In this episode of Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill, Dr. Jill Carnahan welcomes Eric Fernandez, Senior Director of Hyperice's Rehab Division, for an exciting conversation about the science behind recovery, circulation, and nervous system regulation.
From elite athletes to individuals living with chronic illness, they explore how technologies like Normatec compression therapy are transforming recovery, improving circulation, reducing inflammation, and supporting long-term health. Together they discuss the growing role of compression therapy in performance, lymphatic health, dysautonomia, longevity, and everyday wellness.
Whether you're looking to recover faster, optimize performance, improve circulation, or simply age more gracefully, this episode offers practical, science-backed strategies to help your body recover and thrive.
🔑 5 Key Discussions You'll Discover with Eric Fernandez
① 🦵 The Science of Compression Therapy
⇨ Normatec compression technology improves circulation, lymphatic drainage, and muscle recovery.
⇨ Research shows a 30-minute session provides circulatory benefits comparable to low-intensity exercise.
② ⚡ Recovery, Performance & Longevity
⇨ Compression therapy helps reduce muscle soreness, improve mobility, and accelerate recovery after exercise.
⇨ Better circulation supports healthy aging, tissue repair, and long-term physical performance.
③ ❤️ Circulation & Chronic Illness
⇨ Improved blood flow can benefit individuals with POTS, dysautonomia, lymphedema, chronic inflammation, and post-surgical recovery.
⇨ Supporting vascular and lymphatic health helps reduce fluid retention and improve overall resilience.
④ 🧠 Nervous System Reset
⇨ Compression therapy helps calm the sympathetic nervous system while promoting relaxation and recovery.
⇨ Supporting autonomic nervous system balance may improve sleep quality, stress resilience, and overall well-being.
⑤ 🚀 Recovery as Daily Medicine
⇨ Recovery should be viewed as an essential part of health—not just for athletes.
⇨ Daily movement, circulation, and recovery habits help optimize performance, longevity, and quality of life.
🔑 Key Takeaways with Eric Fernandez
🔹 Recovery is just as important as exercise for long-term health.
🔹 Compression therapy improves circulation, lymphatic flow, and muscle recovery.
🔹 Healthy blood flow supports brain function, mobility, and healthy aging.
🔹 Nervous system regulation plays a critical role in recovery and resilience.
🔹 Consistent recovery habits improve both performance and everyday wellness.
About Eric Fernandez
Eric Fernandez is the Senior Director of Hyperice's Rehabilitation Division, where he helps lead one of the world's most innovative companies in recovery, rehabilitation, and human performance technology. His work focuses on advancing evidence-based solutions that improve circulation, accelerate recovery, reduce pain, and optimize physical performance.
Working alongside healthcare professionals, elite athletes, and wellness leaders, Eric has helped educate clinicians and consumers on the growing role of recovery technologies—including Normatec compression therapy—for athletic performance, chronic illness, rehabilitation, and healthy aging.
🌐 Website: https://hyperice.com/?utm_source=jillcarnahan.com
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD – Leading Functional Medicine Doctor
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD, ABIHM, ABoIM, IFMCP is internationally recognized as one of the most respected leaders in functional and integrative medicine. She is dually board-certified in Family Medicine and Integrative Holistic Medicine, and the founder and medical director of Flatiron Functional Medicine in Louisville, Colorado.
Widely known as a pioneer in environmental toxicity, mold-related illness, autoimmune disease, and resilience medicine, Dr. Carnahan combines cutting-edge science with compassionate, root-cause care. Her clinical approach integrates precision genomics, epigenetics, microbiome research, peptide therapy, and lifestyle interventions to transform health outcomes for patients worldwide.
She is the author of the best-selling memoir Unexpected, which weaves her personal journey through cancer, Crohn’s disease, and mold-related illness with her professional expertise. Dr. Carnahan is also the executive producer of the award-winning documentary Doctor/Patient and the host of the popular podcast Resiliency Radio, which reaches over 500,000 global subscribers.
As an international keynote speaker, Dr. Carnahan has been featured at leading medical conferences including A4M, IFM, EPIC, and IPM Congress, and her work is frequently highlighted in major media outlets such as NBC, CBS, Fox News, Forbes, Parade, People, and MindBodyGreen.
With a reputation as both a scientist and a healer, Dr. Jill Carnahan is regarded as one of the top functional medicine doctors in the world, offering a unique blend of evidence-based research, innovation, and deeply personalized care.
The Podcast with Eric Fernandez
The Video with Eric Fernandez
Transcript
00:00
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Hey everybody. Welcome to Resiliency Radio, your go to podcast for the most cutting edge insights integrative and functional medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Jill and with each episode we dive into the heart of healing and personal transformation. Join me as I interview medical experts, innovators and people of all types to help you on your way to optimal health, longevity and performance. Hopefully just bringing you answers to the questions you didn't even know you had. Today I'm interviewing a product expert, Eric from Hyperice and super excited to share with you one of my favorite recovery devices. Stay tuned because if you don't have this in your arsenal, you're going to want to either try it or buy it or go to a gym that has it or a clinic. It's very accessible and I think it will really change your game.
00:48
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Before I do, I just want to remind you that we at Flat Iron Functional Medicine, my clinic near Boulder, Colorado are accepting new patients. If you're interested in becoming a patient, give us a call at 303-993-7910 or email info flatiron functional medicine.com Also, if you've been on here, you've heard me say before, we have loads of products and services special curated for you@doctor Jill health.com check it out. You get 15% off your first order. And if you are someone who is caring about physical optimal health, skin health, longevity and glowing skin, one of our bestselling Items is the Dr. Jill Beauty line. Two of my favorite products there are the Vita C E serum and the Hydrogen, the HA Collagen Booster. HA Collagen Booster. I love to put that on at night. It's such a moisturizing formula, especially in my dry state of Colorado.
01:45
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
It gives your skin that glow and it kind of overnight just hydrates those cells. So the collagen booster, the Vita C E serum I use in the morning, those are two of our best selling products. Just hop on over to Dr. Jill health.com and check that out. Okay, let me introduce Eric. Eric Fernandez is senior Director of Hyperice Rehab Division, a global company at the forefront of recovery and performance technology used by all of the professional athletes and Olympians. You'll hear his story and how these devices have become a mainstay for athletes, professional athletes and optimal performance. But you're also going to hear today more uses like lymphatic issues and drainage and mass cell and pots and dysautonomia. We talk about all that and more. He focuses on advancing innovative that support physical recovery, mental Wellness and human performance.
02:32
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Let's welcome Eric to the show. Eric, here we are actually again. Although people don't know, we had a little bit of a failed audio on the first one. So here we are again. I'm so excited to be with you for Resiliency Radio. I want to talk about your influence in the company and the products that you bring because I feel like these devices are really critical for optimal health and performance. But before we jump into that and what people could expect from that, what kind of people would you benefit? I want to hear just a bit about the company and your story and kind of how this came together.
03:05
Eric Fernandez
Yeah. Dr. Jill, thank you so much for having me. Really excited to be here and really excited to hopefully spread the word, so to speak, right. And expose hyperice and NormaTec compression system and all of our products to more folks, right. To have that impact on their day to day quality of life. That's probably the best segue I can give you, right? Hyperice is a company that makes physical recovery products. Right. Our goal is to help enable you to live a happier, healthier, more fulfilled life. We do that through creating really innovative technology that enables movement. Right. That can cut down on pain, can help with range of motion.
03:43
Eric Fernandez
There's a ton of benefits, you know, and I know we want to be respectful of time here today, so I won't go too long, but you know, Hyperice as an organization was founded in 2012, but we're actually a bit of a conglomerate. The Normatec compression system, which I believe we're going to spend most of the time talking about, was founded almost 30 years ago by an MD rehab physician specifically to treat lymphedema. Although it carries a number of great applications and is used very widely and extensively today. So we're proud to be used. Our tools are used by 100% of pro sports teams here in North America, by Olympians, collegiate athletes, individuals in their home. They're used extensively in healthcare, outpatient reh, physical therapy, chiropractic, orthopedics, wellness, Delta sky lounges. I mean the list goes on.
04:34
Eric Fernandez
And yet every day we talk to folks who don't know the amazing benefits that these products can bring or ultimately how accessible they are, whether it's at your clinician's office, at your fitness or wellness facility, or purchasing them for in your own home. So yeah, excited to be here and probably didn't answer any of your questions, Eric.
04:52
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
That was perfect. So what I love that frame. There is especially you mentioned the MD rehab. Dr. The NormaTec compression device. What I saw was in my local gym, they had these devices. And I've seen them multiple places like that when I've gone to spas in Mexico and Europe. And I mean, they're all over the world, really. And I've always been fascinated and my medical mind has seen them and be like, oh, my goodness, this would be really good for my patients with dysautonomia and mast cell issues and lymphedema, which is kind of one of the original things. And I love this because it's been this big performance fourth sports longevity thing, which is amazing. And a lot of my listeners are interested in that, like optimal health, performance recovery, which we can talk about first.
05:34
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
But then I also want to talk a little bit about the more of the patients who are actually chronically ill and issues with. What I see is this tissue, fascial lymphedema, kinds of things that is very prone to those patients with mast cell activation. They just. It's almost like sluggish limbs. Sluggish. And so these devices are a manual way to actually move the fluid. Let's talk first about those who are interested in performance. Kind of your huge audience all over the world of pro athletes. What do most athletes and people use these for? How does it help recovery? And how could someone who's just overall in good fitness shape use this in their doctor's office, at the gym? In my office. To get recovery.
06:18
Eric Fernandez
Yeah. So let's back up just a step just to make sure we cover our bases. So Normatec compression therapy, what we're talking about, they're these wearable sleeves, in fact, over one of my shoulders. There we go.
06:27
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
See them? Yeah.
06:28
Eric Fernandez
You can legs. And so they're basically these garments that you can wear on your legs, your hip, torso, or your arms, and they fill up with air and they essentially massage your limbs. That's a very layperson way to say it. You know, we've been doing this for, like I said, 30 years. And it's going to help improve blood flow, circulation, overall vascular health. Really effective for range of motion, for decreasing muscle soreness, for overall muscle hygiene. You know, ultimately a lot of what you're talking about, Dr. And there's a myriad of other benefits, and I think we'll start to unpack some of those. As I mentioned, were founded really as a medical device company by a female clinician to treat lymphedema. It was her son who first took us into the sports performance world.
07:11
Eric Fernandez
He started knocking on training room doors, thinking about acute injury rehab. Right. You sprain ankle, you blow out a knee, whatever it is, let me help with the swelling. Yes. And what we actually found, it was a program out of Florida. They actually came up with a term. They started buying tons of Normatec and we're like, why are you buying so many? You can't have that many ankle injuries or whatever. He goes, well no, all our players want to use it before they work out. After they work out. We call it Fresh Legs faster. Because if they use them.
07:41
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Oh, that's a great term. Fresh Legs faster. Yeah.
07:44
Eric Fernandez
And that honestly became our tagline for the longest time. We sort of, you know, as you rebrand and grow, we've moved away from that. But that's one of our original taglines is Fresh Legs Faster. Because if you use NormaTec immediately post physical activity, muscle damage protocol. Right. You're going to see a number of benefits. But specifically it's been shown through a number of independent peer reviewed studies to help alleviate or decrease delayed onset muscle soreness. I think what's really cool is we've also looked at the body's adaptive response to ensure that we're not blunting that. So right. Where there's, I don't want to muddy the waters with other interventions, but if you look at like cold therapy, that can have its positives, it can have negatives.
08:25
Eric Fernandez
From an adaptation standpoint, Normatax actually been been shown to help up regulate some of the different proteins that are responsible for like muscle synthesis by like 33, 34 per intervention. Right. While decreasing lactate accelerating return to baseline. If we look at your markers for like inflammation, for example, so from a recovery standpoint, that's where it took off, you know, and everyone's using it because who hasn't done an activity in two days later they're like, oh man, I'm so can't walk now. Yeah. And so man, if I can sit in these awesome garments and basically get a leg massage on my couch or wherever and not have that's amazing.
09:06
Eric Fernandez
I think what's really exciting when you ask like today, your audience, performance focused individuals, just anyone who's trying to do an activity that makes them happy, I actually think the pre activity intervention is the most exciting. So you know, if you look at Normatech from a pre activity intervention and doing it for 15, 20 minutes prior to a dynamic warm up, some stretching, et cetera, prior to taking the so to speak, you're going to Stimulate circulation systematically. That's something we've consistently seen both by looking at flow through some of your arteries, but also doing, like, unilateral lower limb testing and looking at the. Like doing a unilateral lower limb intervention with Normatec, but. But then testing blood flow to the contralateral limb and showing really clinically significant improvements there. It's a systematic impact. So you're priming the pump, right?
09:57
Eric Fernandez
You're going to see really nice improvements to range of motion through the joint. So if we think about preparing yourself for movement and maybe injury prevention, really powerful. It's relaxing, and it's easy to do. Right. You can do on the couch, you do in the back of the car, on an airplane. I mean, truly anywhere. And so I think that ease of access and that pre intervention is hugely important to decreasing injury risk and allowing you to perform better. And then, of course, using it on the recovery side. Amazing.
10:26
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Okay, I love that. A couple of things that came to mind as you're talking. First of all, I always love. There's so many things out there that I prescribe to patients, and they're like, go do an hour of this Olympic retraining or go do. And it's a thing where that's on their to do list. It's an hour of their day, and it's more work. Right. And I loved what you just hinted at. That I maybe think. I think maybe is not talked about enough is that this is a receptive thing where you could actually read or relax or even watch TV and actually allow this to work while you're just literally sitting there. I love that because there's so many things we're going out and doing more and doing more.
10:59
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
And this is actually something that you can actually receive and enjoy while you're doing it. It's very pleasant. It's very. I think it's very enjoyable. The other thing that came to mind was years ago, I'm a skier. I love to ski. And years ago, I'll never forget, I went to Snowbird, and right before the day of skiing, they had this class that was rolling, foam rolling. I'd never gone to a foam rolling class for an hour, but I did. And I had my very best day of skiing ever in my life. Like, full day, all out. I mean, you know, steeps and deeps. And I realized, again, that is very different from what you're. You're talking about. But I would fall off the roller. It was kind of hard to balance, and it wasn't as easy.
11:39
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
But in a way the mechanism to me is similar because you're moving fluid, you're moving tissues, you're changing blood flow and you're stretching out that stuff. And I could see that also if someone's used to rolling, combining this or maybe using this instead. Any thoughts on how that might be similar or different?
11:56
Eric Fernandez
Yeah, it's interesting. So, and of course my mind's going to some of the other products we make, but I'm going to try to stay as close to home as I can here.
12:02
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
That's okay. Go for it.
12:04
Eric Fernandez
So, yeah, we've looked at this actually. For example, we looked at young, active, fairly top tier gymnasts and dancers, not professional, but collegiate. And we looked at a single NormaTec intervention of 15 minutes prior to activity. And we compared that to, you know, a control group who basically did nothing and another group that did some static stretching and sort of what was the other standard of warming up for them at the time? And this study is 2015, I want to say. So it's been a minute, but it still holds true. What we saw was when the Normatech group, about an average of like 28, 29% improved range of motion through your lower extremity joints. And again, this is a group that's already fairly flexible and mobile.
12:49
Eric Fernandez
Yeah, we saw it obviously significantly outperform the control that basically did nothing and be comparable to or statistically speaking, slightly better than like static structure. So then I say, well, think about, well, what if we stack that?
13:02
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Yeah.
13:02
Eric Fernandez
What if you do NormaTec while you're, you know, watching your, you know, if you're in some sort of organized thing, you know, while you're watching tape, you're doing a pre thing briefing, you're meditating, you're chilling out, whatever it is, you're warming up with your cup of coffee before hitting the slopes.
13:15
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Yeah.
13:16
Eric Fernandez
And then you go and roll for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, then you do some dynamic stretching. It's accelerating the body's natural process and it's going to allow those other interventions, I think, to be more impactful. Because you sort of already started, to your point, right. Physiologically already started to get the pump moving. Right. To change those fluid dynamics within the tissue within your body. So I think that's huge. One thing I want to mention on this, because you mentioned foam rolling. So I have to hit it.
13:43
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Yeah.
13:43
Eric Fernandez
Hyperice makes a vibrating foam roller and we have a lot of products that do vibration and percussion, I think, you know.
13:49
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Yeah, I know the perfection. I didn't know the vibrating foam roller. So this is amazing because.
13:53
Eric Fernandez
So the vibrating foam roller is awesome because one, it makes foam rolling a little bit more tenable. Like it alleviates some of that pain or like there's many pain inhibition.
14:00
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Well that's where and when you talk about your product because that's where I struggled because I couldn't consistently. It was either too painful or I get imbalanced. I wasn't very good at it and I felt like the foam rolling went to the wayside because it was so hard for me to do well. So it's one of those things so.
14:15
Eric Fernandez
Many people know, it's like you should do it. You can go down a research rabbit hole of like what parts of the body and how.
14:22
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Right.
14:22
Eric Fernandez
Whatever it is. But, but when you add vibration on you get you know one better changes to the tissue dynamic and fluid dynamics. You get impact to the or input to the nervous system as well. So you're going to get better muscle recruitment and activation. And doing that prior to activity is really impactful both for that, you know, warm up movement injury prevention. And we've looked at things like hamstring dominant athletes, sort of looking at all the markers that you would point to in terms of like preventing ACL injury. But it's also really interesting. We have research that's emerging where if you use percussion or vibration just prior to the muscle damage protocol, so just prior to the activity you'll see improvements to delayed onset muscle soreness, reducing delayed onset muscle soreness even with no post activity intervention, which I think is really cool.
15:07
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Oh, that's amazing. That is truly.
15:11
Eric Fernandez
So you can sort of hit two birds, one stone in that capacity. And, and I'm just going to make sure I cover my bases here because sometimes when you think of these products, vibrating foam rollers, NormaTec Pro athletes, you think if you're a certain demographic, like my mom, maybe who's 72 will be tomorrow and is a budding pickleball all star, she might say that's not for me. So we did a research study with our vibrating foam roller on an older female population. The medium age was 72 years old as a matter of fact. And we saw really nice improvements to functional movement and range of motion that we sort of see all the time. Muscle recruitment, endurance, see that pretty consistently. You saw proprioceptive benefit. We saw improvements of cardiorespiratory function.
15:51
Eric Fernandez
So you put all those together and you're like that's a really impactful 5, 10 minutes.
15:59
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Commercial hyperice, take one. Hey guys. Hope you're enjoying this episode with Eric from Hyperice. Just want to remind you that you can get all kinds of products and services for optimal performance, longevity and healthy skin@doctor Jill health.com jump on over and check out the products and services that we offer there. If you're looking for a recovery formula, one of my favorites is our amino essentials and our creatine monohydrate with the brain mag. It's called Dr. Jill Pink Drink. Just search Pink Drink and you'll get all the ingredients there. You can mix that in the morning it of my favorite daily habits that I use every single day and you can find that@doctor Jill health.com okay, let's get back to our show.
16:43
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
I'm guessing it is far more beneficial to the elderly population than just even a pro athlete because they've got so many other things. You know, the cryo and the sauna and the IVs and the, and whereas and this is one more amazing thing versus a pickleball 75 year old woman. This is amazing and to me it's very accessible and whether you go to the gym or get your own devices, it's quite affordable I think it's very, very accessible to the average.
17:07
Eric Fernandez
Yeah, I appreciate you saying that and I'm with you know 100 and you know, as you know doctor like I oversee that sort of really the medical and rehab side of our business and I'm very bullish that actually to your point, a geriatric population or an active aging adult is going to get significantly greater impact from our products than LeBron James. Right. And, and, and fill in the pro athlete or elite young you we're gonna have statistically speaking but also quality of life much bigger impact. And I think that's some of the stuff we've seen.
17:44
Eric Fernandez
Whether it's my mom needing to warm up appropriately before pickleball when she's all of a sudden cutting and moving side to side and getting competitive again after years of not being competitive with the racket sport and making sure that she sets herself up for the best chance of not getting hurt so she can keep doing what she loves. You know, I reference, I talk about my 92 year old grandmother all the time who is unfortunately be but uses normatech every day from a vascular maintenance standpoint. And you've got DVT prevention. Right. Normatech has been shown to decrease arterial stiffness. There's so much there that population, I mean they benefit so much from daily access and to Your point?
18:27
Eric Fernandez
It's, it's if you can get it at like a lifetime fitness or one of our other fitness partners, it's often free or a very low cost. Add on to your membership, you can find a number of wellness facilities. And to your point, it's, you know, I started a NormaTec system nine, 10 years ago, was like $5,000. And we've worked really hard as we've grown to drive down the cost and now, you know a retail for a like system's like 900. We have that calf wrap Normatec GO application which is great for flying as well and things of that nature. And that's sub 400 and they're all FSA HSA eligible. I mean it's not low dollars.
19:02
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Yeah, I think but again for years. That's exactly. I think it's very doable and we're always looking at those devices. There's a lot of things I recommend that are five grand and above and that just is not to the average person. But I love that you've really worked. So you just kind of mentioned this. Back in my residency we always had DVD prophylaxis as part of any bedbound patient. Right. And so I want to shift just a little. We talked about optimal performance. 75 Year old pickleballer. All these people we have, I see a lot of patients with complex chronic illness and some of the growing things are mast cell activation, lymphedema, post cancer people who are more disabled or more immobile or all these, they're not pro athletes, they're not even amateur Athlet.
19:43
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Talk just a little bit about is there science with we Obviously I'm guessing the science is around like reduction of lactic acid for those athletes. But what about like just lymphatic drainage and toxin removal? Do we have maybe theory that is probably happening. Do we have any actually direct evidence on the more lymphatic drainage side of things or even fascial membranes. Is there anything out there on those types of uses?
20:08
Eric Fernandez
Yeah, quite a bit. I mean I will say that a lot of the deeper research where we've even done like biopsies and SAMP is being focused on blood flow and we do think that is driving a lot of it. But absolutely there's solid research and again were founded and still carry the indication to treat lymphedema. So increasing lymphatic return is something we've been consistently shown to do and are highly effective at. There's also some really cool research out there. When you look at lymphedema care that's emerging right now, that looks at the different types of interventions, right? From sort of manual lymphatic drainage to wrapping to pneumatic compression. And when you sort of look at every possible combination of those or standalone, the number one factor that seems to drive results is adding pneumatic compression therapy.
20:53
Eric Fernandez
Pneumatic compression therapy with any of those is always the best result. And I think there's so the simple answer is yes, we consistently see improvements to lymphatic return and we have a ton of research looking at lactate clearance clearing metabolites at large. And you know, also looking at things, again, some of this is more muscle damage, but looking like returning to baseline when it looks at like inflammation markers and things of that nature. But we look at those folks who, you know, whether it's a lymphedema patient, folks with fluid retention issues, whether that's a chronic condition, whether it's a post surgery scenario, right, where you have lymph nodes that were destroyed, whether it's lack of ambulation, I think about that all the time, right? Because like the gastroc anemias complex is that second heart mechanism and you lose that.
21:44
Eric Fernandez
Whether that's due to weight, lifestyle disability, I mean there's so many factors, but at the end of the day you lose that. So if we look at normatech real quick, some things we've seen in the research. So a 30 minute Normatech session, passively laying in bed, wherever you are, from a circulatory circulation standpoint is equivalent to a 30 minute low intensity static stationary bike ride. And we see that both in terms of lactate clearance, we see that in terms of blood flow and we also see that in terms of some of the muscle positive muscle stressors, right, they're going to start to cause adaptation and release of some of your muscle generating proteins. So I'd rather have you do a bike ride, no doubt about it, I'd rather have you walk or run, et cetera.
22:28
Eric Fernandez
But if you can't, I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of benefit there. So I know I'm on a bit of a tangent. You should probably ask me more questions. And I'm just like, no, that is.
22:37
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
So perfect because I'm thinking of you. And right now several of my patients, I do virtually and they are bed bound and they are so with this mast cell activation, there's a subset of patients with very severe orthostatic hypotension or POTS dysautonomia, which for those of you out there who don't know what that is, it means the regulation of the body system to regulate blood pressure. Blood flow to the brain and upper extremities is impaired. So they'll often run very low blood pressures and when they stand up they get dizzy.
23:01
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
And to me this kind of thing is so beneficial because they're either hardly able to get up and go to the bathroom and this is automatically, like you said, there's lots of evidence on the blood flow return and really from a POTS dysautonomia mast cell perspective, usually it's a dysfunction in the endothelium and getting that blood flow back, which this could manually help that. So this, that was super helpful as we kind of wrap up a little here. One thing I wanted to highlight that you mentioned, but I want to be sure we kind of just briefly talk about it. Some clinicians could be worried about does this impair recovery just because you're, you know, changing that. And I think you actually specific the body's.
23:39
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
So basically this body's natural adaptation, which sometimes includes inflammation of the muscles or small micro tears that actually help you build more muscle. But what you mentioned earlier was this does not interfere, as far as we know, with any sort of repair recovery. Do you want to mention a little bit more about that?
23:56
Eric Fernandez
Yeah. So we've looked at a number of markers there to look really specifically at this. So yes, inflammation is part of the process. Right. It is positive to agree. We've looked specifically though at you know, not just like increasing nitric oxide production. Super helpful. Right. We've also looked at, you know, moving, reducing, like androgen one, you know, to sort of like that. Protein. That's protein, right, yeah. That, you know, can sort of break down muscle. We've seen the ability like a Normatech intervention is going to reduce that by 32 at least. We have a couple studies that are equivalent to that. Okay. Where we're also going to increase all of those positive markers we're looking for. Right. And the proteins again that are responsible for muscle creation.
24:41
Eric Fernandez
So the long story short is one, if somebody really wants to dive deep, we've got a phenomenal library of like 30 plus studies on Norma tech that look at this and some of them way over my head, but they're really cool. And what we have looked at is that we really cannot stunt, no matter how close to the muscle damage, we cannot stunt the adaptive process. I always look at it as like, really, in my mind, NormaTec is ultimately helping accelerate and enhance the body's natural process. Right. Which I think is a really holistic way to think about it. So, yeah, again, zero concerns there on that front. And again, you know, I'll close this part out with sharing a fun story. A long time ago.
25:20
Eric Fernandez
You know, this is going back, like, early mid 2000s, maybe late 2000s, before were who we are today, meaning used by every pro athlete under the sun. The U.S. olympic Committee purchased a handful of systems. Wouldn't really tell us why. Turns out they were doing their own. Dr. Bill Sands was doing his own research and validation of our products, as well as a few others. Initially, he wouldn't give us the results of the study, but they then bought 30 systems, proceeded to author a number of studies on the benefits of normatech. And if you go to the usoc, they have a museum in Colorado Springs all about athletic performance and development of the sport. NormaTec's a featured exhibit.
26:04
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Wow.
26:05
Eric Fernandez
And promise you, we didn't pay for it. We didn't ask for it. Like, they. Because normatech has had such an impact on the health, longevity, and performance of their athletes, it's. It's pretty cool to see. So whether you're at that tier, you're my grandmother, you're anyone in between, and I, you know, I know we have to wrap, but I mean, I want to close with this too, because it popped into my head, you know, you mentioned pots and some of those more complicated conditions. We see benefit there consistently with things like reduction of headache symptoms. We see a lot of benefits on the neurological side. And sleep hygiene is a really important one that I think, you know, we don't think about or talk about enough. And people think about putting their phones down and think about all the different things they can do.
26:44
Eric Fernandez
And most of us are really bad at these habits. NormaTec has an incredible impact at downregulating your ANS and promoting relaxation. And we've seen this. Like, we have almost 30 years of our medical patients, their spouses. When we do. When we do progress notes documenting that they have reported a reduction or alleviation of restless leg syndrome, we go to some of these large medical conferences when there's literally 15,000 people on a trade show floor, and it's like fluorescent lights and music, and it's just a sensory assault on your body. I leave my head is spinning. We're there putting people in normatex and demoing the product. Correct. Every time we do it, people fall asleep. Yeah. They're staring at fluorescent lights, it's everything. And it's just like it is so from a relaxation, from an ease of use, from a portability standpoint.
27:30
Eric Fernandez
And that daily impact, I mean I'm Dr. I know I'm biased and I'm passionate but like I'm hard pressed. I'd be hard pressed for you to show me somebody, maybe a really young pediatric patient, you know, but like let's go like teenager above. And that's just from a sizing standpoint. There's no age limitations, technically speaking. Who wouldn't benefit from daily use of the product?
27:51
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Okay, that was brilliant. That was gonna. I was gonna do a quick rapid fire. One or two questions. One was any limitations or people who shouldn't use this? You said really no age limitations. Is there anything else? Any contraindications?
28:04
Eric Fernandez
Very few. I mean we're very proud. We've never had an adverse event to date, so very safe system. Acute DVT is the most obvious one. A blood clot, as we sort of talked about earlier, normatech is indicated to prevent dvts. Yeah. So it's really a question of do we active diagnosis, a clot that hasn't been cleared by a Doppler or whatever. Somebody that has a history of at risk for. That's not a contraindication. That's somebody who's typically going to benefit significantly. Severe or acute CHF is one to look out for and your PCP or per physician can tell you about it. Again, chronic late stage general chf, not a concern. It's really that acute, severe, that's about it. There's really no limitations around pregnancy for example, so. So yeah, I mean of course if you have any concerns, the disclaimer is always right.
28:55
Eric Fernandez
Check with your medical provider. But extremely safe system.
28:58
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Yeah, not many devices can say that. That's really amazing. So a few more. Rapid fire compression versus massage gun. Which would you choose?
29:06
Eric Fernandez
I mean look, if you have the budget, I think normatech wins every time. It just has a greater whole body impact and it's something that's a lot harder to achieve using other interventions, modalities, treatments, etc. That being said, you know, the Hypervolt Go3, our sort of lowest cost portable massage gun retails for $150. It's got the power and performance the original $5,000 jackhammers had and you can take it anywhere. You can fly with on a plane, you can use it in the car. I mean that ease of use and consistent daily, you know, tissue hygiene is real too So I think it's about starting the journey right where it works for you. And everyone's needs are so different, right? I think that's the question. There's not a single right or wrong.
29:51
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Awesome. And what would you say for you or for everyone listening? What would be one daily habit that you'd recommend to everyone to start tomorrow?
29:59
Eric Fernandez
Well, that's a loaded question.
30:01
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
I know, right?
30:03
Eric Fernandez
Not look at my cell phone right when I wake up. I mean, from a health and wellness standpoint, I guess from a Hyperice lens, I mean, mobility, movement is life, right? That means something different to everybody. But I think find a way to have more movement in your life. Right. And if a Hyperice product can help you with that by helping to alleviate pain or improving range of motion, help with swelling and some of these other things we've talked about, wonderful. If it's just making a habit to go out for a walk after you eat and clear some glucose, Amazing, right? Loop.
30:37
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Eric, we packed so much good information in today and I'm so excited. So obviously for those of you listening, if you are listening, we're going to put links to the website, Eric's website. I'm going to ask him in a moment where people can go to find more. But we've obviously talked about the normatech impression device. That's one of my favorites. But they have a myriad of other devices including the massage gland and other things. So go check it out, Eric, if you want to know more. Where can they find out more about HyperX?
31:03
Eric Fernandez
I mean, the easiest place is hyperice.com h y p e r I c e dot com and I know you're going to post a link so we have that there. You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm not that exciting, but if you want to, you can certainly find me on, on LinkedIn. You'll see my big old head right there. So I'm pretty findable. But please reach out and Dr. Jill, if anyone reaches out to you, please feel free to connect them. I'm always happy to answer questions. Our website has a chat feature. We're all based here in the US we're all hyper employees. We love what we do. Everyone has the same passion, energy. I do, maybe. So please reach out if you have any questions.
31:37
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Yeah, that's one of my favorite things about this interview is your passion for the products. Because whenever we love something and it works, I'm the same way. So thank you for your time. Thank you for your expertise and all of the many years you've been promoting and helping this company to grow. I know this will benefit people and I also know a lot of physicians watch this. So if you're a doc and want to get this in your clinic, get a hold of Eric please. Thanks so much Eric. Appreciate it. Hey guys, hope you enjoyed that episode on Hyperice devices, especially normatech compression boots. I found them to be incredibly useful and I knew I had to have Eric on the show to introduce you. If you haven't already tried these devices, we're going to be offering them in our clinic to patients.
32:17
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
So stay tuned. I'm super excited about that. As you know, we have new episodes out every single week. If you haven't yet liked or subscribed, hit that button. What are you waiting for? We know a lot of people listen and haven't yet subscribed, so I hope you'll join the nearly one subscribers on YouTube and hit that button. Hit the bell to be notified of future episodes. And if you're on any other channel, just give us a review that helps us reach more people. Thanks again for joining me for this episode of Resiliency Radio and I'll see you again next week.
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