Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy

[Maria]

Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy or "PEMF"

I hadn't heard about this until this year. Basically, it's a device that produces pulses of an electromagnetic field through a person's body and stimulates the body to repair itself. The field is about the same strength as the Earth's natural EM field- the theory being that being surrounded by artificial electromagnetic fields of various random frequencies interferes with the body's functions- and that supplementing with *good* frequencies that humans evolved with is beneficial.

Our doctor recommended it for my husband's chronic Lyme disease. There's a doctor in town who has an Ondamed device and my husband tried that for a few weeks and we decided to get a home unit. Not an Ondamed, of course... those are crazy expensive. But we did get a cheaper unit of good repute and started using it daily 3 weeks ago.

I have Lyme disease too, but am not nearly as badly affected by it as my husband is. When he's having a bad day, he's nearly incapacitated for 2-3 days at a time. Can barely walk around with the use of a cane, and during the latest incident (right before we signed up for the Ondamed treatment) he got so bad I had to rent a wheelchair for him.

While he was trying out the Ondamed, I did lots of research and this sort of therapy seems to be real. There are lots of studies on Pubmed that show PEMF helps lots of different conditions. PEMF has been used in Europe for 20 years, they say, and is highly regarded there. It's been used in the US for the same time frame for veterinarian use, and can even heal a horse's broken leg!

I looked and looked for unhappy customers of the device I'd decided to try. I searched for scam reports. I couldn't find anything bad about the therapy except the cost of the devices. So I picked a model that claimed you could try it for 60 days and return it if you weren't happy. Given the fact that my husband and I often have non-standard reactions to medicines, I figured this was a reasonable precaution. What if it was awful??? What if it threw us into agony with a flick of the switch?

So, we bought it. I tried it. I can't feel anything at all except on the highest setting which causes a slight crawling feeling on my skin. The instructions say to monitor your medications in case the PEMF therapy changes your need for them. One week into this, I started going hyper-thyroid (too much thyroid hormone) . Nothing in the literature suggests this, but the signs were indisputable. I stopped taking my thyroid medicine completely because it has a week long elimination half-life and waited to go hypothyroid again and would have to find my new level with the drug. That hasn't happened. It's now been two weeks without the thyroid hormone supplementation and I'm fine. Am showing none of the hypothyroid symptoms I'd become so familiar with the past 2 years. My husband had to drop his dose, too.

So, PEMF is helping repair my endocrine system, it seems. That's the only variable in the past month, really.

But that's not the big thing. When my husband starts going into a Lyme disease herx , it's always the same pattern : quick decline, and then he hurts terribly all over in muscles and joints, and can hardly walk for 2-3 days. He's been averaging probably one day off work per week all year for this. That annoys most employers, and I assume it's not OK with his.

Since starting the Ondamed therapy, and then switching to the Medithera home unit- about 6 weeks- he hasn't missed any work. Yesterday, however, he came in from cutting firewood all wobbly and saying everything hurt. I had to help him to the bedroom where we keep the PEMF unit and the mat you lie on, and he almost fell several times. My heart sank. I was SURE we were done with this. I looked up the setting for "general pain" and he lay down on the mat. 10 minutes later he rolled off the mat and went to sleep.

Past experience would indicate that he'd hardly be able to walk for the next 2 days. That turned out not to be the case! When he woke up, he walked just fine! He's still in pain, but it's not overwhelming. He went to work today. The herx was intercepted and halted!

I don't know how or why it worked. I've never understood why his nerves misfire that way, anyway. Why should every synapse in his body be screaming PAIN at a flick of some switch we don't understand? PEMF is supposed to help with nerve regeneration, though, so I suspect that's part of what's happening.

I'm pretty sure we are going to keep this gizmo. Even if it only got me off thyroid meds, it'd be worth it. If it can stop a lyme disease herx in its tracks... it's priceless.

edit: left out a word

[Maria]

Also, I keep reading on the sites that sell these devices that EM field generators are a must in space suits and space stations.... but I can't find anything of an official nature about these things. The copy usually reads something like this:

PEMF - The Fifth Element (Part 2)

In Yuri Gagarin's historic flight into space, he returned in near critical condition after only one hour and forty-eight minutes in space. Clearly there was some vital element missing in space that we receive on earth. Well Yuri had plenty of food, he had water, and also oxygen and since the flight was less than 2 hours he really only needed oxygen. So what's missing? Well you may say gravity and yes you would be correct, but we can survive in near weightless environments here on earth (in water for example) for just a couple hours. The critical missing element is PEMF - Pulsed Electromagnetic Fields.

Since that first flight, pulsed magnetic devices have been used in every space suit and space station with the notable inclusion in the MIR space station.

Further studies have been done on earth (zero field studies) with both laboratory animals and human subjects. What was found is that just in a matter of hours of NO exposure to healthy PEMF's, cell metabolism begins to break down causing bone loss, muscle weakness, depressed metabolism, disorientation and depression.

Conclusion - Research has conclusively proven the fifth element PEMF is a necessary and required element of health just as is food, water, and oxygen and to some extent sunlight.

Being a lifelong science fiction fan, I just had to find another source for this. How could such a vital element be ignored by fiction? "Captain, our EM field has gone down and we have no spare parts to fix it! We are all gonna DIE!"

I've googled as much as I could stand on the topic and can't find anything other than innumerable sites selling PEMF machines. I tried from the space suit design angle. I tried from the Yuri Gagarin biography angle. I can't find anything that says space suits and space stations have their own EM field generators.

This disturbs me. Has anyone else ever heard that people can't live without a specific EM field in the background? If so, this could have severe ramifications for colonizing other worlds.

[narya]

I've never heard of this and don't know what to say about it. It makes me wonder, though, if people on different parts of the planet get different EM from the Earth and how that affects them. For 5 years I lived in Fairbanks, Alaska, along a ring around the north pole where the magnetic lines curve back into the Earth. (That's why the Northern Lights are seen there so frequently - they are made of solar particles riding the magnetic lines down to Earth, and exciting the atmosphere along the way.) There were so many other strange things there that I experienced, moving from my family in urban California to college with strangers in semi-rural Alaska - minus 60 degree temperatures, zero humidity, four hour days in winter and so bright in the summer night that there were no stars visible for 3 months, last-frontier type people, only 3 months of the year between last frost and first frost - that if there was a difference in EM, I probably didn't pick up on it. This webpage mentions the same thought: http://www.phy6.org/Education/FAQs4.html#q47

I'm glad to hear you and your husband are doing so much better, but worry about you being off of thyroid meds - I've got another friend who was prescribed Synthroid and used to go on and off it, and when she was off, she'd get depressed, then staying off was a kind of slow, deliberate suicide for her until we could convince her to get back on them. Please take care!

[Maria]

Having too much thyroid hormone is BAD. Headaches, rapid pulse, jittery feeling, diarrhea! It throws your body into metabolic overload. My prescription isn't for a particular amount, I'm supposed to adjust slowly according to how I feel (up to a max) , but my doctor said to take only the minimum needed to prevent symptoms of slow metabolism. That minimum is now down to nothing. I'm OK with that. If I start going hypothyroid again, I'll start using the meds again. No big deal.

*******************************************************************

There are maps of the Earth's geomagnetic field out there, but apparently it changes a lot. And most of the maps I find don't have legends that I can understand! It's really frustrating. This is a depiction of the results of half a years observation of the Earth's geomagnetic field. I've only been able to watch a few seconds on my computer here at work because my computer being really slow. http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos ... etic_field

From what little I've been able to see, the hot spots shift around a lot.

What's really interesting is the news that the Earth's magnetic field is dropping much faster than anticipated, and that it's likely it will flip soon, geologically speaking, of course. http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2014/10/ ... -lifetime/

It makes me wonder, if the field strength has been dropping like a rock the past couple hundred years, has that made technology possible? Will computers and the like even work in a high geomagnetic field? Will animals and people be able to function in a really low EM field? Are the rampant health problems nowadays caused by a low geomagnetic field? And what is the world going to be like when all compasses point south?

[Frelga]

PEMF - The Fifth Element (Part 2)

In Yuri Gagarin's historic flight into space, he returned in near critical condition after only one hour and forty-eight minutes in space. Clearly there was some vital element missing in space that we receive on earth. Well Yuri had plenty of food, he had water, and also oxygen and since the flight was less than 2 hours he really only needed oxygen. /snip/

I don't know about the rest of it, but I have never heard of anything electromagnetic being mentioned among the hazards of space travel. All the references I saw focus on weightlessness and radiation. Nor is there any indication that Gagarin was in critical condition after his flight. On the contrary, soon after landing he was giving interviewers, taking photos, and taking part in official debriefings and celebrations.

I did find this reference to the proposed use of PEMF devices to counteract bone loss due to weightlessness, but it is discussed as something experimental, based on the more conventional use of PEMF to treat fractures, not something that is part of an accepted practice in the space flight.

Frelga's verdict - probably not true.

P.S.: Here's Gagarin hours after the flight, on his return to Moscow


At this link, there are more photos of his return and the ensuing celebrations.

[Primula Baggins]

Yeah, rub it in, Frelga!

Seriously, though, Maria, I've spent a lot of time researching the hazards of space flight, and this is not one of them. The only disadvantage of being outside Earth's magnetosphere is losing the radiation shielding it provides. It's the presence of the radiation, not the absence of the magnetosphere, that causes problems.

Astronauts in low Earth orbit (LEO) are still shielded and still within the magnetic field (they're less than 200 miles up, and the magnetosphere reaches 36,000 miles). They are in danger from major solar flares that cause damage even down on Earth's surface, but not much else. You don't encounter serious danger until you leave Earth orbit and head out for the moon, or Mars, or beyond. And there, again, it's not the absence of the magnetic field that's the problem; it's the radiation.

Many dozens of people have spent months at a time in LEO, without any health issues related to either the magnetic field or radiation. The key issue is the absence of gravity, and problems related to that take weeks or months to manifest.

And, several dozen people have traveled well outside the Earth's magnetic field for days (Apollo astronauts) without any health issues from the complete absence of the field.

[Maria]

Thanks for the input! I suspected that little bit of "information" was a flat out lie, and it almost kept me from trying the machine. Probably a lot of other stuff said on many of the websites is also misleading or inflated. But a personal friend had recommended the IMRS machine, said it made the difference between more back surgery or not- so I figured it was worth a try. What I had read on Pubmed papers seemed to indicate that a simpler model than the IRMS would do just as well, so I got the much cheaper Medithera.

It seems to be helping. Placebo effect cannot be ruled out at this point.... but placebo effect can be a powerful thing- if that's what is happening, I'll take it.

I never did get that magnetic field video link above loaded. I found it on youtube, though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOI0gqWhsOY Looks like the field strength varies all over the planet. Alaska has those variations, too. I did think the part labeled "Single Even Upsets- Satellite orbit disruptions over low magnetic field areas" was interesting. There were a lot more incidents over the low field areas than in the high ones. I wonder what causes that?

[Frelga]

Maria, I am not suggesting that all claims about PEMF are untrue. Wiki says it's being used on people in Europe but only in veterinary medicine in the US and, as far as we know, animals are not subject to placebo effect. Come to think, I remember a Dick Francis story, in which an injured jockey is using a device normally used on horses for his broken leg, and that's got to be a legitimate source.

[Maria]

Dick Francis is of course a legitimate source! I don't think I've read that one, though. Which is it?

The FDA has approved PEMF uses for bone regrowth and medication resistant depression, so I assume the evidence for those is overwhelming. Apparently the rest of the PEMF machines are classified as "biofeedback" devices, and thus not subject to regulation? I dunno what the rules are. This was shipped from Chicago somewhere, so it's not coming from out of country- so it must be within the rules.

[Frelga]

I think it was Straight.

[Maria]

I just tried to stick that book on my wishlist on Audible so I could listen to it with my husband, and got this message,
"We're sorry. Due to publishing rights restrictions, we are not authorized to sell this item in the country where you live."

What???? I've probably got the paperback at home, or can get it at the library.... so it isn't a big deal.... but whose crazy decision was that?

[Primula Baggins]

When a publisher buys the rights to publish a book, those rights are territorial. If they want to publish it in more territories, they have to pay more. They usually buy rights to publish only within the territory where they do most of their business.

That said, it certainly is possible to buy physical books from other territories, if you're willing to pay the shipping. Maybe there are more restrictions on audiobook rights?

[Maria]

I've had to turn the field strength down to its minimum level. Apparently the extra energy was exciting my insides so much it was causing diarrhea!

On a positive note, my 15 year old cat who has been acting increasingly fragile for the past year or two is suddenly getting playful and is obviously feeling better. She's even started going outside again. She used to love going in and out of the house over and over again, but she's stayed inside almost constantly the past few years. I carried her up to the bed beside me where the PEMF mat is the first couple of times and petted her during my treatment- now she follows me on her own. It seems to be doing her some good.

Our youngest dog, Denna, occasionally has pains in her legs where she has to walk 3 legged for days at a time. We've had her looked over by veterinarians who specialize in animal orthopedics, and they can't find anything wrong with her. One student suggested that maybe "she limps because she wants to?". Calling my dog a hypochondriac....

Anyway, the next time that happens, we are going to try PEMF on her and see if *whatever* is wrong reverses itself quicker than usual.