Magnetic Therapy for Arthritis Pain Relief

There are over 100 forms of arthritis and other rheumatic diseases. These diseases may cause pain, stiffness, and swelling in joints and other supporting structures of the body such as muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones. Some forms can also affect other parts of the body, including various internal organs.

Many people use the word “arthritis” to refer to all rheumatic diseases. However, the word literally means joint inflammation; that is, swelling, redness, heat, and pain caused by tissue injury or disease in the joint. The many different kinds of arthritis make up just a portion of all rheumatic diseases.

Rheumatoid arthritis, the second most common form of arthritis, affects other parts of the body besides the joints. It begins at a younger age than osteoarthritis, causes swelling and redness in joints, and may make people feel sick, tired, and (uncommonly) feverish. Rheumatoid arthritis affects people differently. For some people, it lasts only a few months or a year or two and goes away without causing any noticeable damage. Other people have mild or moderate forms of the disease, with periods of worsening symptoms, called flares, and periods in which they feel better, called remissions. Still others have a severe form of the disease that is active most of the time, lasts for many years or a lifetime, and leads to serious joint damage and disability.

Osteoarthritis is the most common type of arthritis, especially among older people. Sometimes it is called degenerative joint disease or osteoarthrosis.
Osteoarthritis is a joint disease that mostly affects the cartilage. Cartilage is the slippery tissue that covers the ends of bones in a joint. Healthy cartilage allows bones to glide over one another. It also absorbs energy from the shock of physical movement. In osteoarthritis, the surface layer of cartilage breaks down and wears away. This allows bones under the cartilage to rub together, causing pain, swelling, and loss of motion of the joint. Over time, the joint may lose its normal shape. Also, bone spurs(small growths called osteophytes) may grow on the edges of the joint. Bits of bone or cartilage can break off and float inside the joint space. This causes more pain and damage. People with osteoarthritis usually have joint pain and limited movement. Unlike some other forms of arthritis, osteoarthritis affects only joints and not internal organs.

Magnetic treatments for arthritis

All types of arthritis respond to magnetic treatments because the arthritic disease process involves inflammation. Magnets reverse the inflammatory process, which in turn alleviates the main symptoms of arthritis which are:

1.Swelling

2.Pain

3.Stiffness and immobility

Magnetic therapy is not a cure for arthritis as there is currently no known cure, but it is an extremely effective drug free treatment for the chronic symptoms for all types of arthritic conditions.

However having said how well arthritis responds to magnetic therapy, it can be a little bit tricky to treat a person who has arthritis in multiple locations in the body. The reason for this is that as discussed in chapter 2 for the magnetic field to be effective it must be placed as close to the area of injury as possible. When a person has, for example, arthritis in the knees, hips, back and hands, it is not possible to reach all the area with one magnetic device. The person would need to place magnets on each area of pain to fully relieve the arthritic symptoms.

Possible treatments for this person would be:

1. To wear high strength magnetic straps around the knees, back/hips ( usually one strap will reach both areas) and wrists. Straps are both functional and comfortable, plus many contain lycra to give the joint additional support.
2. To wear super strength shoe insoles, that have a magnetic field that is strong enough to reach the knees, a high/super a strength bracelet for each hand and use a magnetic pad behind the back whilst sitting or lying. If the person does not feel comfortable in straps these are suitable alternatives.
3. To sleep on a magnetic mattress. The mattress will reach all areas of the body at once and the strength of the magnetic field is so immense that the magnetism will last for up to 16 hours after getting out of bed. This is the easiest way to treat large areas of pain and does not necessitate the need to wear additional magnets during the day.

Luckily there is a vast array of magnetic devices available today and most areas of the body can be reached with an appropriate magnetic device. There is often more than one solution available fort he treatment of multiple areas of pain and a trained therapist will be able to advise while treatment regime will fit best with your particular lifestyle.

In order for magnets to be effective they must be worn night and day until the symptoms have gone, if you are given a magnetic device that do not feel comfortable wearing or using it is unlikely that you will continue to use the treatment for the required length of time. With out 24 hours, 7 days a weeks exposure to the magnets it is unlikely that all of your symptoms will be relieved and you will feel disheartened and may even believe that magnets do not in fact work.

Debbie Shimadry is qualified magnetic therapist and pain nurse specialist. She appears on several BBC radio stations as an expert guest on magnetic therapy and is also the managing director of leading magnetic therapy company worldofmagnets.co.uk. To find out more on how magnetic therapy can help you, visit magnetictherapyfacts.org

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Tired Cold Hands and Feet Do Contrast Hydrotherapy in Your Shower

Waking up tired and expecting to be revived in minutes does not seem realistic; especially for those who aren’t addicted to the most common drug: caffeine.

Want to wake up without caffeine? Or just wake up in general?

Take a Contrast Shower. That will do it. Not only will it wake you up, but it will wake others in the house as you let out a wail once the cold water hits you.

It’s not that bad.

How did I stumble across this crazy natural treatment for fatigue and lethary? It was prescribed to me by my naturopathic medical doctor years ago. I did it and it worked amazingly.

Who cannot take a contrast shower? If you are asthmatic, have active autoimmune disease, inflammation, cardiovascular issues, pregnant, temperature insensitive, weak feeling or otherwise do not feel that you should, do not take a contrast shower. Seek the advice of your physician if you have any questions about the safety of this procedure.

How does one take a contrast shower:

  • Drag out of bed
  • Get into the shower and turn the water as hot as you like. Hotter the better as the blood flow is stronger - obviously don’t burn yourself. Hot water for about 3 minutes.
  • You may wash during this time - may as well as you’re likely late to work.
  • At the 3 minute mark, I turn the water up higher for a brief moment until I’m just begging for a cool down. Then turn the nob.
  • Turn the shower all the way to cold for 30 seconds
  • Then turn it back to as hot as you can for another 3 minutes.
  • Then repeat cold for 30 seconds
  • Then hot for 3 minutes
  • Then end with cold for 30 seconds.
  • Basically 3 sets of 3 minutes hot and 30 seconds cold.

That’s it! You’re done! How do you think it sounds? You going to do it?!

Let me say a bit more.

When you get really hot water on you for 3 minutes, you do crave cold. I recommend that you have something colorful in the shower to stare at while you’re getting blasted with cold water. Reminds me of the tropics. Or close your eyes while in the cold water part and imagine you’re walking down the beach gazing at palm trees.

An easy way to ease into the cold part is to only put your head into the water. Once your head has adjusted, let the water go down your back. Ease into it. You’ll get it.

When you finish with cold for the last time, you end up extremely hot and sweating. This is a good sign that you did the procedure correctly. Why do you sweat? Your body does not want you cold. When ending with cold for 30 seconds, your surface temperature gets cold because the blood rushes away. As soon as you stop the cold, your blood comes screaming back in to warm you. This sudden rush of blood makes you hot.

The trick is not keeping the cold on for too long and making sure you have the hot water on long enough. If you have the cold water on for say 1 minute and hot water on for 1 minute, you’re going to be cold. So make sure you do the 3 sets of 3 minutes hot and 30 seconds cold.

If you want, do what I do - just do one set. I don’t have time every day for a 10 minute procedure so I cut it short. I still feel super charged afterwards.

Enjoy it! It really does make you feel refreshed, full of energy and hot as heck after you are done.

I’ll get into the mechanics of hot cold showers and also why they are beneficial - besides just feeling good afterwards.

An important note that needs to be addressed is what hot water does to chlorine. Chlorine is a gas and when hot becomes very volatile. Chlorine is a lung-irritant and destroys proteins. Proteins are everywhere - your hair, eyes, skin, inside you. I say inside you as one typical shower in chlorinated water is equivalent to drinking 8 cups of chlorinated water. If you are asthmatic, have acne, winter skin, dry eyes, dandruff, eczema or other skin conditions, I highly recommend getting a shower chlorine filter.

Questions, ask the med student!

In health,

Ben

(c) 2005 Benjamin Lynch of HealthE Goods

Benjamin Lynch has a BS degree in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Washington. Currently, he is obtaining his doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine at Bastyr University. Visit Ben’s natural health product store, HealthE Goods where one can use our free health information service where one may ask specific health questions. We provide physician-grade non-prescription natural health products. Wholesale spa products are available to all that qualify. Do visit our Healthy Lifestyle and Wellness Blog. We are here to help serve the public with proper health information and effective products. Products described in the article are available at HealthE Goods.

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Chelation Therapy for Autism

I just read a story about a U.K. family that lost their autistic five-year-old son during chelation therapy in a clinic in Pennsylvania.

That is a tragic loss I can’t even imagineIt makes me think of the old Chinese curse, “May you live to bury your children”. But a bit of perspective is needed.

This is the first chelation-related death in nearly 50 years

600 people a year die from using aspirin

In 2001 the Autism Research Institute reported that in a survey of more than 23,000 parents who resorted to chelation for their autistic children, nearly three out of four said the method helped

Chelation is an FDA-approved therapy for treating children with lead poisoning

The FDA can’t approve chelation for treating autismWhy?
The U.S. Navy developed chelation in the 1940’s to treat lead poisoning. Besides that, it also helps remove other heavy metals from the body.

Now here’s the catch: In spite of the FDA approval to use this therapy on children, the medical mainstream CAN’T recognize the effectiveness of chelation in treating autism because that would amount to an official recognition of one of the suspected causes of autism: mercury toxicity from the vaccine preservative thimerosal.

It’s interesting to note that the rise in autism parallels the rise in the use of thimerosal.

Now think about thisIf chelation works for autistic kids, wouldn’t that suggest a connection between heavy metals and autism? And you can’t dismiss the results by pulling out the placebo effect. Autistic kids don’t snap out of autism just because they’re aware they’re being treated.

I’m wondering if chorella might not be an alternative

Since chorella also helps cleanse the body of heavy metals, maybe it could be another optionAs far as I know the only side effect is it makes your feces green.

Anyone heard of chlorella being used as a treatment in autism?

Ed Tolliver researches the web for useful and reliable natural health solutions for today’s health problems. He publishes his findings at http://www.naturalhealthcatalog.com and on his blog at http://www.naturalhealthcatalog.blogspot.com

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