Flux Health Forum

Best Known Methods & Implementation for Back Pain

Pain and Inflammation
#1

While I’m waiting for my M1 & C5 to show up, I’ve been reading a lot of posts here on other’s experiences, settings and ways they use their ICES units - But, I haven’t seen many photos or a lot of info that describes the nitty-gritty details of how “back pain people” actually wear, affix and secure the coils to their backs when going through their day and/or sleeping.

Rather than reinventing the wheel and pioneering some Rube Goldberg-esque setup, I’d like to hear from others and what solutions they’ve found to work best in terms of the coils staying put, comfort and as much unobtrusiveness as possible (and reasonable) when going through the day doing a myriad of tasks, like sitting, walking, driving vehicles etc.

From what I’ve read/gathered so far, it seems that many emulate what the manual points out in terms to Siamesing the coils and applying side by side (East to West on spine, but not North/South or Up/Dn) - and from there use an Ace bandage of sorts to wrap around the torso? (This is where things get a bit murky)

I’m just wondering what’s realistic - taking into consideration that the general consensus for chronic pain is to have the coils on for many hours a day - and possibly wearing them during sleep at night? Is this what most have done to achieve good results?

I only just read a thread where @Bob advised using single coils, either 1 or 2 layers thick, instead of the 2x2 coils for back pain. I don’t know what the reason for this is exactly - since my plan was to originally put several 2x2s into the C5 and run them up my spine from the sacrum to about T10 or so. Some clarity around the “Why” regarding the single vs 2x2s would be helpful.

FYI - I just returned from pain management today after getting a CT scan - showing the stubs of surgical stainless steel they had to cut out on the 2nd surgery because they came loose (clamped on vertebrae, partial bone encapsulation) and I’d see stars (literally shooting out of my eyes) if anything lightly tapped my spine…Anyway - fell off a roof, 5 burst fractures and they put me back together. They told me I’ve got stenosis, slipping disc between L5 and sacrum, L1 bulging disc and narrowing of the channels that the nerves go thru on the right side…I’ve been dealing with pain for 35 years now.

Early on, chiropractic and float therapy (Samadhi tank w/Epsom salt) were managing my pain. I got married, moved and both of those went away, although I still do chiropractic & diet etc. But I had to start taking pain medication just to get through the day starting about 16 years ago. As many of you know, it affects your brain chemistry and stops being effective after a while. I’ve tried MANY things to get pain managed in a satisfactory way but nothing so far has been effective enough to get off these damned pills. So here I am… :wave:

How are back pain sufferers “mounting” their coils to their body so they can use this type of therapy all day, every day? What coil configuration have you found works best for you? Regarding “padding” - are you padding behind the coils? Using cloth in front of the coils (like a t-shirt between coils and skin)? How are you keeping things from flapping around and moving/sliding down from the area of application? ARE YOU WEARING the coils or are you just laying on them, like a mat of sorts?

Any help, suggestions and pics is appreciated so that I can get off on the right foot and minimize the “teething” problems as I start getting going with this therapy.

Thanks!!!

#2

Briefly: I just tell people what has worked for me, and also what I tried and did not work so well. Different people will probably respond differently, but this is what I have found over more than a decade of experimenting on myself as well as getting feedback from many other people:

First thing I tried for my very serious lower back injury, way back around 2006:
I had one simple crude coil attached to a PEMF system that was about the size of a microwave oven that I had designed for NASA and industrial use.
RESULT: it worked remarkably well. So I decided to make a portable battery-powered system.

About a year later, I had tried and iterated my portable system (an early version of what became the model A9), which had a pair of coils. I stacked them and put them on the point on my spine where it hurt the most.
I tried larger diameter coils to “cover more area” which people perennially ask me to do, which I have already tried extensively, and the RESULT: it does not work as well.
So, I reduced the coil back down to the 40-50 mm diameter range and…
RESULT: again, excellent pain relief. CONCLUSION: the optimal size for the coils is in the 40-50 mm diameter range, not larger because it will not work as well.

Then I tried just putting the two coils along my spine: That actually caused more pain, so then I tried putting the two coils side-by-side across my spine at the point of maximum pain. That worked pretty well. Then I tried stacked coils for comparison, and that worked best of all for me.

Then I started thinking:
"How do I make this even better: Obviously, make an array of coils to run all along the spine (similar to the plan you have described)
So, I designed a system specifically to make a coil array to run about a foot and a half along my spine, calculated, make silicone molds to hold coils, etc.
This is absolutely obvious, anyone can see this. The problem is, it does not really work well. Maybe some day it will work for someone, but I have not heard a result like that yet.

Then I started thinking: “OK, more POWER = more better!!”
I spent about a year and as much as the cost of a median house on it, and well, no it did not work better, not at all. The effects were diminished. Nonetheless, people regularly ask me for “more power!!”

As it turns out, the current devices already deliver more than enough power, sometimes too much for most people. In fact, I started keeping track of this too. Whenever a customer would tell me “Its not working, I need MORE POWER!!!” Obviously MORE POWER = MORE BETTER!", or maybe it doesn’t…

I tried to talk each individual customer back from the ledge. I tried to get them to just dial down the power, just for a week, and check to see if it worked better. Some people did not try lower power, They pretty much stopped communicating with me because obviously ICES-PEMF didn’t work.
But many people did try dialing the power down for a week:
RESULT: more than 90% of people who dialed down the power had better results within a week.

So now I started to realize more than a decade ago: we really do not understand how PEMF is working, so “common sense” is not really a good guide. We need to experiment, observe, compare.

LESSONS LEARNED;
Larger coils are not better
More area of coverage is not necessarily better
More power is not necessarily better (but some people with severe acute injuries seem to benefit from more power, and individual sensitivity does vary, so some people just do need more power than others). Most people respond better for most injuries when they use less than maximum power.

Some people just do not agree. They need to experiment and find for themselves what works best for them as an individual.

After about 2 decades of intensively studying this, what do I think is best:
Use coils stacked, or sometimes on opposite sides or side by side. Each individual needs to experiment for themselves to find which works best for each type of injury. Different coil configurations work differently for me for different injuries. The only way to know: try, observe, compare.

For your use, to answer you directly: How would I set it up?

First do the easiest thing: Try just lying on the coils in various positions and compare to determine what works best for your individual case. I would not put a lot of time and effort yet into trying to build a rig to hold the coils in place, not until I had determined by simple experiment where the coils need to be held to get the best effects.

Once you know where to place the coils for best effects, then think about how you could hold them there. You can then ask specific questions on this forum. In my case, I needed to hold stacked coils directly over one point on my lower spine. So, I sewed some 4" wide “sew-on” (not adhesive) velcro from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Matenf-Excellent-Adhesive-Interlocking-Clothing/dp/B0CF57FTKF/ref=sr_1_6?crid=2S7VD12QM0RAP&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Jc42DFNpJNj53RlsQbuPteFMmLW6uUX3AReetLewA32p-4ZDTqk3VR0HGIyai--iWHruZ7dqMQG5HSz6kCM-i77yzuyUm8f3Ok6mQP4NFfKhhG8AXAncSFQKuBzFvdexhsSjzJ-Qw-ZJtwcWzL2ZZTe0ZNS69eiMiysoKVpQZz7GcWhSuTyPKiYFzIgQPyUqG9J093xNLUDn-WzkvuOnEkGUctE0SfDpuTD3PUr-8tbfmo3NI-_euS_lSjNbHALlV2wE_dJ5f_f6toeSYQi0swASlfupoSVcN5abdLSkvXg.PEOtAYSNEguL1E45k1xB6jC-KmiSGqk5GF92njLJTvQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=sew%2Bon%2Bvelcro%2B4%2Binch%2Bblack&qid=1775067424&sprefix=sew%2Bon%2Bvelcro%2B4%2Binch%2Bblack%2Caps%2C152&sr=8-6&th=1

to a pair of suspenders:

I placed the wide velcro patch approximately over my spine at the point of maximum pain so that soft half faced toward my skin. I sewed it in place.

I glued a pair of stacked coils (then later used a P9 with internal coils instead) to a small patch of the other half of the velcro (the coarse “hooks”), then I used the velcro to attach and detach the coils to determine the best placement.

It works great for me, and I have been wearing this setup every day all day for several years.
RESULT (for me): convenient, simple, my severe pain is reduced 95% or more
Individual results may vary

#3

@Bob Thank you!

I have considered suspenders (remember Mork?) - but the Velcro idea is great. Plenty of grip & the ability to precisely position the coils.

Yes - power… I get it. More is not more. Having experienced “rife” with the intensity too high, I’ve learned my lesson well the first time. I’ve found that the body doesn’t really do anything with a sledgehammer…but rather subtle taps. Kinda like intuition. (Which is no good if you’re thick or don’t listen!)

The idea regarding an array of coils was simply for coverage because the pain covers that area. Pinpointing the exact location is sometimes a challenge given that I’ve lost a lot of feeling on the skin surface, which makes things vague at times. However, I’d imagine that “flooding” the adjacent area or general vincinity may be all that’s required, using less single coils.

Thanks for the detailed answer, including your fabrication adventure, which I can appreciate - including investing all that time and yielding less than stellar results. Cheers

#4

Yes, I am glad this was helpful.

A perspective that I find useful is to think of ICES-PEMF as being more like acupuncture, and less like a tanning bed. What I mean by this is the most effective way to apply it: focal (pin-point) versus over a whole-body or large area.

Think of it this way: would acupuncture work better if you used a larger needle? I am thinking probably not. The strategy is focal placement to yield the best global systemic (whole-body) results.

When you think of the application and the resulting effects of ICES-PEMF this way, then the entire strategy changes. You start thinking much more nuanced, less-is-more, high efficiency, do not try to force anything, pinpoint treatments causing systemic physiologic effects, observe these effects, modify placement strategy, observe, compare, adjust, repeat.

On first pass, this sounds vague, endless trial-and-error. But in practice, when people approach it this way, starting with the basic guidelines (medium intensity, stacked coils, Omni-8 pulse protocol), it usually only takes people only about three or four different attempts to find a coil placement strategy that actually works well for them. With some specific advice from people on this forum, that can be reduced even further.

#5

@Bob Thanks for the additional guidelines. I’m excited to get started.

I found the study conducted by Stacey Ravid to be very helpful in terms of “hopeful confidence” that there’s a good chance ICES would alleviate some of my pain.

I found the comments provided by the participants to be very much on point. Especially in regards to the seemingly endless “no way out” pharma pain train, their vocalizing the impacts of pain and mood, depression etc - no AI generated responses there - grassroots, relevant and soberingly to the point. Completely relatable. And, responses shared by members of this forum as well.

I think many can relate not only to the comments in the study, but also for those that have been living with pain for decades, how it started out as a tolerable whisper and as time went on, it became a screaming voice that can’t be ignored, all through the night or right in your face as soon as your feet touch the ground. It permeates into everything it seems… and I’ve had enough! So I’m gonna try this on and see how it fits.

Not long ago I bought a “rife” machine and opted for the PEMF mat. I really wanted it to work… but after researching a bit, I’ve come to find out that there’s practically NO WAY this 24x72" mat, with one big rectangular serpentine coil is going to do anything for me, other than lightening my wallet. (And possibly messing up my energy field more than helping) The frequency generator seems to be on point with all the right features, but the “shotgun spread” of the single zone mat is "all wrong ". At least it didn’t have gemstones on it…I probably would have gone with a “Swiss” mat, but BBB ratings and MLM schemes just stopped me in my tracks. After reading your write ups on “marketing hype”, and what you offer, that settled it for me.

Thanks again.