Diabetes Interview
The News Magazine for the Diabetes Community Since 1991
Issue 77; Vol. 7 No 12 - December 1998
Magic Sock: New Wave in Neuropathy Treatment
An electrotherapy sock work while sleeping is being hailed as the new wave of diabetes foot care. Prizm Medical, Inc., manufacturers of the SilverThera™ Stocking Electrode, has enlisted top diabetes foot care researchers to verify the claim that the socks electrotherapy releives foot pain, improves circulation and possibly regenerates nerves.
Clinical trials of the SilverThera™ Stocking Electrode verified that it releives foot neuropathy with electrotherapy.
Recently approved by the FDA and Medicare, the SilverThera™ Systrem consists of the stocking, which is itself an electrode, and the MicroZ™, which is an attached neuromuscular stimulator that supplies the electric energy.
Lawrence Lavery, DPM, MPH, and David Armstrong, DPM, at the Daibetes Foot Clinic at the University of Texas in San Antonio, have performed clinical tests of the SilverThera™ stocking.They studied 40 people with diabetic foot neuropathy, giving 20 people the SilverThera™ and the other 20 people a sham unit. After 12 weeks, says Armstrong, the SilverThera™ proved to heal wounds about 70 percent more often.
Armstrong admitted that before the trials they were skeptical, as electrotherapy was considered a "pseudoscience." Yet the problem, he said, was that it was always hard to judge electrotherapy because doctors never knew the precise foot area on which to apply electric currents. With the sock, the currents are spread throughout the entire sock, covering mid-calf to toe, says Armstrong.
Two other studies conductred at the University of Texas have shown that the sock helps reduce neuropathic pain and improve blood flow, although at numbers less dramatic than 70 percent.
The technology behind the sock is based on physiology, where electrical stimulation facilitates the movement of ions or energy, from cell to cell. Johnson explains that in the human body, energy travels from cell to cell through electrychemical physiology, or the exchange of ions. Normal human skin is electro negative - while wounds are electro positive. In the normal healing process, the body forms a "battery," the wound turns negative, thus completing the healing cycle. "With this garment, we're mimicking that," says Jim Johnson, president of Prizm Medical.
"Blood circulation is a round trip ticket," says Johnson. The arteries bring oxygen and nutrition to the cells to heal. On the return trip, the veins pull off carbon dioxide, waste and edema. "If circulation is disrupted through diabetes, " says Johnson, "you can't efficiently get oxygen to heal, and you can't get waste to leave."
Johnson continues by saying that taking drugs releives pain, but does not heal. "If you improve Circulation, you're helping healing."
Both Johnson and Armstrong, have accentuated the need for people to use the SilverThera™ in conjunction with proper disease management, like proper nutrition, exercise and glucose management.
Guaranteed by Prizm Medical for three months, the stocking can be washed in cold water or a gentle cycle in a washing machine. Johnson predicted, that with proper care the garment should last six months to one year.
The SilverThera™ must be prescribed by a doctor and is covered by Medicare and other insurance policies. Call Prizm Medical at (800) 447-4422 for more information.
~S. Kellaher
December 1998
For More Information Contact:
Prizm Medical, Inc.
3400 Corporate Way, Suite I
Duluth, GA 30096
Tel: 770-622-0933
FAX: 770-622-9392
Internet: info@prizm-medical.com
NEWS - Diabetes
Clinical trials of Prizm Medical's SilverThera Stocking Electrode verified that it relieves foot neuropathy with electrotherapy.