Magnets stimulate acupuncture points and meridians. Although this use isn't prominent in the West, it's utilized in China, Japan and Korea as an alternative to needles. In 1990, when I began treating people with acupuncture, they did not necessarily resist the idea of acupuncture but did balk at the needles. So, I began to look at alternative approaches to doing acupuncture. That's when I discovered that magnets were used on acupuncture points in China, Japan and Korea—an example is Koryo Hand Therapy.1
In recent years our understanding of how and why they can work has been expanded to not only magnets, but also to a much wider potential value by the use of pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMFs). Therefore, the use of magnetic stimulation in acupuncture can lead to significantly enhanced effectiveness of acupuncture in general.
Early Experiences With Magnets
One of my earliest cases using magnets, involved a friend of the family who used to have motion sickness. I used a high intensity quarter inch wide magnet taped superficially without any pressure to Nei Guan (P6) bilaterally. He went for a ride in his car and returned delighted that he didn't get nauseous and dizzy. Because they worked so well with him, I had a puppy who got carsick and would vomit as well. I fashioned similar magnets over the same point on the dog's forelimbs. We had the same experience with the dog, who was able to move around on the backseat of the car without any evidence of dizziness. We used the magnets on the dog every time we went in the car with equal success.
Another patient was complaining of dental jaw pain, so I applied similar small magnets without pressure over the Hegu LI4) point bilaterally. Within minutes the pain in the jaw disappeared. Another patient had what appeared to be tension headaches and magnets were taped to a headband and placed over GB20 (Feng Chi) points bilaterally, not even touching the skin. It only took minutes for the pain to decrease by over 50 percent.
I expanded my use of magnets beyond acupuncture points and further discovered that magnets had many actions on tissues directly and provided pain relief that didn't rely on acupuncture principles specifically. They didn't even need to be applied on "ah shi" spots, but could in fact be used for all sorts of superficial tissue problems including insect bites, bruises, sprains and strains, cuts and abrasions, even surgical wounds. The results were often dramatic. One time I put a two-inch diameter, flat disk magnet on a large, deep purple thigh bruise in the evening. In the morning the woman noticed a completely clear area in the center of the bruise, where the magnet was placed.
When I worked with nurses, many complained of menstrual migraines. I thought, why not use magnetic necklaces to help with the migraines or even to prevent them. Magnetic necklaces affect all the meridians passing through the neck. Many nurses adopted this magnetic necklace therapy and would start wearing the necklaces about 3 to 4 days premenstrually.
I was very intrigued with magnets and what they were doing. I scoured the scientific literature on how magnets work physiologically. Much of the science was in foreign languages, especially Eastern European. Along the way a doctor from the Czech Republic, who had translated a lot of this Eastern European research, shared a manuscript. As a result we collaborated on the publication of the book, "Magnetic Field Therapy in Eastern Europe: a review of 30 years of research."2
How PEMFs Differ From Acupuncture
While this journey started with the frustration of people not being willing to have acupuncture, it led to the discovery of the extensive value of magnetic fields in not only stimulating acupuncture points and meridians but also the value of treating diseased and damaged tissue in ways that acupuncture can't. In other words, acupuncture works mostly through indirect stimulation of the bodies systems while magnets and PEMFs can do both indirect as well as direct therapy. So, combining the use of acupuncture and magnetic field/PEMF therapy makes a lot of sense to significantly enhance the benefits of acupuncture.
What makes the approach of combining acupuncture and PEMFs synergistic has a basis in science. PEMFs affect acupuncture points and meridians because evidence shows that the points and meridians are an electrical system. Dr. Robert Becker, author of "The Body Electric"3 discovered this in his lab. Acupuncture points and meridians were a direct current (DC) system and that acupuncture points had increased electrical conductivity.4
Dr. Kaung-Ti Yung, from the Department of Physics, at Geneva College, Penn., wrote a series of articles, "A Birdcage Model for the Chinese Meridian System." The first one was: Part I. A Channel as a Transmission Line.5 He describes how this is possible from an engineering and physics perspective. In other words, there is a constant flow of a low level, approximately 10 micro-ampere current throughout the whole system around-the-clock.
These findings are important because of a law of physics, Faraday's law, a magnetic field will interact with an electric circuit to produce an electromotive force (EMF) - a phenomenon called electromagnetic induction. Electromagnetic induction in the tissues of the body results in the production of charge (energy) in the tissues. In other words, the flow of natural charge in the tissues and the presence of the movement of charged ions, interacting with a magnetic field, whether static or pulsed, will result in increased charge in the tissues. Since acupuncture points and meridians have physical aspects of an electrical system, PEMFs interacting with them will result in increased charge and energy in the body and hence increased benefits and results.
Electro-acupuncture is an acknowledgement that the acupuncture system is electrical. Electro-stimulation of points, ends up stimulating and increasing the amount of electrical charge coursing through the meridians. It's well-established that electroacupuncture stimulation is very dynamic and produces similar, and in many cases better, benefits to regular, manual needle acupuncture. Electromagnetic stimulation of points is essentially the same, but without the electrical charge being introduced into the body. Rather, electromagnetic stimulation causes the body to produce its own charge through the interaction of the magnetic fields with charge, and ions carrying charge, already present in the body.
How PEMFs Work
PEMF or electro-magnetic stimulation can be used before, during or after manual needle acupuncture. In fact, PEMF therapy can be used in other parts of the body from where acupuncture is being applied. The main value of PEMF therapy is deep, direct tissue penetration. It can be used to assist acupuncture for stubborn-to-manage problems where the tissues need to be stimulated directly for direct tissue healing. This is especially true for the direct healing of organs, such as the lungs, heart, liver, kidneys, etc. Functional problems can be helped significantly with acupuncture, possibly even more than with PEMFs. So, combining PEMFs and acupuncture would be more helpful for both the functional and the tissue healing aspects of health problems.
There is a large amount of scientific evidence for the clinical use of PEMFs as a sole modality and is reviewed extensively in the book Power Tools for Health: how magnetic fields [PEMFs] help you.6
PEMFs in My Practice
I use PEMFs to heal almost any tissue. The most common use of PEMFs is to help with pain, especially with arthritis. The main difference between using PEMFs for pain and acupuncture is that PEMFs have the direct issue action of reducing inflammation and edema, improving circulation and a natural pain killing effect, locally. In other words, PEMFs help to heal the cause of the pain not just with pain reduction. Because they improve circulation, they can be dramatically helpful in healing circulatory ulcers and wounds.
A specific example is a 50-year-old gentleman who had bilateral diabetic gangrene from the knees down. He was recommended bilateral below knee amputations. He was started on an appropriate diet, supplements, and PEMF therapy. With aggressive therapy, several hours a day in the home setting, and very close clinical follow-up, he had relatively rapid progressive improvement in circulation. In three months, his surgeon declared that he didn't really need amputations anymore.
Everyone knows there are no effective brain treatments for concussion, with people healing essentially on their own and only receiving symptomatic management. Ten people were treated following mild to moderate concussions with a portable PEMF system, for two hours per day over three months. They were regularly monitored with an objective sensory cortical test device. They all showed improvement after one or two weeks in symptoms, test scores and cognitive function. This benefit was maintained for at least three months.
Evidence in Combining PEMFs With Acupuncture
One study compared PEMF stimulation of BL15 with manual acupuncture and laser acupuncture. The three methods of stimulation were evaluated for their effects on the autonomic nervous system, using heart rate variability measurements. Manual acupuncture and PEMF stimulation activated the parasympathetic nervous system almost equally whereas laser acupuncture activated the sympathetic nervous system. This means that manual acupuncture and PEMFs induced better relaxation in the body.7
Application of magnetic fields to acupuncture points have also been found helpful in number of conditions: PC6 (Neiguan) stimulation has been found to balance the autonomic nervous system (ANS),8 help with plantar fasciitis9 and stroke,10 reduce pain in infants,11 reduce chronic low back pain,12 improve recovery of the quadriceps muscle from muscle fatigue following exercise13 and in the treatment of temporomandibular joint [TMJ] disorders.14 The value of using physical magnets on acupuncture points has been reviewed,15 lending further support to combining these modalities.
Another recent study looked at using high intensity PEMFs to stimulate PC6 (Neiguan) and its effect on the brain EEG. The PEMF at PC6 induced a powerful brain response, enhancing brain plasticity, which is helpful for neurotrauma, stroke, infections and many other neurological problems.16 Treatment of patients with combined anxiety and depression (CAD) using electroacupuncture to multiple points and high intensity PEMFs to the brain works better with the combination than the standard medical therapy using PEMFs alone.17
Why is it important for acupuncturists to know about the use of magnetic fields in their acupuncture practices? All clinicians see patients who either don't respond at all or don't respond adequately to their usual tools. This is true for all health care professions. Also, patients often present with multiple problems, requiring multiple modalities to get the best results. Some of these problems are more responsive to acupuncture than others. Once a relationship is established with the patient, it would be helpful to both the acupuncturist and the patient to be able to solve as many of the patients' problems as possible without the need for referrals to other practitioners, medical or otherwise.
In highly competitive professional environments, the more options a practitioner can offer patients, the more successful the practice. One of the professional disciplines most competitive with acupuncturists are chiropractors. Both professions see mostly patients with musculoskeletal and pain problems. Chiropractors have increasingly embraced and integrated PEMF therapy into their practices, increasing the competition with acupuncturists. Because it is fairly clear that PEMF therapy integrated with acupuncture, produces better results and significantly extends the benefits of treatments and the numbers and types of patients that can be seen, acupuncturists need to learn more about PEMF therapies and how they can be integrated into their practices.
References
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
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One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
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