’Grounding’ - and anti coagulants?? - Atrial Fibrillati...

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’Grounding’ - and anti coagulants??

JFJ131 profile image
46 Replies

wondering about grounding and the alleged health benefits from it…but also have heard that need to be careful if on anti coagulants as it can ‘thin the blood too much’. Anyone heard of this, or have any advice at all please.

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JFJ131 profile image
JFJ131
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46 Replies
Cavalierrubie profile image
Cavalierrubie

Not practiced this myself, but what l can understand of grounding is that it interacts with anticoagulants. I wouid need to research this further before l went ahead.

JFJ131 profile image
JFJ131 in reply toCavalierrubie

Yes, that’s the concern. Thanks for your reply.

CDreamer profile image
CDreamer

Does that mean that we should never go barefoot ever again? Indoors I never wear shoes and often outdoors in milder weather. My understanding of ‘grounding’ may be different to yours but I don’t see how it can possibly interfere with anticoagulants?

Grounding to me means standing barefoot on sand, grass, bare earth or even concrete. I try to practice this daily, even in the winter. The worst thing we can do is wear plastic soles. I know there are all sorts of gadgets such as grounding mats etc and appliances to fix to electrical circuits but in UK all our electrical appliances are grounded, which isn’t the case in every country in the world.

I have just googled and seen AI says if on anticoagulants ‘it may ‘thin the blood’ too much’ but since the viscosity of blood doesn’t ever change on anticoagulants I would love to know the original source of the evidence that put forward that hypothesis?

I have found one paper in the journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine saying that it can be of benefit to CVD and ‘reduces viscosity and cell clumping’ but doesn’t mention anticoagulants other than Warfarin and the only paragraph on the subject reads

However, there are anecdotal reports that patients using blood-thinning drugs, such as warfarin (Coumadin®), need to have their clotting time monitored when they begin to make more frequent conductive contact with the earth.

Note ‘anecdotal’ research.

PS - This was a very small trial of 10 people using TENS machines.

What the paper’s authors did conclude was that it earthing or grounding is excellent for Parasympathetic ANS and inflammation and I certainly always felt much better after a walk along the beach with my feet in the sea. The rest is pure marketing.

BenHall1 profile image
BenHall1 in reply toCDreamer

Hiya CD,

Just read your response .... your first two paragraphs ... I totally agree ! The remainder of your response, even though I am a Warfarin user, I have no experience so can't really comment. Indeed, I go barefoot everywhere in the house, and even short distances in our courtyard circumstances permitting.

As I think you know, I have my own INR blood testing device for home testing which gives me a big "PLUS" because I can, and do, an INR test anytime ......... but most assuredly .... Warfarin does not thin blood, Warfarin merely affects the blood viscosity which in turn is measured by this INR thingy.

John

CDreamer profile image
CDreamer in reply toBenHall1

Well I think you know my feelings on the use of euphorism - Blood Thinners!

SlothOnSpeed profile image
SlothOnSpeed

I think grounding is safer than boxing. Seriously, I don’t think it’s an issue when using some common sense.

BobD profile image
BobDVolunteer

Totally agree with CD and Ben. Anybody or thing that uses "blood thinners" instead of anticoagulants should be disregarded.

Autumn_Leaves profile image
Autumn_Leaves in reply toBobD

😂😂😂

Tapanac profile image
Tapanac

anticoagulants are not blood thinners. Designed to stop blood clots hence strokes.

Don’t know about “grounding”. I wander the house quite often with bare feet. Quite often on the grass in the summer too

All the best

jeanjeannie50 profile image
jeanjeannie50

I cant see any way that grounding could have an effect on our blood viscosity. It sounds utterly ridiculous. Next someone will be saying picking your nose, or combing your hair has an effect. Honestly, I think I've heard it all now.

Jean

OldGrit profile image
OldGrit in reply tojeanjeannie50

maybe forest bathing might have some effect and if combined with grounding …could be risky. Picking of the nose at the same time … potentially life endangering.

However a barefoot walk in the woods at the right time of the year is very very relaxing and I recommend it for that.

Auriculaire profile image
Auriculaire in reply toOldGrit

Not if you pick up ticks! Any walking in woods barefoot or even in sandals or flip flops should be followed by a careful examination for ticks . Especially if like here there are deer or wild boar in the woods.

JFJ131 profile image
JFJ131 in reply toAuriculaire

How lovely … the wildlife ..not the tics!

Auriculaire profile image
Auriculaire in reply toJFJ131

One attracts the other! And deer and boar are very shy. In 23 years living here I have never seen a boar and only seen a deer 3 or 4 times.

BobD profile image
BobDVolunteer in reply toAuriculaire

We have roe dear round here in Devon who break into the garden and hoover up all the wind fall apples. Only in the last two or three years but they seem to be multiplying. We had one on our front terrace nicking bits of rose bush the other morning.

Auriculaire profile image
Auriculaire in reply toBobD

British deer less shy than French ones?

BobD profile image
BobDVolunteer in reply toAuriculaire

Runs off if he sees anybody. Very rural where we are. Ten houses in a very narrow lane with countryside all around.

OldGrit profile image
OldGrit in reply toAuriculaire

So far tick free … but you’re right about the risk but I don’t do it often and keep a sharp eye out …

Autumn_Leaves profile image
Autumn_Leaves in reply tojeanjeannie50

Picking my nose causes nosebleeds, so that means it’s “thinning” the blood, right?

😂😂😂

jeanjeannie50 profile image
jeanjeannie50 in reply toAutumn_Leaves

Hmm, that made me laugh - took a while for the penny to drop. That's an old expression of mine that we don't hear too much of these days. 😂🤣

Ppiman profile image
Ppiman

From what I know from science, marketing and reading, I have concluded that the claimed medical effects from grounding is pure fantasy.

The idea that sleeping on a grounded sheet can "thin the blood" is part of the marketing sophistry that sellers use on social media to convince people to part with the money. The same is happening with "vagal stimulators" I see, and, indeed , many medical products sold via Facebook and the like where spurious claims are stilled, crazily, allowed.

Caveat emptor.

Steve

Autumn_Leaves profile image
Autumn_Leaves in reply toPpiman

I couldn’t agree more! Touching a radiator is much cheaper!! 🤣

Ppiman profile image
Ppiman in reply toAutumn_Leaves

What is most fascinating, often frustrating and occasionally exasperating, is that people who have been gulled will mock those who point out the science, however tactfully it is done. I suspect that we are in the most anti-intellectual, anti-rational age since the Enlightenment brought a whiff of reason to the human mind. I blame online life and social media where the snake oil vendors are having a field day with their new way to print money.

Steve

Autumn_Leaves profile image
Autumn_Leaves in reply toPpiman

It’s been shocking to learn how gullible some people are, but on the other hand how wilfully ignorant some people can be. This week’s manufactured outrage is all about having left-wing milk forced upon us, or something stupid like that. Since 2020 I’ve been stunned at the level of stupidity even amongst friends. And yes, it’s the social media garbage they watch, and the algorithms keep feeding them more nonsense. I have to put strict boundaries over the content I consume online and even then I start having rubbish showing up on my feed. I hate YouTube these days for that very reason. My friend has fallen down some of these online rabbit holes and it’s as if her IQ has halved as a consequence. It’s terrifying. Or maybe she’s losing her marbles prematurely, I don’t know. The anti-intellectual sentiment is a bit of a disturbing trend. Certainly the 20th century was a great era not just for the advances in science but in art and literature too. As for health information/misinformation it’s like watching a disaster movie in slow motion right now.

Ppiman profile image
Ppiman in reply toAutumn_Leaves

My darling brother today was telling me he was inflamed by Arla, then asked me if I knew who that was... It seems he didn't. When I explained it was a co-operative uniquely made up of very many small farmers, of just the sort he was lauding volubly recently when Labour changed the death duty rules, he was amazed. I despaired.

I think social media is a kind of mirror. The Narcissus myth was always oddly interpreted, but, still, narcissism is what FB and its ilk can easily become. Narcissus and Echo, eh?

Steve

Autumn_Leaves profile image
Autumn_Leaves in reply toPpiman

Oh I see! Being a co-operative explains why it’s “left-wing” milk! 🤣

My friend was flummoxed when I asked her what the G in 5G stood for. “It’s a type of radiation.” 🤦🏻‍♀️ This is someone with a university education and went to school with those “middle class women of a certain age”! All I can say is that either it wasn’t much of a school OR she was the dunce!

Ppiman profile image
Ppiman in reply toAutumn_Leaves

Universities give out more First Class degrees than ever in history. We are getting much better educated, year on year.

My mention of “mirror” brought this most beautiful, sad and profound poem to my mind. I hope you enjoy it.

The Sylvia Plath poem, “Mirror”.
Autumn_Leaves profile image
Autumn_Leaves in reply toPpiman

Thank you!

Autumn_Leaves profile image
Autumn_Leaves in reply toPpiman

He’ll have to buy his campylobacter immunity shots directly from Jeremy Clarkson’s farm then! 🤣

Ppiman profile image
Ppiman in reply toAutumn_Leaves

One of his heroes, along with Farage and Trump.

Sadly, I read, Romania is heading in a populist direction. Hungary is already there; even dear France is worrying me. What is happening to our beautiful world?

Steve

Autumn_Leaves profile image
Autumn_Leaves in reply toPpiman

It’s a horror story unfolding in front of our very eyes. It’s terrifying that people vote to destroy the very institutions that they benefit from directly. My supposedly educated friend voted for that awful man because she thought that the “smaller parties deserve a chance”. She actually voted for Laurence Fox when he stood as mayor. I have gone off her big time! I’ve known many people who vote differently from me but they’re intelligent people and we can get along just fine, but this friend has gone a bit doolally on all that rubbish that proliferated online since the pandemic. Then she wonders why her friends ignore her. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Brightness14 profile image
Brightness14

It also depends on your blood type. I have O Positive so thinner than some anyway and less strokes and heart attacks. I don't, take anticoagulant but I do wander around bare foot and have done for years.

Ilovedogs12 profile image
Ilovedogs12

Well this is all new to me! I had never heard of grounding until I read the post, and hadn't a clue what it was until I read the responses.

I'm still not much wiser but I think I get the gist.

I think it's basically walking around barefoot.

Yes? 😁

JFJ131 profile image
JFJ131 in reply toIlovedogs12

Yes it is. And it’s supposed to recharge us. Something to do with the negatively charged electrons which get rid of the free radicals that do damage.

jeanjeannie50 profile image
jeanjeannie50 in reply toJFJ131

This was one of the first recordings re grounding:

youtube.com/watch?v=EcHEWH8...

Jean

Looking through it I can see parts have been updated.

JFJ131 profile image
JFJ131 in reply tojeanjeannie50

Thanks Jean

Ppiman profile image
Ppiman in reply toIlovedogs12

I suspect that the word "wiser" and "grounding" have no right to occur in the same sentence.

;-)

Steve

Ilovedogs12 profile image
Ilovedogs12 in reply toPpiman

😁

Autumn_Leaves profile image
Autumn_Leaves in reply toPpiman

🤣🤣🤣

TillyBoss profile image
TillyBoss

Sounds a bit woo woo

Autumn_Leaves profile image
Autumn_Leaves in reply toTillyBoss

It sounds like a load of utter ****

JFJ131 profile image
JFJ131 in reply toAutumn_Leaves

Probably a bit like vegetarianism or veganism I suspect

frazeej profile image
frazeej

Grounding??????? I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous! If you wear a foil hat, will that increase or decrease the alleged effects from “grounding”? Good grief!

JimF

JFJ131 profile image
JFJ131 in reply tofrazeej

Ok … as you wish

Autumn_Leaves profile image
Autumn_Leaves in reply tofrazeej

The hat keeps the grounding in! 🙃😂🤣

pusillanimous profile image
pusillanimous

I've never heard of 'grounding' so I've no idea what it is. I'm always bare foot at home (South Africa) although on the cooler winter days I wear a pair of socks- I begrudge having to wear shoes or sandals to go out ! How is this thin blood supposed to manifest itself?

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