Magnetic mattress pad

[Dennyd1950]

Just found this website and had to post about my cure for RLS. I suffered for many years with severe RLS, although there were times when it would completely stop for certain periods of time, sometimes even up to a year. But unfortunately it always returned with a vengeance! One day I was at a county fair in Connecticut and there was a man demonstrating magnetic items i.e. wrist bands, elbow and knee wraps, etc. He said he was an independent distributor for these products, and that they had a magnetic mattress pad and he asked if I would try it for my RLS. Naturally I said yes as anything is worth trying. I had not slept for more than 2 or 3 hours a night for over 3 months. He brought a 2 1/2" thick mattress pad to my home to try out for 2 weeks for free. The very first night, and the following 2 weeks, I slept thru the entire night with no RLS! Unfortunately, the cost of the mattress was extremely high so I did not purchase it. Then, as expected, my RLS returned and I was miserable. I decided it was worth any price to get a normal nights sleep, so I purchased a twin size mattress for $700.00. Low and behold, my RLS stopped and my RLS has not returned in over 25 years!
My mattress pad is a Nikken, Kenko Naturest Mattress Topper from nikken.com but they no longer permit a test use. I recently discovered another website, ProMagnet.com, which has a twin size one for only $317.06 and they have a 45 day return policy so if it doesn't work all you pay is the shipping cost to return. You have nothing to lose but sleepless nights.
I found 4 mentions of magnetic mattress pads on this site, and unfortunately they were all negative, but as I said, I have been totally cured for over 25 years. As with anything else, what works for one person may not work for another, and with all medications there are risks of many different side effects.
It is up to each individual to try and see what works for them, so I would urge everyone to try this solution for themselves. What do you have to lose?

[badnights]

Thank you for sharing this information. I am not sure I would bother to try it; there is no scientific basis for why it might work (the only slightly magnetic component of major body tissues is hemoglobin, which is unaffected by the weak magnetic fields in these devices. It is even unaffected by the much stronger magnetic field of an MRI machine; other body fluids are unaffected; nerve transmission is unaffected). However, there are always things we don't know, new stuff to learn about the body. The NIH says:

Magnets have not been proven to work for any health-related purpose, yet static, or permanent, magnets are widely marketed for pain control. Scientific evidence does not support the use of magnets for pain relief.
Preliminary studies looking at different types of pain—such as knee, hip, wrist, foot, back, and pelvic pain—have had mixed results. Some of these studies, including a 2007 clinical trial sponsored by the National Institutes of Health that looked at back pain in a small group of people, have suggested a benefit from using magnets. However, many studies have not been of high quality; they included a small number of participants, were too short, and/or were inadequately controlled. The majority of rigorous trials have found no effect on pain.

Note the problems with conducting a rigorous study.

A 2008 systematic review of magnet therapy for all indications found insufficient evidence to determine whether magnet therapy is effective for pain relief,[16] as did a 2012 review focused on osteoarthritis.[20] Both reviews reported that small sample sizes, inadequate randomization, and difficulty with allocation concealment all tend to bias studies positively and limit the strength of any conclusions.

It is hard to conduct a properly blinded study of the effects of magnetism, since it's so easy for the patient to tell if the device she's testing is magnetic; this can bias the results. Studies conducted so far have used different strengths and types of magnet and different durations of use, so perhaps some types/strengths/durations work and others don't - this has not been studied enough to say for sure.

The NIH says magnets are safe except for people who wear pacemakers, implanted pumps, or other medical devices. Huffington Post advises pregnant women not to use them, and recommends not using the magnets all the time - everything in moderation, as they say.

[ViewsAskew]

Glad it is working for you.

I find stuff like this frustrating - many claims that it works, often very few well-designed studies, little or no funding to do well designed studies, and the cost is usually prohibitive for the majority of us to try. I have only tried a small magnet bracelet - cannot imagine that would help. And, while it seem contrary to what we know about the body that it would work, there sure are a lot of people who swear by them.

Wish we could really get definitive answers.

[Polar Bear]

Thing is... we will try just about anything that we can afford, and much that we can't afford.
The copper halcyon bracelets - yep, I've got them and they are lurking in the back of a drawer somewhere which says it all. Although as mentioned in other threads, if one is not actually lacking in a particular mineral etc then taking more of than mineral is unlikely to help.

Denyd1950, I am very happy that you are enjoying continued relief.

[2BassetMom]

I have found this discussion interesting as I have a friend who uses a magnetic blanket for her back pain. She is urging me to try it for restless legs but I hesitate mostly because of the cost. Also I have a collection of items that are supposed to help but didn't. I'm going to decline her request to try magnetic blankets etc. I'm really glad I searched the forum before making my decision.

[2BassetMom]

My friend is still trying to get me to try the Nikken product. She claims that there are products for restless legs containing ceramic fibers that provide instant heat. I will stick to my $20. heating pad and homemade corn bag for comfort.

[Polar Bear]

I'm with you 28BassetMom. If it's providing instant heat - $20 sounds better to me

[2BassetMom]

I find it frustrating when people insist that I try something that hasn't been proven to help. It is like a personal crusade with them. Just a mini rant here

[ViewsAskew]

I find it frustrating when people insist that I try something that hasn't been proven to help. It is like a personal crusade with them. Just a mini rant here

Oh, I could do more than a mini rant about this!!!!!

[Rob]

I find it frustrating when people insist that I try something that hasn't been proven to help. It is like a personal crusade with them. Just a mini rant here

I agree. There's a line between trying to be helpful and making a crusade about something. I'm okay with people who make crusades out of matters of scientific fact, but anything else can be annoying. For instance, my six-year-old son was diagnosed with kidney cancer, and I had several friends who continually insisted that essential oils were a replacement for chemotherapy. That quickly got old, and almost insulting.