[lautrec]

For years I have suffered much pain with an arthritic knee and could not work more than a few yards at a time without experiencing great pain. I read an article somewhere about the positive effect of magnets and cutting out any of those expensibe sites selling btacelets etc, I bought a sheet of 6 magnets in the local hardware store very cheaply.
I have stuck a magnetic either side of my knee joint with strong double sided sticky tape. I was amazed that the pain disapeared almost immediately and have been walking now without any pain; even walking a three mile jaunt last week!
The only trouble is that when I took them off, the pain returned!. But as I am only into the 'cure' for three weeks so maybe I might be able to take them off, come the summer, when I have to start wearing shorts!
Forget placebo effect! It really does works for me!

[Doris]

Hello, I'm very interested in magnets as I'm a student chiropractor. Your chat site had some interesting facts so I thought I'd just go out and buy some magnets and sleep on them to see what affect it has on a healthy body. I've purchased bulk standard fish tank cleaner magnets, pulled them apart and placed them under the sheet of my bed. In total I have 12 2cmx2cm magnets under my sheet and I will increase this by 12 each week for 5 weeks and tell you what has happened. How does that sound?
 
And what do you think will be the outcome ?

doris

[Greg Smith]

>Hello, I'm very interested in magnets as I'm a student chiropractor....

>And what do you think will be the outcome ?

Most likely, in about ten years you will recall your experiment and say to yourself, "What the heck was I thinking?"

Respectfully,

Greg

[Karen W.]

Hey Neil Check out Nikken Products, they should have some statistics and studies done that their products are based on. My husband and I have actually been to many of their little siminar things and at one point became dealers only to help a friend. They really had some compelling statistics. I don't know if it is something you can find out about over there, but I don't see why not. We tried several products and were very impressed. That was a long time ago and we no longer have an interest as far as selling products, but we have used some of them with some sucess. I am interested in more info. I know they had alot more clinical study type things when we were attending. Who knows though, we never went any further then trying some of the products. You recieved quite a discount for buying a yearly membership. Interesting stuff though.

[Doris]

Okay I know it hasn't been 10 years but my little experiment seems to be gaining structure. I purchased 200  rare earth magnets about the sizr of a 2 pence piece. The individual strength of each magnet is 2500 gauss. I'm wearing 5 on each side of my body and sleeping on 10 durng the night. I'm increasing the amount I sleep on by 10 each week.

So far this has had a very calming effect on my body and I have definately felt a reduction of aches and pains that were in my body. I have not had a total reduction of pain however, and if I do an 18 mile walk I still haveaches but my recovery seems to be quicker.

I know of the company nikken but they do not tell you how many magnets, the type of magnets or the strength of  indivdual magnets in a product therefore the total strength of a product is a mystery.

Are there optimum gauss levels and/or quantities of magnets for individuals?

Do the magnetic suppliers need to be more accurate in thier prescription of magnets to taylor them per user?

Does the effectivness of magnet depend on body mass?

These are just a few questions I have and it seems the more I increase the amount of magnets around me the better I feel, promting more questions WHY



doris

[Blue75]

Hi Doris,

What magnetic poles have you got facing your body?

Have you been wearing the magnets continually for 24 hrs?

 

quote:Are there optimum gauss levels and/or quantities of magnets for individuals?

Magnets used in sleep systems are usually ceramic as they are far less costly than the neodymium magnets and can therefore be built in to larger items such as matress pads; each ceramic magnet used in sleep systems are normally above 3,000 core gauss, this promotes relaxation and aids in the stimulation of the pineal gland.

Depending on the size of your matress, determines the amount of static magnets in the pad, i.e a kingsize pad will have more than a single size pad.

I have a single pad on my bed that contains 300 magnets with a 3,950 core gauss / 800-1100 surface gauss.

 

quote:Do the magnetic suppliers need to be more accurate in thier prescription of magnets to taylor them per user?

A lot of magnetic therapy suppliers are sales people and have done little or no training in the field of biomagnetic therapy and therefore  should not give advice on how to use them for medical or therapeutical purpouses.

The rule of thumb is to listen to your own body, only you can tell whether the magnets have had any effect on your body.

You can either place negative pole magnets on the point of pain for 15-20 minutes twice a day for a couple of weeks or untill a complete reduction in pain is noticed.

Or you could keep the magnet on for 24 hrs untill a reduction in pain is noticed.

If wearing a magnet for a considered length of time, take a few days off as to prevent your body becoming accustomed to the magnetic energy.

 

quote:Does the effectivness of magnet depend on body mass?

Not really, top quallity neodymium magnets with a CORE rating of 12,300 gauss and a SURFACE gauss of 1,200 have an impact of 3-6 inches on the skin in both radius and depth of penetration.


Remember the human body is an incredible piece of equipement and can often repair itself, magnet therapy may be able assist with this process.


Blue75

[ukmicky]

Until a few years ago I was highly skeptical towards the claims of health benefits from magnetic therapy and then as part of my previous job i got to regularly visit a company selling MagneTech products. After a while i got to know the owner and so i voiced my  opinions in an honest but polite way not wishing to upset him.
He listened and said it was OK as most people have the same opinion as me and only change their minds when they use magnetic therapy usually as a last resort.

He then took me into his dispatch office and showed me the walls which were totally covered with letters from people from all around the world thanking his company for their help and how their products had relieved there symptoms after many years of suffering often after their doctors couldn't help except for prescribing pain relief. He then opened a filing cabinet and showed me hundreds more, there were draws full of them.

Even so i'm still not totally convinced as there could be things like the placebo effect going on but now at least i would be prepared to use magnetic therapy products as a last resort whereas before i wouldn't have even entertained the idea.

Maybe if it wern t for the high cost of the products then more people would try magnetic therapy and then maybe we would know whether there is any truth behind the health benifit claims.

Michael

[Blue75]

quote:Even so i'm still not totally convinced as there could be things like the placebo effect going on but now at least i would be prepared to use magnetic therapy products as a last resort whereas before i wouldn't have even entertained the idea.

If you tell a human that something will work, then most of the time it will (or at least they belive it will), if you could bottle and sell the placebo effect then you would be a rich man[].

But animals have no idea about the placebo effect, horses have been treated with magnet therapy with good results.

Now the argument could be that the injury may have healed by itself, but magnets may benefit this process.

The NHS has recently approved the use of magnetic wraps in the treatment of leg ulcers, so hopefully more methods of magnetic treatments will be approved by them in the near future.

Providing the negative pole of the magnet is used towards the body, then magnet therapy is safe to use, excluding the following: pregnant and lactating women. People fitted with a battery operated implant such as a pace maker, defibrillators, insulin pumps or other electro-insulin devices. People fitted with cobalt based implants.

Magnet Therapy will either work for you or it will not.



Blue75

[Doris]

Greg I've now read up on neodymium, cobalt and a assortment of other magnets. I'm using N45 25mm dia x 3mm discs. I am as you suggested using the north facing pole to my body and I'm now sleeping on 80 magnets that I purchased directly from a magnet supplier for 0.42pence each.

I have also conducted some other experiments using stronger magnets positioned on the body and then introduced ethanol (alcohol) to the body to see if it had any affect on reducing toxins.

I was abosolutely amazed with the outcome and more experiments will follow, without a doubt.[:0]

I have been without pain since I started using the neodymium magnets and have a considerable success with friends who are willing to experiment with me. This is NOT expensive at all if you go direct to the supplier and avoid using fancy labled products were the company have put thier logo on a magnet.[8D]

doris

[jaywalk]

I have been using magnets for several years with good success,as a part of a Kinesiology session. The magnets are low strength ,about 250 gz- but several are used at the same time in conjunction with stimulating acupuncture points.
I don't recommend wearing or sleeping with strong magnets and also not to use purely for pain relief without looking at the underlying reasons for pain as its the way our body communicates with us!
Hope this is of interest,
Jay

[Hazel]

Hello friends!
I want to post little bit infomation about it
Magnetotherapy is the application of static, variable and pulse magnetic fields  with various characteristics for curative and preventive effect.

Magnetotherapy  is one of the oldest therapeutic methods along with photo- and thermotherapy used for the treatment of different diseases.

Magneto-therapy could be really effective only if you use it properly.Anyway read about if first and after that you can make your own opinion
As for me I read information here [Spam-/garbage- link removed] .So REMEMBER,LEARN AS MUCH AS YOU CAN FIRST.
Regards Hazel

[Sprool]

So, a lot of conflicting information here. Some say North pole, some say South, some say positive some say negative.
One says it either works for you or it doesn't.
I can see strong AC current electromagnetism is used for wound healing and stimulating the body's own repair systems for bone fractures, by some mainstream medical practicioners (after all, it can't do any harm can it?) but can you really liken a static wristband magnet to a strong AC field? There's a lot of pseudoscience going on which is clouding a sensible, reasoned debate here, and there's a lot of placebo power going on which I suspect is the over-riding contributory factor.

[Sprool]

This from Ben Goldacre's Bad Science Blog:"Amusing to see that the NHS Prescription Pricing Authority have apparently put Magnet Bandages on the formulary:
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2058902,00.html
(Even more amusing to see the Times mentioning that old “iron in blood is magnetic” chestnut again).
What’s interesting to me about this is that it may be the first time the PPA have put something on the NHS formulary on cost effectiveness grounds, but in the full knowledge that it very demonstrably, in well conducted trials, only works as a placebo, as the recent BMJ paper (amongst others) showed.
I ought to say I have no problem with placebos, I think they’re very effective, and it’s very much a contemporary cultural peculiarity that means medics don’t make use of the effect any more."

[Bored chemist]

"and it certainly can't hurt "
except financially,
and by lulling people into a false sense of security and by undermining the importance of clear thinking.

[Sprool]

There's the paradox. No disputing the Placebo effect is well documented and very powerful, but it relies on people believing it, not understanding it is a placebo. It's like the tooth fairy, as soon as you don't believe and see the lack of firm proper science behind it, you cease to get the coin under the pillow. Without the buy-in the effect loses its power. Where it goes astray morally is where companies prey on this to extract large sums of money from people. Yet if the sums are significant, and the treatments more intrusive,  the studies (reported in Ben's book) tend to show the placebo effect works even stronger as the buy-in is greater.
Sadly I think its a load of bunkum so it will never work for me.

[RD]

... the Placebo effect is well documented and very powerful

Only when the outcome is a subjective self-assessment, not where an objective measurement can be made ...

We found little evidence in general that placebos had powerful clinical effects. Although placebos had no significant effects on objective or binary outcomes, they had possible small benefits in studies with continuous subjective outcomes and for the treatment of pain. Outside the setting of clinical trials, there is no justification for the use of placebos.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200105243442106

[imatfaal]

To back up RD's point; this is from the abstract of the Cochrane Review on Placebos

Placebo interventions are often claimed to substantially improve many clinical conditions. However, most reports on effects of placebos are based on unreliable studies that have not randomised patients to placebo or no treatment.

We studied the effect of placebo treatments by reviewing 202 trials comparing placebo treatment with no treatment covering 60 healthcare problems. In general, placebo treatments produced no major health benefits, although on average they had a modest effect on outcomes reported by patients, such as pain. However, the effect on pain varied from large to non-existent, even in well-conducted trials. Variations in the effect of placebo was partly explained by variations in how trials were conducted, the type of placebo used, and whether patients were informed that the trial involved placebo.

You can read the whole report Placebo interventions for all clinical conditions

[Donnah (OP)]

I find the administration of placebos to be an exercise in condescension (as well-meaning as that may sometimes be).  People always have a reason for seeking medical help.  I believe most ailments have emotional origins such as a subconscious need for attention, or a feeling of anxiety or desperation stemming from a feeling of powerlessness.  People who feel disempowered will naturally go to someone they see as more powerful than themselves (authority figure) to seek answers.   But the fact that they have made an effort to find answers is a good sign.  At that point the most beneficial path is to teach people to empower themselves, which I'm happy to see is a growing skill in our world.   

More than anything, I think people need kindness (a form of caring/love).  The world can be a pretty rough place to live sometimes, and a kind word or touch or even just listening to someone spill their woes can make people feel better.  The tricky bit is discerning the line between helping and enabling.  Like the difference between a wheel spinning in place in a rut, or a wheel bumping up out of the rut and moving on down the road.