I watched the video again today and I paused at the bone study and there were 2 groups and one was “at the minimum threshold for effectiveness” and it got some improvement and one group was substantially above the “threshold for effectiveness” and it got excellent results.
Okay, can you guess what my question for Bob is?
Yes, what is the “minimum threshold for effectiveness” and would that be different for each type of application?
Based on that study, done at the vet school at TAMU, I calculated, based on the clinical observations, that the minimum threshold for effectiveness was on the order of 100-200 kG/s. NOT just Gauss, not frequency, but the time rate of change of the magnetic field (G/s). This allows you to calculate the minimum induced electrical field “E” based on Faraday’s law of induction, and cellular-level anatomical geometry. These numbers are no secret, I have published them many times, including several times on YouTube videos.
Most people at this point are probably thinking “Gee whiz, that’s too sciency, just tell us the Gauss or the magical healing frequency.”
Nope, sorry, the calculations I did are real science, it involves real math, incomplete and sometimes forgotten physiological measurements, and some very difficult concepts from classical physics. That’s why this technology is not for everyone. But that is exactly how I first estimated the “threshold for effectiveness”.
It’s kind of funny to me, because I have been telling people for years exactly how this all works (at least, what I have found after 20+ years of seriously working on this problem), and yet some people refuse to believe it. Today one of my close colleagues sent me a copy of an email from a new company that is trying to pirate and sell a “new” PEMF product. Obviously, I was not meant to see this email, but…
Triumphantly, one of them wrote “I read Bob Dennis’ stuff today, and he is completely wrong. Induction only works for sine waves!!!”. Then he went on to describe his “new” theories of how PEMF works, based on zero science, zero data, and no understanding of biology. It’s so funny, because I lay the whole thing out for everyone.
So, head’s up ya’ll. Another great “new” PEMF technology is about to be unveiled. Evidently it will be a sine wave, which has been known for decades to have very little or no biological effect. But they will undoubtedly tell you anything you want to hear, so long as you are willing to write a check.
But not me. I am a grumpy old scientist who spent a few decades and bothered to learn a few fields of the hard sciences, and run a few real experiments. And those were my measurements and calculations.
Laughing. Yes, please give us the magical healing frequency please."
Laughing my head off.
You have explained that to me before and mentally, I can see your drawing of that in my head. I will have to go back and look at the YouTube video again. That means the equation is something you put into your device, rather than something we have to figure out how to use enough gauss or use enough power or use enough time. It is the time rate of change of the magnetic field.
I genuinely hate that there are con artists trying to prey on people who are vulnerable.
That is correct. The critical waveform shape parameters, that allow PEMF to consistently work well, are built in to every device. And every device is tested and tuned and retested to assure this.
The only adjustments you might need to make are:
1–intensity, because some people and some animals are more sensitive than others. Different injuries require different intensities as well.
2–Pulse pattern, because changing the pattern is probably more important that locking onto one specific magical (non-existent) frequency, and some people and some injuries respond somewhat better to some patterns than others, although this tends to be a small effect, which is individual, varies from person-to-person, and there is not one best pattern for everyone and every injury.
The effects of pulse pattern differences tend to be small, but many people can tell a difference.
Thanks.
I am looking at the devices right this second for my friend who is struggling like crazy with bone on bone knees and thinning bones and back problems and arthritis. She is a single mom and is poor enough that she went homeless a few years ago and is back.
The coil arrays seem “less confusing” visually in a way that I am drawn to them. Is there a difference in quality of experience between the coils and coil arrays?
The coils are replaceable, but seem to be lasting longer than the 3 months which you had talked about. Do the arrays last as long or less long or longer?
Do they work as effectively? That is the better question.
I am an inch away from buying one for me, for her.
I am laughing because eventually, I will own enough of them that I get to use one again.
I think the coil pairs generally work better than the 2x2 coil arrays if you are willing to experiment with coil placement, because the individual coils can be placed in different orientations, and different people and different injuries respond differently to coil placement, which corresponds to the direction of the magnetic flux lines.
The 2x2 coil arrays are easier to use, and may, or may not work as well, depends on the person and the injury, but they work better with the model A9 or model C5 than the model M1.
The 2x2 coils can last a very long time, but they can be broken by people who pull and twist on them, so once again, it depends on the person using it. Generally they last a few months, I can use a set for a year or so, and some people manage to break them in a day or so.
She would likely break them in a day or two.
I look at all those coils together and I expect she would also be likely to have those become a tangled mess.
I am afraid that she would get overwhelmed by the C-5. So many coils.
I guess I am going to let her try the M-1 to see if she likes the sensation before making my mind up.
I have been burned so often by lending them out and people don’t even try it.
She is so desperate that she might actually use it and never give it back.
If I bought it with the 2x2 arrays to make it easier to use, in the future, could I buy coils or is that a different input?
Also, if one array or one coil goes bad, does the c-5 still work?
For some people it is a very powerful tool… but it’s not for everyone.
all the coils are interchangeable and can be easily replaced
The C5 can work with 1, 2, 3, or 4 coils. Of one shorts out it may detect the problem and then shut down. Just use the hexagonal coil tester to make sure they are working from time to time, and keep them plugged in firmly.
Two final questions
Do the 2x2 arrays have a side which has to be kept toward the body? Like the bumpy side of the coils.
I noticed that the deep-coil is sold out, is that something you found successful enough that it will come around now and then or is it just something you made a few and they sold out?
The woman I am asking these questions about is very heavy - closer to 360 pounds and she wouldn’t need deep coils for her knees but she is bottom heavy and I am thinking she would need it for hips and maybe even for lower back.
1- nope, both sides of the 2x2 array are magnetically identical.
2-we just ran out of some of the components to make them. Should be available again next week.
Excellent answers.
Next week is when I would be ordering, so it all works out perfectly.
What is the effective depth of bodily penetration of the magnetic field, or induced ion flow, or increased gene expression at max intensity of the ices M1?
Most PEMF marketers are willing to spread misinformation about this topic to increase their sales. But the honest answer is that there is no simple answer to that question.
The effective depth of penetration will depend on many factors, some of which simply can not be measured, including:
1- Individual sensitivity and responsiveness to PEMF. Yes indeed, people do vary.
2- Injury type: some injuries respond to lower levels of stimulation than others.
3- the 3D positioning of the coils: stacked, side-by-side, opposite sides, offset, etc.
4- Length of coil cables: longer cables lose more energy before the coils than shorter cables.
5- Use of coils in parallel?
6- Use of a cable splitter? Each connection adds electrical resistance to the output.
Then there is the physics and biophysics, which I will only briefly summarize:
A- stimulation is VECTOR quantity, and tissues respond to the direction of ion flow, so the direction of the magnetic flux lines will influence how well the tissues respond.
B- drop-off of field strength varies somewhere between 1/r^3 and 1/r^4, depending on location of the point being measured with respect to the axis of the coils.
C-Interaction with adjacent flux lines, such as in a coil array or pad.
… and many other factors…
Most (or all) PEMF marketers ignore these realities, so they make fraudulent claims such as “whole-body” stimulation using a convenient pad. But the reality is that this is entirely untrue. A single coil or array of coils can generally only penetrate 3-4 inches. This is all you really get even from the very expensive pad-based PEMF systems, and that is the real number that we usually see, subject to the many factors listed above, for ICES-PEMF coils placed side-by-side or in a flat array.
If you stack the coils you get more penetration, about 4-5 inches, but this varies, as discussed above,
Coils placed on opposite sides of the point of interest give the best effective depth, but usually these are least convenient for the user. But we have seen effective penetration through 10-11" of tissue when coils are used on opposite sides, such as in the case with hips, for example.
Those numbers will vary based on individual conditions and sensitivity, but that is about correct for most cases.
That sentence is fascinating!
You give such great answers!
Okay, I ate my lunch and watched videos on Membrane Potentials and could visualize all the potassium doing a “Should I stay or should I go?” process in my cells.
I can understand the -92 mv.
I get to the whole voltage Vm 61.5 and thought maybe I was going to learn something, but well…
This might take a while.
Membrane voltage is the first half of the matter I think. It is pretty well described scientifically. My scientific hypotheses is that the other half is the detection of individual ion flow along (not across) membranes, and this is not so well described scientifically. But there are several good technical reasons why we know about the first, but do not know about the second, yet.
Basically, the measurements of individual ions across a membrane to generate membrane potentials is easy to measure (patch clamping) and has been available for decades, But the measurement of a single ion along a membrane is not something we can measure directly with available instrumentation at this time, so it remains unknown.
I hypothesize this as an as-yet-undiscovered mechanism of cellular-level ion transduction because we can calculate (from the Faraday equation) that such ultra-low-level ion movement must be happening… we simply can not detect it yet with available instruments. But I hypothesize that cells can and do detect it.
From this point the discussion would get extremely complex, not something I could discuss by text in a forum, sorry. But it is only an hypothesis, I could be wrong, and either way it is not essential for the simple act of accepting that PEMF does indeed have biological effects, even if the biophysics of those effects are not known.
But to prevent spiraling off into gibberish discussions, there is no way to reconcile this (a real and testable scientific hypothesis) with the many speculative guesses and mystical claims you will find saturating the Internet, so, please, everyone, refrain from asking me to reconcile this with any random claim or clip of text you might run across. When, for example, someone equates emotions with magnetism, then all of science has been thrown out the window, and it becomes impossible to have a meaningful, productive, intelligent discussion. Sorry, but honestly, that is just pseudo-scientific gibberish and I simply can’t respond to it. If I had a lot of spare time, I could hammer people all day with nonsense assertions and comparisons, but I am too busy pushing the knowledge forward, not fighting a rear-guard action against those types of assertions.