Hilaree Milliron, DPM, describes herself as a “biomechanics nerd”—an interest that shapes nearly every aspect of care at Eternal Sole Foot & Ankle, the Florida practice she opened with her husband after years in corporate medicine.
The practice centers on identifying the source of a patient’s problem rather than treating symptoms in isolation. “A lot of people will look at the foot and ankle and think of it as disconnected from the rest of the body,” Dr. Milliron says. “You can’t. If you’re really going to get down to the nuts and bolts of the problem, you can’t disconnect those things.”
Care begins with a root-cause approach: X-rays help guide a broader discussion of alignment, daily activities, previous injuries, joint replacements, and other contributing factors.
Within that approach, the M-Hi MLS Therapy Laser, valued for its portability, has become one of her most frequently used treatment tools.
Plantar fasciitis and Achilles tendinitis are among the conditions she treats most often—patients who often arrive frustrated after multiple treatments without relief.
Before recommending MLS Laser Therapy, Dr. Mil-liron emphasizes diagnostics, using ultrasound imaging to confirm the plantar fascia or Achilles tendon is intact and establishing what she calls the patient’s “state of affairs.” Treatment then follows the individual clinical picture.
When immobilization is necessary, the M-Hi is incorporated alongside a boot, strapping, or other care rather than used as a replacement.
The results she has observed have reinforced her confidence in the technology. One patient came to the practice months after an extensive Achilles reconstruction—tendon detachment, bone spur resection, tendon transfer—still in pain and reluctant to consider another surgery. According to Dr. Milliron, he was approximately 75 percent better after four laser treatments.
She has also incorporated MLS Laser into treatment of ankle and midfoot arthritis, while setting realistic expectations for complex cases. Outcomes for idiopathic neuropathy, for example, may be less predictable when the underlying cause is unclear.
Interestingly, laser therapy often enters the treatment plan before custom orthotics, reducing pain first to help patients regain confidence that improvement is possible. She may then introduce a prefabricated orthotic before progressing to custom, in-office molded devices. Her philosophy is deliberate: change one variable at a time and evaluate the response.
Now, another possibility has captured her attention: combining MLS Laser with regenerative medicine. Dr. Milliron has been following the work of sports medicine orthopedist Marc Pietropaoli, MD, who has explored pairing orthobiologics like platelet-rich plasma (PRP) with MLS Laser Therapy in the knee. “That really interests me,” she says. “I’m thinking, if MLS Laser will do this without biologics, what would it do with them?”
As regenerative medicine gains interest within podiatry, she sees potential in exploring how these modalities may complement one another, and is already considering cases she’d like to document.
For podiatrists evaluating MLS Laser technology, her advice is practical: make the demonstration meaningful. List 10 of the practice’s most difficult patients and schedule them for a demo, cases whose progress, or lack of it, the physician already knows firsthand.
She takes a similar approach to referrals, encouraging nearby foot and ankle orthopedic surgeons and physical medicine physicians to consider patients with persistent, difficult-to-manage pain.
“Send me your worst patients,” she says. “You can be the hero, because you found them something different.”
That does not mean Dr. Milliron has ruled out surgery. “I’m not going to say I’ll never operate again,” she says. “But it’s going to take a whole lot for me to tell somebody they need to go under the knife.”
For Dr. Milliron, that confidence comes from what she continues to see in the treatment room—and from the possibilities she believes may emerge as laser therapy and regenerative medicine increasingly intersect.
