I recently went to see a local "physiotherapist" to see if he could assist with a problem with my hip. I was anticipating that we might discuss the problem in detail, diagnose what's wrong, what causes it, what I can do to prevent it/improve it etc. But no, his solution was to stick me under some machine for half an hour and bugger off to attend to another patient.
This machine was for "Pulsed Shortwave Therapy", which apparently uses shortwave radio, delivered in pulses to the affected area. I've attached a photo of said machine. Its the tall one on the left. According to the "physiotherapist" it stimulates blood flow to the affected area.
Does anyone have any experience with this kind of stuff? It seems like the kind of thing that patients and practitioners would discuss on the world wide web, but I can't find much about people's actual experiences.
I felt a very slight warming of the area where the antenna was pointed, but its possible that I was just imagining it. More importantly though I came over all faint. When I went to the reception desk afterwards I actually fainted. Is this fainting likely to be down to the "therapy"? Or just coincidence?
Of course I was no better after the "therapy", and it cost me £36
.
Is this just quackery, or do people actually derive benefit from it?