• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Buzzing the Vagus Nerve Just Right to Fight Inflammatory Disease

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
Potentially it might be helpful to reduce inflammation and neuroinflammation in ME/CFS, especially if you subscribe to the vagus nerve infection hypothesis of ME/CFS.

But note that they are working with the surgically implanted electrode form of vagus nerve stimulation, rather than the external TENS machine-type vagus nerve stimulation devices.

I am not sure if their setup could be adapted for use with external vagus nerve stimulation.


The concept seems interesting: with their setup, using a kilohertz frequency sine wave electrical stimulation of the vagus, they block the incoming (afferent) vagus nerve signals from the body to the brain (signals which trigger inflammatory processes), but they don't block the outgoing (efferent) vagus nerve signals from the brain to the body (which are important for various bodily functions).

If I understand correctly, this kilohertz frequency blocks the incoming (afferent) signals, but not the outgoing (efferent) signals in the vagus nerve. So it is a selective block.

In the study, they say that the inflammatory processes triggered by the incoming vagus nerve signals lead to activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, activation of the sympathetic nervous, and an increase in pro-inflammatory cytokines. So you can block all these effects by blocking the incoming vagus nerve signals with their system.
 
Messages
88
I agree. It looks like it has some potential to treat me/cfs. Hopefully they continue this research and eventually try it in humans.
 

Tammy

Senior Member
Messages
2,181
Location
New Mexico
I believe this only serves as a bandaid for treating symptoms. It's not solving the underlying problem of what is causing the vagus nerve inflammation to begin with which I think is viral related.
 

jepps

Senior Member
Messages
519
Location
Austria
I believe this only serves as a bandaid for treating symptoms. It's not solving the underlying problem of what is causing the vagus nerve inflammation to begin with which I think is viral related.

But vagus nerv stimulation could cause the vagus nerv to kick out viruses and toxins.
 
Messages
88
I believe this only serves as a bandaid for treating symptoms. It's not solving the underlying problem of what is causing the vagus nerve inflammation to begin with which I think is viral related.

A bandaid to me/cfs would be an amazing breakthrough. Secondly, the evidence is pointing away from any sort of chronic viral infection - see Fluge and Mella.

Also, this research is coming out of a biomedical engineering lab so it's not like they are wasting resources on a bandaid, instead of looking for a cure. Their job is not to look for a cure, or to investigate why the increase in inflammation is there; rather they are just trying to shut off/limit the inflammation.
 

JES

Senior Member
Messages
1,320
But vagus nerv stimulation could cause the vagus nerv to kick out viruses and toxins.

I doubt stimulation would "kick out" anything. If your vagus nerve is infected, then the viruses can already travel to the brain through it anyway.

I bought the Nervana device to test how I respond to VNS. Within 24 hours, I noticed massive increase in clarity and for the next 24 hours I felt the best I have in the whole year. After the initial improvement, things got quite quickly worse though and more or less returned to baseline. I need to test again with different schedules and see if I can maintain some of the benefits. But anyway I'd be 90% sure the benefits came from anti-inflammatory actions of stimulating the nerve, and therefore it might not do anything to the disease itself. But for anyone who wants to reduce inflammation, this might be a good tool.
 

jepps

Senior Member
Messages
519
Location
Austria
I doubt stimulation would "kick out" anything. If your vagus nerve is infected, then the viruses can already travel to the brain through it anyway.

I do frequency therapy since a few years. Last summer the therapeuth decided to strengthen above all the vagus nerv, as a result viruses and toxins were tested. Since this time my intolerance for coldness improved a lot near a few other intolerances.
So I assume, this is the result of more energy for the vagus nerv, that in consequence releases viruses and toxins.

Even if the vagus nerv gets infected again from the brain, working on reducing the overall viral load could be important.
 
Last edited:

Murph

:)
Messages
1,799
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...onise-treatment-of-auto-immune-disease.46817/

This general technology (vagal nerve implants to stimulae) is out there and has been discussed round here before (see above link). These guys have fine tuned it by introducing dampening as well as stimulation, which is very clever!

At that link you'll also see that a PR member has a vagal nerve stimulator which is apparently very helpful - its batteries ran out and they promptly collapsed.

The technology is pretty exciting. I happened to watch a BBC doco on this the other night. They eradicated the symptoms of someone with Rheumatoid arthritis who'd been bedbound.

Trials are ongoing, and in a Norway-style situation, it's only a matter of time until a few people with both ME/CFS and the target condition is enrolled in the trial, and we can hopefully pick up some collateral benefit of researchers seeing if it has any effect.
 
Last edited: