Specific uses of PEMF where I have heard generally negative feedback

[Bob]

A lot of people ask about tinnitus and the effects of pemf for tinnitus in general. This has been going on for years as far as I know, and people have been asking me questions, so I’m led to believe that tinnitus is a much more pervasive health problem than is generally appreciated.

I did post a few comments about this elsewhere, but I can say that as far as I know, ICES-PEMF has variable effects from individual to individual on tinnitus. basically, in my experience because I also tried it for tinnitus on myself, I found that it seemed to make things worse a little bit but the effects were temporary. Several other people who use ICES regularly told me the same thing: Their tinnitus got a bit worse until they stopped using ICES, and then it returned back to their baseline state. Some people who are experts with PEMF have told me that you just simply have to keep applying it until the benefits occur and that initially with pemf sometimes you have a mild negative effect followed by a long-term positive effect. For some applications of PEMF this may be true, but I never tried ICES on tinnitus long enough to see any indication of this.

So I think as far as tinnitus is concerned, whether or not it is helped or made worse by ICES, this remains an open question. I do know that many other pemf manufacturers and marketers claim that their system will cure tinnitus (and everything else), but I would just view any such claims with cautious skepticism. I’ve never seen any reliable scientific information on this topic. But theoretically I could see it either way: either there’s a general benefit to the inner ear from pemf, or the possibility that magnetic pulses that are applied so close to the ear may cause more problems with the hair cells in the ear. Scientifically I have to say I simply don’t have enough information to have a strong opinion either way on this topic.

[watersugar]

I joined the forum specifically to try and get some guidance on using the A9 device for dizziness…and I found this post in my first search about it…oops…bit sad to hear that Bob has not seen evidence of it working for people with dizziness.

Some details of my specific case:
I’ve been dizzy daily for past 2.5 years
I became dizzy after a viral infection made me seriously ill after being normal and quite healthy up till then.
I’m early 30s. Female.
I’ve since found ways to mitigate the after effects of this viral infection (I went the traditional western medicine route at first had various tests to rule out brain diseases and other potential big issues but nearly every doc gave up on me or thought I was faking it, after never being a hypochondriac or really even ill at all for the first 30 years of my life…so I started doing some biohacking, altering my supplements based on my genetics with help of information from DNA test, naturopath consultations, my own research on rhonda patrick’s site, doing whole body cryotherapy, sauna, meditation etc)but I still have dizziness (I’ve been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and per one doc potentially reactive arthritis or Rheumatoid Arthritis…I’ve been unable to attend follow up appts due to pandemic and being fearful of going out)

The one thing that helped me in a remarkable way with dizziness is steroids. I’ve only had a shot once but it was the least dizzy I’d been for years. In addition some days I simply am not as bad as others, but the exact mechanism of why some days I’m better I still haven’t discovered. I made the leap of thinking IF inflammation is the cause of my particular dizziness -and I believe so given that a steroid helped in past unlike nearly everything else -and if PEMF is so helpful for inflammation and given that many people report using them near their brain for long periods safely…I would give it a shot.

I’ve used the A9 with coils held to my head via a fabric headband in various positions for past 3 days. usually I stick the coils in front of my ears and just above but also do at base of skull…closer to ears…closer to eyes as some element of my dizziness has impacgted my ability to focus on moving objects as well, I did go to vision therapy and was treated and graduated out of it, they did ‘all they could do’ they said and suggested some sort of vestibular therapy which I went to as well (I have done it ALL). I’ve spent over 6 hours a day with them on my head for past couple of days.

I am beyond the point of being afraid to get my hopes up, given how much time money I’ve given up on this quest… But I would say there’s a 10% decrease in dizziness when they’re on me now. Maybe even 15-20%. I have seen no ill effects. I’ve tried a plethora of things and somehow none of them had this effect. Is it placebo? Maybe? I mean that’s not impossible I guess…How do I test that? I have a lot of hope it keeps getting better…that’d be enough proof for me.

thanks for reading…and good luck everyone on your health journeys

[Bob]

If it seems to help a bit for any particular condition, generally I suggest that people try different coil positions/configurations. Interestingly, most people who try this tell me that one particular coil orientation works markedly better than the others. Each person and injury varies, so there are not generic guidelines for precise coil placement. But most people can start to zero in on what will work for them after trying a few different coil placement strategies and comparing their different results.

[Relgie]

I am not a qualified diagnostician, and I know you probably get all kinds of suggestions but what you describe sounds like textbook Benign Paroxysmal Postural Vertigo (BPPV)—has this been ruled out? The treatment for BPPV is in Physical Therapy and I know this because I had BPPV and many PT clinics have a practitioner who specializes in treating it. It characteristically follows a viral Upper Respiratory Infection as you describe and is affected by posture which you did not mention. Besides PT, it helped me to have scalp acupuncture (the acupuncturist has to specially trained in scalp acupuncture). I also benefitted from eye exercises and it turns out that there is a link between the eyes and the inner ear. There are even special clinics that take this approach but I never tried it, I just did eye exercises on my own. I still get vertigo sometimes but not very often and when I do the first thing I do is my eye exercises. Let me know if that interests you and I can send you the eye chart I use.

Best of luck!

Robert

PS I have to say this even though I don’t want to. My 53 year-old sister also had vertigo and her insurance company would not pay for the MRI her doctor ordered so she did not have the imaging done. A few months ago she started getting severe headaches so she went to the ER and they did an MRI. She has a glioblastoma and her life expectancy is about 14 months with a survival beyond 2 years of 5%. Of possible interest to Dr. Dennis—They did prescribe for her the PEMF helmet that is FDA approved as it extends life expectancy by almost a year (during which time new treatments might be developed). My sister, who has excellent health insurance from Blue Cross would have to pay $2000 per month out of pocket for the PEMF helmet so she will probably die instead.

[Bob]

I was thinking the same thing: maybe BPPV. But to some people that is too obvious. However, I had very bad BPPV and went undiagnosed properly for many years. It was easier for me to walk with my eyes closed most of the time. Finally, I stumbled upon the possibility of BPPV myself, tried the Epley maneuver, and voila! it instantly cleared about 90% of my dizziness.

My case of BPPV is somewhat unusual: it has persisted for many years. But each time I have a flare-up, it seems to be related to a postural event, and it clears right up when I do the Epley Maneuver. If no one has brought this to your attention, you might benefit greatly by looking into BPPV and the Epley Maneuver.

[watersugar]

I would love to see the chart you use! Yes please! I never had much of a marked improvement in dizziness from the eye exercises I did. (3 days of pemf oddly seems more impressive so far than vision therapy for dizziness) But vision therapy did other good things for me…like making computer work much less straining.

and I think it’s very kind of you to comment about your sister to me…probably not easy to bring that up for many reasons. I had an MRI of my brain about 6 months into dealing with the dizziness so I’m not in the same situation but I hope she beats the odds…and pardon my language but fuck the insurance companies.

Docs talked about bppv as a possibility but if it is it…I’m not helped by the usual things…
I have had the maneuver done for postural vertigo multiple times when I went to physical therapy for vestibular treatment a couple times in late 2019…the therapist would do it every session… It had NO effect on me. Neurologist did it to me too when I got the MRI at a fancy university hospital …no change at all. It seems to be unrelated entirely to my posture

I’m gonna keep trying it out in different positions. And I’m gonna keep updating this.

[watersugar]

Thankyou…yep, I’m aware of that and have tried the maneuver in more than one setting with no change. I know what you mean about being easier to walk with eyes closed…grocery shopping in tight aisles is the worst. Haven’t felt that since quarantine though.

[Relgie]

Gosh I’m sorry to hear you have such a refractory case. One of the things with me was my vision was divergent—often times they will make glasses with prisms for this but I found these exercises that balance the eight muscles around each eye. I will simply attach the link but my favorite page is the chart on page #16. It was easy for me to do with divergent vision but that was the problem—it was really hard for me to overlap the dots with convergent vision and I still have to practice to avoid or treat vertigo. When I first noticed this I thought I was nuts but I did find some articles about the relationship between vision and the inner ear that is not well understood.

In any case it is a good way to maintain vision!

Peace out.

[Relgie]

Oops, here’s the link: http://www.drcharlesblum.com/Patient%20Information/Eye%20Exercises.pdf

[Cat]

A bit off topic: I have experienced more hair from red light. By accident in the beginning (spillover from heat lamp treating neck/shoulders). I think so little «energy» is needed, I suspect PEMF is too much, unless you do very short duration. And I see the red light helmets as a gimmick too. A cheap pad or anything else you already have will work just as well.

[Bob]

I tend to agree with this, except that I think red light works, and PEMF does not seem to work for hair growth, because they are probably doing fundamentally different things at a molecular level. So, both may be helpful for pain, etc, but not for hair growth.

[Serenity]

@watersugar: my mother who invests a lot of time into herbal alternative health, particularly in TCM and Chinese herbs has often used spirit poria for dizziness, depression, anxiety, insomnia and vertigo. It has worked for a lot of us — me for vertigo, anxiety and depression, and my mother’s anxiety and vertigo, in addition for several of our friends and relatives that my mother introduced spirit poria to.

Not addictive and very fast acting (almost immediately after drinking). Google it and you’ll see it doesn’t have negative side effects, but according to TCM, you should not rely on using it every day or your body adapts and it no longer works as effectively.

You can order online (more expensive) or buy this in Chinese herbal stores in Canada — very common inexpensive herb that sells for about $8 CAD per box (approximately 2 lbs?). Get the off white colour as the pure white ones are usually bleached. The best quality ones would have little wood-like nodes in them (see image). They look like sliced pieces of bark.

Take a piece roughly about 2x3 inches in size, rinse off debris and add two measuring cups water, boil and let simmer for about 10 minutes. Doesn’t taste great, but if you add in soup, it’s pretty much tasteless. Effects last for several weeks to several months before you get another attack again. You can use the same bark over and over again by adding more water to cook until there’s no more taste to it; however, it usually takes only one time to get rid of the issue.

My friend whose sister is a retired TCM doctor also has severe vertigo (Epley maneuver doesn’t work for her). She theorizes that the herb replaces a hormone that is insufficient in the brain thereby resulting in symptoms of depression or vertigo. Just her theory, who knows.

I have used the Epley maneuver which works on me, and I much prefer to use that over taking medication for my vertigo, which BTW is a rare occurrence and not serious. But antidepressants don’t work for my depression (only masks the symptoms), whereas with spirit poria, I don’t have to take it daily — only when the depression sets in. So far, I’ve been using the M1 on the right temporal lobe and haven’t seen any results for my depression. Best wishes to you on the vertigo, either way.

[inga]

I realize this is from 2 years ago, but an update would be interesting.
For others wondering about the relationship between inflammation and dizziness, this might be enlightening:
https://www.ehealthme.com/cs/inflammation/dizziness/

[Susan]

I hear your concerns, Bob (and i felt inundated with suspicious marketing clams for PEMF as well). Hair loss advertisers seem sleezy to me too. However, I read the following clinical study regarding hair regrowth, so i was hopeful someone in the community had success as well. I was even thinking that it would be a pleasant side effect of treatment for some other issue, due to better oxygenation of blood cells or something. But i am now wondering, is a “pulsed electrostatic field” different from PEMF? I am new to PEMF, so my grasp of terminology is weak. I have pasted the summary of the study below.

The biological effects of a pulsed electrostatic field with specific reference to hair. Electrotrichogenesis

The biological effects of a pulsed electrostatic field with specific...

Abstract

This comparative, controlled study demonstrates the positive biologic effect on hair regrowth of a pulsed electrical field administered according to a regularized treatment schedule over 36 weeks. Mean hair count comparisons within the groups significantly favor the treatment group, which exhibited a 66.1% hair count increase over baseline. The control group increase over baseline was 25.6%. It is notable also that 29 of the 30 treatment subjects (96.7%) exhibited regrowth or no further hair loss. The process is without side effects and untoward reactions. The rationale of this phenomenon is unclear but is considered to be due to an electrophysiologic effect on the quiescent hair follicle, similar to that documented with respect to bone fracture and soft tissue repair enhancement. The electrical pulse may cause increased cell mitosis through calcium influx, involving both the hair follicle sheath and dermal papilla cells.

[Bob]

Certainly it’s possible. And I think that if properly done, it might actually work. But the problem is that there is so much money, perverse incentives, graft, and fraud in the hair loss industry, that it is almost impossible to untangle. For example, was this study funded by the hair loss industry (probably not overtly), are the authors biased, etc. etc. etc.

I have been contacted by more than (I stopped counting a few years ago) 34 different investors and charlatans to develop PEMF products to “claim” that it reverses hair loss. Several of them even said: “it doesn’t matter if it works, it just has to look sexy and sound plausible. People will throw their money at it.”

The people in this business are the worst sort of scumbag.

I have been offered nearly $1B cumulatively** to just say that ICES-PEMF works to reverse hair loss. I’ve been offered a villa in Mexico at a health spa (twice).

I am trying to help people. I help people who have extreme, crippling pain and disability. I have to stay far away from this morass of hair loss products and the dirt-bag charlatans that orbit around it like vultures.

So… does ICES-PEMF work for hair loss? Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know. You could try it, let us know, give advice based on your experiences with it. Plenty of people have an honest interest in it, so it’s worth discussing. But I have to stay away from it myself.

Scientifically, I would only believe a paper if it were REPEATED (REPLICATED) BY AN UNBIASED, INDEPENDENT GROUP. One-off scientific reports of astounding scientific findings are almost always just wrong. In my experience, this is true 100% of the time. If the scientific finding is astonishing, important, or valuable, and no one repeats it independently… that’s a big red flag.

If you are going to try this, keep in mind: it may make hair loss worse (some treatments actually do).

My advice: It is probably very sensitive to intensity, so I would use PEMF at very low power settings. This will almost certainly give you the best results while minimizing your risk.

---

** Note: I do not for a moment believe that any of these “offers” were legit. The scumbags in the hair loss industry scam everyone, customers and inventors alike.

[Cat]

Red light therapy works on some forms of hair growth.

I discovered it did on me. I never used any fancy caps. A heat lamp in the beginning, then a regular cheap pad. I use pretty much the cheapest pads on the market!

[Bob]

@Cat and @Susan, believe it or not, a company in Europe contacted me this week and has asked me to help them with their research on hair growth and PEMF + light.

They are the first real company (meaning they employ a scientist, an engineer, a clinician, and a person who used to work in the FDA… they are not just a bunch of marketers) that has ever contacted me about PEMF and hair regrowth, and we have already had two excellent technical discussions on the topic of hair regrowth, including a detailed analysis of all existing scientific literature on this topic, including the paper referenced above by Maddin et al. (@Susan).

I have decided to give it a try and work with them to help develop a real technology that will have real results. They already have a plan to do a lot of clinical testing, and they also want to do a lot of anecdotal trial and error testing as well.

So… if it works out over the next few weeks and they remain legit and we can work out the details of a collaboration, I would propose that we open the anecdotal testing to include interested members of this community to take part. You would have to be willing to accept the risk of testing (it might not work, or worse).

It looks promising to me so far, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Let me see how the details of a collaboration settle out over the next few weeks. But as that is evolving, I think people on this forum who have an interest in hair growth should think about whether or not they would be interested in taking part in these experiments.

I’ll keep everyone posted on this thread.

[Cat]

Just thinking out loud:

I lost hair at about 13, after a long infection. And it went up and down in 7 year cycles. But almost always less than I felt was normal. Hairdressers said I have a lot of fine hair. But I have more now than I did.

The initial result I got wasn’t noticed by me. It was spillover up my neck and into the back of my head. New hairs were sprouting like crazy and others noticed it.

I then started using red light in other areas to get more hair. I haven’t done it for months now, because the pad best suited for that has bern temperamental. I’m hoping I’ll be able to compensate for that soon.

I believe there’s some of the same mechanisms in red light and PEMF. But PEMF is much more powerful. For that reason it’s probably a good idea to look into what they say in the red light community.

M1 at intensity 1 for 3 hours is more powerful than a cheap pad at skin contact for 20 minutes, which is the max the manufacturer tells you is safe for that particular pad (and there’s a biphasic dose response, so not a good idea to go over unless you know that time restriction is wrong).

Basically, they think if the reason for hair loss is not enough blood flow, not enough nutrients, it’ll work. Maybe there’s some inflammation busting action too? Nobody said that, just thinking out loud. The added ATP might help.

But if the reason for hair loss is something not affected by red light/near infrared, it won’t work.

If PEMF helps heal stuff that’s broken that red light isn’t powerful enough to touch, maybe that could make a difference in more cases?

[Bob]

I really like this intelligent “out loud” thinking. Basically, I think it is very clear that you are correct that hair loss, as with pain and other symptoms result from underlying causes, and there can be very many totally different underlying causes, but have similar symptoms. So we should not expect one silver bullet or mystical energy to cure all ills.

This is clear thinking. Which is why it keeps raising a red flag for me why PEMF should have so many beneficial effects on so many vastly different health issues. And apparently light has the same generalized effect. I’m not suggesting that either one does everything, but both seem to have surprisingly wide ranging benefits. Which brings us back to a consideration of mechanisms, and why hair loss (or any other problem) may benefit from one specific intervention, but someone else with hair loss may not see the same benefit.

I’ll try to boil down my thoughts, please excuse technical gaps and simplicity, I am painting in broad brush strokes:

Many mainstream medical treatments as we all know are targeted to a single mechanism presumed to be the problem. But several things that promote health do not target a single mechanism, and seem generally to be permissive rather than forceful, in the sense that these things allow cells and tissues to function normally, rather than trying to force one specific outcome by coercing one targeted mechanism.

I think three key such things are: nutrition, light, and PEMF

I think all three act on cells to promote many normal and healthy mechanisms of cellular activity. This makes sense to me:

Nutrition: fairly obvious - nutrients are the substrate of all cellular activity.

Light: Fairly obvious - sunlight is essential to life, and increasingly we are learning about the importance of full solar spectrum light in all areas of health

PEMF: Why this should be on the list is not at all obvious. PEMF this is not natural (or is it?). I think PEMF is on this list because PEMF emulates the effects of physical activity and motion. This is why exercise (which should also be on this list) such as simple walking is so essential to health. I hypothesize that PEMF moves ions in and around cells and tissues in the same way that normal physical activity and walking does, and thus it has many similar benefits and acts on many diverse cellular mechanisms.

I have discussed this hypothesis in detail in many other places, but for me this generally explains why a few things (Light, nutrition, PEMF) can have such broad beneficial effects that do not depend on one or two cellular mechanisms.

So, I guess I can see how light, nutrition, and PEMF all could benefit hair loss, without depending on a single mechanism that causes the problem.

[Bob]

I’m meeting with them again tomorrow to discuss research plans, but part of the plan will be to see if there is a synergy between light and PEMF. What they want to do is actual honest science, not the fraudulent consumer abuse that has been proposed to me three dozen times over the past decade, so I am actually pretty excited about the possibility of making real tangible progress in this area. Until now, I really doubted whether anyone in the field of hair loss and recovery was actually legit.