PREAMBLE
When I read the chat for my friend Dr Yoho’s Substack, Surviving Healthcare, I flinch and twitch at some of the questions. A hyperbolic example: “I’m having 10 out of 10 left-sided chest pain (but I don’t trust doctors anymore). Does anybody have any advice?” There are then many helpful people who will offer their home remedies to the individual. Chest pain? Mix a teaspoon of baking soda into a glass of water and give it an hour. My partner Dr Pierre Kory wrote about fear of hospitals and his own personal experiment in avoiding the Emergency Department (ED). I share that fear, and during a recent visit to have labs drawn for my annual physical, at the same hospital where I helped lead a failed unionization drive, it felt like I was Luke entering Darth Vader’s Death Star.
DISCLAIMER AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
As much as I want to help heal the world, I don’t feel the need to set myself on fire to warm it. For this reason, and for the readers who are avoiding doctors like the plague, can’t afford to see me as a patient, or simply don’t want to pay for medical advice from anybody, I have to make this disclaimer. THIS SUBSTACK IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. IT IS MEANT FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND ISN’T MEANT TO REPLACE THE ADVICE OF YOUR INDIVIDUAL PHYSICIAN/NP/PA.
Almost 99% of the time, I can tell my readers that I have no commercial interest in a supplement, drug or product which I recommend. In my Substack about NAC Augmentata and the urine spike test, I explained why Pierre and I have taken a different approach with that supplement and test. I also need to report to you our financial connection to ARC Microtech Ltd. I am what ARC calls an Ambassador, which means that I am a clinician who has found significant clinical value in their product and actively promote the Arc to our patients and beyond. As a benefit, our patients can use a discount code which is worth USD $30, and essentially covers the cost of international shipping. Our practice also gets a $30 commission on each device sold to a consumer using our discount code. Because the Leading Edge Clinic has purchased at least thirty Arc devices to give to pro-bono or economically strapped patients, we have never made any net income on sales of the Arc devices. ARC Microtech Ltd. has generously agreed to permit me to share our discount code with readers of this Substack, and you will find that at the end of this article.
RECENT PAST
Dr Tina Peers is an esteemed colleague in the UK, who has survived attacks by the NHS, and helped thousands of patients during the pandemic with post acute sequelae of Covid (PASC) and injury from the Covid jabs. Pre-pandemic, she specialized in women’s health, specifically treating peri- and post-menopausal women. She also diagnosed her daughter with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) after years without insight from medical consultations. As a result of her unique background, she and her colleagues in the UK have developed deep expertise in the diagnosis and treatment of MCAS. Tina introduced the Leading Edge Clinic to two game-changing therapies. The first was NAC Augmentata, made by ZeroSpike, the small non-profit in Italy. I wrote about this NAC and the urine spike test we are bringing to market in this Substack titled You can lead a horse to water…. Tina also introduced us to the Arc Microtech microcurrent device which I have written about in five different posts. Because of recent developments in both the cost and availability of both the Arc Equine (for horses) and the Arc4Health (for humans) in the United States, I wanted to revisit this valuable clinical tool in greater detail.
Because I’m a storyteller, I’m going to embellish a bit here, which may actually result in a truer tale. If you’re a regular Lighting Bug reader, you may have noticed that horses and horsing around come up regularly. The story of the Arc Microtech falls along those lines, but starts with an English detective named Ian Thirkell. After thirty years of public service, Ian retired in 1997. What I imagine happened, is influenced by what I saw transpire between my Nana and Pop pop when Pop pop retired after forty five years of running a service station. Two people who loved each other and each had their routines, were suddenly around each other all the time. This is not a recipe for marital bliss. So, I imagine that Ian’s wife was thinking, “Oh Lord, this man of mine has been solving dramatic puzzles for decades, and now he is going to be in my hair and terribly bored. What shall I do out of pure enlightened self-defense?” Her plan was brilliant! She handed him three books by the orthopedic surgeon, researcher and professor, Dr Robert O. Becker, and said “Here! Go learn about microcurrent therapy.” Lucky for all of us, he did just that.
As a longtime resident of upstate New York, I’m going to proudly claim Dr Becker as one of ours. As expected, Wikipedia scarcely does him and his life justice, and manages to introduce doubt where it isn’t supported by the evidence. Becker was that rare bird, which my partner Pierre says nearly never exists: a man who was simultaneously good at three things, teaching, researching, and practicing medicine. Dr Becker was ensconced at the Veterans Administration in Syracuse, New York, about 1 1/2 hours away from us in Ithaca. He taught right across the street where I worked early in the pandemic—SUNY Upstate Medical University. In the late 1950s, he first set his mind to determining how to piece back together soldiers and sailors who had been blown to bits by bullets and bombs. He noted that salamanders would grow back tails and limbs after amputations, and spent years trying to figure out how that could be, and also how this might translate to humans. Along the way, he learned that the tiniest of electrical impulses, electrons in fact, could stimulate cells to reverse course, return to an embryonic stage, and then come forward again to become differentiated and functional cells.
In the 1960s, the US Department of Navy wanted to bury an antennae under two thirds of the state of Wisconsin in order to communicate with nuclear submarines anywhere in the world, even when they were submerged deep in the ocean. Becker was one of the seven scientific panelists who rejected the plan due to the risks it posed to the civilian population. When then Senator Gaylord Nelson became aware of the previously secret plan, his vocal criticism of the environmental impact and potential public health risks was a great embarrassment to the Secretary of Navy, who blamed Becker for torpedoing (can’t resist the pun) the plan. Becker was also an early critic of the electric and magnetic fields (EMF) from CB radios and high voltage power lines in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Can you imagine what he’d think of 5G?!? What we know today about the therapeutic uses of pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) emerged directly from Becker’s work. I strongly recommend his book The Body Electric, for it’s exposition of the trajectory of his work, as well as its humor and philosophical bent.
When I first spoke with Ian Thirkell, he explained that Dr Becker’s work was the foundation for his development of the the Arc Equine, which was first brought to market in 2004. The device works by delivering low-level electrical currents (microcurrents) that mimic the body’s natural bioelectrical signals. These currents help stimulate cellular activity, promoting tissue repair, reducing inflammation, and easing pain. Unlike the electrical stimulation of TENS units, microcurrents are much weaker and aim to support cellular-level healing rather than just muscle contraction.
I’m going to make some claims which ARC Microtech Ltd cannot, and these are based upon close clinical observation of the more than 400 of our patients who have used the device, as well as my own personal experience. The Arc enhances adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production, which is why it is enormously helpful and treating the fatigue which we often observe in PASC and injury from the Covid shots. The spike protein has devastated the mitochondria of our bodies, leading to insufficient ATP production. Microcurrents have been shown to increase ATP production, which speeds up tissue repair and reduces inflammation. If I were to identify the two interventions which have done the most to pull me out of the fatigue induced the the Covid shots, what we call ME-CFS, myalgic encephalitis chronic fatigue syndrome, I would name NIR sauna for ten minutes daily, and religious use of the Arc for multiple cycles daily.
There are many supplements which have been demonstrated to help with mitochondrial repair, and alternative therapies such as low-dose methylene blue which help reboot mitochondrial function. Why would you use an Arc instead of those therapies? The simplest explanation which I can give is that those supplements are static interventions for a dynamic process, and the Arc is a dynamic intervention for a dynamic process. Makes sense, right?
The Arc improves circulation and reduces swelling. It helps increase blood flow and lymphatic drainage, reducing swelling and…you guessed it…promoting faster healing. I’ll never forget what happened during the first week I started using my Arc Equine in July of 2023. My wife Kerrie and I have been members of the Merrill Family Sailing Center in Ithaca, where for the seasonal fee of $550, you have easy access to a fleet of aging sailboats and regular scolding by experienced and suntanned staff. Kerrie was skipper and I was her first mate, when she brought the boat about and I ducked under the boom. I had backed down into the cabin and when I stood up I banged my lower back on the sharp edge of the hatch. I was on triple anticoagulation therapy for microclotting from the spike protein, and a large bruise started to form immediately. Boy did it hurt! I thought, man my whole back is going to be black and blue. But, I kept cycling my Arc, and within twenty four hours, the pain was significantly reduced, as was the swelling, and the enormous bruising never emerged. It was my first poignant lesson that the Arc is a wonderful safety tool for patients who are on any type of anticoagulation, reducing instances of bleeding and bruising.
The above points towards the wider range of uses for the Arc. It is a tool for pain relief and recovery support. It can be used to manage injuries, arthritic, soft tissue damage, and general well being. It can be used ALONGSIDE other treatments like physiotherapy. Even bigger picture, the Arc is a genetic repair tool. Examples of this in our practice include my patient whose cardiac ejection fraction was restored from the high twenties to 55% after more than six months of use. This wasn’t an anomaly, as Dr Peers had seen a similar result in her elderly father. It is the driving reason for my persistent use of the device.
Although trying to help couples get pregnant is more of Tina’s province than mine, we recently had a shared Zoom in which I was seeking her advice for a patient who is vaccine injured and wants to become a mother. What Tina shared left our jaws on the floor. In nineteen out of nineteen cases where both the male and female partner wore the Arc daily, performing multiple three hour cycles of program one, every couple was able to conceive within three months. Wowsers!!!
ARC Microtech Ltd. also can’t make claims about the benefit of the Arc in cancer patients, but I can tell you that a device which improves mitochondrial function and decreases inflammation is well-suited for use in treating cancer. In our provision of adjunctive cancer care at the Leading Edge Clinic, we approach cancer as a metabolic disease, and the translation of this for a lay person is that the mitochondria of a cancer patient is not operating correctly or efficiently. I am personally aware of several patients of other providers whose prostate cancer was cured by use of the Arc alone, without any other treatment. This of course deserves further study and doesn’t mean that the same results can be expected in other individuals. That said, if a patient has been diagnosed with cancer, is considering use of the Arc, and has not had any surgery for resection of a tumor, the cases of which I am aware used ongoing cycles of program 1 only.
It is also worth mentioning that there has been demonstration of extensive benefit from the Arc for people with anxiety, depression and PTSD. Ian has shared details with me about the clinical experiences of a psychiatrist whose service in the Royal Air Force (RAF) has exposed him to many situations where humans have experienced severe trauma. This has included treating service members who were held hostage for extended periods of time, as well first responders and civilians who combed the countryside for bodies after Pan Am Flight 103 crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. Individuals carried the burden of these traumatic events for decades, and this clinician found that use of the Arc with patients who have both distant and recent trauma helped expedite their healing. My observation of patients with PASC and injury from the Covid shots is that we suffer from a type of chemical brain injury, often have post-traumatic stress from both the physical injury and the societal shunning of our conditions, and that the Arc has been immensely helpful.
A HORSE IS A HORSE, OF COURSE, OF COURSE
If you are a horse person, or know horse people, you will likely agree that what is good enough for the horse is good enough for the ride. It didn’t take long for horse riders and owners who witnessed the dramatic recovery from injuries with use of the Arc Equine, to strap it on themselves and notice similar benefits.
Ian asked me if I had a druthers about using a horse device or a human device. My reply was shaped influenced by the fact that horse paste Ivermectin saved my life when American medical doctors were actively killing patients with Remdesivir. “No. I don’t care. I want to use what heals and and doesn’t cause harm.” He explained that while there was a human version available, called the Arc4Health, it was essentially a less sophisticated, and frankly less effective version of the original Arc Equine. Why would that be? Well, in order to pass the scrutiny of English regulators,
ARC Microtech Ltd had to dumb it down, present it as a TENS unit, and hope for the best. The strategy worked, and the Arc4Health was approved. The family-owned company has learned a few things over the last twenty years, and the current version of the Arc which they are trying to get approved by the US FDA for use in humans, is essentially the equine version sold worldwide.
“Wouldn’t a microcurrent device designed for a horse be unsafe for a human?” you might ask. The answer is no, and the micro in micro-current is the key. Let me tell you a story to prove my point. I’ve written about the passing of our beloved little Manx kitty Sophie. In her later years, Sophie had the stilted walk of an aging athlete, having played a lot of fetch with me and Baby Mouse. After having excellent clinical experiences with the Arc myself, I proposed to Kerrie that we try using it with Sophie. We shaved her belly in order to get better contact for the leads, and on a nightly basis, would strap it around her abdomen, for anywhere from forty-five minutes to three hours. There was a noticeable difference in her mood and ability to walk more fluidly. On better days she could clean herself, which helped decrease her risk for a UTI. We didn’t note any adverse effects, except that she didn’t appreciate being strapped in, and would try to rub it off on a door jam if she could, but that can be expected for a cat. We called it Sophie’s jet pack. One of my points is that Sophie barely weight ten pounds, and because the Arc is using microcurrents, literally electrons, is worked as safely for her, as it did for me, and as it would for a 1200 pound animal.
SO WHAT HAS CHANGED?
In early January I received an email from ARC Microtech Ltd founder, Ian Thirkell. See the lightly edited version below.
Good afternoon, Scott,
I hope you had a restful and enjoyable Christmas and New Year.
I just wanted to touch base with an update our end, which I hope will be warmly welcomed by yourself and your clients. Up until yesterday, legacy changes meant that website traffic from North America were visiting a slightly different version of our website. We've recently switched web developers and long-overdue updates now mean that ALL website traffic - regardless of geography - will view the same website. This also means that all customers will purchase at the same price!
For example. US customers were paying $510 (+ import duty and shipping) for an ArcEquine complete kit. Now, these customers will instead be paying ~$415 (at today's exchange rate; + import duty and shipping). I just wanted to confirm you that you will still be able to offer your clients a $30 discount, and that you will continue to receive a $30 commission, which can be used to offset the cost of further kits. Hopefully this lower price point better ensures that more can benefit from microcurrent therapy.
Furthermore, we have sought advice from representatives of the UK's Department for Business and Trade in the US, Canada, and Australia. Based on this, along with official information from the FDA, Health Canada and the TGA, we are now, for the first time, making the Arc4Health complete kit available to customers outside the UK and Europe. These will be available for purchase under these countries' respective Personal Importation Schemes, provided the customer declares it's for personal use only and a few other criteria. This takes effects as of today. Your discount code will enable your clients to purchase either an ArcEquine or an Arc4Health complete kit with the same $30 discount, and $30 commission. It's remains entirely your choice as to which you recommend.
Our ARC Ambassador Programme is gaining momentum and my colleague, Heidi Attenborough, is now taking a lead on developing and supporting our Ambassadors. I thought this would be the ideal opportunity to introduce you to one another. However, I am still fully contactable if and whenever you have questions! A few big changes to start 2025, but fundamentally it's a reduction in price and an increase in customer choice as to whether they purchase an ArcEquine or Arc4Health. Thank you again for your support over the last few years, please let us know if you have any questions.
Best wishes,
Ian
Ian Thirkell
Founding Director
http://www.arcequine.com/
http://www.arc4health.com/
HOW TO USE THE ARC? (FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY)
After much discussion and lots of trial and error, we have landed on the following basic approach to using the Arc.
Program 1, cycle at least once daily for three hours, for TWO MONTHS
Program 2, cycle at least once daily for three hours, for TWO WEEKS
Program 3, cycle at least once daily for three hours, for TWO WEEKS
Then, rotate through Program 1 for one week, Program 2 for one week, and Program 3 for one week.
Repeat.
More details: program 1 is 100% anti-inflammatory and consists of four forty-five minute cycles. Program 2 is 50% anti-inflammatory and 50% cellular repair. Program 3 is 25% anti-inflammatory and 75% cellular repair.
Program 4 is rarely used, and typically reserved for acute injuries such as a broken bone, severe burn, or major surgery. I have questioned Ian about possible uses of program 4 on MANY occasions, and the answer has always been about the same. It is a rarely used program.
In horses, as in humans, it is not recommended to put the the device on an extremity which is injury. Humans being curious and contradictory, many of my patients have done this anyway, and have reported remarkable benefit such as reduction of pain and swelling in an injured and swollen ankle within hours.
You can wear the Arc on your arms and legs. If you order the Arc Equine without the discount code, you will get the equine unit, and a horse leg strap. If you use the discount code, you will get a human-sized arm/leg strap. There is also an extension strap which now comes with the unit to help with sizing in larger people.
My personal approach to the Arc has been a preference to wear it above my ankle, for ease of access (it’s not under a shirt), and freedom from interference with movement. E.g. when wearing it on my upper arm while typing, I find that the expansion of my biceps muscles makes the fit uncomfortably tight. I bought my unit before the company started including the extension strap, and so I use a piece of medical paper tape to keep the strap from flapping around, as my skinny ankles prevent the velcro pads from matching up properly.
It’s very important that the strap be fitted, but NOT TIGHT. You should be able to fit two fingers between the skin of your ankle/leg or arm and the strap. Not only does the unit not need to be tight in order to work, but if it is tight, it will inhibit circulation and interfere with good clinical benefit.
In practice, we have found that there is a very small number of patients who need some extra guidance in order to implement the Arc. I’ll estimate this number at about twenty patients out of 400. These are people who were extremely sensitive and after as little as a few minutes of program 1, started to have symptoms such as nausea or dizziness. We have found that the ARC Microtech Ltd team and Ian have been very responsive in troubleshooting the concerns with these patients, and by slowly introducing the device, in a few cases with as little as one minute of therapy a day, then two, gradually increasing, we have been able to make it work for some. In the above cases, it sometimes happens that a patient does well with programs 1 and 3, but doesn’t tolerate program 2; or conversely, the patient tolerates program 2 and 4, but not 1 and 3. When this approach hasn’t overcome negative responses, we have helped “rehome” the Arc devices to other patients, because it is simpley too valuable a clinical tool to let sit on a shelf gathering dust.
Both the ArcEquine and Arc4Health come with two types of pads. One set is reusable carbon, which utilize a gel (included) to make contact. If you run out of gel and your budget is tight, you could use a little bit of spit to make the contact. The other pads are adhesive, similar to those used for twelve lead EKGs. These are my preferred pads, and living with a bunch of shedding cats, I save the backing and place it over the pads when I’m recharging the Arc. In this way, I’m able to make a set of pads last about a month before the adhesive is really gone.
In most cases the Arc can recharge in about thirty minutes. There has been a tiny number of malfunctioning machines, but typically the issue is operator error. Nevertheless, ARC Microtech Ltd. has demonstrated excellent customer service, troubleshooting assistance, and if necessary, replacement of the product.
My personal strategy has been to wear the Arc for five cycles a day. Once you are in the habit of using it, the routine becomes quite effortless. I attach it to my right ankle before I leave for the office in the morning. I reset it after noon for a second cycle. Then sometime in the later afternoon or early evening I get in a third cycle. Sometimes I plug the Arc in to recharge it after dinner, and sometimes I plug it in after waking in the morning. Before bedtime, I switch the Arc to my left ankle and start it just before bed. I typically get up to use the bathroom once during the night, and set the Arc for another cycle. In this way, I easily achieve five cycles a day for a total of fifteen hours of therapy. The rationale for using the Arc this way is that benefit is cumulative. The more you use it, the more benefit you get.
As far as cycle rotations, for more than a year I would cycle through program 1, 2 and 3, doing a week each, and then start over. More recently, after discussion with Ian, I decided to use only programs 1 and 3 with the goal of improving the ejection fraction of my heart, which was injured by the Covid shots.
Typically patients will begin to notice clinical benefit after six weeks of use. That said, I have seen many people get benefit right away. The best example I have is an 87 year old patient who suffered from thoracic spinal pain for twenty years. He was scheduled for spinal fusion surgery, and bought an Arc after our first telemedicine visit. It arrived in five days, and within three days of starting use, his back pain was completely resolved. He canceled his surgery.
This Substack can’t possibly cover all of the questions or variations which may arise for individual situations, and, again, is meant for instructional purposes only, not as individual medical advice.
The discount code for the Arc is USARCLEC. The websites for the Arc Equine and Arc4Health are,
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