Over the years, and this goes WAY back to my younger years, before alternative therapies were really popular, I remembered seeing a lot of people with these weird, kind of unsightly and utilitarian looking bracelets on. They were all metal and rigid, and had an opening at the bottom, so you could just slip them on over your wrist. Like I said, they weren’t the biggest fashion statement, which is why I noticed them, and they all pretty much looked the same as well.
I never knew what they were for at the time until about ten years ago, I had heard my first bit of information about “magnet therapy”, and thought it sounded like the biggest bunch of hogwash I’d ever heard.
However, now that I’m older and I’ve become interested in all sorts of therapies that are “alternative” in nature, not just herbs and natural supplements and medicines, I decided I would actually finally give magnet therapy for pain a try on my neck and back, two areas that have always given me trouble since I had two nasty car accidents in my teens and early twenties. I had already had some good results from herbal painkillers for my muscle pain, to help relax the muscles, but I thought this would also be an excellent addition to my repertoire of pain relief.
So, I decided to give it a try with the least expensive product I could find just in case it was a total bust. I got these little “magnet dots” that are stuck on a circular piece of sticky bandaid like flexible paper that you affix to whatever areas are giving you problems. The magnets themselves are no bigger than the size of a skittle – actually smaller, and the circular sticker they are on is about the size of a nickel.
I affixed one on one side of my neck, at the base, and another on the other side of my neck, also at the base. I often wear turtle necks in the winter so it was easily camouflaged. I noticed that throughout the day ( I wore it about eight hours), my pain was definitely decreased. Could it have been a placebo effect? I suppose so, but I also got an unwanted side effect, perhaps from wearing it too long – I got a massive, banging headache.
I wondered if the magnets caused the headache, so I did remove them when I remembered I still had them on, but I can’t be sure the two were related. I did notice that they seems to make my pain duller. It’s usually a constant discomfort, and it definitely wasn’t as noticeable throughout my day, so I looked at that as a benefit. Who knows, it seemed to work for me though….but the headache put a damper on it. I’m gonna try it again on a different body part, maybe my back and see what happens. More to come!