There are about seven million Americans that have psoriasis and they have lesions all over the skin. They complain of burning, itching, soreness, and can have significant social embarrassment. Many patients with psoriasis also have psoriatic arthritis, in other words they can have pains in their joints in various parts of the body. Current treatments for psoriasis include creams, drugs, light therapy, and more recently immunotherapy. Unfortunately, immunotherapy is only about 33% effective and can damage the immune system.
Is there an alternative from the current treatments of psoriasis?
Yes, pulsed electromagnetic fields or PEMFs. Research shows that PEMFs can reduce mast cells in the skin. Mast cells are the cells that cause itching, they can do this by over 200 percent. Also, they reduce inflammation they reduce inflammatory cells and they can reduce the total number of plaques or the lesions in the skin by between 75-100%. Also, they are synergistic with light therapies and even natural sunlight. So what kind of a PEMF system should somebody consider? High intensity systems will do the job better faster, but low intensity and medium intensity can also work, they will just take longer.
A Study on PEMFs & Psoriasis
Five patients with PV and three patients with PA were given daily fifteen-minute treatments for three weeks with PEMF of 50 Hz sinusoidal, 50 G with a coil that circled the pelvis. Eight control patients received a placebo treatment. None received either UV-A or Psoralen therapy prior to the PEMF treatment, although they did receive coal tar along with the PEMFs. Blood evaluations were done before and after three months of therapy, and clinical progress was also observed. Inflammatory cell phagocytosis, which is highly activated in a chronic disease like psoriasis, decreased to normal levels. T-helper and natural killer cells increased following PEMF therapy. IgG significantly increased. PEMFs caused slight paling of psoriatic lesions, but no significant effect on the arthritic process.
As you can see, PEMFs are a helpful and supportive tool that people with skin conditions such as psoriasis can benefit from.
