Study suggests low dose radiation reduces severe knee pain
A new study suggests that exposing patients with advanced osteoarthritis (OA) to low doses of radiation reduced their pain significantly.
The trial included 114 people with primary knee OA, diagnosed by moderate damage visible on X-rays, and significant pain with walking. They were randomly assigned to one of three groups: very low-dose radiation (0.3 Gy total, spread over six sessions of 0.05 Gy), low-dose radiation (3 Gy total, spread over six sessions of 0.5 Gy), or a sham treatment that did not deliver radiation.
…Each treatment in this trial was 500 mGy, which works out to be 5,000 times the radiation dose of a chest X-ray and around 70 times the dose of a chest CT scan. However, while this sounds like a lot, the treatment delivered in the study is still considered to be low-dose. For radiotherapy cancer treatment, for example, total doses are usually 50 to 70 Gy – so a total of 3 Gy is roughly one-twentieth or less of that.
…Trial participants couldn’t take regular pain meds during the first four months, other than occasional “rescue” meds if needed. No second round of radiation was allowed. The main treatment outcome was how many participants showed significant improvement after four months, as measured by assessments of pain and function.
The 3 Gy group did significantly better than the sham group. About 70% improved vs 42% in the sham group. Over half (57%) of people in the 3 Gy group had a clinically meaningful improvement in joint pain and function scores vs about 31% in the sham group. The 0.3 Gy group didn’t show a statistically significant improvement; about 58% improved. No meaningful differences were seen in blood markers of inflammation or in the amount of pain medication people used. The treatment was deemed to be safe, with no side effects or toxicity reported.
If this result is confirmed, it suggests strongly that especially for the older population there is now a viable treatment for knee pain that avoids surgery and could be far more reliable.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
A new study suggests that exposing patients with advanced osteoarthritis (OA) to low doses of radiation reduced their pain significantly.
The trial included 114 people with primary knee OA, diagnosed by moderate damage visible on X-rays, and significant pain with walking. They were randomly assigned to one of three groups: very low-dose radiation (0.3 Gy total, spread over six sessions of 0.05 Gy), low-dose radiation (3 Gy total, spread over six sessions of 0.5 Gy), or a sham treatment that did not deliver radiation.
…Each treatment in this trial was 500 mGy, which works out to be 5,000 times the radiation dose of a chest X-ray and around 70 times the dose of a chest CT scan. However, while this sounds like a lot, the treatment delivered in the study is still considered to be low-dose. For radiotherapy cancer treatment, for example, total doses are usually 50 to 70 Gy – so a total of 3 Gy is roughly one-twentieth or less of that.
…Trial participants couldn’t take regular pain meds during the first four months, other than occasional “rescue” meds if needed. No second round of radiation was allowed. The main treatment outcome was how many participants showed significant improvement after four months, as measured by assessments of pain and function.
The 3 Gy group did significantly better than the sham group. About 70% improved vs 42% in the sham group. Over half (57%) of people in the 3 Gy group had a clinically meaningful improvement in joint pain and function scores vs about 31% in the sham group. The 0.3 Gy group didn’t show a statistically significant improvement; about 58% improved. No meaningful differences were seen in blood markers of inflammation or in the amount of pain medication people used. The treatment was deemed to be safe, with no side effects or toxicity reported.
If this result is confirmed, it suggests strongly that especially for the older population there is now a viable treatment for knee pain that avoids surgery and could be far more reliable.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I will be forwarding this article to my friend who I just had lunch with (We both had beef / lamb Gyros, deeeelicious! :)
He has pretty bad pain in both knees due to arthritic.
Much appreciated.
Very interesting!
There is definitely something to this. It’s a shame we weren’t studying this type of Stuff for the past 50 years, instead of hating on all things nuclear.
tangentially on a lighter Note:
I happen to own a “Radium Ore Revigator,” stoneware water-cooler. (2 gallon) The interior used uranium-oxide in a porous glaze, and the water then absorbs the “radon and radium.” HAR– It does have a US Patent for the method of incorporating the “radio-active materials,” but otherwise makes no health claims.
The Advertising claims however are wonderfully over-the-top! (This is 1926)
https://orau.org/health-physics-museum/collection/radioactive-quack-cures/jars/revigator-1924-1926.html
(And of course I have the radioactive Fiesta dinnerware collection.)
Not surprised, I have always heard of this. This will be big business for Radium Hot Springs near Banff.
Wayne:
Leave it up to you to report about such a device, and actually possess one!
Very interesting.
The human body has repair mechanisms. Maybe the radiation stimulates them?
Cotour–
The Revigator was a chance find in tiny antique shop in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, in 1994.
I can’t recommend this but, original “Fiesta” Brand Dinnerware, Homer-Laughlin Company, produced between 1936-1943, made extensive use of uranium in their glaze, all colors but Red has the most.
There is a chart at this website below detailing estimated radiation exposure by touching and eating from it.
[“radioactive dinnerware” is regulated under “10 CFR 40.13 Unimportant quantities of source material.” glazed ceramic tableware is exempt from regulation as long as the glaze contains less than 20% radioactive material by weight.]
https://orau.org/health-physics-museum/collection/consumer/ceramics/fiestaware.html
While Fiesta is the most well-known radioactive dinnerware, almost any antique ceramic produced in the USA in the 20th century, with a deep orange/red color is likely to be radioactive including Caliente, Early California (Vernon Kilns), Franciscanware, Harlequin, Poppytrail by Metlox Kilns, Edwin M. Knowles, and Vistosa.
My radiation oncologists have been doing this for years, if not decades. 0.5 Gy every other day. Sometimes giving two courses a few months apart to hands (blocking finger tips), knees and ankles.
Jon from Reading: Do you know anyone in Tucson who does this also?
This reminds me a bit of that (Scott Manley?) video where he found an old toy in the attic surrounded by vacuum cleaners, or some.
Plastic was the first memory material.
The toy would allow you to press plastic spiders into a coin. When heated, they’d pop back into shape–because they had been irradiated. Perhaps this is similar?
The use of radiation on tumors is that the beam emitter moves around such that only the tumor gets overlapping beam paths for a full dose.
Might that be useful in metallurgy?
Casting is crude and nasty. 3D printing is just a smaller version of a three year old squirting a spiral of mustard to copy a pile of dog duke he saw in the yard.
But then, I saw today’s phys.org story called: “Steel production could get a makeover: Study captures real time iron formation at the nanoscale.” There is also something called “AlloyGPT.”
I have often thought that combining knowledge from different fields of endeavor could have its used.
As someone who has a phobia of ionizing radiation, I find this…disturbing. I’ll have my electrons non-energetic preferably below 10eV thank you.
But if I learned anything from the miniseries Chernobyl, it’s that the effects are not linear and relatively low doses seem to be tolerated quite well in the populace. The repair mechanisms of the genome are quite extraordinary.
So have at it, nuke yourselves if you want.
Mike–
“Radiation Hormesis Model,” –suggests that low doses can have beneficial effects via “cell-signaling, genomic instability, and transgenerational effects.”
John–
Current regulation of radioactivity follows the “Linear No Threshold Model,” which assumes risk of damage is linear with respect to dos, any dose. This is valid for moderate to high doses but does not hold for “low doses.” But this is current Public Policy for the most part.
The “Threshold Model” assumes zero effect until a certain threshold is reached. And the “Hormetic Model” assumes positive effects at certain threshold doses which disappear as the dose is increased.
Wayne,
My parents also had those fiesta plates, but I think they sold them when they passed. I remember they were in a display cabinet and never used.
The reason why that jogged my memory was how much they were going for at an antique shop in Montana.
The Linear No Threshold model doesn’t actually have much science behind it. This guy has a whole series of posts: https://jackdevanney.substack.com/
As with a lot of things (cholesterol – heart disease, Keynesian economics, CO2 causes global warming etc etc) the conventional wisdom appears to be flawed when you look into it. The human body certainly does have repair mechanisms which is good news for those on a round trip to Mars as the cancer risk appears to be exaggerated by the LNT model. Just have a good storm shelter for solar storms.
I heard a good quote today… ” The difference between medicine and poison is dose ” ..
Seems very pertinent to this post.
Wayne – was waiting for someone to mention hormesis. You beat me to it
We still have our Fiestaware. Only one orange bowl, though. Cheers –
I’ve always fancied a (slightly! ) radioactive item from the 50’s… I would love one of those kids radiation science kits… Never available over here tho as far as I know, so I’m looking out for a glow in the dark pilots watch , but they crop up only occasionally….I continue to search… And my knees are not in great shape so I could always strap it there from time to time!
Why would this work on knees with no to little cartilage?
Does it regrow cartilage?
I have bone on bone and after 9 years of therapy, Biking, water workouts, steroid shots, PRP, HA shots I’m set for a total knee in November
So please, more info as to WHY this works and for how long?
To: Lee S.
The original of that quote goes clear back to Paracelsus in the 1500s. His quote was: “Only the dose makes the poison.”
Sandra–
They aren’t claiming this “repairs” anything, just that measures of “pain and function” were statistically better than the control group, by quite a bit.
I happen to think there is something to the whole ‘radiation thing,’ but as always; Trust but Verify.
Chris– Excellent valued-added clarification ref: Paracelsus!
Watch out for radioactive spider-bites….
Spiderman (1967)
Intro Theme
https://youtu.be/xsx3JCw62WQ
Will it also work on the back and shoulder?
The fastest growing community in the country is downwind from the nuclear testing. As a kid growing up there, we had people from all over the country moving there for health reasons.
Mostly men, especially farmers who worked outside, died in their 60s. (over exposure?) My hometown was full of widows that lived into their 90s and some beyond. I guess it just proves that too much radiation is not healthy, but those who got lower doses remained healthy. Many of my friends who played outdoors died from tumors, cancers, leukemia.
If you were exposed from the different atomic labs, weapons handling and storage, test sites, mining across the country, the compensation has been raised to $100,000
https://www.cancerbenefits.com/cancer-benefit-programs/downwinders/
The original downwinders website is for sale, but others have the same information… including that Southern Utah experience 20 times the radiation of Chernobyl.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4743810-conqueror-hollywood-fallout-radiation-exposure/
On a sidenote, is this the guy who really shot Charlie Kirk?
https://rense.com/?En
The guy with sunglasses did look to have something between his fingers.
“The Radiumizer”
Rocky Mounty Radium Products Company
‘A particularly dangerous radium quack cure from 1920’
Let’s check it out….Carl Willis (2020)
https://youtu.be/gEKHP2fnWOk
17:21
“EPA RadNet has 140 radiation air monitors in 50 states and runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All stations measure gamma radiation emitted from airborne radioactive particles as they collect on the monitor’s filter. Some RadNet monitors also measure exposure rate, which indicates the level of gamma radiation in the vicinity of the monitor.”
https://www.epa.gov/radnet/radnet-near-real-time-air-data
I recall plans for the treatment of elbows and maybe shoulders, but none for back/spinal vertebrae (schwit). In general, you should be able to call your nearest radiation oncology center.and simply ask if they treat osteoarthritis of the extremities with low doses of. External beam radiation to find out if this is part of their practice. Bob, Radiant Oncology and Arizona Oncology are in your area. They may be able to help with such treatment. If they suggest, 3Gy in 6 fractions, then they match what my guys do.
Also, low doses of radiation are used to stop keloid regrowth, prevent heterotopic bone growth on hip replacements and I heard that it has been used for planter fasciitis (though I have never seen such a case)
On how radiation turned plastic into a memory material
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAiggoGBXD8
https://phys.org/news/2025-10-scientists-memory-smart-plastic.html