haha… ok, ok… i had to ask the obvious, albeit common answer - it was just BEGGING to be asked after the mention of metal implants 
… whether they lived to tell about it 
… but it would be nice to hear real life feedback on such use from those who dared…and yes, even then it would be at each person’s own caution…
Yes, never hearing back from them is unnerving to say the least… 
Actually about 1 out of three have gotten back to me. They report no problems at all, probably due to the fact that pace makers have very high external noise tolerance, as an FDA requirement. But still…
@Bob Could you please go in to a little more detail on what you did for your lumbar spine, and the approximate time it took between when you started and the images that showed it back to normal? Device, settings, treatment time per day, supplements, etc.
Also if you were to use two devices on the thoracic/lumbar spine would it be an issue if the pulses were not synchronized? Unfortunately not able to get a C5 at the moment…
Many thanks.
OK, the first thing people need to do is a deep and profound reality check. First thing is to modify and accept new realistic expectations. ICES-PEMF (and everything else, fraudulent claims notwithstanding) is not a mystical way to make a person younger. I assert this, because many people seem to behave in a way opposite to this reality. So, step one is to adjust expectations and behavior.
Many, many people watch YouTube and hope to find the secret of youth. That’s fairly harmless, until older people start acting like they are young, and perpetually harm themselves. And this is the main risk of using ICES-PEMF: it will make a person feel so much better that it literally feels like they are young again, and that therefore they can behave like they are young again. Let me help adjust this expectation by giving two clear examples of people who have actually harmed themselves this way:
Example 1: An 84-year-old woman was pretty much crippled with back pain. Nothing else worked, so she decided to try ICES-PEMF. I coached her through it, gave her the answer to the question to which I am responding (above), and she was off and running. Initially the feedback was excellent: her back pain was nearly gone, and she was able to become active again. Then, she went silent for a few weeks. I finally got in touch with her son, who told me that the ICES-PEMF system was not really working for her anymore. I offered to talk to her to help her adjust her usage strategy, or test the device for correct function, so she could get back on track with her initial excellent results. But there was a lot of resistance and avoidance of communication.
I finally got her on the phone. She briskly told me that the “thing didn’t work, but she would just keep it as a life lesson…”. I asked her why her initial results were so excellent, followed by weeks of failure and avoidance. She was evasive, saying things such as “It never really worked…” etc. But finally she narrated the problem to me:
She felt so good for the first few weeks that she decided to take up mountain biking again. A bit dangerous for an 84-year-old IMO, but who am I to judge. She had gone out a few times and on their third trip to bike trails with her grandchildren, she abruptly told me that she hurt herself unloading all of the mountain bikes from the back of her SUV, by herself.
Summary of findings: 84-year-old woman hurts herself by unloading mountain bikes by herself from the back of an SUV.
She now had pretty severe back pain again, and therefore concluded “that thing really does not work.”
Example 2: A 93-year-old woman similar to Example 1 (above) started feeling so good that she decided to start cooking for her family again. Evidently ICES-PEMF didn’t work for her either, because she fell down a staircase while carrying a fully-dressed turkey, by herself, with both hands, and ended up in the hospital.
My conclusions:
First - adjust expectations to align with reality
Second - make corresponding adjustments to behavior
I hear stories like this so often that I have come to understand that the first thing to fix is what people have in their heads. ICES-PEMF can really help reduce pain and improve function, sometimes dramatically. But ICES-PEMF does not transform an 84-year old into a 24-year-old. People can end up hurting themselves worse with the wrong mindset.
Once you have that straightened out, the rest is pretty easy. Collecting my advice and experience with this from various locations on this forum to answer your question:
Set to default settings. I basically used Omni-8 (or the equivalent) for 90% of the time over the past 15 years. I experimented with a few other pulse patterns, but always ended up returning to Omni-8.
Get your nutrition and supplements adjusted for your individual needs: I use a Magnesium threonate formulation, zinc citrate or zinc gluconate, collagen peptides, explicit addition of 6 grams of L-glycine in addition to the collagen peptides with NAC for reasons discussed in detail elsewhere on this forum, vitamins D3 and K2. I also take 3 to 6 grams of creatine every day for the well-researched and firmly-established benefits to strength and cognition. This has evolved over the years and a full accounting would take a book, but basically, take what your body needs and adjust as you age. Determining this for yourself will be a life-long occupation and can be discussed on this forum as many other people have many excellent opinions on the matter.
Then, I simply wear an M1, originally an A9 until I developed the M1 a few years ago, pretty much doing Omni-8 set to intensity 8 or 9. I wear it all day long, sun rise to bed-time, held in place on my lower back where I individually need it to be by cloth taping it to my firefighter-red suspenders. All day, every day.
I also used occasional spinal decompression (Teeter hang-ups inverting table or equivalent, I have both). But mainly I use common sense to prevent further behaviors that lead to injury. I keep moving, but carefully. I use both hand rails when going up or down stairs. I watch where I place my feet. I am aware of bending and twisting movements. I do them within the limits of 60-year-old Bob, not in the wishful dream space of 25-year-old Bob.
Also, your final question about using two different (unsynchronized) devices on your spine: there should not be any problems doing that.
Thanks @Bob, just trying to get back to normal (or as close to) for a healthy mid-40s.
Were there any supplements that you took specifically to aide healing your thoracic spine, or were they all general health supplements?
Also how long was the timeframe between your last imaging that showed degeneration and the healthy image?
I’ve been back to wearing my ICES for 12 hours a day and subjectively have noticed improvement.
no specific supplements for my spine
about 10 years between spine images that were considered “inoperable” to the condition of “normal for my age”
For me it has been a very long process. But I didn’t wait a decade to get a more favorable image. Frankly, that was not even on the table. What I got that mattered was a substantial reduction of pain + great improvements in mobility and function, which kicked in for me almost from day 1.
Collagen Peptides - 6 g/day with lunch, probably 4 or 5 days per week
NAC - 2 g/day: 1 in morning, one at bed time
L-Glycine 6 g/day: 3 in morning and 3 at night with NAC
Some people would assert this is too much glycine since collagen is already ~ 33% glycine. But study in detail liver metabolism, skin collagen turn-over, and changes in absorption for people as they age. Supplementing a relatively good diet with an additional 9 to 15 g L-Glycine per day is very reasonable due to its many roles and high degree of insufficiency in the elderly. I think I may need an additional 2 or 3 grams daily.
what are you using the nac to help you with?
as for the note about how using ices can give a sense of youth again… haha… it has crossed my mind to be more “bold” physically, BUT i think i’ll do that thru the old fashioned way of building up capacity thru strength training and stretching for flexibility first before running off to do things that my body likely cannot physically support.
I use NAC for several reasons. I use NAC + glycine to support glutathione production within cells, rather than supplement directly with glutathione, because as we age, liver production of glutathione drops, and it needs to be regulated at the point-of-use (by individual cells), rather than being rammed into cells (for example, by lipolozing). Providing these key substrates of glutathione allows the production of sufficient quantities of this crucial master-antioxidant, while allowing feed-back physiologic control of the amount of glutathione within cells. Too much is too much, and for a super-antioxidant like glutathione, too much is way too much if you bypass the physiologic control of this very powerful antioxidant.
I also take NAC because of its neuroprotective effects and its beneficial effects for post-stroke recovery:
as well as boosting nitric oxide and nitric oxide stability, and enhancing microvascular perfusion.
And the thing is, I can definitely feel the effects of NAC on my brain function. Rather, I can feel the effect of missing a dose of NAC, because after 12 to 14 hours without NAC, I definitely feel more mentally foggy, not as sharp, and usually some loss of balance. When I start to feel this way, I immediately think “Did I take NAC last time when I should have?” Very often, I missed taking it, so then I take 1000 mg, and then usually in 30 minutes or so I feel markedly better in terms of my overall cognition.
Finally, NAC is hepatoprotective (protects the liver). It is very useful to prevent liver damage from Tylenol (acetaminophen) poisoning, for example.
NAC protects the liver from other toxins as well, and also has demonstrated benefits for the protection of brain, kidney and lung tissues, improved immune function via regulated glutathione sufficiency, as well as other benefits.
Your comments on youth: I really like to feel younger… but I definitely try not to act younger. I am definitely smart enough (this time) to not risk injury nearly so much as I did when I was younger. As I increase my activity level with age, I put safety, moderation, and injury prevention at the forefront.
One caveat I have learned is that chronic disease caused by mycotoxin poisoning can seriously mess up the methylation cycle and production of glutathione. In the case of one family member, S Acetyl Glutathione is the only form of support they can tolerate and cannot tolerate NAC or even Liposomal Glutathione at this time. Hoping to get to a point where NAC can be tolerated for the reasons @Bob shared.
I am just lucky: I tolerate all of that stuff well. I have a close friend who definitely needs glycine, but he absolutely can’t tolerate more than about 1 gram per day. And there are many people who definitely need magnesium, but they simply can not tolerate it orally.
I’d like to add that, regarding nutrition and supplements, I am not a subject area expert and I do not have detailed domain knowledge or expertise. I have no clinical experience and therefore I do not have domain competency. I generally only talk about these topics when people ask me directly and when I think I have gathered enough information and personal experience to give a potentially helpful opinion, based on my personal experience and general knowledge. But you should definitely take any statements from me on these topics as just a personal opinion, offered only in response to a direct question.
I just found this thread and am wondering if you ever had the imaging done and what it showed? I am finding so many uses for the P9, and am curious about it’s efficacy for this issue. Of course, simply have less or no pain is a win already!
Which imaging are you referring to?
@TajD I like this idea… I envision something like a skull cap with velcro pockets for the coils that can be placed anywhere on the cap. I have been thinking about various methods to make wearing the coils easier and more convenient. Another “garment” I have thought about is a back support with pockets along either side of the spine in which to place the coils.
I think making garments is great. It’s hard to make generic ones that fit anyone for anything, but it is relatively easy to make them to fit one person just the way they want. For example, I wear suspenders most of the time (necessary when you carry tools around in your pockets all day). I sewed a Velcro flap below the cross over point where the suspenders form an “X” just above my lower back. Then I stack two coils, tape them together, then put Velcro on the stacked coils. That way I can place the coils perfectly wherever I want them on my lower back.
Pro Tip: when making Velcro attachment points for ICES-PEMF coils:
1 - Use “sew on non-adhesive hook and loop tape”
2- The “hook” material is scratchy and irritating, so use that for the part that faces away from your body. It is nasty enough that it can scratch you through a T-shirt.
3 - The “loop” part is much softer, so it should be used where the loop material will face toward your body.
This way, if the Velcro is not perfectly aligned, the exposed “hook” surface will not irritate you.
Of course, I had to learn this the hard way… 
I tried to respond to the comment, but I think it just lists a reply, not to a specific comment? You mentioned going to get images in the near future to see if they reflected the improvement you felt. I was just wondering about the results. No biggie, just fascinated by how much this can impact the body!
I have had various images over the past 24 months or so, some of which could be compared to earlier images, some not. So I will try to make sweeping general statements that cover as much as I think I can glean from all of these:
For hip/spinal images:
Rate of hip degeneration was notably reduced or even stopped for about a decade. One surgeon even noted this, saying that he had expected a lot more degeneration in my right hip over the past decade, compared to earlier images. So, basically I am inclined to think that ICES-PEMF gave me an additional ~ 10 years of useful life in my hip joints, and for the most part spared me from a lot of pain and loss of function during my 50’s, but I would not say that it resulted in regeneration of hip cartilage. Maybe the results would have been better if I had used ICES-PEMF every day for many years. Maybe not. This remains unknown.
Ultimately I ended up having both hips replaced with titanium/UHMW-PE, probably a decade or so later than I would have done if I had not have used PEMF.
Lower spine:
A set of high-resolution digital x-rays taken about 15 years apart were very interesting.
When I was about 42 years old, my physician told me that I had spinal degeneration that would be expected of a “55 year old man”.
When I was 57 years old (about 15 years later), the same physician assessed the new set of images and commented that I had spinal degeneration that would be expected of a “50 year old man”.
I asked the logical and obvious questions to determine if he meant an improvement or just about the same (stable). He said (and I generally agree) that such fine distinctions are almost impossible to make based on x-ray images. But when we tried to quantify it, which is done by measuring disc thickness, we did seem to see slightly more thickness on the more recent images, but only by about 1/2 millimeter or so. A real increase of 1/2 mm would be quite substantial, but this is hard to say with certainty, because discs in the spine are not smooth and flat. They are more like a natural sponge, thicker some places than others, so exactly how thick are they?.. it’s hard to say.
So, did my spine recover or regenerate over the 15-year period? It certainly feels much better to me now than it did 15 years ago. I have stopped needing/using nasty meds like oxy. The images could suggest an improvement in disc thickness, maybe an improvement/reduction of stenosis.
One big difference: I have used ICES-PEMF on my lower back/spine almost every day over the 15-year period. I did not do this on my hip joints.
What would I conclude:
For my hips - PEMF was very helpful in slowing the process of degeneration and reducing suffering even with brief and infrequent use over a period of about a decade.
For my spine - Daily use of ICES-PEMF for about 15 years may have resulted in some spinal recovery/regeneration, but that is not clear. What seems very clear is that it stabilized the degenerative process and reduced it to apparently zero for about 15 years.
Post surgical recovery (hip replacements):
This is easier to answer. By every measure, my recovery from both hip replacements was faster and showed better overall recovery with much less pain than the surgeons or my physician anticipated.
Thank you! This is SO helpful.