Flux Health Forum

"PEMF intensity": Is there an unambiguous definition for it?

PEMF Basics
#1

@Bob Hi Bob, Thank you for sharing all your thoughts/experiences about PEMF so clearly ! Last year I’ve tested two commercial apparatuses on which I gave up and decided to build my own device, just for me and my friends and family. While still under development, there are already two huge surprises/successes: 1- My wife’s year-long knee problem, which crippled her recently for some month and which physiotherapy didn’t cure. We did a PEMF ‘session’ (3 minutes twice a day, mono phasic pulses, 10Hz rep rate, max flux density 0.21 Gauss, slew rate 0.45Gauss/uS, coil diameter 7cm, total pulse duration around 1 uS). The next day already she walked as she did before the problems started ! However it was our first experience and I could not believe it, still thinking it might be a placebo effect. We repeated the procedure every day and she kept walking freely. 2- The second experience was with my training’s partner in fencing who, as a restoration mason recently twisted his knee, while repeatedly carrying a load of 25kg up and down a spiral staircase. One week later there was no sign of recovery and the doctor diagnosed it as a profession related ware of cartilage. Verdict: He should find another job. We did the first of two sessions on a Friday (7 minutes, mono phasic pulses, 10Hz rep rate, max flux density 0.34 Gauss, slew rate 0.40Gauss/uS, coil diameter 15cm, total pulse duration around 1 uS). The day after the first session his pain was gone, but he could not believe that it was real and not imagined… His work and Wednesday’s training proved it was for real ! Come Friday (i.e. one week after the first session) some pain returned at work in the afternoon and we did the second session after which we could start our training. One or two minutes into it he stopped and said to me: Did you hear that sound ? There had been a ‘click’ in his knee and the knee felt completely free ! I immediately told him about the click/click you yourself experienced during the first PEMF session for your back problem. Next day he happily wrote me that he rushed up the stairs !

I’d love to exchange some thoughts about what ‘PEMF intensity’ actually means.

1- Pondering on the level of physics, the question came up how to arrive at a meaningful definition for ‘PEMF intensity’. Since only a change in magnetic flux provokes an electric force on charged particles, should we not (only) characterize ‘PEMF intensity’ as slew rate (Gauss/s) ? I found one study proving that higher slew rate PEMF works perfect for bone grows, however no values were mentioned. Only in one of your patents I found an explicit mentions of values: You use between 20kGauss/s … 4MGauss/s. Would you agree that B-field strength itself is far less important in PEMF than slew rate and that we should always use/mention the latter if we want to communicate our ‘PEMF strength’ ?

2- Using Faraday’s law, slew rate can be calculated from the peak voltage of a pulse in a test coil (held in the PEMF field). However that voltage pulse itself has a rise time of its own which governs the higher frequencies in the signal. Since I can imagine that for harder tissue (e.g. bone) higher rise times would fit better and in softer tissues lower rise times, I decided to add a knob for it. In the aforementioned cases of knee problems I’ve used around 150nS and I can go as low as 65uS. This makes combinations possible of max B-field slew rate and the (rise) time in which this slew rate is reached (or put differently, peak strength and rise time of the induced E-field).

What do you think of these two points ?

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Lumbago PEMF success
#2

That is all very interesting and generally I think you are on the right track. I am very glad to know that it is working for you and your family. Careful though, I started developing portable PEMF as a project for myself and my family: it quickly gets very out-of-hand because the number of injured and suffering people is beyond counting.

I think that the first half of the puzzle is clear: flux rate is the parameter that matters (dB/dt), and we should stop using misleading terms that basically suggest “maximum Gauss”. You can explain it a thousand times (I already have), but people keep asking the same things about “Gauss” because electromagnetism is not intuitive. But for most people, like a cell phone, you do not need to understand how it works inside to be able to make a call.

I don’t calculate slew rate, I measure it directly to be sure the waveform is correct. With small electronics the calculated values are easily dominated by higher-order and non-linear effects.

As I have stated hundreds (thousands) of times: peak Gauss is almost unimportant, except as a secondary consequence of the physiologically meaningful electro-magnetic parameter: dB/dt, and the simple fact that a rate of a quantity of a known duration will result in a value that we take in this context as a “peak”. I have said this in forum responses, scientific conferences, scientific papers, all of our technical material for more than a decade, YouTube videos, whenever discussing PEMF professionally, publicly, personally, and I am pretty sure I even mutter it occasionally when sleeping.

But if you are exploring this, do not forget about the physiological importance of the duration of the pulse during which the slew rate is sustained in the physiologically relevant range. By experiment, and based on extrapolation from classical physiological data, this pulse should be sustained for a minimum of 80 us, but probably 100 us just to be sure.

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#3

Thnx Bob, I will from now on certainly experiment with longer duration pulses.

However what puzzles me is, what on earth can explain the striking results we experienced using a pulse duration of only 1 uS, which is almost two orders of magnitude away from the physiologically relevant range according to experiments (done on cell cultures I assume)? The treated tissue in my case is cartilage (and also a plica with light inflammation).

The only thing I can think of is that since the pulses used for treatment are mono phasic, they are pushing ions continuously in the same direction, which might on average produce the same effect as longer duration pulses. Could this be a plausible explanation for my short pulses producing a (remarkable) success in two cases do you think ?

#4

FWIW, the ultra-short duration produces spikes which penetrate tissue more deeply.

#5

This is a very interesting discussion. I have been experimenting static magnetic fields in treating pain and other conditions. Though there is no comparison study between pulsed and static field, theoretically, a changing field will induce physiology charges movement more
efficiently than static field. However, I and other reported studies observed clinical improvement in static magnetic field with much higher strength 800 gauss. Usually it takes a long time ( days or hours of application)to show effects. In your description, the effects came along so quickly. This is extremely interesting.
There are also claims that the polarity of the magnetic field is important for achieving response. For example a pole that attracts the north seeking pole of a compass reduces inflammation and pain but not the opposite pole. I wonder if you have checked the’polarity’ of your set up that faced the treated knees. Love to discuss further.

#7

Hi Rai, Yes, since I have mono phasic pulses I can choose the polarity and I’ve used the North pole (determined by a compass needle) for treatment and the South pole In my wife’s case at first as what we called a ‘maintenance dose’ (because she had no more irritation). Light irritations can come back however, some days after long periods of standing and then we use the North pole again for no other reason than the striking success we had experienced. And always the same sudden recovery effect appears (NB: I’m not stating because of the Northpole). The so called 'maintenance dose is also 3 min, same pulse and intensity as described above, the only difference being the repetition rate, sometimes 7.86Hz and sometimes 9.6Hz, because these were just numbers that I found roaming on the internet. However, I am not (yet?) aware of any studies that support a real treatment effect of polarity, or that really prove different effects of frequencies.

In my friend’s case we had two Northpole sessions one week apart and the day after the second one he wrote that he ‘jumped up the stairs’ (weekend, not carrying weights) And again NB: I’m not suggesting this was because of the North pole, but surely my conviction gets deeper that PEMF is doing something special.

I’m very puzzled about this sudden recovery phenomenon ! But I am gaining confidence that short induced pulses (1uS total duration and I’m using a slew rate of 500mGauss/uS) with furthermore sharp rise times of the induced Electric field (I used 150nS) have potency. I measured the rise time of the induced E field with a pickup coil and I would again like to stress that I’m not talking about the slew rate of the B-field, but about the rise time of the induced electric field here (which is the agent exerting forces on charged particles in the tissue).

The E-field strength is proportional to the slew rate of the B-field. However, as to it’s rise time I cannot find any mention of it on the internet (someone who reads this perhaps ?). Since the Fourier components of steeper pulses are higher frequencies, I’m now guessing that they can provoke resonance phenomena in denser tissues like bone and in the same line of thought I guess that softer tissues need less steep rising pulses of the induced E-field .

I found an article with a successful study proving that what they call ‘high slew rate PEMF’ enhances bone regrowth dramatically: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356842348_High_slew_rate_pulsed_electromagnetic_field_enhances_bone_consolidation_and_shortens_daily_treatment_duration_in_distraction_osteogenesis

But the authors do not describe what they mean by high slew rate PEMF. If it means B-field slew rate, than E-field strength is doing the job, but my guess is that it’s about the rise time of the induced E-field.

#8

Hi,
I have been looking into some research articles. There are lots to read and understand. One interesting one showed that a DC field generated more biological effects ( based on myosine kinase activity) than AC field. This clearly suggested a polarity effect. Though the article did not mention about polarity. ( Effects of weak low frequency sinusoidal and dc magnetic fields on myosin phosphorylation in a cell free preparation. Bio electrochemistry and bioenergetics , 30(1993)119-125) Another interesting one with lots of crossed references (Evidence Based use of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy in clinical plastic surgery. Aesthetic surgery journal. Vol 29, issue 2 , 2009. You may be interested to look at this one which tried to define best bioeffective waveform parameters . EMG signals and ion/ligand binding kinetics: prediction of bioeffective waveform parameters . Bioelectrochemistry and bioenergetics. vol48, issue 1, 1999
You mentioned that you used a compass to define the polarity of your field. Does that mean when the North seeking needle of the compass point to the’end’ of your set up means North polarity to you?
I will continue to look further into this subject. Hopefully I can get resources to build a system to test.

#9

Thnx, I will have a look. Yes, like the north pole on earth is searched by the black painted part of the compass needle (which itself is a south pole), I determine the north pole side of a current carrying coil: The compass needle points to it. It produces the same result as the right hand rule (I also used the compass, because we were taught to always do such a double check, if possible).

#10

[quote=“Rai, post:8, topic:1777”]
Thnx again for the links, since using them I came across a study that describes the mechanisms of tissue repair and growth through modifying CaM signalling with EMF.

However, I’m not familiar with the field where they talk about ‘non-thermal EMF signals’ and I still have to find out what exactly they’re doing. They use what they call pulse modulated Radio Frequencies, but they also mention a B-field strength, so are they sending radio pulses on tissue which is placed in a static magnetic field ? I’m sure @Bob could certainly elucidate these matters.

They write: Assuming Ca/CaM binding as the primary transduction pathway for induced electric fields, non-thermal pulse-modulated radio frequency(RF) signals, configured a priori using the ECM/SNR model, were found to be physiologically effective at the cellular, animal and clinical levels. This led to the suggestion that a non-thermal EMF signal could act as a first messenger capable of modulating CaM-dependent pathways that are normally activated by increases in cytosolic concentrations of free calcium ions (Ca2+) in response to insult, injury, or stress. One such physiologically relevant pathway is the CaM-dependent nitric oxide (NO) signaling pathway, which is rapidly induced in response to physical or chemical insults in various tissues.

I wouldn’t be surprised if ‘our’ PEMF could also trigger the CaM-dependent nitric oxide NO-signaling pathway, since they state somewhere: Other groups have shown that low frequency magnetic fields can affect NO-signaling. And so, the very interesting part is in the word Rapidly in the last sentence of the alinea above, since this might explain the sudden recovery effects we have experienced.

#11

Almost all of these scientific papers fail to give enough detail to fully define the pulse waveform, and the biophysical mechanisms of PEMF are certainly not well elucidated, so almost all of this that you read, in any language, from any place or any time, is more or less irreproducible. It sounds like they know something, but then we go literally decades without anyone really testing and reproducing their results.

You can literally squander your entire life away trying to make sense of the vast scientific literature on PEMF, trying to nail down the mechanism, to figure out why it works the way it does. The simple truth is this: the biophysical, molecular mechanisms of action of PEMF are unknown. Period.

Don’t fall into the mindset that you need to fully understand the molecular mechanisms of something before it becomes a legitimate medical treatment. Here is a fact: there are many things in the field of medicine that we use all of the time but we have absolutely no Idea why it works or how it works at a molecular level. Nonetheless, many of these things are widely accepted as (mostly) safe and (mostly) effective.

EXAMPLE: anesthetics remain a medical mystery and has been so for over 150 ears. Yet it is one of the great pillars of modern medicine, and is used hundreds of millions of times every year, and without it most surgeries and many medical/dental procedures would be impossible. Please do not bombard me with the endless claims that “the secrets of anesthesia have been revealed!!” This has been claimed every few months for over a century. It is simply not true, and can not be true. Here is why:

The function of anesthesia is to eliminate the consciousness and memory of pain.
We have no clue what, exactly, consciousness is (please, no opinions)
We do not know the molecular mechanism of memory (please don’t send me blogs about synapses).

So, we do not even have a solid grasp on exactly what anesthetsia is having an effect on (consciousness and memory), so there is absolutely, positively no way we can know the molecular mechanisms of it. The best they can do is show the chemical structure and talk about what receptors it binds to, but then other molecules have the same binding behavior but do not act as anesthetics. So, this is just one example of one of the most important and trusted and essential tools of modern medicine that is based on zero mechanistic understanding. It simply works; we do not know why.

Similarly, for PEMF, they claim to see some molecular effects and changes, and some signals are up or down regulated. But we remain utterly clueless as to why PEMF really works. The best we can say is that PEMF, when properly designed and used, is remarkably safe and astonishingly effective on a wide range of health conditions, and we have no clue why this is so. But if that is not good enough, and it is necessary to know molecular transduction mechanisms, then pretty much there is a lot of both alternative and mainstream medicine that simply does not rise to that standard.

#12

Thanks Bob ! Agreed and I won’t bombard you :smile:. As for usefulness: Based on our own experiences we’ve been gaining so much confidence in PEMF that it’s become impossible to picture ourselves without it. (while writing I realize that goes for my curiosity as well :grinning:).

#13

That’s the astonishing thing about PEMF: it really works, for many things, for almost everyone… and we simply do not know why. My opinion: it is OK to embrace the unknown (for now) and happily make the best use of PEMF for many conditions that are unresponsive to other treatments. Some people disagree, and that’s OK too. And many of those people will not be convinced by any amount of experience, reason, and data. That is made much more complex by the fact that there is a huge amount of misinformation on PEMF on the Internet. So, I don’t spend time working backwards to untangle the misinformation, sloppy science, and polarized opinions. I put all of my energy into gaining new knowledge on PEMF and finding better ways to make it and use it then helping people who are ready to embrace PEMF for what it is.

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#14

Agree with Bob’s. Many of us have embraced the ‘unknown’. This is where the basis of science is: observations. We observe a pattern which repeats itself. We don’t know why but it seems to work. Finding the mechanisms behind is another route to try to improve the outcomes. I feel excited when someone shows me PEMF results can be so quick and so effective. It is worthwhile to look deeper and find out why. What difference was made to make it better? Is a unilateral but pulsed magnetic field better than a fluctuating bilateral field? Some basic science studies or observations suggested that. Then let’s try it out and see. If it seems to be the case, a real clinical study may then be more worthwhile.
This forum is a great platform to share our observations. We need to collaborate to advance PEMF to be a useful, affordable modality to treat diseases.