Electricity can heal wounds three times as fast (2023)
chalmers.se
chalmers.se
I recently went through 6 weeks of PT for injured tendons / tendinitis in my arms with 0 results.
The therapist suggested we try dry needling + electric stimulation for another 6 weeks. So we did that and I recovered 90% in the second 6 weeks of therapy.
There were side effects but they were minimal and completely gone now.
It looked a little like this except on my arms:
https://youtube.com/shorts/pTEPMgDdy2A?si=MSx7YnmUbApsigWe
I was skeptical but sold on the benefits and relieved to have an effective therapy option to fall back on when it happens again as it does every couple years. Unfortunately, my insurance doesn’t pay for it.
It isn't convincing given the time frame / lack of comparison.
Hormonal changes mean people have permanent differences in their skin at specific points in time. Eczema is known to respond more cyclically with menstrual cycles, which is a lot easier to correlate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial_properties_of_co...
I’m half tempted to buy myself a copper plate to stand on.
Also copper is biocidal, so maybe there's something there.
But you can treat their data as garbage, pseudoscience, backed by nothing. Because it is. Any effects are likely to be placebo. Wait for real research. Science isn’t a popularity contest.
There is a well-known case study where a man ‘cracked’ each joint in one hand every day, and never ‘cracked’ any joint in the other hand for many years, to see whether it caused arthritis. He didn’t get arthritis in either hand. The only thing you can take away from that is that cracking the joints doesn’t necessarily cause arthritis for him.
The person posted an anecdote; you don’t have to rely on in, but your dismissal is shallow and unhelpful.
It also tells us that cracking the joints doesn't appear to cause arthritis for everybody. If you're a knuckle cracker there's hope.
Anecdotes aren't useless, but be very careful of _any_ conclusion you draw from them.
How about the idea that some anecdotes are better than others.
E.g. "Anecdotal, but I took paracetamol and found it wasn't helpful for my pain. So I don't think it works."
There's an anecdote for you, maybe you should stop taking paracetamol now. By your logic no one can discuss, analyse, or point out it any potential issues with it.
And btw my stance is that the electrotherapy is interesting and plausibly could help. But tendonitis issues can heal with 6 weeks of basically rest, and that should be acknowledged in the discussion. (12 weeks in total, including the 6 weeks with a PT.)
I don't necessarily think there was a problem with the comment they replied to.
Not disagreeing with your larger point, but at least for triceps tendinopathy (still often called tendonitis of the elbow), based on getting this myself and doing some research online, the consensus is that it generally doesn't heal from just rest, and that although techniques like massage and foam rolling can offer substantial pain relief, this is only short term. My conclusion was that the only effective therapy is doing slow eccentrics -- allowing your initially extended elbow ( = straight arm) to slowly "lose the fight" against a force trying to flex it (trying to move your hand close to your shoulder), and gradually increasing the force (weights, bands, etc.) over 3-4 months as you become able to do so without pain.
I hope this random tidbit helps someone with a sore elbow.
1. It's going to come and go for the rest of your life.
2. Just try to stay off it while it hurts; here's a couple of simple things to try when it's flaring up (eg, wear shoes or lifts with a > 1 inch difference between the heel and to) to reduce the pain. Don't worry about it when it's not hurting, feel free to keep running etc.
3. At some point it may stop going away; at that point there's some surgical interventions, but they all have mediocre outcomes so you don't want to try that unless you're out of options.
So far it's been five years of minor flare ups once or twice a year lasting a week or two at a time. Goes away without intervention, doesn't seem to be getting progressively worse or more frequent at this point.
There's another universe I'm living in where I tried some treatment for it, and now I swear by it, running off to get it every time I feel a twinge -- after all, that first round of tendonitis was terrible, I could barely walk, it took several weeks to recover, and all those subsequent flare ups only lasted a week or two, and I can usually hobble through them without too much trouble.
Look at elite athletes - golfers, tennis players, etc. they put their bodies under the stresses we do, pick up “career ending” injuries and manage to recover from them in many cases.
An anecdote like this doesn't disprove the null hypothesis of "the patient just got better after awhile, because people frequently just get better after awhile". It doesn't matter how many similar anecdotes you stack up, because the null hypothesis still hasn't been disproved. You could have millions of perfectly true, identical anecdotes, and it still wouldn't change the situation, so why should anyone listen to one?
(Now, anecdotes are useful for identifying avenues of search, but that means the only thing you should be doing after reading an anecdote like this is running off to do a lit search for any actual studies, not trying it yourself or yes-anding with your own anecdotes.)
On the other hand, there are situations where an anecdote provides ample evidence. If a reiki practitioner walked up to a patient with a complete dissection of the lower spine, verified on X-ray, waves his hands over the patient, and a week later the patient is up and walking, holy shit, reiki works! There is no "people sometimes get better"[0], so the null hypothesis of "the patient will still be paralyzed" would have been disproven adequately by a single anecdote, assuming fraud was ruled out.
[0]I don't actually know for sure that people don't spontaneously get better from such a injury, but it was the clearest example I could think of.
Yeah, that's a "no" from me dawg. My PT stuck the needle in, and I was fine with that. Then he moved it a little, and I turned pale as a ghost and started sweating. Same thing happened when I had my nerve conduction study - never again. Needles going in and out is fine. Needles moving around under my skin ain't gonna happen any more. (Except at the dentist, but that's what the laughing gas is for!)
As long as the initial stimulus is strong enough to trigger an action potential, the signal propagates all the way from the nerve ending to the central nervous system, and whatever response the CNS cooks up always makes it all the way to all the muscles it intends to trigger. Stated another way, the peripheral and central nervous system have enough of these signal repeaters for any signal to travel anywhere.
I didn't return for the other nail, I preferred to do it at home with a knife, it was less painful.
Laying down is fine for me. But if I'm seated I will start sweating, get really hot, feel nauseous, and almost pass out
This has happened during dry needling and just ultrasound therapy
If you happen to be aware of a diy poor man's hack, maybe point me yonder. I gots lots o' problems. I'm also interested in zapping me 'ead, but that's more complicated and... seemingly expensive.
(I'm vegetarian, and eat a lot of salty and sugary foods I'm not too proud of, and would love to learn what works for other people.)
Here are some studies to back it up: - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8212205/ - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3136577/ - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jff.2025.106796
This is what I buy from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FAB10ZI?th=1
What I have noticed is that the increase in nutrients will go through me super fast since I have a lower fiber diet, but when I have taken it with Metamucil, the fiber increase really slows down my bodily function. I figured if the algae is moving more slowly, it should also be able to have a higher absorption rate since it stays in my body longer.
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32749124/ - This research paper talks about how spirulina has been shown to help with Heavy-Metal Toxicity.
It's such a powerful supplement, and really interesting to learn about.
Spirulina had a moment, and I took it, in the UK in the 90s. I'm struggling to remember exactly why I took it or stopped taking it, but, as a veggie, it did seem to offer everything else I might be lacking in my diet.
As I've aged my digestion is no longer as robust as it was, so I'm keen to give spirulina another go, plus the husks (metamucil is especially good, you think?) for a few months and see if I feel any different.
The removal of heavy metals is a plus, though I also am a little skeptical of how essential removal is, or of the genuine serious long term damage caused. I need to read up more.
I have seen a few articles over the years on stimulating wound healing and did a little digging and found it goes back further than I appreciated:
1843: Carlo Matteucci (Italy) observes that wounded tissue generates a steady current — the first evidence of endogenous “healing current.”
Modern experimental era (1950s–1980s)
1950s–1960s: F. W. Smith and others at the Royal Free Hospital (London) and USSR researchers start applying DC microcurrents to chronic ulcers.
1960s–1970s: Robert O. Becker (NYU, later VA Medical Center) systematically studies wound and bone healing with DC and pulsed currents — showing accelerated healing and even partial limb regeneration in amphibians.
1972: Becker and Murray publish seminal paper: “Low intensity direct current stimulation of bone growth and wound healing.”
Late 1970s–1980s: Clinical trials on pressure ulcers and diabetic wounds using microamp DC show improved epithelialization.
Clinical device development (1990s–present)
1990s: FDA approvals for electrical bone-growth stimulators, later expanded to soft-tissue wound dressings.
2000s: Research into pulsed DC, AC, and capacitive coupling grows; low-frequency (1–200 Hz) electrotherapy devices enter wound-care practice.
2010s–2020s: Rise of microfluidic and bioelectronic dressings (like the Chalmers study, 2023), nanogenerators, and self-powered wound patches — merging electronics and biology.
Looking into the AC/DC aspects: DC = best for directional healing and wound closure. AC = best for tissue conditioning, circulation, and long-term comfort.
Combination or cycling gives the fastest and safest overall healing, especially for chronic or deep wounds. Also, prevent polarisation irritation over prolonged usage.
Certainly does feel like a technology that has been sleeping in the wind, and a future first aid tool. Of note, electronically, such a device could also aid in cleaning the wound by killing bacteria, which may be one reason that healing is improved.
I had a wound that wouldn't close and the thing that eventually got it to close was topical collagen powder - packed directly into the wound. This is something that the literature is quite positive on, but large Western hospitals mostly don't do for some reason. On oral collagen, the literature seems a bit more mixed but still generally positive. Collagen is something that used to make up a much larger part of our diet, so at the very least I don't think there's much risk in trying - and perhaps there are other benefits.
I don't think everyone produces amino acids as efficiently as everyone else. For some people, perhaps supplementation is beneficial.
I didn't claim I was certain of this however, only that I'm under the impression that amino acid synthesis doesn't work as well for all people, for all amino acids.
Could you provide you literature citations here for reference?
...what, lmao
1. Collagen is not an amino acid, it is a protein
2. The body makes a lot of things itself that we supply to sick or wounded people. It is SOP in any hospital to supply: various proteins, heat, enzymes, clotting factors, blood, hormones, steroids that the body makes itself... "The body makes (thing) itself" is an absurd reason not to supply something to the wounded. It does not make one iota of sense if you have even the slightest knowledge of medicine.
3. "Also you get the same type of amino acid by eating jello pudding." Yes, and you get salt and water from McDonalds fries, and yet we still use saline solution. Jerusalem artichokes are high in inulin, which we also use to measure kidney function. Why exactly would any of this have any bearing on its efficacy? Collagen, by the way, is the most abundant protein in mammals, so there are a long list of things aside from Jello that contain it.
4. Sterile collagen is widely available both OTC and to professionals
5. Sure. Here's a review of eleven RCTs on collagen dressings for wound healing. Pretty powerful results! doi:10.3389/fsurg.2022.978407
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcurrent_electrical_neurom...
20 min ted talk - https://youtu.be/XheAMrS8Q1c
3 hr lex fridman episode - https://youtu.be/p3lsYlod5OU
This is surely a relatively new state of affairs so wouldn't it be a rather good idea to prevent it at source so to say rather than cope with the negative effects?
The real underlying reason for this is quite simple: Haber-Bosch enables us to have abundant and cheap food for everyone, and our evolutionary history hasn't wired us up to respond appropriately to that.
How does that "prevent it at source"? I was going to say "free access to meat and eggs" and then I read the rest of your comment. You are blaming metabolic dysfunction on the people setting low prices for food, did I read that right?
Therefore, grains are cheap, everything is pumped full of salt and sugar, and people eat overeat.
Also, famines were semi-regular occurrences across the world until very recently.
Your idea would work if meat and eggs took fewer resources to produce, but reality does not work like that.
People only overeat themselves into obesity once you process those carbs into high fructose corn syrup etc. Seems like a very different problem.
There are regions of the world that are doing better than others, and a wide spectrum of reasons for that, but it is only comparative/relative improvement. Obesity is getting worse everywhere, across the board, as people are uplifted into middle class incomes and able to purchase and eat whatever they want & as much as they want.
It maps about 1:1 with the amount of sugary, fatty, addictive shit they're consuming. Across the globe. So do the trends. Prime example being the rising obesity rates in countries like Japan and Korea, rising at the exact same pace as the supply and consumption of above crap in those countries. They still have lower obesity rates than much of the West, at roughly the same relative difference of the amount of such crap consumed.
I'm not saying that ultra-processed foods are fine. They are bad and very much part of the story. But it is not the whole story either.
Why is social media shit? Well, “the platforms are incentivized to demonstrate growth in profit to their investors, so they optimize their system for maximal engagement and retention over time, transferring the same incentive to creators, so many creators who would have made better work before desperately churn out poorly made material about whatever is popular and other, more interesting content is ultimately less common on the platform, with the root cause being the constant need for a growth in surplus in all areas of social production” is a better answer, but “it’s capitalism” is still an alright start.
I would blame our monkey brains instead. India has no shortage of traditional sweets that predate capitalism (Indians even knew sugar far before Europeans did), but in the previous crushing poverty that lasted millennia, only a tiny fragment of the Indian population had the opportunity to eat themselves to gout, diabetes, obesity etc. Now, almost every Indian can eat to satiety and beyond, for the first time in history. And the aftereffects show.
Capitalism is fairly efficient at providing people what they want. If our monkey brains crave sugar, sugary treats it will be.
We need to get our monkey brains under control, and not just with regard to sugar. At least some HNers are probably working on digitally addictive products, and then there are the old-fashioned drugs like alcohol and opiates, too.
Smoking down; office work up.
Eating is a quick dopamine hit which can be enjoyed WHILE working on boring shit at a desk.
Shoving potato chips in your face can make writing TPS reports less painful.
This is a great way to show you haven't visited those places in over a decade. They lagged behind in the takeover of addictive sugary crap. Now they're catching up in the same way. Korea is another great example that you didn't mention, the exact same has happened there.
The dissonance here is that your view of them being held up as such examples is from 2005, whereas your obesity statistics on them are from 2025. As soon as you update the former view to their situation as of 2025, you'll draw the exact opposite conclusion: an exact match.
This is a simple behavior shift; it can help people begin making other behavior changes to help improve their health overall.
The purpose of medicine is twofold: to prevent and to cure. We shouldn't stop making medicines and therapies, and only investigate prevention of diseases.
[0] https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/advs.20...
You also save on your heating bill.
Debtor's prison is forbidden in the US Constitution.
Maybe not just any electric signal will do, maybe frequency and amplitude are a factor as well. A 'healing signal'.
Curious research. We'll see what becomes of it.
There's a very cool researcher who used this method to create flatworms with heads (or tails) on both sides. https://www.cell.com/biophysj/fulltext/S0006-3495(17)30427-7
IMO the issue is with unhealthy people, things like poor circulation reduces the body's ability to produce the natural ion gradients and thus why the external electric field helps.
The issue with diabetes is that over time periphery blood supply becames problematic which means healing takes way longer, sometimes never healing at all leading to necrosis (dead tissue).
So you could argue that 'accelerated healing' tissue is a poorer grade tissue by some metric, e.g. connective tissue is not as flexible or strong etc. But in diabetic wounds the alternative to 'accelerated healing' tissue could literally be an amputated limb.
How is it now? Has this been extended to real use outside of research?
> EPFL researchers have demonstrated the first pill-sized bioprinter that can be swallowed and guided within the gastrointestinal tract, where it directly deposits bio-ink over damaged tissues to support repair.
https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-body-electric-rob...
Electric charge of anything is both absolute and relative, but we mostly discuss it in a relative sense. In this case, you could apply (say) 600 mV potential across a 3mm wound, with (say) one electrode on the left and one on the right. Let's say you have a battery taped to your arm with wires leading to the wound (DO NOT try this at home! Playing around with electricity and open wounds is generally insane and could be deadly in nonintuitive ways!) - the relative potential of your body, relative to the surroundings, does not change. The left _of the wound_ is at +600 mV relative to the right, and the right -600 mV to the left, but your body's overall potential relative to your surroundings is unchanged, because again, everything is relative.
In the sense of absolute electric charge (of the body and the wound) essentially nothing changes. The electric current of the wound stimulation is a _flow_ of electrons, but there is no net movement.
"Grounding" (see "energy medicine", "earthing" etc) is mostly based around the sales of overpriced "healing" products that plug into the wall. Like many conspiracies there is a kernel of truth there - there _is_ actually a real, measurable difference (in potential, current flow, and how electric fields behave in your body, among other things) when you are electrically grounded vs. insulated from the ground - but the mechanisms and effects are a bit complex to explain in a comment. For more on the subject you might want to read on capacitive coupling.