Used most commonly in the field of orthopedics, PEMF is a reparative technique for treatment of non-union fractures from sports or accident related injuries. Athletes in the NFL, major league baseball players, boxers and folks like you and me are finding extraordinary success with this therapy. More than a quarter million patients with severe ununited fractures have benefited worldwide from this surgically non-invasive treatment, without risk, discomfort, or the high costs of operative repair.
Researchers have discovered that when there is an injury and tissues are stressed, the body creates a low power electrical signal. They believe this excites the body's natural mechanism to repair damaged tissue.
Many factors can disrupt these signals causing pain, inflammation and loss of function.
PEMF therapy mimics these natural signals and activates the normal healing process stimulating growth and repair of tissue.
Cellular magnetic therapy and/or exercise use electrical energy to direct a series of magnetic pulses through injured tissue and bone. Each magnetic pulse induces an electrical signal that stimulates cellular rehabilitation and exercise. When a pulsing magnetic field penetrates into a bone, the pulsing magnetic effects cause tiny mechanical movements. This creates small electrical currents inside the bones and cells.
In 1956 two Japanese scientists discovered the so called piezo-electric effect of bones. By measuring the voltage between two electrodes attached over a mechanically bent bone, they proved that electrical properties exist inside bones.
Dr. Martin Milner, ND, professor of cardiovascular and pulmonary medicine, and CEO/medical director of the Center for Natural Medicine Inc. in Portland, Oregon explains it this way: "PEMF takes alternating current (AC) and transforms it into DC, producing variations ranging from low to high voltage. This voltage is passed through a coil generating a safe, pulsed magnetic field around the coil." As the magnetic field is pulsed on, cells are exercised. In the off phase of the pulse, the cells relax. "As cells expand and relax, they rehabilitate."
Over 5,000 studies have been published worldwide over the last 40 years demonstrating PEMF therapy's effectiveness healing "soft-tissue wounds; suppressing inflammatory responses at the cell membrane level to alleviate pain, and increasing range of motion. The value of PEMF therapy has been shown to cover a wide range of conditions, with well documented trials carried out by hospitals, rheumatologists and physiotherapists."
Kevin Greenspan, DC, in Black Mountain, North Carolina says that his patients using PEMF therapy report relief from arthritis, fibromyalgia, Parkinson's, migraines, depression and sinusitis. He agrees with Dr. Andy Bassett, MD that "This idea of manipulating cellular activity with magnetically induced electrical currents is looking like one of the hottest new fields."
Scientific review in university laboratories and medical schools, along with numerous PEMF technology studies reported in medical journals, substantiates what enlightened patients already know.
Because demand is growing for this new healing technique, those of us in the field of health are encouraged that people are finding help harnessing the body's own ability to heal.