About

Greetings,

Below I have incorporated my history with ARPWave with the now formal history of ARPWave.

I have abbreviated my history with ARPWave.

I am proud to claim that I also suggested to CEO Colt Thompson, that a detailed history was important to establish how the company was an undeniable, and irreplaceable key, in the founding of the modern tools, both technology, and techniques of modern electrotherapy.

On May 22, 1989, Dave Thomas filed a patent for an electrotherapeutic treatment.

That same day, Dave Thomas and Michael W. Fellinger filed a related apparatus patent.

On May 25, 1989, FDA received PhysioDynamics’ 510(k) submission for a device called TheraStim.

FDA cleared it on November 6, 1989.

Gary Thomas was introduced to Denis Thompson in 1990.

In 1992 at an AMTA National Convention trade show I met Dave Thomas and Denis Thompson.

They got my attention when they told me that Ralph Stephen's had purchased a Therastim, and Paul St. John had purchased several.

On the last day of the AMTA National Convention I also bought one of the first run of 100 Therastim.

I had owned and operated a Nautilus Fitness Center for the entire decade of the 1980s.

After selling the Nautilus Fitness Center I founded one of the earliest Schools of Massage Therapy in Eastern Tennessee.

Conventional electrical stimulation could be administered to a passive patient.

So I experimented with some volunteer massage clients.

Denis Thompson began to use the device in an active system and built the ARPWAVE company around it aided by Jay Schroeder who push its methods into elite performance.

The TheraStim manual describes Thomas’s signal as a compound, double-exponential, asymmetric waveform.

It lists a main frequency of 40 to 500 pulses per second, a 10,000-pulse-per-second background frequency, and language describing directional or reversible current.

Björn Nordenström’s theories of biologically closed electrical circuits, Robert Becker’s work on bioelectricity, Yakov Kots and so-called Russian stimulation, and theories involving collagen, scar tissue, and bradykinin, were all concepts we kept in mind as we all experimented.

These references explain the conceptual world in which TheraStim was presented.

In the late 1990s I was recruited by TheraStim as an FDA approved instructor, teaching any salesperson or potential therapist.

One Prattville RN, having broken her leg, contracted me for massage on everything that wasn't covered by a plaster cast.

She accepted a free TheraStim treatment of her broken leg.

She was amazed after noting an immediate and dramatic reduction in swelling inside her brand-new hip to ankle cast.

She then recruited me to teach a CEU on electric stimulation for a wound care conference, hosted by Tuskegee University.

Company histories place the end of TheraStim production in 2006 and ARP Manufacturing’s acquisition of PhysioDynamics in 2007.

On December 17, 2009, FDA cleared the prescription ARP Rx100 and identified TheraStim as its predicate.

Current company materials position RxBlack as the full-featured prescription platform and FlexDoctor as the portable personal recovery system.

I also own two of the FlexDoctor units.

Colt Thompson joined in 2004 and now leads the ARPWAVE modern chapter.

A 2018 study followed 96 adults after ACL injury through a combined program of ARPwave stimulation, exercise, and a high-protein diet.

The study reported increased thigh girth.

A 2019 randomized study of 25 people after ACL reconstruction reported greater recovery of thigh circumference in a group receiving ARP plus isometric exercise than in a group receiving isometric exercise alone.

The finding was encouraging, but the study was small and not blinded.

In 2026, two chronic-stroke case studies added another exploratory signal and helped lead to a larger controlled study now underway.

ARP stands for Accelerated Recovery Performance.

What is direct current NeuroTherapy?

In ARPwave’s approach, direct current NeuroTherapy combines electrical stimulation with assessment, electrode placement, active movement, and application protocols.

DC refers to direct current.

The History of ARPwave: The Original Direct Current NeuroTherapy System | ARPwave https://share.google/BMbvnHNiVza5HmHi5