FSM Ushers in New Era of Medical Treatment for Chronic Pain

Since the mid 1990’s FSM, or Frequency Specific Microcurrent, has been gradually altering the landscape of the chronic pain treatment community and is beginning to affect quite profoundly the way chronic pain and numerous other medical conditions are being treated worldwide. Raphael J. D'Angelo, M.D., of Aurora, Colorado, is among the proponents in the medical community who advocates the merits of FSM and administers FSM therapy to his patients in his everyday practice. Dr. D’Angelo defines FSM as follows: “FSM is the application of specific frequencies of electrical current to the human body. The current is in millionths of an ampere called micro amps, which is below the threshold of sensation. In other words, the current is so tiny that the person receiving a treatment can't feel it.” (1)

Lay people often confuse FSM with EMS, Electrical Muscle Stimulation, which is an electrical device that stimulates the muscles and can usually be found in a physical therapist or chiropractor’s office. Other people confuse FSM with a TENS unit, or transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, which most people with chronic pain are familiar with or have at least heard of.

“A "TENS unit" is a pocket size, portable, battery-operated device that sends electrical impulses to certain parts of the body to block pain signals. The electrical currents produced are mild, but can prevent pain messages from being transmitted to the brain and may raise the level of endorphins (natural pain killers produced by the brain).” (2)

Although FSM is neither an EMS or a TENS unit, an FSM device is licensed and approved by the FDA, Food and Drug Administration, as a form of a TENS unit as are all microcurrent devices. However, both EMS and TENS units carry an electrical charge which is thousands of times greater than an FSM unit. (3)

Dr. James Oschman, Ph.D., a biophysicist, states in his book, Energy Medicine, the Scientific Basis, that science has proven that the human cell is organized as a liquid crystal which conveys and stores current, electrical charge and vibrational information. “Every part of the body, including all of the molecules so thoroughly studied by modern science…form a continuously interconnected semiconductor electronic network. Each component of the organism, even the smallest part, is immersed in and generates a constant stream of vibratory information.” (4)

In 1991 German scientists Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann earned the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine "for their discoveries concerning the function of single ion channels in cells." (5) They developed the "patch clamp technique" for measuring electrical current in living cells. (6)

Once the ability to measure electrical current in cells was discovered, it was learned that diseased or injured cells carry a different current than healthy cells. Either disease or trauma may affect human cells, altering their electrical makeup and frequencies. David G. Young, N.D., explains that “when an injury occurs to a tissue, the electrons in the affected tissue take on a different vibrational characteristic, unique to that injury or other abnormal condition. As the vibrations of the electrons change, it is believed the electrons concurrently may also change to a different “orbit" from what was normal for that tissue type.” (7) Sometimes such cell alteration produces chronic pain.

FSM applies minute frequencies of electrical charge to the human body to correct those alterations, thereby relieving the pain. FSM advocate Raphael J. D'Angelo, M.D., of Aurora, Colorado, states that “Frequency Specific Microcurrent is an energy that supplies informational frequencies to our cells and tissues that will eliminate dysfunctional energies and  restore vibrational normality.” (8)

Dr. D'Angelo further states “Dr. Albert Abrams in the early 1900s found very specific frequencies that had predictable therapeutic effects and is given the credit for the start of frequency specific microcurrent. Today, the Abrams Frequencies are still in use and selected frequencies have been validated in modern research studies.” (9) Those frequencies discovered by Dr. Abrams and other frequencies detected by many other doctors and osteopaths of the early 20th century are the basis for modern FSM therapy.

Dr. Carolyn McMakin, D.C., who is recognized as the founder of modern day FSM and the leading world authority on FSM, (10) is probably more responsible than any other medical practitioner for motivating medical providers to employ modern FSM therapy to relieve chronic pain. Dr. McMakin has traveled the globe presenting to her medical colleagues her re-discovery of these same electrical frequencies and the application of these frequencies in FSM medical devices thereby making the new FSM therapy possible.

In the following paragraphs Raphael J. D'Angelo, M.D., explains how he was introduced to FSM:

“I was introduced to this cutting edge technology at a medical conference in 2002.  Dr. Carolyn McMakin of Portland, Oregon, the leading world authority on FSM, was demonstrating its capacity to heal injured tissues.  Her subject was a doctor who had a torn rotator cuff of the right shoulder that had been surgically repaired three months earlier.  He had been in rehabilitation and still could not get his right arm past horizontal.”

“She put on electrically conductive gloves attached by wires to a machine that allowed her to change the frequency and current to each glove.  Dr. McMakin then proceeded to place her gloved hands over his right shoulder directly in contact with the skin.  She worked on different muscles, tendons and nerves over twenty minutes and at the conclusion she had his right arm easily over his head without pain!  As a physician that deals with sports injuries and pain syndromes, I was convinced that this revolutionary technology needed to be offered to my patients.” (11)

The following video about FSM is produced by Dr. McMakin:

Dr. McMakin is the one who applied the discoveries of all of the doctors and scientists who came before her into the science of FSM therapy thereby enabling medical treatments of countless chronic pain syndromes and other medical conditions. In our next article we will discuss many of the conditions that may be successfully treated with trigger point therapy, acupuncture point therapy and FSM therapy.

• Trigger Point Needling to Alleviate Pain

• Referred Pain? What's That?

• What Are Trigger Points?

• Managing Chronic Pain
  

Citations

(1, 3) Frequency Specific Microcurrent Theory, by Raphael J. D'Angelo, M.D.,  http://www.fsm4u.com/page3.html; Retrieved 11/3/2009.
(2) “What Are TENS Units?” From About.com; http://arthritis.about.com/od/assistivedevicesgadgets/g/tensunit.htm; Retrieved 11/03/2009.
(4) Energy Medicine, The Scientific Basis; by James Oschman, Ph.D.,
(5) The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1991, http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1991/. Retrieved 11/05/2009.
(6) Ervin Neher and Bert Sakmann, 1991 Nobel Prize laureates for physiology and med, http://www.ionchannels.org/showabstract.php?pmid=1373344&redirect=yes&terms=1991+nobel+prize+winners, Retrieved 11/5/2009.
(7) Frequency Specific Micro current - What is it and how does it work?, by David G. Young, N.D. (Doctor of Naturopathy), http://pages.prodigy.net/naturedoctor/microcurrent.html, Retrieved 11/4/2009.
(8) Frequency Specific Microcurrent Theory, Raphael J. D'Angelo, M.D.,  http://www.fsm4u.com/page4.html; Retrieved 11/4/2009.
(9) Frequency Specific Microcurrent Theory, by Raphael J. D'Angelo, M.D., http://www.fsm4u.com/page2.html; Retrieved 11/4/2009.
(10, 11) Frequency Specific Microcurrent Theory, by Raphael J. D'Angelo, M.D., http://www.fsm4u.com/page6.html; Retrieved 11/4/2009

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Trigger Point Needling to Alleviate Pain

http://pain6.blogspot.com/2009/10/chronic-pain-referral.html
Trigger Point Needling is a commonly used method to alleviate pain from trigger points, which are knots or hardening of muscle fiber. The procedure is generally performed by a medical doctor or osteopath and can be either in the form of dry needling or the doctor may inject a pain killer such as lidocaine or even botox into the trigger point to ease the patient's pain.

Injecting lidocaine into a trigger point is very similar to getting any type of injection, except that with a trigger point injection, the doctor wants the medicine to reach a specific area in a specific muscle as opposed to the medicine generally entering the patient's system.

Lidocaine "is widely used for infiltration, nerve-block, and spinal anesthesia in a 0.5 to 2 percent aqueous or saline solution and is also applied to mucous membranes (2 to 4 percent) for mucosal anesthesia." (1) Because lidocaine is a fast acting anesthetic, pain relief may be almost immediate depending upon the reason for the trigger point flareup.

According to Dr Janet Travell, "trigger point injection requires careful positioning of the patient and often needling at both the central and attachment trigger point regions to be successful." (2) After trigger point injection the physician will also usually prescribe several visits to a physical therapist for "bimanual release of tightness in the vertical and diagonal muscle fibers" (3) of the muscle immediately surrounding the trigger point.

In addition the physical therapist will also prepare the trigger point for manipulation by either icing down the trigger point and surrounding muscle or applying a vapocoolant spray over the muscle and painful areas prior to manual manipulation.(4) The goal of both the injection and the physical therapy is to coax the trigger point to relax its tight grip on the muscle.

Figure 1 shows a perpendicular injection into a trigger point, which is the injection into the central area of the trigger point that was previously mentioned. Figure 1 also shows a similar injection into the trigger point at an angle in the inset picture. Many physicians will inject straight in and at angles to the right and to the left to insure reaching all areas of the trigger point needed to ease the patient's pain.

Botox, or Botulinum Toxin Type A, is injected in a similar manner that lidocaine is injected. Botox is a drug developed from a toxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which is the same toxin that causes food poisoning or botulism. (5)

This is the same botox that dermatologists and plastic surgeons use to treat facial wrinkles to make their patients look younger. Doctors also use botox in small doses to treat "Cervical dystonia - a neurological disorder that causes severe neck and shoulder muscle contractions." (6)

Cervical dystonia and the neck and shoulder muscle contractions are a fancy way of saying that the trigger points in those muscles are working overtime and causing the muscles to contract to the point of causing severe pain. If you can get the trigger points to relax their grip on the muscle, the pain will subside.

"Botox injections work by weakening or paralyzing certain muscles or by blocking certain nerves." (7) A muscle that is weakened or cannot contract will also not be able to cause pain by overcontracting.

The negatives of botox are that its effect ony lasts from three to six months after which the needling procedure must be performed again to continue to ease the pain. Botox can also cause pain in the injection area and even worsen the symptoms that you are trying to eliminate.

When botox is used to treat cervical dystonia, the pain in the general area of the injection will increase somewhat for a week or ten days, after which the pain caused by the trigger points will ease or dissipate completely. However, the treatment can occasionally backfire by increasing pain in the injection area and never easing, leaving the patient in an even worse state of pain and never easing the pain.

Botox can also cause flu-like symptoms, headache and upset stomach. According to the Allegan, Inc. web site, which is the company manufacturing botox, other side effects may include: "dry mouth, discomfort or pain at the injection site, tiredness, headache, neck pain, and eye problems: double vision, blurred vision, decreased eyesight, drooping eyelids, swelling of your eyelids, and dry eyes," problems swallowing, speaking, or breathing, or a spread of toxin effects to other areas of the body. (8)

Dry needling is performed in the same manner as injecting lidocaine or botox, however, no medicine is injected into the site. The needling itself is sometimes enough to induce the trigger point to relax. Dry needling can be performed by an acupuncturist or a medical doctor.

The following video is an example of how a doctor performs dry needling on the infraspinatus muscle:

The efficacy of any of the forms of needling will naturally depend upon the reason for the flare up of the trigger point. In the case of a trigger point flareup caused by trauma, such as an auto accident,the flareup may subside completely after treatment or may return because of permanent injury such as spinal cord injuries.

• Managing Chronic Pain

• Referred Pain? What's That?

• What Are Trigger Points?
  

(1) Dictionary.com. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lidocaine, retrieved 10/25/2009.

(2, 3, 4) Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction: The Trigger Point Manual; Authors: Janet Travell, MD and David Simons, MD. p 491.

(5, 6, 7) Medline Plus - Botox. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/botox.html. Retrieved 10/26/2009.

(8) Botox Cosmetic. http://www.botoxcosmetic.com/. Retrieved 10/26/2009.

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Referred Pain? What's That?

Experiencing referred pain means you are experiencing pain in one muscle or area of the body, but the source of the pain actually comes from a trigger point in an entirely different muscle. Sometimes this occurs in a body part lying a significant distance from the referring trigger point.


In another post in which we discussed "what are trigger points" we learned that the trapezius muscle has a trigger point about midway between the shoulder and the neck lying atop the torso. (See figure 1)

Two more trapezius trigger points lie next to each other at the juncture of the shoulder and the neck, indicated in yellow on figure 1, although the posterior point is the more frequent culprit causing referred pain.

These trigger points "will consistently refer pain above the trigger point into the neck - this is a major source of "tension neckache." As the pain intensifies, it will extend to the side of head, centering around the temple and behind the eye. On occasion, pain will also flare up in the angle of the jaw. When referred pain from this trigger point is combined with other myofascial trigger points, this almost always results in extreme tension headaches." (1)



The trapezius is probably the muscle most often beset by myofascial trigger points. It is a frequently overlooked source of temporal...headache. (2)

In Figure 2 note how the trigger points of the upper trapezius refer pain to the side and back of the neck, traveling up the neck, over the ear to the temple. In addition they also refer pain to the jaw.

If you were beset with fierce temporal headaches and you and your medical practitioner were both unaware that trapezius trigger points referred pain to the temple causing temporal headaches, you would constantly be misdiagnosed for the cause of your headaches.

That is why it is so important to visit with a medical practitioner who has been trained in the diagnosis and treatment of trigger points.

• Managing Chronic Pain
• Trigger Point Needling to Alleviate Pain
• What Are Trigger Points?
  

(1) Aid My Headache. http://www.aidmyheadache.com/pain-mappings.en_us.php. Retrieved 10/22/2009

(2) Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction: The Trigger Point Manual; Authors: Janet Travell, MD and David Simons, MD. p 279

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