Hello and welcome!
Sorry your dr had to give you that news...I can't give my opinion on that procedure-perhaps someone else here can.but I might suggest looking around online to see other patient reviews

I'm sorry to hear about your back problems. I was told 13 years ago that no surgery could help my back. In 2012 and January of this year doctors found some things they could correct surgically. The surgeries have helped some.

I've not tried PEMF but I found a couple of websites that have some information. You've probably already been to www.wikipedia.org. It gives an overview of PEMF.

Also, Dr. William Pawluk, MD, MSc. at http://drpawluk.com/ says he's been studying PEMF for more than 20 years. I didn't read his website closely, but he reviews different kinds of PEMF machines. He sells them too. That can be a big red alert that he's just trying to make money. He does present a lot of information. Scroll down to the very bottom of his home page where he lists a lot of research.

Here's what Aetna says about it.
Aetna considers high-frequency pulsed electromagnetic stimulation (also known as therapeutic magnetic resonance) experimental and investigational for all indications, including any of the following (not an all inclusive list) because its effectiveness has not been established: http://www.aetna.com/cpb/medical/data/100_199/0175.html

Thanks Mike45. I think I have decided to give PEMF a try, but before I do I will do a bit more research.

I looked at the SomaPulse web site you suggested. A few friends had also suggested it to me, so it seems to be pretty well known. Dr. Pawluk sells a lot of different PEMF systems, but his signature "brand" is SomaPulse. They also sell it on a different web site I think (bodyfields.com?). Anyway, the SomaPulse technology is based on NASA research. It is probably similar to the MagnaWave technology, also based on the same NASA research, but the MagnaWave device is designed for horses and is about the size of a suitcase and costs something like $25,000.00 That's out of my price range for sure (and I am not a horse).

Then I google searched Pawluk/somapulse and I found several blogs/forums about the SomaPulse PEMF. One blog in particular was very informative:
https://www.bulletproofexec.com/73-somapulse-electromagnetism-with-dr-bill-pawluk-podcast/
This one is from bulletproofexec.com There were a number of other comments about it online that seemed to be pretty objective. The reviews from users were all very positive. So I think the SomaPulse product is probably pretty effective, but the cost is prohibitive, around $1400.00. I have started looking around to see if it is available for less money elsewhere.

If I can find a reasonably priced version of the somapulse device I think I will do some self experimentation and will report back the results so others can benefit (or they can just save their time and money).

Thanks for your help!!

good luck and please do keep us informed

OK, so I decided to sort PEMF systems into 3 categories:

high-priced (more than $5000, shocked to see some over $35K!!)
mid-range ($1000 to $5000)
economy (less than $1000)

The high-priced units were way too expensive for me, so after my most recent post I ordered two different mid-range PEMF units and have been trying them for about 2 weeks. Honestly, I have to say I am not impressed so far but I'll stick with them for another week or two. I was going to order a third one but discovered that it is also for sale by several distributors for less than $1000, so that falls into the "economy" range. I'll try those next. Still not feeling too hopeful but struggling to remain optimistic as much as possible.

I am continuing to research the PEMF technology. Some of it derives from work at NASA, so maybe there is something to it that I just don't understand yet...

Hi,
A friend gave me a iMRS unit, I have only tried it a couple of times so far. It does help with the back pain. This unit comes with goggles and headphones, that are supposed to reinforce the treatment. It also has a heart monitor that clips on your earlobe, and creates kind of a bio feedback effect. I figure at this price, might as well give it a try!
Hope you find something that helps!
Jon

Here is a blurb about the unit.
http://www.imrs2000.com/

I use the Alleva-Wave for my back pain. It is the animal version of the SomaPulse but better. It is way cheaper and more powerful It is made by the same manufacturer. It has changed my life. I wear every night and feel great in the morning.

eckheart, thanks for your advice. I ordered an AllevaWave a few weeks ago but did not try it right away (I was trying a different PEMF device, which did not work and I got depressed for a while). I have just finished using the AllevaWave device for a little longer than a week and I agree with you. It has totally given me back my life!! Now I use it every day for 6 to 8 hours on my lower back. I have already stopped taking some meds (flexeril: GONE!) and have cut my other meds in half (tramadol and oxycodone), and my overall back pain has REDUCED: was 5/10 with all the meds, now is 2/10 with AllevaWave and half the meds, or less!!!!!!!!!

I have done a lot of research on it and I'll summarize what I found out when I have had a chance to think about it a bit more. Being a perfectionist engineer-type I have a somewhat mixed review of the device itself, but I'll save that for later after I do a bit of fact checking. I think there are other purchasing options out there so I am checking on those too. But for now I think it is pretty clear the best core technology is called "ICES": induction controlled electronic stimulator. It is a specific type of PEMF that supposedly was developed at NASA a decade ago. Several different places sell this "ICES" technology, looks similar but at wildly different prices. I am digging to the bottom of it and will report back soon. But ICES works for sure, no doubt in my mind. I have a life again, and now I am on a mission to figure it out.

OK, here is a summary of my research on ICES - PEMF systems.

Apologies for the long post, but I think it is good information.

For my back pain I found Allevawave ICES-PEMF to be extremely helpful, much more so than any other option I have tried... and I think at this point aside from voodoo rituals I have tried pretty much everything.

My summary, for what its worth follows. I hope it is helpful:

What I tested:
I tested three different PEMF systems: a whole-body iMRS system (borrowed for a week), a cheap PEMF system from drpawluk.com called Sota Pulser (also borrowed), a Medithera (donated to me by a friend, but I gave it back) and the Alleva-Wave, which is a newer version of the SomaPulse device, also available from drpawluk.com Please note, this is not an advertisement for drpawluk.com, in fact I would not spend money on that site because the prices are way too high. I mention it only because I think it is a good source of information for comparison of PEMF systems. Dr Pawluk was on the Dr Oz show a few years ago because as an MD he is a leading world expert on PEMF and his website has a lot of information. To see PEMF pictures, product information and pricing BUT DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM THIS SITE: http://drpawluk.com/products/

Here is what I tested for comparison:
iMRS ($3,250, borrowed) -- tested for 1 week
Sota Pulser ($350, borrowed) -- tested for 6 days
Medithera ($2,450, donated but later returned) -- tested for 1 week
AllevaWave ($770, purchased, same as SomaPulse for $1,290) -- tested for 1 week and continuing to use it
TENS (procedure at my Chiropractor, not PEMF but included for comparison) -- regular procedure 3x per week for 5 years


My Results:
TENS, which I have had about 3 times per week for many years seems to help for an hour or two, but with no permanent or long-lasting improvements

iMRS - *maybe* helped a bit, but I am not sure if this was just hopeful placebo effect or a real effect

Sota Pulser - cheap and useless

Medithera - no effect at all on my back pain, so I gave it back

Alleva Wave - really works!!!!!!

I had to return the iMRS and Sota Pulser as they were borrowed, and I returned the Medithera as it had no beneficial effect. I kept the Alleva Wave because I had to buy one, but it honestly works very well, see detailed review below.

Summary of AllevaWave results on my back pain:
I used the Allevawave at about 1:00am because I could not sleep due to severe back pain and I was depressed about none of the other devices working, and honestly the Alleva Wave looks cheapest of them all so I had very little hope. But I tried it finally out of desperation. After about 20 minutes my lower back cracked about a dozen times and I saw little stars in front of my eyes circling around. For a moment I thought "Now I've gone and killed myself...:(" But then, the pain was GONE. Seriously, it was GONE! Like the best chiropractic adjustment you could imagine.

But still out of concern I stopped using the device for about 2 days and the pain returned. So I started using it again and now the pain is mostly gone and I take only a small fraction of the pain meds I had been on for years.

As promised, I dug deeper. Here is what I found:

I found the inventor of the Alleva-Wave and I called him. His name is Bob Dennis. He is a real person and he would probably talk to you if you called him but I will not publish his phone number on the forum. It turns out he is the inventor of most of the newest PEMF technology available: Magnawave (JR or LP for "Low Power"), Alleva-Wave, SomaPulse, WeHealPLus, WeHelpPlus, Pulse-Pet, Micro-Pulse, and a few others. He's a scientist and engineer, and he was the person who did the PEMF development for NASA about 15 years ago that lead to all these new PEMF technologies. He's an interesting guy who injured himself as a volunteer firefighter and then developed ICES PEMF from his NASA work to heal his own back. He is a professor at UNC Chapel Hill.

The best place to find information on how ICES PEMF works is on the web site: http://www.pulse-pet.com

There is a lot of scientific information there and you can buy veterinary versions of the technology from that site at "factory-direct" pricing. But I think they only sell to veterinarians. Anyway, I still advise that you compare prices before you buy anything.

I talked to Bob for about an hour on the phone, and he told me he developed the ICES technology over a decade ago with DARPA funding. He was invited last month to propose a system for the US Army to treat spinal cord injury. He also recently invented a new technology called Cortical Metrics (www.corticalmetrics.com) that can diagnose brain injuries. They won the GE-NFL head health challenge for this technology. I mention all this because, unlike other PEMF products, the ICES technology was developed by a real person you can actually talk to who has very strong academic and business credentials. And he does a lot more than just make PEMF devices.

I told Bob that I thought the Alleva Wave device looked a bit cheap and "ghetto". People on other forums say this too. Bob laughed and said that if the cure for cancer came in a cheap plastic bottle, would I still take it if I had cancer? He has a point.

FINAL RESULTS: I use the Alleva Wave every day for at least 6 hours and I have my life back again. I am not sure how long this will last, but I am making every day count.

Thanks wr819 for the insight and research.
I already recommended the Alleva wave to several friends and colleagues. I can't believe how this small "ghetto" device has changed my life for the better.
I agree that Dr. Pawluk's site is a good place for information on the technology but way overpriced. I realize the Alleva Wave is marketed and branded for use on pets and the soma pulse for humans. But really they are the exact same technology. I got mine for only $429. What a deal!!!

Ouch not a comment you want to heat from a doctor. I have heard something similar to that with my thoracic spine.
Has he or anyone else mentioned a spinalienable cord stimulator otherwise known as a SCS unit? It may be something to look into or maybe even a PNS unit.
Just some things to check into before you give up.

Dear kjbord,
Yes, I did look seriously into both SCS and PNS technology. I avoided them both because both, like surgery, are highly invasive and reportedly they don't "fix" anything, they just help to block pain, and only for a limited duration after surgery. Over time they lose effectiveness. SCS involves implantation in the spinal column, and PNS involves implantation of electrode wires near peripheral (not spinal) nerves. I wanted to try everything possible before any cutting on or near my spine. Many of those surgeries are far more traumatic and irreversible than they would have you believe. Almost every ortho I ever spoke with, and there were many, closed the exam room door to tell me their candid opinions on such medical treatments, and none of the honest ones were at all favorable. I believe the only reason anyone uses these crude, dangerous and invasive treatments is that there are not a lot of effective non-surgical options.

So, I recently talked about this with Bob Dennis, the inventor of ICES-PEMF technology (discussed in an earlier post on this discussion, but I did not get into this level of detail.) What ICES does is use a very modern approach to spinal cord and nerve stimulation: stimulation by *induction* rather than by *conduction* through electrodes. Bob says that the use of inductive coupling eliminates the need for surgery and implantation of electrodes, and he explained the calculus to me (which I understand as I am an engineer) that also shows the stimulation of large volumes of individual cells in deep tissue must mathematically be more efficient and uniform when using inductive coupling rather than conductive stimulation. This is evidently the big technological advance: the "IC" in ICES stands for "Inductively Coupled" (electrical stimulation).

Apologies for the technical diversion, but ICES technology can only be fully understood by understanding the calculus equations that govern electro-magnetism. ICES is WAY more advanced than any form of direct electrical stimulation by conductive electrodes. Bob sounded a bit nonplussed that the inductive stimulation approach had not been properly implemented, because he said it *should* have been done a century ago. Once he explained it to me, I can see his point. But it is still not obvious until you have the insight only available through an understanding of calculus and physics.

The way I see it now is that many forms of electrical stimulation do seem to work for back and nerve pain. But some of them are very crude and require surgery and implantation of electrodes, but eventually these form scar tissue and the effectiveness of the implant diminishes over time. The newer ones such as ICES, that use inductive coupling to deep tissues through an intermediary magnetic field are a few centuries more advanced in terms of their basic physics than conductive therapies such as TENS, SCS, PNS, and because of their superior physics, they are both more effective and less invasive than any possible conductive-based technology.

This may be hard to understand, but tossing out all the math, just looking at my own personal results, I would never recommend any conductive electronic device to anyone ever, except perhaps a pacemaker for people who need it for their heart, and then only because of the peculiar architecture of the human heart. For treating pain I would only use and recommend ICES PEMF, or one of the other forms of PEMF that may come along that explicitly use inductive coupling to cells in deep tissues.

Reading back over this, I feel like I've covered a lot of territory in the past 10 weeks or so. I hope this is helpful, not just a lot of hot air. If anyone else tries ICES please let us know, especially if the results are not so good. I may just be the lucky one-in-a-thousand.

wr819,
Thanks again for the explanation of this ICES stuff. I not sure why it works so well....but is does! As I mentioned on earlier post, I use my Alleva-Wave daily and it has changed my Life!!! All I know is that it works!

Hello, I am Ruslan and I am new to the group. Sorry to hear about your pain man, and I see you guys having a discussion about PEMF. Well, you know about 9 years ago my Doc told me I need a metal plate with 4 screws on my lower back due to a hairline crack and a little box to contain my fang looking lower back spine, scared the crap out of me. Then I spoke to my best friend father in law who had it done to him few years before that and this is the feedback that I got. He said that he doesnt get off pain pills (he is in his 60s), I did back out of the surgery and never had it done. Just went on with the pain and figured maybe get it done if it gets worse or at much later age. What is really crazy that later in life as I meet people and hear that they went through the similar surgery every single one of them are in pain, especially with weather changes.

About 3 years ago I heard about electromagnetic pulse devices that were manufactured in Russia
(apparently Russians came out with it 70 years ago and it was used only for astronauts in space program). Started reading all those clinical trials and was just amazed at the results. Those made me dig in with deeper research. Eventually I found pemf4000 for little more than $11G it was bulky and waste of a lot of money since I didnt have much progress with it. As I dug-in deeper in social media and forums I found a company that is exclusive to those devices for the clinical trials that was done in Russia (Soviet Union back in the day). I ordered their Almag-02 for $4500 (almost 3x cheaper and actually works) and 4 months later after intensive weekly therapy in the convenience of my home - I can say that my lower back does not make the clicking noise no more and the other spinal problems got fixed as well since the whole back was covered by the emitting assembly. Another thing just recently I found out that I have small ulcers in my stomach from the gastro Dr. and was pleased to find out from the factory rep that Almag-02 fixes that problem as well. To be continued.

p.s.

Mike45,

I saw that you have mentioned about insurance claims that this pemf technology does not have enough studies. To be honest they are full of. I have found a lot of studies (by the way this is the company that is exclusive for these pemf devices in North America - http://www.almagia.com/category/clinical-tests/

And I think at least $2mill is needed to start lobbying for this to be covered by insurance. I had to come out of my pocket, cash dammit.