#wbv

I went into my vibration experience led by an enthusiastic friend, who told me it had made an enormous difference in her recovery from a traumatic head injury and some of the resulting chronic pain.

She told me this stuff has been researched by NASA, may help you get the benefits of exercise without as much work, and have produced some pretty miraculous results in certain patients---one adherent swears up and down that her mother’s Alzheimer’s improved significantly from daily use.

I was skeptical, but since buzzy stuff appealed to me anyway---and I do, after all, run a chronic illness and disability blog---I decided I should definitely give it a go!

Something you should know, and that I kinda figured, before going in: Whole Body Vibration (whole body vibration) is somewhat disputed. It’s not that it hasn’t been shown to help people (it has), but due to the varied ways one can practice it, the different conditions it’s been tested for, and the fact that it’s just a pretty new idea, results have been quite mixed. Here’s an article that breaks down the details of the inconclusive research.

Also, a caution: take it easy on this stuff, do your research, and talk to your doctor! Among other things, constant or frequent vibration is considered an industrial hazard, so you definitely don’t want to overdo it. Here are some things to keep in mind as you decide if regular vibration is right for you.

So all that said, it’s gonna be a hit or miss for you lovely readers. But as you may know with alternative treatments: when it’s a hit, it’s a hit. And it sure was for me!

I got a warm welcome from the gal at the front desk, who was also one of the folks who runs the studio. She gave me a whole tour of the machines and plenty of interesting anecdotes. Then she pointed me towards a “walking” machine and got me started, saying this would give me some of the benefits of walking without actually... walking.

The platform vibrated back and forth in a stepping motion (left side down, right side up; right down, left up), and I worked to keep my balance (that’s a tough one on this machine) while chatting with her and one of the gym members. The environment was really friendly and relaxed, and the clientele seemed to be mostly folks with chronic conditions or injuries.

As I stood, I found that lowering my center of gravity kind of changed where I felt the vibration the most, and engaged different muscles. As someone with joint hypermobility, I immediately liked that: engaging my muscles can often realign my joints, and I could feel things ever so slightly slipping back into place as the minutes passed. That immediately put me on cloud nine, because although I’ve found ways to kick some of my joints back into place, I definitely haven’t found the trick for all of ‘em.

It also occurred to me that this could be great for my POTS, since doctors literally tell you to bounce up and down, cross and uncross, and otherwise engage your leg muscles to improve circulation. Maybe that’s why vibrating sounded so viscerally delicious to me.

We moved to different machines, flat platforms where I got to try just sitting and lying down---both nice, and both engaging different muscles to different intensities. I tried a few PT exercises, wondering if their effects would be heightened since my muscles were going to be more mobilized. Inconclusive for me, but it sounds like, anecdotally, it can make a big impact on recovery.

One machine, which was programmed to move through different vibration speeds and muscle groups, was kind of weird: it did something bizarre to my pelvic floor, which felt like a big, full-pelvis yawn. I have a lot of weird muscle stuff going on there after a nasty run with vestibulodynia, so I’m not surprised. It wasn’t bad, though, and I wondered if my muscles were engaging in a healthy way for once in their ding-danged lives.

Speaking of pelvic floor stuff, one of my fun issues in this life is poor bladder control, so I wanna warn you: you get too much targeted vibes, and you’re gonna feel real concerned real fast. I felt like some muscles were relaxing a little too much, and got a couple of leaks and threats of worse. So be careful with that one.

All in all? I really loved it. If I lived closer, I would be going decently often and considering getting a membership. For me, it was kind of like going to one of the local spas (i.e., public hot tubs): feels nice, good for my health issues, a little spendy and more on the self-care side of things than some of my Vital Health Expenditures.

So I do fully recommend it: in fact, I passed it on to a couple people and several of my doctors. And now I’m here telling you about it!

As with most alternative or less-researched treatments, the info out there varies wildly in quality. I dug through and found a few decent articles for you to check out:

Whole-Body Vibration and Blood Flow and Muscle Oxygenation: A Meta-Analysis (Games, et. al.)

Six weeks of whole-body vibration exercise improves pain and fatigue in women with fibromyalgia (Alentorn-Geli, et. al.)

Whole-body vibration may be as effective as regular exercise in mice (The Endocrine Society)