of change-of-state concepts were guiding the development of the sophisticated real-time recording systems. The recordings were made possible because of the short time between starting therapy and a response, if any, measured in seconds to minutes.
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By 2014, I had invented Visual-Experience Therapy (VET) that prompted the body to recognize and correct alignment errors in the sensorimotor mapping when watching another person. The real-time recordings of responses showed a flinch, gasp, or spontaneous report about the weird experience during the instant of realignment. This response was the same as when people experienced a realignment entirely within their own body upon a reawakening of sensations in numb fingers and feet while receiving Variable-Wavelength Therapy (VWT).
Figure 3 Nostostatic change-of-state events are at the essence of staying alive. Evolution provided the humans with tools for detecting and correcting errors in the sensorimotor mapping systems. The mapping systems provide information about the other person, called theory of mind. This graphic expands the sensorimotor mapping systems from the self (A), to including tools (B), and other humans.
The change-of-state concepts in the sensorimotor mapping systems provide a cohesive explanation for the abrupt ending of chronic pain, PTSD, and guarding of range of motion. The common factor is that of being an explanatory "story" for why we feel the way we do.
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It was a lucky break to have focused on "unrelenting treatment-resistant" stories about pain, etc. The term "unrelenting" describes the unending delay while ready to end upon receiving the right "story" from the therapy. VWT and VET both connect with ancient evolutionary processes that can get "stuck." It is the evolutionary connections that account for the seeming versatility and crazy-fast responses. (VWT is like sunlight filtered through colored leaves in a forest.)
The similarity of responses and normal outcomes irrespective of therapy method and malady supports the concept that nostostasis names a fundamental principle of biology. I do not know of any conventional confirmatory study methods that would likely have found such a basic explanation.
The change-of-state in nostostasis can occur at the molecular level that accounts for restarting many processes in parallel as wounds resume healing.
In summary, it is the real-time recordings that bring visibility to the common factors. The value of the recordings increases as they help answer new questions.
Nostostasis and associated concepts were derived and confirmed from real-time data. I am a bit embarrassed that it took me 25 years to distill the data sufficiently to open the gates to new frontiers.
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However, readers of "The Black Swan" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb might recognize a pattern:
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nostostasis lies outside the realm of regular expectations,
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it potentially carries an extreme impact, and
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it is easy to concoct explanations after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.
Contact me to explore possibilities for monetization of new fields in the expanding frontiers of ending certain types of "chronic" maladies.
My first startup
The two years working for an electrical testing equipment company after graduating from UC Berkeley (1970) provided me with valuable life lessons. Since that time, I have only worked for companies that I started.
It was time to start my own company building precision inspection systems for IBM research and other big computer chip industry leaders. I had great partners who knew how to grow our company, Kensington Laboratories. I gravitated to the field service side of the business helping customers use our products.
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One tool randomized computer chip "wafers" as a key means detecting which processes required adjustments to achieve quality control. This was especially important during the startup of a chip fab. Years later, I learned about randomization in medical research; but that is a different story.
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I successfully exited in 1998 as a classic burnout.
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It was time to explore again.
My second startup
Free to look for a next chapter, I was appalled by the hopelessness of my friends and neighbors from experiencing unrelenting chronic pain and residual impairments from strokes and spinal cord injuries despite the "best" care available.
Estimates suggest that 17 million Americans endure high-impact chronic pain.
Could engineering strategies learned in my first startup solve this challenging medical problem?
The phone rang. My long-time friend Wayne and his dad were walking in a shopping mall. I asked, is your dad riding his wheelchair? No, that was three days ago.
Dr. Constance Haber, Director of Alternative Medicine Pain Management, had prompted his dad's cold feet to warm which relieved is diabetic neuropathy pain.
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Dr. Haber introduced me to infrared therapy and thermal imaging. The therapy was not efficient for its requirements for specialized knowledge, treatment skills, and clinic time.
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I asked a most basic question; how did you select the wavelength that you are using. Haber replied, its the only one I have.
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On the spot, Dr. Haber and I invented Variable-Wavelength Therapy (VET) to solve that basic problem: the wavelength, or multiple wavelengths needed to resume healing, are unknowable until they "work."
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Today, our best model is that the therapy prompts the body to pay attention to itself after being "stuck" for years and then repair errors that it finds.
We couldn't find a better explanation for how myriads of seemingly different wellness therapies prompt the body to resume its ordinary tasks, including healing itself. That's the aim of 250,000 physical therapists for their patients.
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The Variable-Wavelength Therapy happens to be very efficient.
A reality check
Variable-Wavelength Therapy (VWT) evolved into three companion wellness therapies that prompt the body to recognize its errors. The rest is automatic.
You can watch real-time recordings of "impossible" recoveries that would not have been noticed except for the delay and failed interventions.
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These therapies were developed in feasibility studies that welcomed people without regard to whether the team or I thought that there might be any benefit. I worked with more than 400 people who had no conventional pathway forward. People who consume medical resources without relief.
The list includes treatment-resistant chronic pain, PTSD, phantom pain, and impaired sensory, motor, and skin temperature regulation. The myriads of different maladies seemed unrelated for 24 years until we recognized that the therapy prompts the body to end the delay rather than to "treat" the malady.
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Responses and outcomes set a new standard by beginning within seconds to minutes of starting therapy. If no response within two sessions, then it may be time to try a different therapy.
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From my days in manufacturing, I believe that the patient should be the one to measure quality. Just like when buying products that you use every day.
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I was naive to think that the business of medicine would embrace a wellness therapy that ends the need for repeat sessions having a "good" billing code.
My mentors and advisors believed that their job was to turn patients back into people who do not need additional therapy. They were old-fashioned professionals who believed that the patient is the one to measure quality of their outcomes.
Sadly, three collaborators have died.
Discoveries?
In the early 2000s, it seemed like the team was making discoveries with every "new" hopeless malady. We could find no precedents for the abrupt return to normal functioning (R2N) events.
We called the real-time recording system the Rapid Discovery System. Hundreds of seemingly unrelated maladies could appear to vanish. Sessions shrank to seconds and minutes. Crazy-fast responses and outcomes. Impossible? Unheard of? Snake oil? Bitten by the curse of versatility?
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Our medical advisors (anesthesiology, neurology, neurosurgery) were puzzled. They had never experienced the quick R2N outcomes from their interventions.
I was skeptical.
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The team had collected data on thousands of two-minute tests of the therapy. For years, I tried to think differently about the data. (Thanks Schrödinger)
From my engineer's perspective, each "new" case reinforced the concept that something basic was going on.
It was clear that the body heals itself: the therapy therapy only prompts a restart.
Figure 4 As the data filled in, proposed common factors were ruled out. I'll spare you the details. The current best-fit explanation is that the various therapies, including VWT and VET, draw the attention of the sensorimotor mapping systems to draw attention to errors. the rest is automatic.
I was naive to think that the business of medicine would embrace a wellness therapy that ends the need for repeat sessions. Especially without a billing code.
My mentors and advisors believed that their calling was to turn patients back into people who do not need additional therapy. The were old-fashioned professionals who believed that the patient is the one to measure the quality of their outcomes.
Sadly, three collaborators have died. They would have been delighted by confirming that the body heals itself.
Figure 5 The body heals itself. It is the delay that makes the return to normal functioning feel like magic. There is no medical terminology for the event when the body restarts healing. Like with gravity, healing is inevitable if everything needed is available AND the body recognizes the need to resume its ordinary tasks.
Next steps
I am seeking sponsors and advisors who might wish to challenge conventional thinking and business models by sharing the new possibilities with their networks.
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Recently, I received requests from the director of Shepherd University Wellness Center in West Virginia for a device. Dr. Jennifer Flora job is to introduce therapies like ours to Wellness Center members, research community, sports directors, and outside groups. For example, injured firefighters.
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​I am seeking individuals and groups to purchase a device (discounted) to donate to Shepherd University. Others will follow.
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Patents
In compliance with the marking laws of the United States, including the "virtual marking" requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 287(a), the chart below identifies certain patents owned by PhotoMed Technologies in association with the patented products and methods.
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