Edie,
There are many companies selling magnets and some are better than
others. There is lots of information on the www, just do a keyword
search (magnets +pain)
Here is an article that may be of interest:
A small trial raises hope, but it is not the last
word.
Why should magnets ease pain? No one knows.
by LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN, M.D.
No one was more skeptical about using magnets for pain relief
than
Dr. Carlos Vallbona, former chairman of the department of
community medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
So
Dr. Vallbona was amazed when a study he did found that small,
low intensity magnets worked, at least for patients
experiencing
symptoms that can develop years after polio.
Dr. Vallbona had long been fascinated by testimonials about
magnets from his patients, and even from medical leaders. But
his
interest in magnet therapy became more serious in 1994 when he
and a colleague, Cariton F. Hazlewood, tried them for their
own
knee pain. The pain was gone in minutes. "That was too good to
be
true," Dr. Vallbona said.
Dr. Vallbona knew that the power of suggestion can fool both
patient and doctor. But he also wondered: could strapping
small,
low intensity magnets to the most sensitive areas of the body
for
several minutes relieve chronic muscular and joint pains among
patients in his post-polio clinic at Baylor's Institute for
Rehabilitation Research.
Valid studies could allow consumers to make informed choices.
And if magnet therapy were found to be safe and effective, it
could
relieve pain with fewer drugs =97 and their unwanted side
effects.
Endorsements from professional athletes are one reason
Americans
spend large sums on magnets to seek pain relief. But most
doctors
take a "buyer beware" attitude because many claims lack
scientific
proof or explanation of how they might work. The Food and Drug
Administration has warned doctors and manufacturers about
health
claims for magnets.
Aware of the medical profession's skepticism about magnet
therapy, Dr Vallbona sought to conduct science's most rigorous
type of study. Participants would agree to allow the
investigators
to randomly assign them to groups getting treatment with
active
magnets or sham devices. But neither the patients nor the
doctors
treating them would know what therapy was used on which
patient.
First Dr. Vallbona informally tested magnets on a few
patients.
One was a priest with post-polio syndrome who celebrated mass
with difficulty due to marked back pain that prevented him
from
raising his left hand. After applying a magnet for a few
minutes the
pain was gone. Dr. Vallbona recalled, and, "the priest said
this
was a miracle."
Then a human experimentation committee allowed Dr. Vallbona to
test 50 volunteers with magnets that at 300 to 500 gauss, were
slightly stronger than refrigerator magnets. They were made in
different sizes so they could fit over the anatomic area
identified as
setting off their pain.
It was difficult to design a system to prevent participants
from
learning whether they were being treated with a magnet or a
sham.
So Dr.Vallbona asked Magnaflex Inc., a magnet manufacturer in
Corpus Christi, TX, to prepare active magnets and inactive
devices
that could not be told apart. The devices were labeled in
code.
As a further precaution, a staff member observed the patients
throughout the 45-minute period of therapy to make sure they
would
not try to find out =97 by testing with a paper clip, say =97 w=
hat
treatment they were receiving.
After the investigators identified the source of the pain and
then
pressed on it, the 39 women and 2 men in the study graded the
pain
on a scale of 0 (none) to 10 (worst). Then after the
experimental
treatment, the participants rated their pain in a standard
questionnaire. The volunteers were tested only one time.
The 29 who received an active magnet reported a reduction in
pain
to 4.4 from 9.6, compared with a smaller decline to 8.4 from
9.5
among the 21 treated with a sham magnet.
The Baylor scientists emphasized that their study applied only
to
pain from the post-polio condition. Nevertheless, their report
in
last month's issue of Archives of Physical and Rehabilitation
Medicine, a leading specialty journal, has shocked many
doctors
who have scoffed at claims for magnets' medical benefits.
In an article about magnet therapy for chronic pain published
five
months ago. Dr. William Jarvis, a professor of public health
and
preventive medicine at Loma Linda University in California and
president of the National Council Against Health Fraud,
dismissed
magnet therapy as "essentially quackery."
Now, Dr. Jarvis said in an interview, the Baylor study changed
his
mind. "But like any other pilot study it needs to be
replicated," he
said.
Dr. Vallbona's findings have led him to try to carry out a
larger
study in several medical centers, and they are expected to
lead
other investigators to conduct their own studies.
Dr. Lauro S. Halstead of the National Rehabilitation Hospital
in
Washington, a pioneer in studying the post-polio syndrome, was
among experts who said that further studies were needed to
answer
questions like: Will various strength magnets produce
different
degrees of benefit? How long does the pain relief last? Will
the
effect wear off after multiple applications? For what other
conditions might magnets work?
At the University of Virginia. Ann Gill Taylor's team last
month
began recruiting 105 volunteers with fibromyalgia, a painful
muscle condition of unknown cause, to test magnetic sleep
pads.
Like the Baylor study, the volunteers and doctors are not told
whether the subject will be sleeping on an active or sham
magnet.
Participants are told that if they try to determine whether
their
treatment is with a magnet or a sham one, it could ruin the
findings
of the study. But Dr. Taylor said there was no way to prevent
cheating.
Dr. Taylor said she also planned to conduct studies of
possible
uses of magnets in relieving phantom limb and stump pain among
amputees.
Dr. Vallbona said he did not know why magnets worked for many
post-polio patients but not for others, or why some said they
felt
improvement in areas of the body far distant from where the
magnet
was applied.
Magnets medical benefits have been proclaimed for centuries.
So
why has it taken so long to do studies to begin to answer the
questions? The reasons involve economic, political,
professional
and human factors.
Many doctors criticize the lucrative magnet industry for not
investing in studies the way drug companies often do. "They
don't
do simple research," Dr.Jarvis said and "it is hard to imagine
an
easier study to conduct than a magnet one for pain." Yet
doctors
share the responsibility to do such research, and only rarely
have
they reported undertaking the scientifically controlled
studies
needed to settle major disputes about reported therapies.
In many such debates, doctors demand a biological explanation
for
a therapy's benefits. Without documentation that satisfies
them,
doctors may summarily reject the claims. Yet in their everyday
practices, the same doctors may use other therapies that lack
scientific proof for why they work.
Scientists working in nonprofit medical schools and university
hospitals are strongly influenced by economics because they
need
government grants to pay for their overhead. Since scientific
success is measured in part by the dollar amount of their
grants,
doctors tend not to pay for their studies, even if they are
relatively
inexpensive.
The Baylor study was exceptional. It was done without a grant.
Had it been done with government aid. Dr. Vallbona said, it
would
have cost about $50,000. Magnaflex provided the active and
inactive magnets free, the doctors donated their time and
Insurance
companies were not charged for magnet therapy.
Until recently government agencies and the scientists who
judge
applications to them have tended not to support studies on
magnets
and other therapies on the fringe.
The reluctance is well-founded. Over history, so many claims
for
popular remedies have failed to hold up that many doctors are
reluctant to put aside a promising project of their own to
study
something that may well turn out to be a fad.
Scientists are heavily influenced by peer pressure. Senior
scientists often discourage younger investigators from
replicating
another group's studies because doing so is less likely to
advance
their careers than making novel findings.
But in an age of medical consumerism, patient demand is
changing
some research agendas. For instance, the National Institutes
of
Health has created an office of alternative medicine, which is
paying for the magnet studies at the University of Virginia.
In tackling fringe areas, scientists usually know that they
are
stepping in deep water, risking scorn from colleagues who
believe
that what they are studying is theoretically unsound at best
and
quackery at worst. Even so, many with the courage may not know
how deep the waters are.
Reprinted from The Doctor's World, The New York Times,
December 9, 1997
Rose
