I think the mechanism is pretty obvious: the high cost numbs the brain.
Speaking of tacky, rude and irrelevant…To a patients who have been gulping expensive prescription and non-prescription painkillers for years, assaulting their liver and tolerating their pain anyway, the small cost incurred for finally getting relief is a blessing.
The statement about empirical evidence being utterly useless scientifically is basically accurate with respect to experimental science, but inaccurate with respect to the healing arts. The precise mechanisms of action of many currently prescribed medicines, some of which pack seriously perilous side effects, still elude elucidation. But that does not seem to trouble too many regular folk, who believe that if their white-robed physician prescribed it, it must be ‘scientific’. I call this the “My Doctor Said Mylanta” mentality.
In a historical perspective, healers throughout time have not had the luxury of caring too much about priecisely “how” or “why” certain remedies worked for certain patients with certain maladies. We are driven by an overriding mission to ease suffering, period, whatever the mechanism. So let’s say for the sake of discussion that the Magna Bloc magnets I use don’t really “work”, and that there is no interruption of nociception along any nerve fibers really. It is merely that when I use them on people, they report in glowing terms about the relief of their pain, and send me their family and friends to repeat the therapy upon, who in turn refer others, and so on. Am I helping these patients by easing their pain, or would it be holier instead to withhold the magnetic therapy from them on the basis of new scientific evidence uncovered at the Straight Dope Web Site that informs us they can’t really be worth a hoot? (I guess I better not tell them about this message board!)
Neurological side effects are among the easiest to detect. When side effects are neither observed nor stated by the patient, we report no side effects. No reason to invent danger where there is none.
This entire discussion bears a strong resemblance to many I have heard regarding the use of acupuncture. Those who wish to remain firmly entrenched in their conviction that oriental medicine or sticking needles in people is phony will never be convinced of its effectiveness; and thousands of others who experience its benefits see things otherwise. There may be no clear right or wrong there. I don’t think hard science has yet explained or validated the existence of the acupuncture meridians, nor indeed may it ever do so; yet for five thousand years this healing art has flourished and is gaining more and more widespread acceptance throughout the world each year. Many top professional athletes even admit being treated by acupuncture, with varying levels of success. I’ve experienced instant benefits from it and had patients who did too. So to me it works. Sometimes. Like drugs.
By extension this same line of reasoning can be applied to all sorts of questionable therapeutic modalities, from homeopathy to reflexology, etc. Adherents swear by them, patients rave about them, but science is baffled and can do them no justification. (The most dubious one has got to be the homeopathy, but here again–so many people insist it works that it remains legal and popular.) It could be that the placebo effect plays a more significant role in medicine than even medical doctors admit.
I think you’re drawing a distinction between ‘healing’ and ‘medicine’ that doesn’t really exist. Medicine is the relief of pain and the healing of wounds, illnesses, etc. There’s really no line between these things.
On the contrary, science is not at all baffled by these “treatments”. Based on our scientific knowledge, we expect such procedures to have absolutely no effect. When we test them, it turns out that they do exactly what we expect. That sounds to me like we understand them pretty well.
How do you know that they don’t have long-term side effects which would affect a small percentage of the users of this therapy? Do you know of research done on the long-term effects of magnet therapy for a wide group of people?
How about a double-blind study of the effects of magnet therapy?
If magnet therapy works sometimes, but is not more effective than, for example, swallowing pills labelled “very powerful drug relief” and containing only water, then I would think it would behoove a responsible physician to prescribe the water pills since they are less expensive and probably have less side effects than magnets.
hyjyljyj, you said “these patented, specially designed magnets”. Do you happen to know the patent number? Is this a US patent? Who is the patent holder? This information will help us evaluate your claims 
You also say:
hyjyljyj, would you include chiropractic as a “questionable therapeutic modality”? In another thread you mention that you are a chiropractor. I assume you don’t do this for free, so when you use magnetic therapy on patients, they are paying you for it, correct? Hey, no big deal, we all have to make a buck to get by.
But if magnetic therapy is just a fancy version of the “placebo effect”, why bother with expensive patented magnets and chiropractors? Why not just pop lactose pills? Or is there something “special” about “magnetic flux”?
What was it H.B. Barnum said (maybe)? Something like “A fool and his money are soon parted”?
5K years ago, when autopsies were verbotten or rare, when microscopes, chemistry, and a host of other “modalities,” to use your term, did not exist, some people proposed a theory of how the body worked. Meridians made a lot of sense. But no evidence of such meridians has ever been found. How could this be? Could it be because they don’t exist? Is that just ONE possibility???
When a proposed theory cannot be proven, science discards it and tries another. Non-science does not.
Could this be your scenario:
[ol][li]You felt bad[/li][li]You were poked with a needle[/li][li]You felt better[/ol][/li]Maybe the needle caused the effect. Maybe not. Most modern knowledge suggests it did not. So why do you insist that it is the only explanation?? Could your mind, your expectations of what would happen, be a factor? Could the passage of time? Change of position? Change of scenery? Change of underwear? Change for a dollar?
Mok said
They are patented. As a matter of fact, Dr. Holcomb sold the rights to these magnets to Amway. And there was/is a lawsuit about them from 1999/2000. So far, I haven’t been able to find out if it has been settled.
As to hyjyljyj’s initial reference to the research being conducted at Vanderbilt Univ., you should know that, while Dr. Holcomb is a faculty member at theVanderbilt University School of Medicine, and his website for his privately run Holcomb Healthcare Services are linked on the website for the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing under “wellness” links, I see nothing that would imply that the UNiversity accepts any idea that these magnets work. So that line of reasoning is so much fluff. Linus Pauling once declared that enough Vitamin C could cure/prevent the common cold. So much for Nobel Prize winners.
To put a charitable light on the matter, and using the Amway connection, one could say that even if the magnets had an effect they would be priced at about 20 times the cost of a generic magnet. But of course, these special magnets are the only ones that work.:rolleyes:
“They are patented”.
Yah, OK, but that wasn’t really where I was going. I am familiar enough with the patent process to know that just because something is patented doesn’t mean it’s worth a hoot. We all know stories such as the guy who obtained a patent in the name of his child for “a method of swinging on a swing.”
I actually wanted to read the patent and see what sort of claims are actually made. I bet I know what I’ll find You’ve given me enough information to find it – it’s a US patent with an Inventor Name of Holcomb, eh?
-mok
hyjyljyj, I’m afraid that you might get the impression that we’re piling on, and I’m sorry if that’s the case. You tell a patient to try these magnets apparently because it can’t hurt anything, since it has no side effects.
Wouldn’t it be just as valid to tell a patient to take lactose (sugar) pills, or to pray to some obscure religion’s god for pain relief? Those should have no side effects either. Aren’t they equivalent?
Here are the US patents, for any of you interested/masochistic enough to read them:
Also
It’s pretty much garbage. The patents actually claim that the magnets can treat “myocardial infarction”, “seizures, cerebral edema”, severe burns, “stroke or other hypoxic injuries”, and even sickle cell anemia. Right. Geez, Opening Poster, why limit yourself to relief of pain when magnets can do all that?
-mok