In my desperation to find relief from the pain and stiffness of arthritis I've tried magnetic products. I once paid over 0 for a magnetic necklace (I have a lot of arthritis in the neck) because a man who claimed to have suffered from arthritis told me how magnets had been the only thing that had helped him (I suspect he was paid a handsome commission for each necklace he sold). It did nothing for me and when I rang asking for a refund I was given a long talk about how I needed to give it time to work. I agreed to continue to wear it and it continued to do nothing and, as the man who urged me to continue wearing it no doubt hoped, I was too busy to notice that the 'money back if not satisfied' period had passed. The magnetic necklace now sits in a cupboard collecting dust. Sell it to you cheap!
I also bought a magnetic woollen underlay for over 0 because the ad for it showed lots of people saying how much relief it gave them. It did nothing for me apart from being nice to sleep on.
There is no credible scientific study to show that magnets do anything other than enrich the companies that peddle them. Wherever there are people suffering there will always be vultures preying on them offering relief (like the chiropractor that stung me for 00 telling me she could totally eradicate my pain and fix the skeletal problems causing the pain) at a price. The man who sold me the magnetic bracelet got me at a low time and cost me 0. When I bought the magnetic underlay I figured it would be nice sleeping on a woollen underlay even if it didn't work so I at least got something for my money.
People in pain form a ready market for all sorts of products purporting to help and given the variability of conditions like arthritis and the placebo effect there will be people that think they got relief from the product when it was the placebo effect or that they were going through a good patch with their disease coinciding with using the product. In my case I was swayed to buy the magnetic necklace and the magnetic underlay by people endorsing the product claiming it did them the world of good (of course these people don't mention when they endorse the product that the company selling the product is paying them a good deal of money to say it helped them).
The placebo effect doesn't work with me as I'm too cynical and suspicious about products such as magnetic therapy for which no double bind independent studies have shown any benefit. Independent double bind clinical trials are the only way to be able to confidently say that magnetic therapy might help some people and these don’t exist or show no difference between the group that took the product and the group that did not. One study that the companies selling magnetic products seize upon is the one at the following web site but the conclusions on such a small sample are dubious and other studies (that the purveyors of these products fail to mention) show no benefit.
http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/QA/magnet.html
The conclusion at this site sums up what is known about the effects of magnet therapy:
"The Bottom Line
There is no scientific basis to conclude that small, static magnets can relieve pain or influence the course of any disease. In fact, many of today's products produce no significant magnetic field at or beneath the skin's surface."
I wear a double magnet on my wrist (a nice piece of jewellery) in additional to my meds and other 'alternative' therapies. I'm sure it helps and only take it off to shower. I am slowly cutting down my meds and aren't having as many flares.
My very old, very sick dog wears a magnet collar and the vet says he should be dead. I think it's helping him and the only time he's taken a turn for the worse since he's had it was when the collar was in the wash.
HTH
Samantha
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