An article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer explained the positive results of bioelectricity...

After years of battling intense pain from a uterine disorder, this is what Lee Kramer’s life has come down to: multiple surgeries, excruciating diagnostic tests, heavy dependence on narcotics and antidepressants...

Relief - fleeting though it is - has come from an unlikely source: a pocket-size microcomputer that sends imperceptibly low frequencies of electric current through her abdomen.

"I would put the Alpha-Stim on and the pain would go immediately," Kramer said. "It saved my life."

Curb pain

the Alpha-Stim 100, developed by a California neurobiologist, is part of a growing arsenal of bioelectric devices designed to curb pain and promote healing. Long used in sports medicine and physical therapy, bioelectric treatments are still considered of dubious value by much of the medical establishment.

But the view is changing amid predictions that electricity could be a vital force in curing disease and treating pain.

Safe and effective

Few would dispute that drugs can be an invaluable tool, but some healthcare practitioners say electro-medical therapies are safer and often more effective.

"the basic structure of the body is bioelectric," said Dr Frederic Taylor, an anesthesiologist at the Swedish Medical Centre who has a private, part-time practice called Seattle Pain Consultants.

Although Taylor uses conventional anesthesia during surgery, he said he treats 99% of his pain patients with pulsed electromagnetic therapy, including electro-acupuncture and, more often, the microcurrent Alpha-Stim.

"I rarely do injections anymore," Taylor said, "because I don’t have to."

Microcurrent is a successor to TENS - transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation - which was invented in 1967 as a kind of circuit jammer of pain impulses.

Microcurrent works on a different principle somewhat akin to the ancient Chinese theory of chi or ki as a controlling energy force.

"[It is thought that] it treats the tissue problem itself at the source of the muscle or nerve and allows it to heal," Taylor said. "Seven to 10 seconds is really all you need to have an effect. the effect doesn’t stop when you remove the electrode. It’s almost like you facilitate a process of change or healing."

More relief than painkillers

Taylor said microcurrent therapy has brought more relief to his patients than all the nerve blocks and painkillers he prescribed in the previous 20 years.

Microcurrent works well with sprains and strains and has "fantastic results" with headaches, said Jack Teague, owner of Northshore Physical therapy and former director of the pain unit at the Swedish Medical Centre.

"Free of pain"

Several patients reported similar results. Nancy Schwarz, a registered nurse, said she used the Alpha-Stim twice a week for less than a month after a sailing accident aggravated an earlier back injury. She said the treatments left her free of pain, enabling her to begin physical therapy.

Kelly Zitkovich, an accountant, uses the device to control back pain stemming from 12 years of competitive gymnastics. Once bedridden and strapped to a back brace, she is completing five years of physical therapy and now leads an active life. the Alpha-Stim has become her main pain-control tool, she said, and its effects seem to be cumulative.

"If the electrical system in the body isn’t properly functioning, then the body will fall into a disease state," Kirsch said. "the right applications of electricity can augment the body’s ability to heal itself."

[the Alpha-Stim 100 also provides CES for relieving the stress of pain...]    the user simply attaches dampened ear clips and sets the timer for 20 minutes

the only sensation is a slight sting on the earlobes and, in some users, a slight wooziness if the controls are turned too high.

At the invitation of Kuwait’s public health minister, who was concerned about stress and trauma created by the Persian Gulf War, Alpha-Stim inventor Dan Kirsch conducted a three-day seminar last autumn for 400 doctors, and wound up selling 300 of the devices.

Dr Leanna Standish, research director at the Bastyr College, a naturopathic school, prescribes CES for HIV-positive patients suffering from depression, anxiety and chemical dependency. "there’s lots of research showing efficacy in those three areas," she said.

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