MAGNETIC THERAPY.......Does it work?

Great Debates
41

I can only offer an anecdote, for what it’s worth.

I was on a plane from Dallas to Seattle, and sat next to a rather interesting woman from Vancouver BC who sold magnets for a living. I was skeptical, and she respected this, but asked if I wanted to try some experiments with her magnets (of course she had some right in her bag).

I have trouble recalling exactly what she did, but basically she had me put my two index fingers together and then she easily broke them apart. Then she had me hold two magnets in the palm of each hand, and she couldn’t break them apart. Right, I thought. Whatever. Then she had me do the same thing with her, and while the first time breaking her fingers was child’s play, the second time, I could NOT move them at all. I was, and still am, rather amazed by that.

All this excitement grabbed the attention of the meathead highschool kid sitting at the window seat next to us, and when he tried it, his mind was blown as well. I don’t know if the magnets had something to do with strengthening the muscles or what.

I know that anecdotally, this sounds pretty weak, and what she did was just a parlour trick. Maybe it was, but it’s the damnedest parlour trick I’ve ever experienced.

42

Pretty much, yeah.

43

There are magnetic effects with spin-orbit coupling that can go on with many molecules that you care to name. Check out the Zeeman effect, for example. However the “magnetization” of water hardly makes sense with respect to changing the physical properties of the stream of water. Perhaps you can remove certain minerals from water if you pass a stream of water through an uber-magnet, but that’s highly dubious from this physicist’s perspective. You might also find that certain sediments can be removed from water, but that’s not dealing with the water itself.

There is no permanent magnetism associated with the water molecule, so forget that idea. And any ion that is dissolved in water will also not exhibit permanent magnetism in its ionic form, so forget that idea. Basically the idea of “magnetizing” water is bunk.

However, keeping water in a magnetic field may change some physical properties of the water (cf. Zeeman Effect above). This is not, however, “magnetizing” the water in the same sense one “magnetizes” an iron nail.

44

Can you explain this again? Because reading your post, it seems like a simple thing. She pretended not to be able to pull your fingers apart the first time, and then when she was holding the magnets, just held her fingers together more tightly. Or did I misunderstand the description?

45

“I have trouble recalling exactly what she did, but basically she had me put my two index fingers together and then she easily broke them apart. Then she had me hold two magnets in the palm of each hand, and she couldn’t break them apart. Right, I thought. Whatever. Then she had me do the same thing with her, and while the first time breaking her fingers was child’s play, the second time, I could NOT move them at all. I was, and still am, rather amazed by that.”

Behold - the power of suggestion! I’ve seen this same trick a dozen time with a volunteer’s arm. The Magician or Mentalist will push a volunteer’s arm (held straight out, away from the body) down and it will move easily. Then, after some goofy speech about the volunteer making his or herself into a pillar of steel he tries again and cannot push the arm down. No magnets necessary.

46

Actually, the article in question doesn’t claim that magnetic monopoles don’t exist. In fact, it points to possible evidence of their existence.

It would be more accurate to say that their existence is currently unproven, despite decades of ardent searching.

47

Moderator’s Note: FreeHomes, rather than copying and pasting entire pages (albeit with edits to remove references to the specific product names being sold on those pages), you should provide links to pages you want to refer to, along with brief quotations, or your own statements about the subject matter of those pages.

48

Greetings,

It is interesting that we state a monopole does not exist, yet we are not talking about a single magnet that is in itself a monopole, but an arrangement of multiple magnets to create a mono pole effective field. In short, opposing negative to negative field, as example. The article stated earlier is referring to a single monopole magnet not yet proven. As the article starts out, there are still puzzles in physics.

[Text deleted. – MEB]

Live and learn.

49

And he does it again.

50

Moderator’s Note: FreeHomes, read the SDMB Policy on copyright issues!

51

Wanna say: believe what you see, not what is told to you. This applies also to the so called scientific authorities. I have quite a experience with being told different stuff. Not really with magnetic therapy, very little, but a lot with arrogance of people telling me that X should not work, although it is working for me. Or a restriction to methods which could be a help to my sufferings, but because X decision taker does not believe in them, I can’t get the info, or the medical support, and so on.

A case:
I have 16 years now polyarthritis (I am 42) due to an auto-inmune disease, with in total 15 articulations (yep, also fingers and toes and joints which we aren’t to aware) involved. After 6 years of massive standard therapies in Germany (huge menu of pills -now I hate pharma-, rows of analysis, rheum-specialists, OPs, a lot of orthopaedists, and so on) I got to alternative methods. I swear, I wasn’t fond of alternative methods before, I have still an allergy to esoteric discourses, but I was desperate, nothing was working. And because I am the one suffering it, I don’t care too much about what is told me to use, instead, I test out to find what helps. That way I got to acupuncture and homeopathy (which works with me a lot, but for each I only found one really good doctor, the rest don’t seem to know what they are doing). Other alternative therapies did not work, or do for specific parts, and not for others, and so on (aloe on my ankles helps with inflammation, but not for my knees, for my knees a compress of vinegar and salt has the same 72 hours effect than diclofenac 50mg). I just got to the point where I think there are many medical theories, and all have for me the same value and authority: I test them, and if they work, I use them, and don’t care about what they say about others. So, I don’t care what classical medicine (which is quite arrogant for its youth) pretends to tell me about lets say acupuncture. All are only perspectives.

Case Nikken:
This way, 2 day ago, my actual hurting joints, both knees, after some weeks of intense pain, got a unexpected release: I was lying in a bed of a lend apartment, I was testing different pillows to put under my knees because I can’t stretch them due to inflammation (chronic sinovitis) and there was lying around also a nikken pillow. I felt instant release of pain, which meant that in the morning I didn’t need 5 minutes of painful walking to stand without something to lean on (I just could walk directly), and I was still some kind of stiff, but with a lot less of pain = a state about 2 week ago. Surprised, when I saw Nikken on it I thought “ah, again that as useless as expensive wellness merchandising”. I too, before of last night, had not tested it.
Tonight I found in this house a mattress with magnets, Nikken too. I lay on, and after kind of 30 seconds, I could stretch my knees, something I could not make since more than a year. And today I could, for repairing a curtain, climb a chair in 2 seconds, which I did yesterday in 15, for I could bent my knees more, and mainly tense the muscles without pain.

So, for me, it works. Gonna buy them.

If we want a theory (of course I also search explanations), I guess that it releases tension. What I believe: When you have chronic pain, your body is kind of afraid and over tenses continually muscles. This leads to massive pressing on sensible points. I don’t care about the blood flow here (anyway, your argument of red tint of skin as a proof is not too good, you have to move relative much blood and quite close to skin, where the conducts are thinner, to see something. with your first I agree, with the last again not), but I know we have a lot of electricity in our body, all the synapsis stuff, which does not only has to do with brain neurones (I would never place a strong magnet close to my head) but also muscles info. That is what I think has led to my internal relaxation and pain release effect.

Ok, resuming: don’t believe what one side or the other tells you. Nor our contemporary 200 years old medical science criteria, nor Nikken vendors. Nor me, it can perfectly be that it does not work out for you and you throw a lot of money trough the window. Just test it for yourself, and care for your personal relieve.

52

It still doesn’t work.

53

My guess is that there is nothing to it except placebo, and it didn’t really do anything for you.

We don’t need a theory to explain anything until we know it is actually happening.

I’m glad you’re feeling better. I see no reason to believe it had to do with magnets.

Regards,
Shodan

54

Have you stuck yourself to any lampposts? I hear that can be a problem.

55

Damn, and they have been working on it at least since 2003 based on this thread. :eek: They can put a man on the moon but they can’t make Magnetic Therapy work…

:stuck_out_tongue:

56

I am always impressed that people tell me that they now better than me what I am experiencing. Like: “no, it is not working for you”. People: speak for yourself. I am speaking for myself. I dont believe it is placebo, because a lot of things I found out for me were without any expectation. Sure there are many things which are placebos once I started to like a therapy. Shodan, I thank you for your kind being glad, and in what respects believe: ok, you believe one thing and I another (told why) = just different opinions.

But please, to the others: stop that arrogance of thinking you know better than another what this another is going trough. It is fanatism, as much fanatism as all that esoteric stuff.

57

They know that the placebo effect is a real thing, and they conclude, based on the lack of any sort of clinical indication that magnetic therapy has any effect outside of the PE that this is what you are experiencing. This isn’t 'fanatism. or arrogance but is based on facts, which is what this board is all about. Your personal anecdote does not equal evidence. If you want to get any sort of traction outside of what you’ve gotten thus far you’d need to cite studies showing there is some sort of measurable effect beyond the PE. Or, you could just beat your head against the wall of skepticism and be all hurt and stuff when no one here takes your anecdotes at face value.

58

Oh horseshit.

No one is doubting your experience. In fact, if you’ll quell your dudgeon long enough to notice, at least one response has explicitly expressed gladness at your improved health.

It worked for you. Great. I’m glad, truly.

But that does not change the fact that it’s entirely without any scientific basis. More, it’s been demonstrated to literally have nothing going for it beyond the placebo effect.

And there’s nothing wrong with the placebo effect. I’m a big fan. And when I try something that has no basis in reality, and it works for me, I’m not going to be offended when I am reminded that the placebo effect is frigging awesome.

But neither will I deny the facts.

59

Arrogance? You are the one that revived a thread from over 10 years ago to basically say, “I have absolutely no evidence or studies, but I claim this happened to me so science can go jump off a cliff, and I don’t care if you believe me or not!”
Well, we’ve heard the stories before, and the reasons why they can’t work(a basic understanding of what magnets are and what they do really helps, by the way), so…just not impressed in the slightest.

60

Well, thanks for your opinions. I apologize if somebody felt offended about me talking of arrogance, I was referring to the “still does not work” kind of answer (it was a reaction of one and half decade of people telling me something like “no, you are not feeling that”), not to the rest of you folks. And Czarcasm, I have no interest in impressing you :slight_smile:
I just had interest in sharing my experience, because I felt important to me sharing the testing solutions despite different prejudices (I have a lot too), to be aware that in this world there is much more than things we know and therefore should always be open, and just wanted other people who maybe get to this thread have a shorter way than me (not about magnetic therapy, but about testing stuff yourself).
I see I was wrong, for, as XT, you say this board is based on facts, but as I see not personal facts, but about citing studies of a certain context. Thats perfect, I certainly like that approach too (for example the inmunomodulation of Uncaria tomentosa in the TOA cells), I see I just put a post with the wrong approach, I am out of theme, lets say. Sorry for that.

I am not offended about the placebo effect. I am also fan of it, and am sure a huge part of my relief is due to that - both with alternative and with classical medicine. But I dont think it can be used as a general argument, that is why I was arguing against in this case. I also believe a lot in psychosomatic reasons.

For a 10 year old thread there is still a lot of attention, interesting. It is my first time in this forum, the thread had some interesting posts for me. So I will check other threads.
Best greetings and good bye. Maybe we meet on another threat.