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Hello, hello. Welcome back and thank you so much for tuning in. If you are someone who has MS or honestly any chronic illness and you've been eyeing a vibration plate, maybe you've just heard of the phrase of a vibration plate or maybe you have one sitting in your online cart right now or maybe honestly it's in your living room 'cause you've already purchased one, but you're not totally sure what it is, what the research behind vibration therapy is or how to use it.
That's what we're going to be talking about today.
And I got this idea partially because I've been receiving a lot of questions lately from MSing Link members, as well as those of you that follow me on social media about vibration therapy and specifically vibration plates. And it all started because I am, at this point, almost six months postpartum and [00:01:00] trying so hard to get back into a fitness routine.
Long story short, it's really a story for another day, but I am not consistent right now. And one way that I am rewarding myself when I do exercise is that after my workout, even if it's just 10, 15, 20 minutes, nothing extensive, but my reward is that I use my vibration plate. Now, obviously, I can use my vibration plate anytime, but I just love using it, and so I'm using it as a reward.
So recently, I shared in my Instagram stories that I was on my vibration plate after I exercised for 20 minutes, and I noticed that I had a ton of DMs about vibration plates asking, "What does it actually do? Is it safe for MS? How long should I stand on it? Is it the same thing as my foot massager that also vibrates?"
And these are all such great questions, and we honestly already have a few podcast episodes that talk about [00:02:00] vibration therapy, some specifically on vibration plates. So if you want to look up those, it's episode number 252, Which is an interview with the company Pulse Device, which is a vibration therapy company.
Episode 299 is talking about vibration therapy as it relates to vibration plates, and episode number 201 is about improving foot sensation in MS using vibration therapy. But all of those are interviews with other people, and you guys keep asking me what are my thoughts on vibration therapy and vibration plates.
So that's what we're diving into today.
For starters, I'm just going to say right off the bat that I am a fan of vibration plates. Otherwise, I wouldn't have one myself. And I want you to understand how they work because I think a lot of confusion is around how [00:03:00] it's different from electrical stimulation. They are two very different things.
They can kind of feel similar, but they're very different. And because of that, if you think they're the same or that they should work similarly, you are going to be disappointed, and you might think that one is not working when it actually is. But I am a fan of vibration plates, and the reason is because of the basis around vibration therapy.
Vibration has been used as a therapeutic effect in the physical therapy world. So it's not just a cool product that vibrates up and down, but there's actual research behind what vibration does to our muscles And I'll get into that in a second here. But in addition to that, I hear stories frequently from our MSing Link members who use vibration therapy devices.
Most often it is vibration plates, and they [00:04:00] often share anecdotally that their vibration plate has improved their spasticity or better circulation, better help with balance and walking. And so anecdotally, I really have only heard positive things. The most negative thing that I have heard is just that people felt like it didn't help, but I personally have never heard any negative side effects from it.
That doesn't mean they don't exist, but just sharing what I have heard
So in case you don't know what a vibration plate actually is, I want you to be able to picture it. I'm a very visual learner, so I want you to be able to picture it, and then I'm gonna go into how it works, like what it actually is doing to our body. So a vibration plate is simply a platform that you can either sit on or stand on, or you can be sitting on a regular chair, but your feet are placed on the vibration plate.
So you can use it in a lot of different ways, but it's this platform. Usually, it's oblong, kind of [00:05:00] like an oval. One foot is on one side, the other foot is on the other side, and it vibrates. Typically, it vibrates in an oscillating way where it tilts side to side, kind of like a seesaw, where it's pivoting in the middle, so it's going up and down, up and down, up and down.
There are brands that have other options where it can go forward and back and other positions, but the up and down actually is what MS specific research shows to be the best position or way to oscillate because it replicates most closely to how we walk, where we have to bring our legs up and down, then up and down.
So as it's vibrating, if your feet are closer together, the vibration or the seesaw effect will feel lighter
And when your feet are farther out, the vibration is going to feel much stronger. Now, on all of these vibration plates, you can turn the [00:06:00] level of vibration up or down, but just simply where you're placing your feet will affect that too. So again, the closer your feet are, the lighter the vibration is going to feel, and
The further apart your feet are, it's just going to be a bigger effect, a bigger movement
The way that vibration works is that it allows our body to have awareness around what muscles should be working or using. So you actually don't really need any product or tool at all to get the effects of vibration therapy. Essentially, it's literally just you tapping on a specific part of your body, and what that does to your nervous system is it tells your brain what muscles you want to be firing right now.
So before any products, like, really existed, the way we would do this as physical therapists is [00:07:00] if you came to me in the clinic and you had weak gluteal muscles, and I was trying to get you to do an exercise to strengthen your glutes, but it wasn't really going well, maybe your glutes weren't firing. I could use one finger, two fingers, several fingers to literally tap that part of your body, tap your gluteal muscles, and what that does is it's telling your brain, "Hey, glutes over here.
This is-- These are the muscles I want you to use." And it can help reduce other muscles from overcompensating as much. So it's definitely not a magic therapeutic effect where now that you're tapping and you have that vibration on your body, your body's gonna work perfectly or those other muscles won't be overcompensating.
But it definitely is a tool to just bring awareness to that body part so that those muscles start to work more. And that can be really helpful for people with MS, as well as people who just have deconditioning. Because [00:08:00] when our muscles get weaker, it becomes more challenging for them to fire on their own or for them to even remember that they should be working because other muscles are just used to overcompensating.
So those other muscles work overtime, and they get stronger and stronger, and those weaker muscles get weaker and weaker. And it's almost like, I don't know why this is the analogy coming into my head right now, but, like, if you go to a comedy show and you sit in the very back, you're hoping no one picks on you, and you just kind of stay down because you don't want t- anyone to call on you, but then someone does call on you.
That's kind of like what's happening with your muscles. When they get weaker, they just kind of sit low. They don't want to be recognized. They don't want you to know that they're there. They just aren't working. They don't want to work. But then the vibration is like we're tapping on you. Wake up. We're calling on you.
You gotta work now. So I don't know if that makes sense, [00:09:00] but that is very different from electrical stimulation
Electrical stimulation is an electrical current going into your body to turn on a nerve, if you will, and make a muscle fire. It does the work for you, and therefore it feels different, especially if it's higher up.
But if it's low, then it might feel somewhat similar to vibration, because a vibration or a tapping is a very light sensation as well. However, the effect is very different. Again, one is a tapping effect, one is an actual electrical current that is stimulating your nerves and your muscles. The way that I like to think about the difference here is that a vibration or tapping is kind of like someone is knocking on your door
And maybe they're knocking really fast over and over again. They're not stopping, and so it [00:10:00] makes you have to get up and go open the door. No one's opening the door for you. You are the one doing it, but that knocking is the thing that made you get up and, and go do it. Whereas electrical stimulation might be something like
Someone's knocking at the door and then you could say, "Alexa, open the door for me," and it opens the door. So like something or someone else is doing the thing for you. It's not that you actually did it. You had the awareness of what was happening or what needed to happen, but something else did the thing for you
And with vibration therapy, those knocks, that quick repeated knock is a fast vibration that is sending a signal to your spinal cord, and then your spinal cord sends it to your brain, and your muscles actually produce a contraction back automatically like a reflex. It is your own body responding to that stimulation, not [00:11:00] something else that is doing the work for you And that is a huge reason why vibration therapy and tapping really works best when it, complements the other things that you're doing, the other exercises that you're doing, the other therapies that you're doing.
It's definitely not a replacement. It's meant to be used in tandem with the other things that you're doing. I was actually just having a conversation with someone yesterday who said that she loves her electrical stimulation device because she just turns it on exercise mode, but she doesn't have to do anything.
It does the work for her, and she can just be watching TV. Whereas with vibration therapy, you can't really just turn it on and hope that you're gonna get stronger. Your n- your muscles aren't actually going to be producing enough or really any movement because it doesn't move your muscles for you. It just gets them to contract and give you that awareness
I [00:12:00] hope that makes sense. It's a little tricky to explain as someone who is a visual learner because it can be really hard to visualize, but hopefully that makes sense. I want to move more into what people with MS are telling me that they notice when they use a vibration plate.
Because I do not have MS, I am not able to share what it does for MS symptoms. But generally speaking, I can share that for me, it allows my, my muscles and body literally feels like it's tingling afterwards because it's waking up those signals, my brain, my neural pathways, my muscles, and it feels like things are more awake.
I, and I will be honest, I have not been using it long enough to notice any effects in terms of balance or strength or sensation or anything like that. But just the immediate effects afterwards does make me feel like something is [00:13:00] definitely happening in my muscles and especially muscles I haven't used in a while do feel like they are being affected in a positive way.
People with MS, specifically my MSing Link members, are often saying that it can help reduce their spasticity and their muscle stiffness or muscle s- tightness
And because of that, we have a few members who state that they are purely using their vibration plate in the morning because that is when they are the most spastic. So they are timing it in their day so that the effects might have the biggest improvement for them. Another thing that MSing Link members have mentioned is that it has improved their restless legs.
If you don't know what that is, it's can often be called restless leg syndrome. It's an uncomfortable urge to move your legs, typically at nighttime, and oftentimes you're not really in control of it. It's just something that your body does it's restless, that your legs [00:14:00] just keep moving. And one of our members, Kelly, mentioned that she sits with her feet on hers, and she finds it super helpful for her restless legs.
We have lots and lots of MSing Link members who say that it improves their foot sensation, their strength, their balance, and their ability to recover from being off balance. We have a member, Tracy, who said that she started using her vibration plate just seated five minutes on a very low setting, and she noticed fewer pins and needles in her right foot.
And now she stands with her walker over the plate and her feet are on the plate, and she says that she feels stronger and her balance has improved. So these are obviously just individual experiences and not guarantees. And of course, everyone's MS is different, but these are the types of things that I hear most frequently when people are talking about their personal use with vibration plates
Based [00:15:00] on the information that I know
Vibration plates are a really wonderful way to either get into an exercise routine or even just make you feel like you're doing something good for your body, because they can be very simple The research shows that you do not need to be on a vibration plate for 20 minutes or 30 minutes or an hour or however long your exercise routine normally is.
The research shows to start with just two to three minutes, so really, really short sessions more often. So you could just do one round per day of two to three minutes where you're standing on it, or even you're sitting on a chair but your feet are on it for two to three minutes, and that's all that you do.
Or you could do that twice a day or three times a day. But it's, it's non-invasive. It's to your comfort level. All that matters [00:16:00] is that in some way, shape, or form, a part of your body is on the vibration plate, whether it's your feet, whether you're standing on it. You can sit on it, so it could be your butt, whatever it might be.
But starting low. I know actually we have lots of MSing Link members who said that they started with just one minute. So truly, it does not need to be this long thing. And most vibration plates actually stop at either 10 minutes or 15 minutes because you typically don't need much more than that. A lot of my MSing Link members who share that they are seeing improvements are still just around the five-minute mark, some just three minutes once a day or three minutes a few times a day.
So I just, I say this because I don't want you to think that it needs to be this huge, long practice. You can simply, as I mentioned, sit or stand on it or just place your feet, or you can do exercises on it. As you heard me just say, I think it was Tracy [00:17:00] who has her Rollator around the vibration plate.
She's standing on it. So you can use something like that for support if your vibration plate doesn't have something for you to hold onto, and you could do some exercises on it. And the way that works, because your whole body is on it, it's not as specific as the tapping that I was referring to earlier where it's tapping a specific muscle.
It's almost like it's waking up all of the muscles in your body. And so those ones that were in the crowd kind of crouching down because they don't want to be called on, they're being called on now, but in addition to all of your other muscles too. But it can help them work more. So for example, one of my MSing Link members mentioned that she likes to do an exercise that we have inside the MSing Link called glute squeezes, and the goal is to wake up your glutes, strengthen your glutes. And when she does them just seated or standing away from the vibration plate, she doesn't really feel them working.
But when she's doing [00:18:00] them standing on the vibration plate, she does feel them working a bit more. So again, it's just the idea of reminding those muscles, waking them up, reminding them to work when you're using them, when you're exercising with them
And one of those podcast episodes that I mentioned earlier where we were specifically talking about vibration plates, it's an interview where I interviewed Debbie Pelletier she actually suggests a slightly faster speed for MS because low speeds can sometimes feel choppy and make you feel more off balance, whereas a faster speed can feel a little bit smoother.
So if you're brand new to starting out, possibly going at a faster speed might feel smoother for you. Feet closer to the center is going to be less intense, as I mentioned earlier. And I would recommend not doing any exercises on it. Just get the feel for what it's going to feel like. With that said, I do just wanna share, it can [00:19:00] be easy to overdo it because it feels so light and because it feels so good.
A, a lot of people would say it feels like a massage for their body or like a massage for the inside of your body. It can even help with digestion and internal things, not just our muscles. But for example, one of our MSing Link members, Jessica, shared that for the first time that she did the vibration plate, she felt totally fine, and then afterward she felt like she had done a full core workout and it was very fatigued.
And especially with MS, fatigue often shows up after you do something, not during. So just keep an eye on that. Even though it's gonna feel good and it's not intense and it feels very light, I would encourage you not to just say, "Oh, I'm just gonna do 10 minutes." That's fine. Still start low. Slowly improve over time.
If you truly didn't feel sore or anything after, maybe add 30 seconds or one minute next time. [00:20:00] But You're probably gonna like it. A lot of people do. Don't let that be a reason that you mistakenly overdo it
And we talked a bit earlier about timing, you know, whether you use it once a day or a few times a day. And I just want to share that there's no single correct schedule. There's no best protocol for anyone really, but especially not people with MS. These examples that I've been giving you of what my MSing Link members have found to be helpful, they're really all over the map with how frequently they use them.
Tracy uses hers five to 10 minutes twice a day. Jessica uses hers two to three times a week. I remember we have a MSing Link member, Rhonda, who I think uses hers once daily. So it's truly different, and they're all seeing some pretty impactful things regardless of their routines being different
As always, I just feel like I have to share that before you start anything [00:21:00] new, even if it's just an exercise, but especially something like vibration therapy or electrical stimulation or really anything, making sure that you're checking with your healthcare provider, whether that's your neurologist, your in-person physical therapist, your general practitioner, whoever it is, they know you and your care and what you've already tried and what worked and what didn't work.
So they're going to know best if this is going to be safe for you. So just a reminder to check in with them. They're gonna be your best friend, hopefully, as you start having more questions like this. And even if they do give you the go ahead, if something just feels off, just stop, and you can bring it up with your healthcare team at your next session.
But this wouldn't be a situation where you'd have to just keep doing it because you know it's helping other people or you know, well, other-- so many people say it feels good, maybe it'll feel good if I just keep doing it. It might, but it also might not. So if it just feels [00:22:00] off, if it doesn't feel like a good fit for you, you know, I would recommend just stopping.
A lot of the companies out there have like a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you will know within those 30 days if it's something that you like and you'll use versus something that you won't
I just wanna end on my take on a few questions that have come in specifically on vibration plates. And the first question is: How long does it take to notice a difference? So I feel like you probably know my answer to this, which is it's different for everyone. you know, it really does vary a lot, and there is no single timeline.
I mean, nothing with MS has a timeline like that. So I really don't have an answer for how long it takes to feel more strength from a vibration plate or more balance or improved sensation or anything like that. But I can say that I'm confident that the tapping [00:23:00] feeling, that vibration feeling gets to work right away. It's something that can turn on those muscles right away.
Now, how long they stay on is a different question. That's why a lot of people that I know do actually exercise on the plate once they feel safe enough to and balanced enough to, because they want to get the biggest bang for their buck as it comes to their muscles working. They've got that signal helping them understand what muscles to use, and they're exercising at the same time.
But you could be doing that for one month and start to see improvements, or three months or a year. You know, it truly is so different for everyone. But if you're anything like me, the sensation component of just feeling that tingling, that does happen for me right away. When I step off of it at the end, I can feel that my muscles were being affected. And that sensation of the tingling probably lessens for me within 20 minutes or [00:24:00] so
If you want more specific guidance on the tapping component of this and by, and using vibration for specific muscles, I'm going to guide you to the MSing Link podcast, episode number 252. That is the one with Ethan Polak from the Pulse device. Whereas if you want more specific information on using a vibration plate, that would be the MSing Link podcast, episode number 299 with Debbie Pelletier.
And if you're specifically looking for more information on foot sensation, like numbness, tingling, burning, pins and needles, and things that we can do for that, that is going to be our podcast episode with Dr. Emily Splichal, who is a functional podiatrist, and that one was episode number 201
Another question that I'm frequently asked is what brands do I like? So I'm gonna be honest, the brands that I like [00:25:00] are just the ones that I've used personally. It's not that I like them over a different brand because I haven't used those other brands. But my vibration plate is the LifePro, and I actually believe that I have a discount code that you can use.
If that's true, I will put it in the, show notes or description for you to use. but LifePro is the one that I've used. They have really great customer service as well. And then for the individual muscles being affected by the vibration and the tapping, Pulse is the company, that I like for that.
So I'll put links to those in the show notes, but those are the brands that I trust. They-- Pulse also has really good customer support. They actually just recently came out with their 2.0 version, which lasts longer, and I believe it can be a little bit stronger, than the original one. But I really like those two companies
Another question is how much do these cost? And at least with [00:26:00] LifePro, but I'm assuming it's the same with any company, the prices really vary. It just depends on the features. Some of them are so fancy. They're Bluetooth, and you can tell it to turn on and raise the vibration levels or lower it, which honestly can be very helpful if you have difficulty bending forward or bending down to press the buttons.
They also do have remotes though. But in terms of price, they can vary anywhere from around $150 all the way up to $800 or more, depending on those features
The final thing that I want to share with you when it comes to vibration plates is that oftentimes the pricier ones that are bigger because of their features, such as they might have handles and resistance tubing and bands that you can use to d- exercise your upper body while you're on it, or some of [00:27:00] them come with weights, they can be heavier.
Mine is a little bit of a fancier one, and it is heavier. I leave it in one place, and I don't move it because it's a little hard to move. So if you are going to be the one using this and you don't have someone who can move it for you, or if you just want that flexibility to use it and then move it away and maybe store it somewhere else, consider how much it weighs.
L- look at that when you are choosing one because again, just some of them are a little bit bulkier and heavier, and that could be a barrier for you if you don't want it to just be out all the time or be in the same place all the time
The last thing that I want to leave you with is that while we were just talking about vibration therapy and vibration plates, and I am a fan of both, you do not need a fancy machine or piece of equipment or product or tool [00:28:00] to make progress. If vibration plates interest you and if you want to use them, and if they do help you move more or feel like you're doing something good for your body and you're able to use it as a reward or to stay consistent, then great, and that, that is truly amazing.
It's a huge win. But you don't need it. If you don't have one and/or you're not interested, it's not like you will only see improvements if you add in vibration. It's just one tool in our toolbox of different things that we can try. And if you do get one and use one, just a reminder, start slow, start with a low level of vibration.
Again, feet in, take it easy and slowly work your way up. But regardless of what you choose, all movement counts. You've got this
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