What is Magnotherapy (magnetic pain relief) and does it work?

Magnotherapy is a natural, non-invasive form of pain relief. It involves using the natural force of magnetism to relieve pain wherever it occurs in the body, and it works equally well on both people and animals.

It sounds like New Age fluff doesn’t it? And yet people have used magnets and magnetic rocks for pain relief for thousands of years. Around 4500 years ago in China, Huang Ti, the Yellow Emperor, produced a book setting out the principles of traditional Chinese medicine (The Inner Canon of Huangdi) which mentioned using magnetic lodestones on the body to relieve pain. Later, Cleopatra was believed to wear a magnetic rock in an amulet to improve her health and retain her beauty.

Nowadays, Physiotherapists use phased magnetic equipment as a means of natural pain relief. While this is fine for occasional treatments, the equipment has to be plugged into the mains electricity, and so isn’t practical for continuous use. Fortunately, you can now get magnetic bracelets and other products which mimic the phased effect of the Physiotherapist’s equipment, and which you can wear on your wrist 24/7, giving you continuous pain relief.

When I first heard about this I was hugely sceptical. I just couldn’t see how wearing a magnetic bracelet on my wrist would relieve the pain in both my knees that was starting to limit my activities. But a friend assured me that a magnetic bracelet would help, and my Doctor had been of little help (he told me that I was getting older and should expect bits to start wearing out. “Get used to it” he said!!). So I decided to give it a try. The bracelet came with a money back guarantee, so I felt as though I had nothing to lose.

I was wrong.

After a couple of weeks, I lost the pain. And my scepticism.

That was four years ago, and the pain has not returned. Since then, I’ve made a point of learning more about magnetic pain relief. I now know that there are magnets and then there are magnets. Some are powerful, and some are not. Some work supremely well, others are less effective. I was fortunate in that I bought a magnetic bracelet from the leading supplier of magnetic health products, and their bracelets all use Neodymium, a very powerful and long-lasting rare earth magnet. They also feature Central Reverse Polarity, which is a patented method of manufacture which maximises the magnetic effect.

Over coming months I plan to use this blog to share some of the things I’ve learned.