From the 24th to 30th of July is the first National Pain Week. An initiative of Chronic Pain Australia, National Pain Week is not unlike Heart Week in May of each year where it provides a platform all over Australia to create awareness and shine a spotlight on the dilema of people living with persistent and debilitating pain.
The theme for National Pain Week is “Growing Hope For People In Pain”, and when we look back at some of the chronic pain case studies from the Lifestyle Pain Clinic where pain has been eliminated and function restored, there is good reason for hope.
The Lifestyle Therapies National Pain Week Event: Read more…
Background
SS presented to physiotherapy following a long history of fibromyalgia that affected her cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine areas with pain radiation into both arms and legs. SS had had various forms of treatment and commented that ‘hands on’ treatment aggravated her symptoms.
On Assessment
On assessment, SS had restricted range of motion in both her cervical and lumbar spine and symptoms of pain with a VAS of 8/10.
Treatment
Treatment chosen was the central placement of neuromagnetic devices to assess the effects on dampening central sensitization. One QF28-3 Q magnet was placed centrally over C4 and two QF20-3 devices were placed 2.5 cm each to the left and right of the C7 spinous process. There was an immediate improvement of cervical spine rotation from half range to full range right and left.
SS also reported pain in the lumbosacral area and a QF28-6 device was taped over the L4/5 intervertebral space centrally and two QF28-3 devices were placed bilaterally, one over each PSIS. Reassessment of her lumbar flexion after the application of the Q magnet devices saw SS with a 20° increase in lumbar flexion and decreased pain through range. The immediate improvement in symptoms indicated that this was an appropriate treatment.
It’s true that many forms of magnetic therapy are questionable. However, the research shows that for magnetic therapy to work requires a high degree of specificity and just slapping on a bipolar magnet or wearing magnetic jewellery is not at the cutting edge of this promising area of treatment for chronic pain. So the question of does magnetic therapy work requires some big qualifications, such as what type of magnet (strength, size, bipolar, multipolar) and how is it used.
You have to look at the published research on magnetic therapy and speak to experienced health professionals who have extensive clinical experience using it on different types of conditions to answer this question. There are plenty of well meaning health professionals out there who are quick to judge but digging a little deeper, you quickly discover they have never experienced it, have little understanding of the science and rely on hear say.
Patient information is provided at the Lifestyle Pain Clinic
This is why Dianne Hermans, who has been a practicing physiotherapist for over 20 years, is an expert in this area. Dianne has treated thousand of cases using magnetic therapy over a ten year period and has presented at national and international conferences and trained hundreds of other health professionals. She has also recently completed a randomised controlled trial as part of a research masters at Griffith University looking at the effects of Quadrapolar magnets of osteoarthritis of the knee.
Quite an interesting film. A 60 min film over four parts on pain covering some interesting research into genetics and people who actually feel no pain and how understanding their genetics may play an important role in future treatments.
Part 4 shows a fascinating new treatment called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) which involves emitting short magnetic field pulses through the brain to rewire very sensitive pain pathways.
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