Author: alien

There has been a surge in recent years of new treatments that utilize modern technology to reduce pain and improve healing. Otherwise known as the field of biomagnetics, these treatments include transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, and pulsed electromagnetic field therapy (PEMF). PEMF therapy isn’t necessarily a treatment option for a specific ailment because it can help to promote healing in every single one of the body’s cells, but it can successfully be used for localized problems as well.

What is PEMF therapy?

PEMF therapy is an FDA-approved treatment for several health problems, including non-union factors and depression, and it can also be used to promote all-body wellness. Each cell in your body produces an electromagnetic field. When the cell is healthy, this field has a voltage of -20 to -25 millivolts. If this voltage drops below -15 millivolts, then you can start to get sick.

PEMF therapy works by inducing an electromagnetic field that increases the voltage of your body’s cells in order to help them to heal. There are a variety of PEMF devices available, including all-over body mats (similar in size and shape to yoga mats), localized pad applicators, or pinpointed probe applicators. In all of them, there will be several flat spiral coils that produce a magnetic field. There will also be a frequency generator that energies the coils to produce a pulsed electromagnetic field.

What does PEMF therapy do?

PEMF therapy has a really wide-ranging effect on the body because it does affect each one of your cells (less so if you are using a localized applicator). These can include:

* Improved blood circulation
* A reduction in inflammation
* The stimulation of muscle tissue, including inducing relaxation
* Improved oxygenation of tissue
* Enhanced cellular repair, including an activation of the regeneration process and the regeneration of nerve tissue
* Improved immune system
* Cartilage repair
* Better sleep
* Stimulation of HGH and melatonin – potential anti-aging effects

Regular use of PEMF therapy can, therefore, help to improve general health and wellbeing, and can help your body to heal at a faster rate. You might also get sick less, feel more relaxed, and get a better night’s sleep.

What does the research say about PEMF therapy?

Since PEMF therapy is quite a new treatment, and because it works on a cellular level, there is still a lot of research being done on its potential applications. But here are a few examples of some of the recent trials that have taken place:

1) PEMF therapy can help to increase the healing rate of fracture nonunion (fractures that haven’t healed back together properly) by 73% to 85% (https://josr-online.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1749-799X-7-24).

2) PEMF therapy can reduce pain in patients with fibromyalgia (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2670735/), rheumatoid arthritis (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16770449/), and osteoarthritis (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26705327/).

3) PEMF therapy is showing promise for helping with treatment-resistant depression (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27449361/).

4) PEMF therapy can reduce prostate size in benign prostatic hyperplasia (likely due to reducing inflammation) (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32090492/).

This is just a selection of the recent research into the applications of PEMF therapy, but it is clear that it can be an effective treatment for a variety of diseases and conditions, as well as its role in promoting overall health and wellbeing.

PEMF therapy is a new form of biomagnetic therapy that works by increasing the voltage of the body’s cells, inducing healing, reducing inflammation, and improving blood flow. PEMF therapy can be used on the entire body as a way of improving total health or wellbeing, but it can also be used to treat specific conditions, including pain conditions, fractures, depression, and problems with the prostate.

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The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) reports that 100 million Americans struggle with some type of chronic pain condition daily.

Not only can this lower the quality of life for these individuals by making everyday activities more difficult to engage in, but it can be rather costly too.

Knee pain by the numbers

In fact, the NASEM indicates that expenses related to chronic pain conditions cost our country as much as $635 billion per year. This dollar amount includes a combination of the direct costs associated with pain treatment along with the costs related to productivity losses due to these types of conditions.

The American Academy of Pain Medicine adds that, while back pain is the leading cause of disability for Americans under the age of 45, many people also suffer from pain in the knee area. For instance, one study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine reports that approximately one in four people struggle with frequent knee pain.

Pain in the knees appears to be increasing in prevalence too according to the same study. Specifically, knee pain reports have gone up approximately 65 percent for individuals between the ages of 60 and 74 in just 20 years. Though this percentage reflects a twofold increase in knee-pain issues for women, men in this age range actually fared worse in that their incidences of knee pain actually tripled within this timeframe.

Fortunately, some treatment remedies can help reduce knee-related pain. PEMF is one of them.

PEMF treatment effects

PEMF stands for Pulsed Electro Magnetic Field therapy and involves sending pulsed energy into the knee area to stimulate healing of damaged cells and tissues. How well does it work?

According to a 2012 systematic review of 14 trials published in the journal Rheumatology, “PEMF was significantly more effective at 4 and 8 weeks than the placebo” when it came to treating pain related to knee osteoarthritis (OA). That is, as long as high-quality methodology was used in the research.

Functionality of the knee increased as well when individuals were assessed at the 8-week mark. And though further studies are recommended, this set of researchers ultimately concluded that there is a reasonable amount of evidence to assume that PEMF is helpful in cases of knee OA.

A 2015 clinical trial found similar results. This study was also published in Rheumatology and involved 60 patients who had knee OA coupled with pain above 40 mm, which is mild to moderate levels of pain on the visual analogue scale (VAS). In this case, subjects were split into two groups, with one group receiving PEMF and the other receiving placebo treatments.

After just one month of sessions, pain scores “decreased significantly” for the PEMF group, with VAS scores declining by 25.5 percent. As a result, one in four subjects who received true PEMF actually stopped taking medications previously prescribed to help deal with the pain. Scores related to knee function and stiffness improved as well.

PEMF safety

PEMF has also been deemed safe in the treatment of chronic musculoskeletal pain related to the knee area. For instance, a 2013 study published in Clinical Interventions in Aging involved 28 subjects with bilateral knee osteoarthritis.

All of the individuals in this study received PEMF therapy and “no adverse reactions to therapy were observed.” The 2015 clinical trial mentioned previously found the same results, reporting that “no adverse events were detected” after treating 60 patients over the course of a month.

Incorporating PEMF in your practice

If you’re new to PEMF, successfully incorporating this service into your practice first requires that you are trained on the system you plan to use. Once you’re ready to offer this service, the next step is to get your patients to sign up.

This requires that you educate your patients about how PEMF works and the benefits it provides. The more they understand the process and how it can potentially help them with knee pain management, the more likely it is they’ll be willing to try this particular service.

Promoting PEMF may also require offering incentives to get more patients excited about this treatment remedy until they are able to experience its positive effects firsthand. For instance, you may decide to create a raffle where the prize is a free PEMF service. Or, you could offer a complementary PEMF session for your patients with the purchase of a complete PEMF treatment package.

PEMF can help your patients safely and effectively manage knee pain. Incorporate it successfully into your practice and it can benefit you both.

Because chiropractic is at heart a vitalistic philosophy of healing, it has a long had a connection with the ideas about electricity, a “life-force,” and healing energy.

Often as not, all three ideas are comingled, and the history of chiropractic is colored with electric boxes and light-up gizmos, most of which relied on the gullibility of the general public for whatever efficacy they achieved. The case is quite different with pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) therapy.

This modality has a fairly extensive history and it has been studied and tested in well-controlled clinical trials. Furthermore, numerous peer-reviewed journal articles have reported on it favorably.¹

PEMF therapy is still, in some ways, a cutting-edge modality, inasmuch as while you can code for treatments for certain conditions, doctors in the field are exploring new uses of it and making discoveries in daily practice.

Typically, these devices are rather expensive, so before making a decision you’ll want to do some homework. We met with several experts in PEMF to learn more.

From theory to reality

It’s common knowledge that DD Palmer was “the magnetic healer,” as he sought results for his patients using static magnets, in addition to providing adjustments. But the type of electromagnetic fields you can create with electricity are a much more intense form of energy than you can produce with magnets.

“It was Nikola Tesla who understood not only the more practical aspects of using these electromagnetic waves to send messages over long distances but that ‘bodily tissues are condensers,’ and also could respond to these waves in beneficial ways,” says Gary Ryan, DC, who works intensively with PEMF in his practice. He notes that in the 1890s, the American Electro-Therapeutic Association convened annual conferences centered on the therapeutic uses of electricity, which at that time was commonly used.²

Tesla founded the Tesla Ozone Company in 1900, and sold his ozone generators to doctors who were experimenting with ozone therapy.

Josh Silver, president and CEO of Pulsed Energy Technologies, points out that, “Back in 1912, Nikola Tesla founded the Tesla Electrotherapeutic Company. His device was very rudimentary, creating plasma, and through 1932, Tesla and H.G. Fischer produced electrotherapy devices for sale. You could buy these through the mail and at department stores.” This would ultimately be Tesla’s most profitable line of business.

It should borne in mind that in those early days, electromagnetism was thought to have medical benefits, but the practitioners involved didn’t clearly understand what they were doing and were operating by intuition. That story remains fairly static until around 1950. “An Italian electrical engineer, Antoine Prioré, worked between 1950 and 1975 on electromagnetic devices similar to today’s units, although up until about 1972 there was no differentiation between electromagnetic field (EMF) and pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) devices,” Silver says.

Jason Tebeau, president of Da Vinci Medical Inc., offers additional details: “When the first astronauts and cosmonauts were placed in orbit in the 1960s to 1970s, within hours they became emotionally, mentally, and physically impaired, and on long space flights they would lose a considerable amount of their bone density.” It was speculated that being removed from Earth’s electromagnetic field was the culprit. “NASA began exploring PEMF generators in 2005 to simulate the Earth’s magnetic field and address the problem of space sickness and orbital bone loss.”³

Mechanism of efficacy

Studies on whether humans can detect magnetic fields and sense compass directions have been mixed.⁴  There is no question, though, that many animals have evolved magnetoreceptors and cryptochromatic cells to aid with complex navigational tasks.

“In the early 1970s, Gianni Dotto got the first patents for EMF therapy devices. Today there are some 10 different versions of EMF but our term is PEMF,” Silver says. It was in the 1970s that scientists proved that surrounding a fractured bone with EMF facilitated healing, both in the speed and quality of repair.

“It optimizes the body’s self-healing and self-regulating functions and supports the restoration of cells to normal function. It has been shown to increase tissue oxygen and expel toxins,” Ryan says. Not unlike the way low level laser therapy energizes cellular mitochondria, it is thought that PEMF similarly stimulates the body’s cells and encourages a return to normal function.

Ryan observes that inflammation is normally the body’s immediate response to an injury, and it occurs as the injury site is flooded with white blood cells. PEMF may work in a similar way, either alerting the body to marshal resources in a given area, or enhancing the activity of white blood cells—or both.

Tebeau cautions that “PEMF devices do not diagnose, treat, or cure a single disease. The energy they generate augments the body’s native cellular energy due to aspects of quantum physics, naturally and without side effects.”

This aligns well with chiropractic philosophy, which consistently looks to encourage the body’s innate healing ability with non-invasive approaches.

“We auditioned for Shark Tank, and they wanted a one-word explanation,” Silver says. “We came up with homeostasis. Every cell that has an injury has a reduced membrane potential, and we know electricity goes through the cells.” He gives the example of treating a shoulder, in which bringing the treatment attachment of the PEMF unit to the site of the injury results in a cascade of functions. “And each pulse of energy increases oxygen and blood flow, so that when the electromagnetic field affects the cell, it goes back to performing its original function,” he says.

Where PEMF shines

Theoretically, wounds, bone fractures, any area of chronic injury and pain can be a viable target for PEMF therapy.

But there are additional areas where it can be considered appropriate. Ryan points out that PEMF shouldn’t be thought of as “treating” conditions, but rather as a modality that “optimizes the self-healing environment.”

Tebeau concurs: “It’s applicable anywhere the potential exists for the body to repair itself. If you badly break your leg in an accident, you will need an emergency room doctor to put a pin in your leg to hold it together. But, once home, PEMF will give the body the energy it needs to undertake the repairs the rest of the way, if possible.”

The majority of evidence for PEMF and its primary FDA clearances are for osteogenesis, or non-invasive bone growth and repair.⁵ In 2011, the FDA also cleared PEMF for treating depres- sion in patients who fail to respond to pharmacological therapy.

“We’ve found that genetic disorders don’t respond to treatment,” Silver says. “But we might see pain reduction. Partial ligament tears and cartilage and muscle respond very well to the machine. We build and strengthen the muscle with magnetic induction and heal it with pulsed electromagnetic field therapy.”

What Silver refers to here is that at higher intensity levels, patients can feel a pulsing sensation and muscular twitching. The effect is moderate, however, and not painful at all. But given this amount of energy, PEMF will interact with pacemakers and cannot be used with patients who have them.

PEMF in practice

As this is a relatively new modality in clinical settings, most patients will be unfamiliar with PEMF; they’ll need to be informed of expected outcomes. According to Tebeau, “Results can range anywhere from zero benefit to 100- percent resolution,” but in his experience, you can expect to elicit a good-to-very-good response at least 80 percent of the time. Factors to consider are the patient’s condition, severity, progression time, age, and overall health.

“Everybody using the machine the first time will get some kind of experience from it,” Silver says. “It could be 2 percent or 100-percent pain relief. Typically, people with long-term chronic disease will take longer to respond.”

Given what is known about PEMF at this time, treatment of persistent wounds, pain, swelling, and range-of-motion improvement are things you can advertise to potential patients, and areas where they should respond favorably.

It’s notable that this modality has been broadly adopted by professional sports teams, whose trainers and medical staff are always looking for non-pharmacological and non- invasive solutions to pain and injuries. And PEMF has made major inroads into veterinary medicine, where patients definitely aren’t responding to a placebo effect.^6,7

Treatment protocols

As you would expect, how you approach providing this type of therapy will depend on a patient’s presenting issue. In general terms, however, you’ll apply treatments across a number of sessions. Tebeau notes that, normally speaking, the four key factors that influence outcomes are the applicator used, how the applicator is positioned, the number of minutes the device is run, and the intensity setting selected.

Ryan has seen patients with chronic pain benefit from a single session. “But typically, for long-lasting full-body benefits, a program of three hours a week for 17 weeks, totaling 51 hours, can lead to remarkable outcomes,” he says.

Ryan has also found programs of 15 or 20 hours to be popular, and patients can sit and read or watch TV after the CA sets up the equipment and accessories. “It’s not unusual for patients to find the treatment so relaxing they doze off,” he says. The DC, meanwhile, can attend to other patients.

As with any other modality, you adjust your approach in accord with the patient’s response. The DCs Silver works with will typically provide treaments two to three times per week, for about 12 sessions in a month. “Then you’ll know about how much progress is likely to be possible.”

Marketing methods

If you have experience with providing low level laser therapy, you’ll find that marketing and ROI considerations with PEMF are fairly similar. Advertise to your target market, develop skill with the craft, and the number of treatments you provide times the cost of a session will determine where you break even on your investment.

Most companies offering PEMF equipment will have a range of marketing materials to assist you. These include flyers, print ads, videos, and testimonials, as well as online graphics and information for your website.

“If you’re a DC and you want to include it as part of the adjustment process, some of our DCs will put the patient on PEMF for about 10 minutes prior to the adjustment; it loosens the patient, it makes the adjustment easier,” Ryan says. Then, post-adjustment, they’ll put the patient back on for 10 to 15 minutes, as it helps the adjustment hold.

One way to gain new patients is to offer the first few treatments on a trial basis, to let them experience the effect and judge for themselves if this is a solution that works for them.

Training for success

All of the experts we consulted stressed the importance of training. Doctors who fail to obtain effective results with PEMF are generally not providing treatments properly. To this end, the manufacturer-provided training programs are integral to successful outcomes.

Silver offers certification to providers who complete his course. “It’s different by state, but in most cases the person providing the treatment needs to be certified. In addition to DCs, PTs, certified physical therapists, and athletic trainers are all using this equipment.”

The PEMF vendor Ryan chose has product specialists who train DCs and their staff, in addition to online coursework and certification. “The product specialists dive a little deeper, answer questions, and walk you through how to use the system to get the best possible benefits in your practice,” he says.

New owners of PEMF equipment will typically have questions involving the various positions for the treatment accessories, such as wands, mats, loops, and headbands. If you have a question about treating a particular condition, the manufacturer will generally refer you to another practitioner working in that area, so you can exchange ideas directly.

Niche opportunity

Although PEMF is used widely in Europe, it’s still relatively unknown in the U.S. healthcare market. Doctors who offer it here will often have little competition. According to Ryan, a distinct advantage is the speed at which this therapy works. “People notice a difference in how they feel right away. It works for such a wide range of patients a doctor sees on any given day.”

There is a considerable body of literature about PEMF, and those with interest will find research covering the treatment of vascular disorders, inflammation and edema reduction, enhanced rates of healing in skin grafts, treatment of neuropathy, and more. Depending on the type of patients who constitute your core demographic, you may find this modality to align with the needs of your practice.

References:

1 C, Richards T. Evolution of magnetic therapy from alternative to traditional medicine. Phys Med Rehabil Clin N Am. 1999;10(3):729-54.

2 The American Electro-Therapeutic Association. (1899). Proceedings of the American Electro-Therapeutic Association. William Briggs: Toronto.

3 Byerly D, et al. Pulsed Electromagnetic Fields—A Countermeasure for Bone Loss and Muscle Atrophy. Space Life Sciences. Aug. 2005.

4 Baker RR. Goal orientation by blindfolded humans after long-distance displacement: possible involvement of a magnetic sense. Science.

1980;210(4469):555-7.

5 Food and Drug Administration Executive Summary. “Reclassification Petition for the Non-invasive Bone Growth Stimulator.” http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/06/briefing/2006-4224b1-10-TabE- FDA-Executive-Summary.pdf . Published June 2006. Accessed Jan. 2017.

6 Orgel MG, O’Brien WJ, Murray HM. Pulsing electromagnetic field therapy in nerve regeneration: an experimental study in the cat. Plast Reconstr Surg. 1984;73(2):173-83.

7 Canè V1, Botti P, Soana S. Pulsed magnetic fields improve osteoblast activity during the repair of an experimental osseous defect. J Orthop Res. 1993;11(5):664-70.

In a National Health Interview Survey, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) learned that 8.4 percent of all Americans engage in either chiropractic or osteopathic manipulation sessions.

That’s almost 20 million in total.

This number was more than those who used meditation (8 percent) and massage therapy (6.9 percent), and just slightly less than those who practice yoga (9.5 percent) for higher levels of health.

Though chiropractic is known most for the manual or instrument-aided spinal adjustment, what many people don’t realize is that it can actually encompass a variety of different treatment options.

One of the most notable is pulsed electromagnetic field therapy, or PEMF. So, how can you market this service to patients in a way that they’ll not only understand it, but actually want to try it for themselves?

Highlight the benefits of PEMF versus its features

It’s often said that, to market effectively, it does not require that you share a product’s features, but its benefits. What’s the difference?

The marketing company Printwand explains that features are how something works or its specifications whereas benefits are the results it can achieve. For instance, if you were selling a toaster, one of its features would include being able to toast two pieces of bread at once, but its benefit would be enabling you to finish making breakfast faster so you can go about your day.

In the case of PEMF specifically, research has found that its benefits include:

• Reduced swelling and increased range of motion for individuals with osteoarthritis in the knee
• Partial or complete relief from diabetic peripheral neuropathy symptoms
• Stronger bones after sustaining a fracture
• Relief from the pain associated with carpal tunnel syndrome or tennis elbow

While this list certainly isn’t all inclusive, the main thing to remember is, when marketing PEMF therapy, think from your patients’ points of view. Why would they want PEMF? What type of relief would it bring them? That’s the type of information your marketing efforts should focus on providing.

Address potential concerns about PEMF up front

When people hear “pulsed electromagnetic field therapy,” oftentimes, one of their major concerns is safety. Therefore, if you can address this issue up front, you can help ease their worries before they have the chance to shut down the idea of PEMF therapy.

One way to do this is to share that research has deemed this remedy safe as a treatment method. For instance, a study published in the journal Osteoarthritis and Cartilage set out to determine how safe PEMF was for knee osteoarthritis (OA).

After performing treatment on 58 patients for three months, researchers reported that these types of instruments “significantly improved symptoms and function in knee OA without causing any serious side effects.”

It should be noted that this study also found that 18 percent of the actively treated patients did develop a rash where the electrodes were placed. However, 21 percent of the placebo group developed the same, suggesting that the rash was a response to the electrode itself and not necessarily the pulsed electrical stimulus.

Another potential concern that patients may have about PEMF is whether it’s going to hurt. So, when marketing the fact that you offer PEMF, you may want to address that issue by sharing that it doesn’t inflict pain on patients. Instead, they just feel little magnetic impulses at the treatment site, and nothing more.

Hold seminars and workshops demonstrating PEMF

You can offer the best services in the world, but if people don’t understand them, it isn’t likely to do you any good. That’s why one of the best things you can do to market PEMF (or any other new or different service for that matter) is to educate the people who would use it most by showing them in person.

You can do this by holding seminars or workshops at your office, demonstrating a typical PEMF session. This also provides a secondary benefit of letting your patients ask questions about this particular remedy right as they come up.

If this isn’t feasible, another option is to show individual patients who you feel could benefit from PEMF how this modality works when they’re in for a regular visit. Granted, this does take more time by presenting it in a one-on-one fashion, but it’s also a great way to educate patients who are either unwilling or unable to attend a demonstration.

PEMF offers a lot of value and these three actions can help you relay that value to your patients more effectively.

Mike Hughes, DC, wanted to add a new tool to his chiropractic practice and had focused on cold lasers.

He wasn’t sure which one was right for his clients and held off on the purchase.

And then it happened. On a trip the Parker Seminars in Las Vegas, a few of his staffers from his family practice at Gateway Family Chiropractic tried out the PER 2000 from Pulsed Energy Technologies. The result was eye-opening.

“One of my staff members was actually crying. ‘This is amazing!’” Hughes said of the staffer who has a Dowager hump and had constant leg pain.

Addressing doubts

Still, he had his doubts about pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) therapy.

“One of my big concerns was ‘How come everyone doesn’t have this?’” Hughes said. “A lot of people are using cold laser and why does the machine look like it is from 1980 and why do the aesthetics not look more up to date?”

So he started researching PEMF and found out “the results were even better than with cold laser.”

One of the biggest selling points for Hughes was that the PEMF technology can treat more of the body and do it quicker.

“Just the outcomes, how the people responded to the PEMF and the versatility of it, you can use it so many different ways,” Hughes said. “Another thing was, how fast you can treat someone’s entire body, as opposed to cold laser, you can only treat a centimeter at a time. With PEMF, you can end up treating the whole body in 30 minutes.”

Hughes’ practice has seen an immediate impact in the couple months since purchasing a PEMF machine.

Better together

“Overall, I’ve seen patients have great results, also with the chiropractic,” said Sierra Barker, a chiropractic assistant at Gateway. “Using it together (PEMF and chiropractic), I would say a lot of our patients are saying their chiropractic adjustments are lasting a lot longer.”

Barker, who uses PEMF therapy weekly to help with her gastrointestinal issues, points out one story that epitomizes the technology’s effectiveness.

An older woman had knee surgery, but still had a clicking in her knee that caused her pain.

“After one treatment of PEMF, she was able to go out and do gardening work all day and was on her knee and had no issues the next day,” Barker said.

While many are still learning about PEMF, Barker said it is relatively easy to convince clients to use this form of therapy.

“Most of our patients are informed consumers. We kind of let the results let them speak for themselves,” Barker said. “We have the science, we have all the research, we everything to provide them. We do a 5-minute trial for every patient. I would say about 60 to 75 percent of the people who do the trial start using it instantly or sign up for a package.”

Making it a worthy investment for Hughes.

“This is probably the only therapeutic machine, big machine we have spent a significant amount of money on (other than a hydrocollator),” Hughes said.

Hughes uses PEMF therapy himself and also had his daughter do daily treatments when she came down with mononucleosis. Hughes said it aided her recovery by several days.

“I didn’t understand how powerful the machine is and what people could actually feel what it was doing,” Hughes said.

I had talked to several people who had gotten Pulsed Electromagnetic Field (PEMF) therapy and had an idea of how it worked.

But something this interesting warranted more investigation. You know, up close and personal.

PEMF therapy devices have made astonishing positive impacts on the health of people with varying ailments or conditions.

There happened to be a local chiropractor who was using the technology in his practice. I made an appointment with Ken Toy, DC, at his Temecula, Calif., office so I could get a closer look at his PEMF device.

Recovery mode

Now, the stories I have heard have dealt primarily with college and pro athletes, to help with the recovery from significant and acute injuries. What PEMF does is shoot electromagnetic pulses into an area of your body—any part you wish—that isn’t functioning properly.

The electromagnetic pulses find the injured area, spark the body’s natural activity, and rejuvenate the affected bone or tissue. This speeds up the recovery time and gets athletes back onto the field quicker than they would from traditional rehabilitation.

But the technology isn’t just for athletes. As Toy told me, it has a wide variety of uses for the average Joe and has brought unthinkable recovery to injuries and ailments.

However, there were no maladies that I was looking to cure when I visited Toy on a Wednesday afternoon. This was a show-me session. Not that I would have been surprised if something cropped up.

After all, I am 50 years old and a failed wannabe athlete. I was so excellent at sports as a teen that I became manager and statistician for the football, basketball, and baseball teams my freshman year in high school. (But I did win the intramural ping-pong championship one year!)

While I did go to a thrilling slow-pitch softball career and a bit of rec league basketball, my athletic endeavors were rather paltry and I didn’t suffer any injuries of note (except to maybe my ego).

Upon arriving at Toy’s office one afternoon, I was taken to a room where there were three PEMF machines. The large machines are like an oversize suitcase and stand about 4 feet tall with three big buttons on the top — blue, green and red (ready, go, and stop). But the magic comes out of the tubes that protrude from the suitcase-like machine. On the large machine, two tubes come out from the source and each tube forms a about a 1-foot circle at the end.

Safety concerns

The one thing that could be scary is the thought of electricity going through your body. Toy calmed those fears by showing me an example of how safe it was. Standing, he took a thick, metal chain and put it on the outside of his right knee, then placed the PEMF tube on the inside of the knee.

The amount of electromagneticity generated caused the chain to spark a little bit, but not in any way that would significantly alarm or injure you.

The noise generated by a PEMF device sounds like a hammer pounding a metal stake into the ground, nothing to calm any nerves, but also nothing to scare you away. Finally, it was time to take the tubes and apply them to areas of my body. After asking me about areas of concern at the beginning of the appointment, and in the spirit of trying out the machine, he decided to place it in six areas: heart, head, shoulder, back, knee, and stomach.

Targeted treatments

Why the heart?

One of the benefits of pulsed therapy is increased energy. What PEMF therapy does is energize the blood cells from your heart, which are then sent out to other parts of your body through natural blood flow. Because this was the first spot the tubes were placed, Toy had me grab the tubes and slowly pull them closer to me so I was in control of applying the technology.

The force of the pulses was akin to someone poking you, just without the impact of a finger touching your body. You feel it and it’s slightly jarring, but it doesn’t hurt.

After a couple minutes on the heart, we shifted to my head. I wasn’t quite clear why it was placed on my head, unless Toy knew something I didn’t about my intelligence. But Toy said the placement can do several things by energizing brain cells, which can help treat anxiety, depression, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and ADHD.

Next was the right shoulder. Now if there was an injured area, I thought this would be it. That shoulder feels a little loose, not in any bad way, but when I do move it about in the same way a quarterback or baseball player might in warming up their throwing arm, it just seems a tad loose. Could be from the endless hours of throwing a tennis ball against the garage door in the driveway as a kid as I dreamt of being a big-league pitcher.

I did feel the electromagnetic pulses in the socket of my shoulder, getting deep into where damaged tissue could possibly be. They simply felt like a dull zap and were not jolting at all. It was actually a very satisfying feeling, knowing the therapy was already going to work.

We moved on to the lower back, an area I was particularly curious about. At times, I have experienced some tightening of the lower back, a combination of age and poor posture while sitting. With the back, Toy placed a towel between the treatment area and the PEMF machine to soften any impact as I sat in a chair.

Again, I could feel the pulses and it was still a very reasonable feeling. You can adjust the thickness of the towel to suit your comfort level. I figured if there was any real injury here, it might take a couple treatments to heal because backs can often be tricky.

From the back, Toy shifted the coil to my stomach. Placing the apparatus here could help with ailments in the liver and intestinal tract, which can help detoxification. Of all the places, this is the one that felt the strangest to me, but maybe that was because the closest I came to six-pack abs was a six-pack of beer.

The pulse of the machine made my gut repeatedly jiggle like a (medium-size) bowl full of jelly. The impact did seem to go deep into the stomach area as it searched for areas of concern.

The last place tested was my right knee. Not aware of any injury here, I was curious as to what would happen. Placed right on the front of the knee, the treatment was relatively calm. I could feel the pulses inside of the knee joint, but there wasn’t injured tissue to find.

The whole treatment can be done without the guidance of a physician, athletic trainer, or physical therapist following proper instruction on how to use the PEMF device. Toy and one of his assistants would tell me when and where to move the apparatus, then leaving the room to attend to other patients and checking back in often.

Practical results

And it doesn’t take long, just 15 to 20 minutes is optimal, regardless of the area and injury. You could easily do it while just sitting and watching TV, laying by the pool, or as part of regular rehab. However, many injuries do require other strength and conditioning exercises in addition to PEMF treatments, which can help speed recovery and get you back in action sooner.

After leaving Toy’s office, I was curious how my body would feel the next day. When I woke up the next morning, I felt a little more energized than usual and my right knee felt a little more refreshed, almost stronger. Even a few days later, all areas that were treated felt good with no side effects.

All in all, it was a terrific experience and one I would recommend to others who are looking to heal an ailment or injury that has hindered them for any length of time. Any apprehension is more than worth the improvement in health.

As a chiropractor you are always trying to implement the power of science in your practice.

By doing so you are not only increase patient outcomes but building trust in your practice. Including PEMF therapy is a good way to help treat your patients while incorporating a science based modality.

The history of PEMF

Regeneration Devices Ltd. shares that PEMF as a means for improved health began in the late 1800s when the great innovator Nikola Tesla discovered that it was harmless to pass electrical current through the human body—thus the reason magnetic field strength is measured in Tesla (T). Tesla also found that this was completely possible without making contact.

These early devices were much more rudimentary than those available today, with one PEMF blog reporting that they “were often large round solenoid coils of wire that would surround the patient while they would stand or lie on a bed.” While the pain relief was pretty instantaneous, medical practitioners at the time preferred surgery and drugs, choosing those options instead.

This didn’t stop other innovators such as George Lakhovsky, Antoine Priore, Robert Becker, and Abraham Liboff, all of whom conducted further research on the PEMF therapy process in subsequent years, thus realizing more of this therapeutic remedy’s potential to provide patients with a variety of benefits.

The most obvious benefit is that this process is that the user “feels’ the Pulse, as well as its noninvasive, which means no surgery, and it also doesn’t involve taking drugs which often have unintended negative consequences. But it also effectively helps individuals overcome their pain, and research confirms it.

Finding relief

The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) reports that pain relievers such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, codeine, and morphine are being prescribed at a rate “which is more than enough to give every American adult their own bottle of pills.” The problem with being able to obtain these types of medication with such relative ease, says the ASAM, is that it contributes to increased rates of addiction and overdose deaths.

This is just one reason why many people are looking for more natural ways to help them deal with the discomfort they feel due to an injury or as a result of a pain-related health condition. One such treatment option that IS NOT new, but most people haven’t heard of, is PEMF or Pulsed Electro Magnetic Field Therapy.

What is PEMF?

PEMF is used to positively impact energy within damaged or injured cell. It does this by directing repeating electromagnetic pulses toward the affected cells, stimulating a healthier response.

The way PEMF works is simple. A device which emits these electromagnetic pulses through a coil applicator.  This applicator is placed on or near the area which is injured or somehow damaged. Energy is then induced from the device to the impacted cells, thus providing the patient with a number of different benefits.

PEMF and pain relief

For example, one study published in Pain Research and Management involved 32 male and female patients at St. Joseph’s Health Care Centre in London, Ontario who were experiencing chronic musculoskeletal pain, approximately one-half of which had the pain afflicting condition fibromyalgia. These subjects were then split into two groups: one group which would receive PEMF and one which would receive a sham treatment.

After seven days, each person was assessed in regard to his or her pain. Individuals who received PEMF therapy lowered their pain scores by an average of two points whereas those who were engaged in sham treatments only showed a 0.4-point decline.

Participants with fibromyalgia had the most sizeable pain response, lowering their scores by 2.8, “which approached statistical significance” according to the researchers.

PEMF provides additional benefits to the bone

Although PEMF is shown to be effective when it comes to reducing pain, it has other benefits as well. A notable one is an improved healing response by the bone.

For instance, a 2012 study published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research involved 44 patients with fractured tibias that were either taking longer than normal to heal or not healing at all. After undergoing PEMF therapy, 77.3 percent of the fractures finally healed.

This was regardless of the age of the fracture, fracture type, and whether the individual had other issues that could possibly complicate the healing process, such as whether they smoked or had diabetes. Based on these results, researchers concluded that “PEMF stimulation is an effective non-invasive method for addressing non-infected tibial union abnormalities.”

Additionally, in 2015, researchers from the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine and Physical Therapy from Second Affiliated Hospital, Chongquing Medical University in China discovered that 12 weeks of PEMF therapy provided another advantage. It prevented bone loss and improved lipid metabolism disorders.

While this particular study was conducted on rats, it’s promising that the same positive results could potentially be found in humans as well. So promising in fact, that the Engineering Directorate at Johnson Space Center has made the study of PEMF a priority for helping astronauts reduce bone loss and muscle atrophy, as well as supplementing the body’s natural healing processes while engaged in space exploration.

Incorporating PEMF in your practice

Incorporating PEMF therapy in your practice is a great way to offer patients another treatment modality that is relatively low in cost, yet still very effective. Plus, in true chiropractic tradition, it’s 100 percent all natural as it essentially works with the body to help it heal itself.

What is even better are the amount of patients the technology can treat.  As it is only contraindicated for pacemakers (and other electronic implants), pregnancy and under the age of 18 (without written consent), the sheer volume of potential patients that are eligible for treatment make this a valued treatment option that more and more practitioners are investigating.

Getting patients on board

For patients interested in trying PEMF, one common question is how it will make them feel.

Professional athlete Igor Olshansky, former defensive end for the San Diego Chargers, shares how he used PEMF after training or practice and that it made him “feel better, more energized.”

Users of PEMF can actually feel the magnetic wave of energy entering their body; it seeks out or finds areas of the body with previous injury or issue and the user can feel this entire process.

Olshansky also explains how PEMF helped alleviate his aches and pains, enabling him to practice proper technique so as not to compromise himself and increase his risk of injury, providing just one more benefit of engaging in PEMF therapy.

What’s old is new

While you may have not thought a technology from the 1800s could find its way into your practice, PEMF is a great way to benefit your practice. This type of therapy helps to increase patient outcomes by providing pain relief and healing injuries while being relatively low cost to you. Including PEMF therapy in your practice boosts your bottom line while effectively treating your patients.