Dear Debbie -
Please pardon the late response, but, IMHO,
YOU DO NOT WANT TO GO THERE.
I saw my pain management specialist at USC today, and surprise, surprise, you're not the first patient who saw Dr. Pawluk's bit on Dr. Oz. My doctor told me that he went on Pawluck's website and read through his stuff on pulsed electromagnetic fields. He noted that it included everything
except any reference to actual studies showing that it worked!
I then asked what a patient with chronic CRPS ["small fiber neuropathy" as it's referred to by some, see, generally,
Is Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy/Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Type I a Small-Fiber Neuropathy? Oaklander AL and Fields HL,
Ann Neurol. 2009;65:629-638, online text @
http://www.rsds.org/pdfsall/Oaklande...eurol_2009.pdf] can do about atrophy if she is able to exercise as much as recommended by her PT but it still does no good. (I suggested a possible mechanism of ischemic constriction of small blood vessels in the muscles, to which no disagreement was offered, but that might have been a polite way of telling me I didn't know what I was talking about.
)
But I got an interesting response to the main question. Turns out that years ago, before steroids and HGH became all the rage, body builders were using the equivalent of locally applied TENS units to provide pulsed neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) to build muscle mass! See,
Neuromuscular electrical stimulation. An overview and its application in the treatment of sports injuries, Lake DA,
Sports Med. 1992 May;13(5):320-36:
Abstract
In sports medicine, neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) has been used for muscle strengthening, maintenance of muscle mass and strength during prolonged periods of immobilisation, selective muscle retraining, and the control of oedema. A wide variety of stimulators, including the burst-modulated alternating current ('Russian stimulator'), twin-spiked monophasic pulsed current and biphasic pulsed current stimulators, have been used to produce these effects. Several investigators have reported increased isometric muscle strength in both NMES-stimulated and exercise-trained healthy, young adults when compared to unexercised controls, and also no significant differences between the NMES and voluntary exercise groups. It appears that when NMES and voluntary exercise are combined there is no significant difference in muscle strength after training when compared to either NMES or voluntary exercise alone. There is also evidence that NMES can improve functional performance in a variety of strength tasks. Two mechanisms have been suggested to explain the training effects seen with NMES. The first mechanism proposes that augmentation of muscle strength with NMES occurs in a similar manner to augmentation of muscle strength with voluntary exercise. This mechanism would require NMES strengthening protocols to follow standard strengthening protocols which call for a low number of repetitions with high external loads and a high intensity of muscle contraction. The second mechanism proposes that the muscle strengthening seen following NMES training results from a reversal of voluntary recruitment order with a selective augmentation of type II muscle fibres. Because type II fibres have a higher specific force than type I fibres, selective augmentation of type II muscle fibres will increase the overall strength of the muscle. The use of neuromuscular electrical stimulation to prevent muscle atrophy associated with prolonged knee immobilisation following ligament reconstruction surgery or injury has been extensively studied. NMES has been shown to be effective in preventing the decreases in muscle strength, muscle mass and the oxidative capacity of thigh muscles following knee immobilisation. In all but one of the studies, NMES was shown to be superior in preventing the atrophic changes of knee immobilisation when compared to no exercise, isometric exercise of the quadriceps femoris muscle group, isometric co-contraction of both the hamstrings and quadriceps femoris muscle groups, and combined NMES-isometric exercise. It has also been reported that NMES applied to the thigh musculature during knee immobilisation improves the performance on functional tasks. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
PMID: 1565927 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1565927
I just went on PubMed, and the studies, small as they may be, appear to be generally encouraging and completely in line with what my doctor was saying. Here are some that are available free of charge:
(1) Home based neuromuscular electrical stimulation as a new rehabilitative strategy for severely disabled patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Neder JA, Sword D, Ward SA et al, Thorax. 2002 Apr;57(4):333-7, online text @ http://thorax.bmj.com/content/57/4/333.full.pdf;
(2) Randomised controlled trial of transcutaneous electrical muscle stimulation of the lower extremities in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Bourjeily-Habr G, Rochester CL et al, Thorax. 2002 Dec;57(12):1045-9, online text @ http://thorax.bmj.com/content/57/12/1045.full.pdf [Yale University School of Medicine];
(3) Neuromuscular electrical stimulation and volitional exercise for individuals with rheumatoid arthritis: a multiple-patient case report, Piva SR, Goodnite EA, Azuma K, Phys Ther. 2007 Aug;87(8):1064-77, Epub 2007 Jun 6, online text @ http://ptjournal.apta.org/content/87/8/1064.full.pdf;
(4) Electrical muscle stimulation preserves the muscle mass of critically ill patients: a randomized study, Gerovasili V, Stefanidis K, Vitzilaios K et al, Crit Care. 2009;13(5):R161, Epub 2009 Oct 8, online text @ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...pdf/cc8123.pdf; and
(5) Electrical muscle stimulation prevents critical illness polyneuromyopathy: a randomized parallel intervention trial, Routsi C, Gerovasili V, Vasileiadis I et al, Crit. Care 2010;14(2):R74, Epub 2010 Apr 28, online text @ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...pdf/cc8987.pdf.
On the other hand, another recent study found that four weeks of NMES delivered to women with mild and moderate osteoarthritis and mild strength deficits was insufficient to induce gains in quadriceps muscle strength or activation:
A clinical trial of neuromuscular electrical stimulation in improving quadriceps muscle strength and activation among women with mild and moderate osteoarthritis, Palmieri-Smith RM, Thomas AC, Karvonen-Gutierrez C, Sowers M, Phys. Ther. 2010 Oct;90(10):1441-52. Epub 2010 Jul 29, online text @ http://ptjournal.apta.org/content/90/10/1441.full.pdf
I would urge you to print these out and discuss them with either your neurologist or a good physical medicine specialist, also known as a physiatrist. And forget about Drs. Pawluck et al.
Good luck!
Mike