Vagus Nerve Stimulation in Rheumatoid Arthritis

[Dennyh24]

I recently saw a news item on Sky News (from 2014) which showed a trial of Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) that had proven very effective in the treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis. I have looked on the web and contacted Dr Peter Tak who led the trial to see if there had been any developments - he said they published their study on it "Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 2016 vol. 113(29) pp. 8284-9

Vagus nerve stimulation inhibits cytokine production and attenuates disease severity in rheumatoid arthritis"

My question is, how could I find out if I could get this treatment, ideally a clinical trial? I would be willing to pay if need be.

Thanks for any guidance.

[helixhelix]

You have to look to see if there is anything seeking participants at the moment

nhs.uk/conditions/clinical-...

And some background here

nras.org.uk/what-is-clinica...

[Dennyh24 in reply to helixhelix]

thanks, I had looked through some sites but these are new ones. Sadly no trials but I will keep an eye on these.

[Troygirl]

drarielleschwartz.com/natur...

[Dennyh24 in reply to Troygirl]

very interesting and worth a go, thanks

[Zatty]

Not sure about how to get on the trials but others have answered on that…

Might be worth a Google about stimulating the vagus nerve in other ways though in the meantime if you haven’t already ? From what I have gleaned, deep breathing (I think with the longer out breath although that could just be relaxation generally), gargling and singing are all good ways to stimulate the vagus nerve. Obviously not as measurable, targeted and probably not as effective as being part of the trial but just a thought…! Good luck 👍

[Dennyh24 in reply to Zatty]

thank you, I hadn't heard about this

[CarolyneJA]

Singing, how interesting!