Axel,
Very happy to hear that you are getting good results from our ICES tech. Thanks for letting me know.
It is also very interesting that you noticed that ICES is stronger than many of the supposed “whole body” PEMF systems. I have verified that by direct magnetic field measurement, and you are correct. But in general I avoid direct comparisons with these crude “whole body” devices, so I have never mentioned that verifiable fact before. I am trying not to confuse people because there is way too much fraud in this area, so I try to keep the messages simple.
The explanation is this of course: ICES-PEMF generates very strong fields, but they are concentrated to a small focal area. The larger, more powerful (and inefficient) PEMF systems try to spread their whole field energy over a larger volume of space to be able to claim a “whole body” PEMF system, but in fact that is not really physically possible, and they just end up squandering a huge amount of energy into empty space with no clinical benefit. The whole thing is sort of silly, like trying to spread a single pat of butter over a whole loaf of bread, then claiming they sell “Whole Loaf” pats of butter. If you understand basic physical concepts like conservation of energy, then you realize how silly these types of claims are.
Also, I think you are probably going to like the effects of a C5 for your leaky gut. Many people have given me very positive feedback on this, with people’s issues ranging from minor gut issues to cripplingly severe Crohn’s… all of them tell me the benefits are really impressive. Maybe 2 out of 20 or 30 people tell me their benefits were “modest”, but the vast majority, I would say ~ 90%, really see excellent benefits.
As for a C5 versus a B5: I actually use a C5 myself, since I find it easier to use than a B5 (I designed them both of course), but most of the time I just want something that just works without a lot of fiddling around. I use the B5 as the core for my research, currently testing the effects of PEMF on type 1 diabetic mice, for example, and PEMF on seed germination.
But the B5 and C5 are identical in terms of hardware, so both have identical drive capability, number and types of outputs, etc. In fact, it is easy to program a B5 to be a C5. The deep field coil assembly requires two output ports, so you can put two of them on either a B5 or a C5.
For a gut treatment, interesting you should ask. My sister just asked for the same thing, for the same reasons, and I gave it a lot of thought recently. Here is what I suggest:
I would get a C5 with 2 sets of 2x2 coil arrays, and two sets of deep field coils. You can use these in various combinations to really treat your entire gut, deep and near the surface, large areas and small. So, that is what I sent my sister a few weeks ago, and she really likes it.
Yes: settings are not changeable during use. This is by design, to prevent inadvertent parameter resetting during mobility and ambulatory use. These systems tend to get banged around a lot by some people.
Optimal intensity and pulse pattern are definitely individual. But I would suggest you also consider using Alpha Wave and Schumann 4.
I do not have an option to vary the intensity during use, but that is more of a technical issue rather than by design. Being a programmer, you may appreciate this. I am demanding enough of the internal resources of the microcontroller that some of its performance is not quite as specified. Anyone who programs microcontrollers professionally will tell you that while most of the internal resources work as advertised, when you try to use all of the resources, performance can get glitchy. This is the case with the microcontroller used in the basic architecture of the M1/C5/B5, which overall has excellent performance, but in one aspect it has a weakness. I think it has something to do with the memory pagination or internal registers for the DAC. If your code exceeds a certain size in memory, the device can no longer address the 5-bit DAC control register, so it becomes impossible for the code to access and modify the DAC output register, which is how the output intensity is controlled (by setting the voltage scaler for the external DC-DC converter). I spent many hours trying to work around this, but it seems to be an inherent problem with the microcontroller hardware/registers. So, the result is that the DAC works perfectly when the first page of code is executed, but then the DAC control register becomes inaccessible when the main loop of the code is executed. This is fine with me, because that is the function I wanted anyway, and for anyone but the most hard-core geeks this is not really important, so I just decided that I would look at this behavior as a “feature” not a hardware/register glitch.
Thus, unfortunately, intensity cycling is not really possible with the B5/C5, sorry.
The use of feedback, especially HRV, is an excellent Idea. I think you will find that the device is most effective for you at intermediate intensities. Too much really is too much, and almost everyone gets the best response from mid-range intensities.
Also, you may note (as I have) that your individual requirement for intensity changes over time (weeks or months), and often the need for intensity reduces slowly over time.
… there was NO relief. back then i didn’t understand as much as i do now the many uses, and I was not there to guide the usage.