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I think Earthing cured my dysautonomia/POTS

ukxmrv

Senior Member
Messages
4,413
Location
London
Earthing was popular in the early 90's in the UK for ME and CFS. I had an engineer with an interest in this visit my house and install a device that he had invented. Also he rigged up what would have been maybe an early version of the earthing sheet for the bed. Sadly, this had no effect on my main ME symptoms or POTS. At that stage I didn't realise it was called POTS of course.

My cortisol is very low in the mornings and increases during the day a little so a different chart to the one posted previously. Most of my ME symptoms are viral. POTs was dx'ed in the late 90's or just after the Rowe paper.

In the mid/late -90's I was given another version of the mat for my bed but once again it had no effect that I could feel or see.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
ukxmrv
Perhaps earthing only works for a certain subset of people. I was very surprised by how noticeable the effect of earthling myself during sleep was; I woke up the following day feeling profoundly rested — I had the sort of very good night's sleep that you pretty much never ever get once you have ME/CFS.

However, today, the day following the second night of sleeping earthed, I felt terrible, with significant sound sensitivities, and yucky depression. I think I am not going to do earthing when I go to bed tonight, just to give myself a break; I don't want to go through another badly depressed day like today.

I suspect this depression arises from Th1 immune system activation, and I think earthing may have activated my Th1 immune response. Every time I take any supplement that boosts the Th1 branch of the immune system (like oxymatrine, inosine, Astragalus, etc), I suffer significant depression. The depression is due, I understand, to interferon which is part of the Th1 immune response (the depression arises because interferon causes tryptophan breakdown in the brain, and as tryptophan is a precursor to serotonin, it causes serotonin levels to drop, leading to depression).
 

ukxmrv

Senior Member
Messages
4,413
Location
London
Really sorry to hear about the different effects from the earthing and the immune stuff Hip ,

I don't suffer from depression and when my serotonin levels were tested (by a USA lab) they were normal. What does affect my mood is antibiotic use for a prolonged period and once a brand of Melatonin, the rest of the time I'm fine. Immune modulators don't cause this side effect for me.

I've had TH1/TH2 testing and they showed the classic CFS pattern my doctor said but as you say subgroups and that's just my luck for once not to get depression as a particular symptom.
 

anne_likes_red

Senior Member
Messages
1,103
Hip, if you slept outside touching the earth do you think you'd have a reaction like that?

I had a bad reaction earthing to an underground stake overnight. The first night was fine, but same as you I crashed after that (swollen glands and feeling generally terrible in my case).
Thing is..I never got that same reaction spending a week camping last Summer with my feet (at least) on the bare ground, in a river, and even out the end of my tent on wet grass overnight! :rolleyes:
It's all a bit of a mystery to me! I do use a grounding strap while I use my laptop but I'm a bit scared to try using it overnight again.
 
Messages
30
Location
Atlanta, GA
Even though I have experienced die-off from this, I imagine it is much less severe for me because my cfids is in remission, so I am able to detox dead viruses a lot more easily than someone with active cfids.

I do wonder how long the die-off from earthing would last for someone with active cfids.

I found in my treatment of cfids that it was very much a "no pain, no gain" deal. When I first took Famvir, I had horrendous die-off for 2 weeks. I literally did not sleep and had so much anxiety it was like hell on earth. After that, I felt significantly better for a year-- still had to nap at 4pm, but felt almost normal during the day. Then, when I took Valcyte, I herxed horribly for 4 months. Again, no sleep, torture, anxiety, inability to function, bedridden. When I stopped taking Valcyte, I got better and better until I felt 100% normal. It was like I had to kill enough viruses to get sick in order to get better.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
Hip if you slept outside touching the earth do you think you'd have a reaction like that?

I had a bad reaction earthing to an underground stake overnight. The first night was fine, but same as you I crashed after that (swollen glands and feeling generally terrible in my case).
Thing is..I never got that same reaction spending a week camping last Summer with my feet (at least) on the bare ground, in a river, and even out the end of my tent on wet grass overnight! :rolleyes:
It's all a bit of a mystery to me! I do use a grounding strap while I use my laptop but I'm a bit scared to try using it overnight again.

Very interesting Anne.

My very speculative hunch is that both the good and the bad symptoms precipitated by earthing may result from an increase in parasympathetic nervous system activation, along the following lines:

On the very first night you sleep with earthing, your parasympathetic is increased, and so your sleep becomes very relaxed and profound.

However, a day or two later, this increased parasympathetic activation has a knock-on effect on the immune system, and you may get a Th1 immune reactivation (the antiviral response), and so then you start to experience some bad symptoms, as your body ramps up its fight against viruses.

If you look at all the ME/CFS therapies that are designed to reactivate the Th1 mode (like oxymatrine, inosine, and interferon infusions), they all make you feel worse before you feel better.

So assuming earthing your body during sleep is indeed precipitating a Th1 immune response, you might expect to feel worse before you start feeling better.

I am going to use earthing a little more cautiously now: I might use earthing during sleep one night on, and the next night off, in order to limit the severity of the bad symptoms it produces. Then once I have got through the bad symptom period (assuming these bad symptom do disappear after a while), I may then use earthing every night.


Regarding the fact that you never had these bad reactions to earthing when you were camping, with your feet on bare ground and wet grass: it is possible that even standing on wet grass, you don't get the same quality of electrical contact with the earth as you do with an electrical earth rod that goes down 10 feet into the ground. And when you slept with your feet poking outside the tent on the wet grass, you may have only had a very small area of your heel or toes in contact with the grass, which may not have made a good earth connection.

I was glancing through this document: A Practical Guide to Earth Resistance Testing, which details how engineers can test the quality of an earth connection. The electrical resistance of the soil plays a big factor in the quality of the earth connection: the lower the soil resistance, the better the earth connection. Factors such as dampness of the soil (not just at the surface, but all the way down) lower soil resistance, and so improve the earth connection of your earth rod. It is very hard to get a good earth in dry sand, for example.

I don't think you are going to get a better quality earth connection than the one you already have in your home's mains electricity system.


Another possibility is that the electrically conductive bedsheet itself does something in addition to earthing you. Such a bedsheet may have some degree of Faraday cage effect, insulating you from electromagnetic radiation like mains hum and radio waves. Or the fact that this conductive bedsheet will electrically link your body from head to toe may have some effects also.

It is a bit of mystery.
 
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Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
I found in my treatment of cfids that it was very much a "no pain, no gain" deal. When I first took Famvir, I had horrendous die-off for 2 weeks. I literally did not sleep and had so much anxiety it was like hell on earth. After that, I felt significantly better for a year-- still had to nap at 4pm, but felt almost normal during the day. Then, when I took Valcyte, I herxed horribly for 4 months. Again, no sleep, torture, anxiety, inability to function, bedridden. When I stopped taking Valcyte, I got better and better until I felt 100% normal. It was like I had to kill enough viruses to get sick in order to get better.

I am always impressed by such heroic attempts to bear horrible symptoms for weeks or months, with the objective of ultimately attaining an improvement in ME/CFS. I tend to give up very quickly when the negative symptoms hit. Though I unfortunately often get hit with severe depression as a negative symptom, and this is very hard to deal with.
 

Sparrowhawk

Senior Member
Messages
514
Location
West Coast USA
Yes, agree. Water your ground post, in other words, to get a better connection!

A warning here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/frequ...jA2Rtc2cEc2xrA3Ztc2cEc3RpbWUDMTM3ODE3NTczNw--

Gal found out that her ground connected to her water pipe had 7 amps going through it, made her sick using the grounding sheet. So may not be enough to check with the plug in ground detector, you may also have to try a current flow meter out by your ground connection/fuse panel.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
I had a bad reaction earthing to an underground stake overnight. The first night was fine, but same as you I crashed after that (swollen glands and feeling generally terrible in my case).

By the way, anne_likes_red, when you earthed yourself during sleep with an underground stake, did you use an electrically conductive blanket covering the whole bed, or did you just tie an earth wire around your ankle or arm? I am just wondering whether you used a whole bed earthing blanket, or just earthed your body at one point, like via an ankle.
 

anne_likes_red

Senior Member
Messages
1,103
Hi Hip, I use a wrist wire. So, I'm connected at just one point. Perhaps this is not ideal for overnight?
I guess I could easily enough modify it to connect to a sheet stitched all over with metal thread. It's just a matter of finding time to do it. :)
The wrist/wire strap is alligator clipped to a springy plastic coated wire which plugs to a special wall socket which is wired directly (through the wall and under the house) to a grounding stake.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
anne_likes_red
No, your method seems fine. It proves that even just being connected to earth via one point of the body, like a wrist or ankle, this still produces powerful effects.

I myself was earthing using an electrically conductive sheet of silver coated material, large enough to cover most of my bed. But from your experience, it seems this is not actually necessary: even a very simple earthing system, with a conducting wire running to the wrist or ankle, apears to work fine.

So this means that anyone wanting to quickly check whether earthing works for them need not buy an electrically conducting blanket in the first instance; they can test so see whether earthing benefits just using a wire connected from earth to their wrist or ankle.
 

ABC

Messages
4
Ask2266,
I'm having a hard time believing any of the so called benefits of "earthing" but if people are willing to spend some $ on magic bed sheets, I don't see why not. I just have a hard time believing this is a "cure" for anything. Are there benefits to the real "grounding" aka walking barefoot or swimming in the ocean - I ain't gonna say no, but from there to saying that 2 weeks of sleeping on a plugged in sheet cured your dysautonomia ...that's one bold statement.
My 2 cents.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
I'm having a hard time believing any of the so called benefits of "earthing" but if people are willing to spend some $ on magic bed sheets
If you read this thread, ABC, you'll see that you don't need to spend any money to try out earthing. All it requires is an old bit of electric cable, one end bared and tied around your ankle, and with the other end electrically connected to an earth point such as a stake in the ground. A simple and easy thing to set up, at zero cost if you have some old electric cable lying around the house.

Given this ease and simplicity of setup, wouldn't it be a better idea for you to try out earthing out yourself, and then speak from a position of experience?
 

SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
There's no scientific basis for this treatment. You ground yourself many times during the day by touching things that are grounded to the earth. If all these magical physical improvements happened as a result of grounding (earthing) yourself, you could go walk outside barefoot for a few minutes and be sure of being "well grounded". ;) No expensive equipment needed.

However, if grounding (earthing) makes you feel better, great! Frankly, if digging up daisies by moonlight makes you feel better, I'm not complaining. When you feel as lousy as most of us do, we'll take anything that helps us feel better. :D
 

SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
All it requires is an old bit of electric cable, tied at one end around your ankle, and with the other end connected to an earth point such as a stake in the ground.

Seriously? I read this to my daughter who is a graduate student in engineering. She suggests that walking barefoot will give the same effect without the whole "I've been kidnapped" tied-to-a-stake-by-the-ankle vibe. But if you want to try the whole electric cable around your ankle thing, make sure you use a metal stake. A wooden or plastic one will act as an insulator. Oh, and make sure you don't use an insulated cable (most electric cables are insulated). That will also ruin the effect.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
There's no scientific basis for this treatment.

What, you mean apart from these studies found on PubMed detailing the various physiological effects that grounding the body causes (which I quoted earlier in this thread)?

You ground yourself many times during the day by touching things that are grounded to the earth. If all these magical physical improvements happened as a result of grounding (earthing) yourself, you could go walk outside barefoot for a few minutes and be sure of being "well grounded".

Such touching of objects is an occasional and momentary grounding, not a continuous one that remains constantly in place throughout your night's sleep. You cannot compare the two.

Seriously? I read this to my daughter who is a graduate student in engineering. She suggests that walking barefoot will give the same effect without the whole "I've been kidnapped" tied-to-a-stake-by-the-ankle vibe.

And how do you propose you maintain a barefoot connection to the ground outside your house or apartment while you sleep?
 

SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
What, you mean apart from these studies found on PubMed detailing the various physiological effects that grounding the body causes (which I quoted earlier in this thread)?



Such touching of objects is a momentary grounding, not a continuous one that remains constantly in place throughout your night's sleep. You cannot compare the two.



And how do you propose you maintain a barefoot connection to the ground outside your house or apartment while you sleep?

Look, you're welcome to believe in earthing. I'm looking for an explanation based in physics and electrical theory before I buy in. I'm looking for controls, blinding, and replication. You don't have to have the same scientific criteria I do.

I do suggest that if you want to try earthing, you at least follow the basic principles of electricity. Your average electrical cable will not conduct electricity when wrapped around your ankle and tied to a stake in the ground. That's just woo-woo. If you want to tie something around your ankle, go for some bare copper wire directly connected to a metal stake jammed in the ground. That, at least, will move some electrons if there's a potential difference between you and the ground.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
SOC
My Bachelor's degree was in mathematical physics, so I think I should be capable of understanding the concept of stripping off the insulation from a cable in order to get an electrical connection!

In terms of replication of data, why don't you simply become your own test subject for earthing? I find it strange when people offer skeptical opinions, but for some reason, decline from actually performing any testing. Three days ago I would not have thought earthing could have anything but the most negligible effects. Nevertheless, even though I was a little skeptical, my first action was to test earthing empirically myself, since it is so easy to do.

After the very first night of sleeping earthed, it became immediately obvious to me that there are significant effects involved. Though others on this thread have tried earthing and experienced nothing, so these effects are apparently not universal.

I am myself looking for explanations in terms of physics and biochemistry, and I don't yet have any answers or theories. But I do know without doubt that earthing has a potent effect, because I experienced this effect first hand.

If you try yourself, one of two things will result: either you experience these same potent effects, in which case your doubts will disappear; or you will be one of the people who experience nothing, in which case you will probably remain skeptical.

I cannot yet say whether the effects of earthing are going to be of benefit; that remains to be seen; I have just started experimenting. For all I know, earthing may have negative health effects. But from my experiences, that earthing has an effect is not in any doubt.
 
Messages
30
Location
Atlanta, GA
Bioelectricity is a new field (excuse the pun) about which we know very little. I have been in touch with a professor of bioelectricity at Duke, and he said that there aren't even any introductory textbooks on it yet. Therefore, I choose to experiment on the unknown rather than assume I know something. All great scientists stay open minded until there is data refuting a position.