Magnets draw attention as effective pain therapy
Research promising, but questions remain
Rehabilitation directors should be open to the idea of using magnets as a form of alternative pain medication for some patients who suffer from chronic pain, suggests Carlos Vallbona, MD, distinguished service professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Vallbona is affiliated with the department of family and community medi cine and the department of physical medicine and rehabilitation.
He has used magnet therapy with more than 100 post-polio, arthritis, and other chronic pain patients and says he’s convinced the positive reports from patients are credible. "Frankly, the results have been quite spectacular," Vallbona says. "Not everybody responded to magnet therapy, but overall, the majority have responded to the application of magnets for 30 minutes."
Researcher Ann Gill Taylor, RN, EDD, MS, who recently completed a study on pain management of fibromyalgia patients using magnets, says there is some beginning evidence of efficacy when magnets are used for pain relief, but the jury is still out. "The published reports that are out are not in uniform agreement, and we still have a lot of unanswered questions about dose or field strength, or the mechanism of action, the biological effect that might be taking place," she says.
"Research in this area is extremely exciting and important," she adds. "Many people are reporting from an anecdotal point of view that magnetic applications are helpful, and we need more data than anecdotal data."
Taylor, who is a Norris professor of nursing and director of the Center for the Study of Comple men tary and Alternative Therapy at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, says she cannot release any details about her own magnet research until the study is published, which probably will be next year. Her research has delved into how magnets work.
"The little work that has been reported does suggest magnetic fields have an effect on action potential and firing of nerves, maybe through calcium movement at the cellular level, and maybe there is some new growth or outgrowth from the neurons," she says. "It’s an area that is sufficiently complex and is in need of the work we are doing to really confirm the theories being discussed."
Vallbona’s first research into magnets’ effect on pain led to one of the landmark studies on this alternative form of treatment. While other magnet studies have been done in Asia, Vallbona’s was among the first double-blind studies, which shows that the patients he studied could not have reported an improvement in pain simply due to a placebo effect.
The study, published in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, showed that most postpoliomyelitis muscular atrophy patients who received treatment with a magnet reported a significant decrease in pain.1 Most of the patients who were given a placebo, which was an inactive magnet, reported very little or no improvement.
Researchers evaluated magnet therapy in post-polio patients who had arthritic pain in their joints or other muscle pain. In all, 39 women and 11 men participated in the study. The patients rated their pain on a scale of one to 10 when they pressed on a trigger point. Then researchers randomly gave them an active or inactive magnet to strap against their trigger point for 45 minutes. Patients re-evaluated their pain after the magnets were removed.
Of the 29 participants who received an active magnet, their average score was 9.6 before treatment and 4.4 after wearing the magnet. The placebo group reported an average pain level of 9.5 before treatment and 8.4 afterward.
Until recently, there has been little incentive for rehab facilities to use magnets to treat patients’ pain because there has been no reimbursement.
"We cannot get reimbursement for magnet therapy because the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] has not yet given approval that magnets have a specific effect," Vallbona says. "They feel that more studies have to be done to replicate our findings." However, the FDA also acknowledges that there is no evidence that magnet therapy is harmful, he says.
With the prospective payment system (PPS) looming ahead, rehab facilities could have a greater incentive to use magnets as a complement to other forms of pain treatment, or at least to recommend that patients use them on their own, he says. Some of his patients have reported they were able to reduce their amount of pain medication because of the magnet therapy.
Under PPS, facilities will need to improve patients’ outcomes in the most efficient ways possible, and magnets are cheaper than most other pain treatments, including acupuncture and transelectrical stimulation. The costs can be as low as $30 for four magnets that will last indefinitely.
Vallbona recommends facilities that use magnet therapy follow a few simple guidelines:
• Select magnets that have a minimum intensity of 300 to 500 gauss. Lower levels may have no effect. "We’ve applied even up to 1,000 gauss," he says.
• Identify the patient’s trigger point of pain, which is the most painful spot. Then apply the magnet to that spot and have the patient keep it in place for at least 30 minutes. Typically, the pain will improve within 30 minutes. If the patient reports only a minor improvement in pain, keep the magnet on the spot for another 15 minutes.
• If the patient reports an improvement in pain, recommend that the patient find a similar magnet and apply it to the spot on an as-needed basis, especially at the first manifestation of pain. The magnet’s effect may last for hours or days.
Reference
1. Vallbona C; Hazlewood CF; Jurida G. Response of pain to static magnetic fields in postpolio patients: A double-blind pilot study. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 1997; 78:1,200-1,203. n
Need More Information?
Carlos Vallbona, MD, Distinguished Service Professor, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Room 650E, Houston, TX 77030. Telephone: (713) 798-4906.
Ann Gill Taylor, RN, EDD, MS, Norris Professor of Nursing, Director for Center for the Study of Complementary and Alternative Therapy, CSCAT McLeod Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottes ville, VA 22903-3320.
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