Abstract
Objective pathophysiological study of low back pain, or lumbago, was conducted using thermography and deep body thermometry in conjunction with the subjective responses of 85 patients (29 males and 56 females, mean age: 64.7 years) and compared with similar parameters in 22 healthy subjects (6 males, 16 females, mean age: 52.3 years).
Active magnets and dummy magnets were randomly assigned to the patients under a double blind test. Active magnets were applied externally for the painful portion using the samarium-cobalt (Sm-Co) magnets (180m Tesla, 4.5mmφ×2.2mm in hight). Dummy magnets (10m Tesla) were also applied externally at random as placebo. All the patients wore 35-40 pieces of magnets for a 3-week period, after which the magnets were removed.
Before the treatment, in general, the lowest temperatures of the patients were lower than those of the healthy subjects.
Subjective and objective symptoms were observed to be improved significantly 1 week after the application of the active magnets. The lowest degrees of skin and deep body temperatures in the painful portion were significantly increased by exposure to the active magnets at 2 weeks and 3 weeks after the application. Until 1 week after removal of the active and dummy magnets, these temperatures indicated no significant difference between the active and the dummy groups, whereas the pain relief continued in the active magnets.
These findings suggest that the static magnetic fields might gradually increase the blood circulation in ischemic low back pain.
