chronic pain - Ask Dr. P

How Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy (PEMF) Can Improve Your Health

by Pain Doc | Jun 29, 2020 | Pulsed EMF

Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy, or PEMF is a safe, effective treatment for many types of health conditions. Some people use it for arthritic pain, while others use it for fibromyalgia, insomnia, and even chronic lung and cardiovascular illnesses. Unlike medicine and surgery, PEMF therapy doesn’t have dangerous or serious side effects.

There are many types of PEMF machines on the market, direct to consumer so it doesn’t require multiple trips to the doctor for treatment. The beauty of this is that PEMF can be used on-demand: whenever you have an acute flare-up or especially bad day; or, for daily maintenance of health.

And, since it is safe and doesn’t involve drugs, PEMF therapy can be used with other interventions that you may be currently using to reduce pain and inflammation, which leads to faster healing and recovery.

You may be wondering at this point, “how does Pulsed EMF work?”

PEMF – The Basics

As the name implies, PEMF therapy uses magnetic pulses that it sends into the body to speed up healing of weak cells, and therefore recovery. The human body emanates electric charges (think brain and nerve impulses and charged molecules and ions like Ca+, Mg+, H+ and OH-) and just like inanimate things that require electricity or batteries to keep them going, your body needs “recharging” once in a while. Several trillions of cells comprise your body, depending on how big you are, so it’s not surprising that many of them can break down at any time.

Healthy, normally-functioning cells have a balance between positive and negative charges (see image below). As these charges flow inside and between adjacent cells, electrical currents are produced. This electrical flow is the means by which nutrients and waste products enter and exit through cells, via special structures called ion channels. For example, when nerves are stimulated, they “depolarize,” where the negative and positive charges rapidly exchange position (inside vs. outside the membrane) and move down the nerve. This is called an “action potential” and is the actual means by which our nerves are able to contract our muscles, control our organs and send sensory signals to our brain.

cell membrane potential

When this critical flow of electrical currents through cells is disrupted, cells don’t carry out their functions as well as they need to. This leads to illness and symptoms. Things like trauma, disease processes, and exposure to toxins can alter these electrical signals. Pulsed electromagnetic therapy uses the same, natural frequencies produced in the body to give these cells a boost in energy. This restores the positive and negative charges in the weakened cells to their ideal state so they can once again function normally.

You may have heard of the dangers of electromagnetic fields (EMF) or electromagnetic radiation, especially if you follow alternative health websites. The frequencies used for PEMF therapy is nowhere near that of harmful EMF such as X-rays, gamma rays and microwaves. PEMF generates non-ionizing radiation, identical in frequencies already emitted by your body and therefore generally accepted as harmless to humans.

Health Benefits of PEMF therapy

There are many research studies that support the use of PEMF therapy for a wide range of disorders, from acute (recent; active) injury or health problems to chronic pain.

According to studies, PEMFs are useful in treating post-surgical pain; pain related to diabetic neuropathy, joint pain from osteoarthritis, and chronic lower back pain. PEMF therapy has also been shown to increase the healing rate of nonunion fractures, and even increase bone density in those who have osteoporosis. PEMFs ability to increase microcirculation to tissues is likely a factor.

Perhaps most impressively, PEMFs can help your body decrease inflammation, which is present in many chronic conditions including fibromyalgia, inflammatory arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, and autoimmune disorders such as Chron’s disease.

There are even studies that found PEMF therapy to have measureable, positive effects on those battling depression and anxiety, with long-term, daily treatment.

Conclusion: Pulsed EMF is a safe alternative for healing

If you are battling disease and/or pain, consider trying Pulsed EMF. It has scientific research going back over 40 years that support its many health benefits, and it is comparatively safe/ low risk to most individuals (those with heart conditions and implants should check with their doctor first). PEMF machines produce electromagnetic fields at the same frequency as the human body’s, so cells respond to them in a positive way.

PEMF machines available for home use are low intensity, so there is no danger of excessive exposure that could lead to significant adverse side effects. Treatment time can vary from just a few minutes to continuous, overnight use, depending on the problem being treated. The machines offered on our site are established leaders in PEMF technology, from the Russian-manufactured Almagia line to the HTC products—FlexPulse, BioBalance and TeslaFit lines.

Bio Balance Pulsed EMF

There are some higher intensity machines (TeslaFit) meant for use in clinics that are more effective for long-standing, chronic conditions rooted deep inside the body; but most conditions can benefit from the lower intensity units.

The FlexPulse is a low intensity, portable PEMF unit available direct to consumer. It was developed based on NASA stem cell research done over 15 years ago, and decades of research on brain entrainment (synchronizing biological frequencies) and neurofeedback. By increasing stem cell (cells that can turn into any type of cell) production, the FlexPulse promotes safe, natural regeneration with no side effects. Specific, pre-programmed frequencies mimic brain patterns to promote relaxation or alertness, enhance sleep, and relieve pain depending on your treatment goals.

The FlexPulse is a compact, wearable system that comes with two small pad applicators making it easy to use anytime, anywhere. The system comes with a 30 -day satisfaction guarantee and a 2-year International warranty, making it a no-risk healing alternative.

Check out our full line of Pulsed EMF machines here.

Watch the video below where I explain how Pulsed EMF can re-energize weak cells and help restore health.

Is There Anything Besides Drugs for Chronic Pain Treatment?

by Pain Doc | Mar 30, 2015 | Lifestyle Modification

Chronic pain is a complex, physiological process involving specialized sensory cells, nerves, your brain and spinal cord and a multitude of biochemical substances..

Chronic means the injury/damage/disease of the affected body region has gone through the normal stages of healing, but some degree of pain still remains. This can be due to incomplete healing, permanent physical damage to structures, continual re-injury/ aggravation of the area or even “imprinting” into the spinal cord where the central nervous system literally “memorizes” the pain signals, causing them to be ever-present.

Musculoskeletal conditions arising from trauma or gradual wear and tear dominate chronic pain cases (pain originating from bones, joints, muscles, soft tissues). Diseases affecting the nerves such as shingles, advanced diabetes, trigeminal neuralgia and other peripheral nerve diseases often become chronic in nature as well.

Research suggests that one’s conscious reaction to pain (how you respond to it) influences the severity of pain; that is, the perception of it. Someone who embraces his pain and defers to its presence out of excess fear or worry is less likely to improve than someone who resists giving in and “moves into” the pain by not focusing on it too much as he goes about doing what he desires. This strongly suggests that pain has both physiological (body) and psychological (mind) components to it, and therefore, treatment for it should incorporate methodologies that address both.

Options for Treating Chronic Pain

Treatment for chronic pain includes acetaminophen (Tylenol), non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (aspirin, ibuprofen), anti-depressant drugs used “off label” for pain (amitriptyline, Cymbalta), anti-convulsant drugs used off-label for pain (Lyrica), corticosteroids (Prednisone) and opiate drugs (morphine, codeine). They work in different ways to decrease pain; some not fully understood. And, they all come with side effects, which differ from person to person.

TENS units and spinal cord stimulators are instruments used to block or interfere with pain signals as they travel through the central nervous system.

So between strong drugs with unpleasant and often dangerous side effects and devices designed to block pain, the medical options for treatment are disappointing. These interventions are not intended to cure the problem at its source, but rather interfere with its manifestation via chemical and electrical means.

However, two instruments I have come across are in a “gray area” in that the mechanism of action involves stimulating actual, natural healing of injured cells. The first one is red light therapy, which works on human cells very much like how sunlight causes photosynthesis and energy production in plant cells. I recommend red light therapy for joint pain from osteoarthritis and sprains/strains. You can also use it to heal minor cuts and lacerations faster.

The second one is Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy, or PEMF. PEMF uses low frequency, low power magnetic fields in the range of frequencies that is naturally produced by the human body, to normalize cells whose membrane charge, or voltage, has been disrupted by disease processes and strong environmental electromagnetic fields such as those from power cables and electronics. When the cell membran charge is normalized, the cell’s metabolism and respiration is boosted which results in faster healing of disease; especially inflammatory disorders. Pulsed EMF can be used to treat many types of chronic disorders including chronic pain, fibromyalgia, pulmonary disease, heart disease and headaches. Watch the video below where I explain how PEMF works:

If you suffer from chronic pain, I suggest you direct your attention to creating conditions in your body that optimize health. This may not “cure” chronic pain entirely due to its complex nature, but a healthy body is in a much better position to heal and regenerate than one that is not.

Know that:

Your body is a community of interconnected, living cells that affect one another. For example, an intestinal cell and a muscle cell have a functional relationship. This cellular relationship can be influenced via lifestyle changes, primarily through your diet, activities and thoughts/attitudes to reduce pain.
Cells are the basic unit of the human body, and like the human body your cells consume food, breathe oxygen, perform work, burn energy stored in food and produce waste.
What enters your body via your mouth, lungs and skin gets into all of your cells (with the exception of those substances that cannot cross the blood-brain barrier).
Areas of chronic pain are where cells are in a state of distress. They may be producing inflammation, abnormally firing nerves, and/or not getting rid of their waste products properly.
You can greatly influence the functional state of all your cells by what you think, what you eat and drink, and what you do with your body.

When it comes to pain it is better to think in wholistic terms — the whole body, not just where it hurts. This is how your body is designed; how your body functions; and how it heals itself. Your starting point is your mindset and attitude. Use it the create health in your body by all means available to you; and there are many. Use Pulsed EMF for maintenance to enhance energy in your cells and enable efficient cell function and healing. This is your best bet for overcoming chronic pain.

Do Topical Pain Relieving Creams Work?

by Pain Doc | Feb 25, 2015 | Uncategorized

Icy Hot. Ben Gay. Tiger Balm. These are just a few of the many over-the-counter topical (meaning, applied to the skin) pain relieving products (TPRPs) on the market. They vary by type, and of course active/ therapeutic ingredients.

There are also prescription TPRPs that contain medications like ibuprofen, aspirin or opioid derivatives (Rx TPRPs are not necessarily more effective than OTC ones).

These products generally are OK for aches and pains affecting muscles, tendons, joints and sometimes nerves; not so much for acute injuries involving swelling. And, they are effective only for superficial areas such as elbows and wrists, as depth of penetration is limited.

So far, research shows some benefit in reducing pain, but nothing dramatic. Anecdotal evidence on their effectiveness obviously differs wildly from person to person. This is mostly due to the fact that pain has both physical and mental components to it, and different people perceive pain differently.

Topical pain relief products come in creams, gels, ointments, patches and sometimes sprays. They are usually manufactured with a “delivery agent,” a substance that binds to the active ingredient and penetrates the skin where it diffuses down to the target tissue. The delivery agent, therefore, is critical to the products potency.

There are three basic ways TPRPs work:

(1) analgesia – reducing inflammation

(2) nerve signal inhibition

(3) counter-irritant

The medicinal products use analgesia to reduce pain; this includes those that contain ibuprofen or aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid). Botanicals such as arnica, boswellia serrata, devil’s claw and comfrey are herbs associated with pain relief and are found in many TPRPs. Their mechanism of action is probably via inflammation reduction by acting as a blocking agent in inflammatory reactions.

Capsaicin is the compound that gives hot peppers their perceived heat. Products utilizing this as the active ingredient are more suited for nerve-related pain (neuralgias) like post-herpetic neuralgia, trigeminal neuralgia or a peripheral nerve entrapment condition like carpal tunnel syndrome. What it does is bind to the ends of nerves that send chronic (slow) pain signals which causes them to discharge their neurotransmitter substance P (the substance that transfers the pain signal from nerve cell to nerve cell along the nerve) until it is depleted, effectively deadening the nerve temporarily.

The counter-irritants use menthol and/or camphor, substances that seem to affect cold receptors in the skin. Like ice, it sends a cooling sensation to the brain which may “scramble” or interfere with the pain signal coming from the painful area, thus reducing the perception of pain even though the skin temperature remains the same. Rubbing a sore wrist is basically the same thing — creating more nerve signals (pressure, friction) to compete with the pain signals, thus diluting their impact.

So should you try topical pain relief products? The obvious benefit is that they target only the area of pain. With oral pain relief medications, Rx and OTC, the reach is systemic as the medication is delivered in the blood stream to all body tissues except the brain. This creates a new set of problems (side effects) like nausea, muscle cramps and even renal damage.

On the other hand topical pain relief products don’t reach the target area as well as oral medications. The skin is designed to be impregnable to most external substances, so even if the medicine is able to penetrate, it is at a much lower dosage. This is significant only for the analgesic TPRPs, as they have to reach all the way down to the painful tissue. With the counter-irritants, penetration is not so much an issue as they work on sensory nerve endings that are close to the surface of the skin.

One product that I ran across seems to be effective for a lot of people, at least anecdotally, based on its reviews. It is called Penetrex and contains arnica, boswellia extract, MSM, vitamin B6 and a special delivering agent. If you have chronic pain affecting tendons, muscles and/or superficial joints, it’s worth giving it a try. As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t hurt to try the different TPRPs you find OTC at your nearest drugstore; it’s preferable to oral pain relief products (pills, tablets and liquids) any day, as far as safety is concerned.

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Chronic Pain Affects Approximately 116 Million Americans

by Pain Doc | Aug 2, 2011 | Uncategorized

Woman with hip pain

The Institute of Medicine (the medical branch of the US National Academies of Science) released a report brief on June 29, 2011 on the state of chronic pain in America, entitled Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research. The purpose was to assess how pain affects people of different socioeconomic backgrounds, and what can be done on the national level to improve awareness and treatment.

Chronic pain affects at least 116 million American adults—more than the total affected by heart disease, cancer, and diabetes combined. Pain also costs the nation up to $635 billion each year in medical treatment and lost productivity. It is a major reason for taking medications, a major cause of disability, and a key factor in quality of life and productivity. Given the burden of pain in human lives, dollars, and social consequences, relieving pain should be a national priority.

The toll documented in the report is staggering. Childbirth, for example, is a common source of chronic pain. The institute found that 18 per cent of women who have Caesarean deliveries and ten per cent who have vaginal deliveries report still being in pain a year later.

Ten per cent to 50 per cent of surgical patients who have pain after surgery go on to develop chronic pain, depending on the procedure, and for as many as ten per cent of those patients, the chronic postoperative pain is severe.

The risk of suicide is high among chronic pain patients. Two studies found that about 5 per cent of those with musculoskeletal pain had tried to kill themselves; among patients with chronic abdominal pain, the number was 14 per cent.

For patients, acknowledgement of the problem from the prestigious Institute of Medicine is a seminal event. Chronic pain often goes untreated because most doctors haven’t been trained to understand it. And it is isolating: family members and friends may lose patience with the constant complaints of pain sufferers. Doctors tend to throw up their hands, referring patients for psychotherapy or dismissing them as drug seekers trying to get opioids. “Most people with chronic pain are still being treated as if pain is a symptom of an underlying problem,” said Melanie Thernstrom, a chronic pain sufferer from Vancouver, Washington, who wrote The Pain Chronicles: Cures, Myths, Mysteries, Prayers, Diaries, Brain Scans, Healing and the Science of Suffering (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010) and was a patient representative on the committee. “If the doctor can’t figure out what the underlying problem is,” she went on, “then the pain is not treated, it’s dismissed and the patient falls down the rabbit hole.”Among the important findings in the Institute of Medicine report is that chronic pain often outlasts the original illness or injury, causing changes in the nervous system that worsen over time. Doctors often cannot find an underlying cause because there isn’t one. Chronic pain becomes its own disease.

“Having pain that is not treated is like having diabetes that’s not treated,” said Ms. Thernstrom, who suffers from spinal stenosis and a form of arthritis in the neck. “It gets worse over time.”

Ms. Thernstrom compared the effect of chronic pain on the body to the rushing waters of a river carving out a new tributary. Pain, she says, also changes the body’s landscape.

“My pain is at the level where it’s manageable,” she said. “I do wish I had gotten aggressive treatment in the first year. There is a window of time to intervene, because pain changes your nervous system and pain pathways develop.”

“When pain becomes chronic, when it becomes persistent even after the tissue and injury have healed, then people are suffering from chronic pain,:” Mackey said. “We’re finding that there are significant changes in the central nervous system and spinal cord that cause pain to become amplified and persistent even after the injury has gone away.” The pain report is only a first step for the community of medical professionals who treat pain. It will be up to medical schools to begin better education of doctors in the treatment of pain, and the National Institutes of Health to decide whether to promote research into chronic pain.

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My comments:

This report is an important milestone in creating a national awareness of the “epidemic of pain” in this country. Chronic pain is a very difficult problem to treat, because in most cases, there is nothing left for the doctor to do. It truly frustrates doctors to see patients not getting any better over time. Many primary care doctors dread having to see their chronic pain patients come in, because of the reasons stated in the article– suspicions of exaggerated symptoms, assumptions of pain reliever drug addiction, psychological problems, etc.

More attention is needed in formulating a strategy to prevent chronic pain from happening, and ways to better manage it. This study is a good first step towards that direction.

If you have chronic pain, it still is a good idea to do the things that make the body healthier overall: give it the building blocks to regenerate and repair tissue (high nutrient density foods); avoid ingesting toxins such as smoke, alcohol, preservatives, and pesticides; drink pure, clean water; get a good dose of Vitamin D every day by going outside in the sun; do short workouts that engage all body parts in unison every day, avoid negative people, negative media, and negative thoughts as best you can; engage in activities that require concentration; socialize with positive people; laugh to your heart’s desire, and get enough rest each and every day. These activities may not cure chronic pain, but can make it more manageable.

References:

The New York Times, Giving Chronic Pain a Platform of Its Own

The Institute of Medicine, Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research