'Nerve Hack' Offers Arthritis Sufferers Hope - Amazing

[rebel11]

People with arthritis have been offered fresh hope after patients were effectively cured using a revolutionary electronic implant.

Doctors used tiny pacemaker style devices embedded in the necks of patients with severe rheumatoid arthritis to "hack" into their nervous systems.

The implant - whose effects were exclusively demonstrated to Sky News - fires bursts of electrical impulses into a key nerve that relays brain signals to the body's vital organs.

 

 

http://news.sky.com/story/1396464/nerve-hack-offers-arthritis-sufferers-hope

[citizenB]

This is fantastic news if it does actually work. My Gran suffered dreadfully with Rheumatoid Arthritis - her hands and feet dreadfully distorted making life very miserable.

[rebel11]

More then half showed an improvement, they trialed it out with 20 patients, more then 50% showed an improvement.

 

It sounds like it works, but needs a bit more research.

[Conniff]

If you look deeper, it doesn't cure it, all it does is relieve the symptoms

[rebel11]

It's an alternative to meds, which are hit or miss. With this I believe it's a magnet that's a person uses to activate the implant, once activated, it takes 3 minutes to start working. You have to do that once a day. So it doesn't cure it. But you end up totally symptom free. No swelling of the joints, no pain etc.

 

If you look deeper, it doesn't cure it, all it does is relieve the symptoms

[Conniff]

I wonder what the long term prognosis is.

[wobbly]

This gadget wont reverse the joint damage that has already been done,it may reduce the need for some of the high strength pain killers and dmards.

From what I read it helps the body to reduce the production of some of the joint destroying antibodies which are responsible for eating the joints away.

[Conniff]

I hope it works, for the sake of the millions of suffers, and that they keep the cost within reach of everyone.

[rebel11]

No doubt some scientists somewhere are working on that.

 

This gadget wont reverse the joint damage that has already been done,it may reduce the need for some of the high strength pain killers and dmards.

From what I read it helps the body to reduce the production of some of the joint destroying antibodies which are responsible for eating the joints away.

[wobbly]

A big problem that rheumatoid suffers have is when they are first treated they are given old fashioned drugs to try and slow it down,as they dont always work damage continues to the joints,more expensive drugs which have more side effects are then tried which a lot of people cant tolerate so the damage goes on and on.Eventually they may be given one of the anti TNF drugs which in my wifes case slowed furthur progression down.Unfortunatly the joint damage had already been done.Lets hope this new treatment will be used early on when first diagnosed to prevent the irreversable joint damage that occurs.

[sillygirl1]

It won't do much for osteo-arthritis either, where the crumbling bones catch on nerve endings and trap them - so in a way it is a 'stop-gap' treatment to get people off pain medication - which in a way isn't too bad a thing.