from: Bob Dennis, owner of Micro-Pulse; I have a financial interest in the sale of PEMF devices, so please take that potential bias into account when considering my statements
I have used PEMF for my own joint and arthritic conditions, but I have not conducted any scientific studies on this use.
This is entirely anecdotal, but here is what I have seen and what people have told me:
I was able to significantly improve my right hip and avoided a replacement surgery, about 8 years ago.
I have been using it on my left hip and the progress is very slow but seems to be positive.
Members of my family and friends have had mixed results, some very good, some not much benefit.
About 200 people have told me they intended to use some form of PEMF for issues with their joints. Of these, several dozen have reported their observations to me verbally. I estimate about 2/3 of people who report to me have observed improvement. Some improvements were very significant. About 1/3 told me they had very little or no improvement. In most cases though, people did tell me that their level of joint pain was reduced so long as they used PEMF daily. I hypothesize that the use of any form of PEMF for joint/cartilage issues requires more time and persistence because these tissues are very slow to remodel. Nonetheless, the success rate for PEMF with joint issues appears to me to be lower than for other kinds of injuries.
Several clinicians have reported similar mixed results to me: some very good, some reporting not much improvement. In some cases, the clinicians used PEMF on themselves. In other cases, they used PEMF on their clients.
To help with joint recovery requires daily use for months, and a lot of persistence. To me it seems to make things slightly progressively better over time, instead of slowly getting worse. To me this is already a big improvement and a very good sign.
Some people expect immediate miraculous results, but I do not think that is a reasonable expectation, especially when cartilage is involved. It is unclear whether cartilage has a reliable regenerative capacity, some studies indicate not, and if PEMF does facilitate tissue regeneration then it would be expected to be very slow at best. But still I maintain that very slow recovery is far better than inexorable, slow degeneration.
I think if you plan to try this, you need to commit to daily (and night-time) use for many months or even years. You will need to be creative about coil placement and experiment to see what works best for you.
I am trying to get a set of before-and-after x-rays showing the thickness of my hip cartilage. Initial images show clear degeneration of the cartilage with thinning. I hypothesize that there is some cartilage regrowth, and perhaps this will be evident in the before-and-after images. I would eventually like to run a scientific study on this.
My questions for everyone: Have you had any success using PEMF for joint issues? Were you able to find any evidence of cartilage regeneration? What system did you use and how did you use it?
HOW TO HELP:
What we are looking for is as much information as you can share about your condition, how you used PEMF, and the results you observed. You can upload photos and documents as well as your text. The more detail you include, the better. You can come back later, edit your text to add more details, upload images, documents and test results, add helpful links, etc. Also, don’t forget to ask questions, because this will help people to share their observations and experiences that they may have forgotten to mention.
Share what worked and how you did it, but negative results are just as important as positive results!!! If you tried something that did not work well, this experience would help other people too. People respond very differently and have different levels of sensitivity, so something may work well for others, but not for you. What we need is a lot of different observations from many different people so that we can begin to see larger patterns and formulate general guidelines about what is likely to be helpful, what is likely to be wrong, which options should be explored, and which options can be avoided.