76% of participants receive Pain Relief from using Magnetic Therapy

Researchers at the Department of Family and Community Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston report on a double-Blind Pilot Study to determine what effect, if any, magnetic therapy had on reliving pain in patients suffering from postpolio syndrome. (published in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation)

Postpoilo syndrome typically produces widespread persistent pain. The only therapies that are presently reccomended are relaxation, diathermy or electrotherapy, braces and crutches, or prescription medications. These don't offer much in the way of pain management, and that was why this research was undertaken.

Fifty patients suffering from postpolio syndrome who also had muscular pain or neuralgic pain of the joints were invited to participate in the study. Half of the participants were placed in the control group and the other half was placed in the test group.
Each participant filled out a McGill Pain Questionnaire that contains different adjectives that relate to the nature and severity of the pain they experienced.

Each participant was treated with either a sham magnet (placebo) or a real permanent magnet with a flux density of 300 to 500 Gauss for 45 minutes. Then the participants were asked to re-evaluate the degree of pain felt. The degree of pain felt before the therapy was almost equal for both groups.

76% of the participants who received the real magnet had less pain, but only 19% of those who received the placebo had less pain.

The study showed that treatment with a permanent magnet of 300 to 500 Gauss that was positioned at the precise areas of the body at which manual contact or applied force was painful, resulted in a considerable and rapid reduction in pain with no observable bad side effects, in people suffering from Postpolio Syndrome.

Despite the results, the researchers were unable to account for the magnet’s amazing success in reducing pain. They felt that it may possibly be because of an alteration in the way pain is received and acknowledged or because of the release of endogenous opioids in the brain.
Magnetic Therapy possibly may be effective in the management of pain in a variety of health conditions.
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