Vagus Nerve Stimulation Relieved Her Rheumatoid Arthritis Pain When Nothing Else Worked
Plus see easy, natural ways to improve vagal tone at home
When Dawn Steiner awoke one morning with joint pain so severe she couldn’t even lift her arms, she knew something was wrong. Though she didn’t realize it at the time, she was experiencing symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), an autoimmune condition that can trigger debilitating flare-ups. And it wasn’t until she discovered something known as vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) that she was finally able to find lasting relief. Here, her story of overcoming joint pain.
Steiner’s symptoms came on fast and hard
Steiner, a 58-year-old speech pathologist from Massapequa, New York, was going about her normal day-to-day life when she was overcome with intense pain one morning in January 2009.
“I literally went to bed one night, like every other evening, then woke up in the morning and couldn’t raise my arms,” explained Steiner. “I was in terrible, terrible pain. It was hard for me to move.”
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Despite the pain, Steiner tried to go about her day as best as she could. She hoped her discomfort was from something more benign, like sleeping in a weird position or straining a muscle, and that it would fade on its own in a few days. “My husband helped me get dressed, and I went to work and did the very best I could,” Steiner said.
Her family history clued her into rheumatoid arthritis
While Steiner was at first confused about what could be causing her symptoms, she soon realized that her family history gave her a clue as to what might have triggered her pain.
“While I was shocked that this had happened to me, I did have a feeling that it could be rheumatoid arthritis,” Steiner said. “I have a significant family history for rheumatoid arthritis, as well as other autoimmune diseases.”
Within two weeks, Steiner was able to get in to see a rheumatologist, who ordered various tests. “Technically I was in pain without knowing exactly why, but it was established pretty quickly that it was something rheumatologic, based on my history of other autoimmune conditions and a significant family history,” Steiner said.
Traditional meds didn’t ease her arthritis symptoms
In March 2009, after X-rays, MRIs and testing 18 tubes of blood, Steiner finally got an answer for her symptoms. She was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and started taking methotrexate, a medication used to treat inflammatory conditions such as psoriasis, arthritis and even certain types of cancer.
But methotrexate alone wasn’t enough to relieve Steiner’s debilitating symptoms, so her doctors added biologic drugs to her treatment plan. According to the Arthritis Foundation, biologics help reduce joint and organ-damaging inflammation caused by arthritis and other inflammatory diseases.
For Steiner, using biologics was a complicated process. “Whether they were shots or infusions or pills, either they didn’t work at all or they worked for just a few months,” Steiner said. “And the thing is, it takes six months for them to kick in. So you wait,and then it works for a few months, and then you have to wait another month or two for it to be completely out of your system.”
She described the experience as frustrating and painful. “I was not getting the relief that I needed so badly,” Steiner said.
Understanding rheumatoid arthritis
“It’s an autoimmune condition in which the body’s immune system attacks the joints, and you have redness, pain and swelling in the joints, often of the hands, but on other joints as well,” says Kevin J. Tracey, MD, president and CEO of the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research and author of The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes.
“The hands and larger joints can be affected, elbows, knees and wrists,” he says. “The inflammation that occurs in the joints can also affect other organs. And so, in addition to the arthritis component of rheumatoid arthritis, the complications of inflammation can affect other body systems, like the kidneys. It’s a serious condition.”
Dr. Tracey says while there are many theories about what causes rheumatoid arthritis, there’s not a clear consensus that medical professionals agree on.
Steiner decided to try vagus nerve stimulation
While biologics were failing her, Steiner, who is very active in rheumatoid arthritis social media groups, came across a clinical trial for vagus nerve stimulation and began researching it. As fate would have it, she not only read about the trial online but also saw a sign for it in her rheumatologist’s office.
“The signals traveling in the vagus nerve are like the brakes in your car—they stop inflammation.” —Kevin J. Tracey, MD
Shortly after, Steiner decided to enroll in SetPoint Medical’s clinical trial. This involved getting an implant that sends electrical impulses to the body’s vagus nerve, which plays a role in everything from inflammation to digestion to regulating your heart rate.
“It did not seem any more scary to me than any of those meds that I was on. So I decided to give it a try,” Steiner said. Steiner’s implant was placed in July 2023, and she began receiving stimulation just a few weeks later.
She said the procedure took around an hour. While Steiner was under general anesthesia, a small, wireless device about the size of a multivitamin was implanted along her left vagus nerve in her neck.
“I went to the hospital in the morning, and I was home by lunchtime,” Steiner said. “Then all I had to do was just change the bandage for two weeks. It really wasn’t a big deal.”
What is vagus nerve stimulation?
Dr. Tracey, who played an instrumental role in vagus nerve stimulation research, shared that although Steiner and other clinical trial participants may be utilizing the treatment for the first time, he and other researchers have been studying this method since the 90s.
“The fundamental discovery we made in the 1990s was that the vagus nerve signals travel from the brain to your immune system, your spleen and other organs,” says Dr. Tracey. “And the signals traveling in the vagus nerve are like the brakes in your car. They stop inflammation.”
Dr. Tracey says the type of vagus nerve stimulator placed in Steiner in SetPoint Medical’s clinical trial is called an immunoregulator and is extremely small.
“It’s in this little teeny device,” says Dr. Tracey. “You have a battery, you have an ASIC, a computer chip, you have the contact points—the lead wires that touch the vagus nerve—and you have antennas to transmit signals to the doctor’s tablet.”
When the device is turned on, it begins sending regular electrical signals to the vagus nerve. “Once the wound is healed, you can’t see the device,” Dr. Tracey says. “It’s underneath the muscles in your neck.”
Vagus nerve stimulation improved Steiner’s arthritis symptoms
With her hopes hinged on the tiny pulse generator implanted in her neck, Steiner was amazed to discover that she began noticing improvements in her rheumatoid arthritis symptoms within a week.
Steiner now receives vagus nerve stimulation for one minute each night while she sleeps. Most of the time she doesn’t feel it, but when she does, it’s brief and doesn’t interfere with her rest. “It’s a strange feeling,” Steiner said. “It is not at all painful…..and it’s only for one minute. You can handle anything for a minute.”
Two years after she began receiving VNS, Steiner says she has experienced no side effects. Instead, she has only experienced relief and a renewed sense of freedom from rheumatoid arthritis pain, and has no intention to remove the device.
“There were times where I spent the entire weekend in bed or on the couch, because all I could do was go to work every day and do my thing there,” Steiner said. “And now I’m exercising. I’m going out. I’m living my life again.”
How to stimulate your vagus nerve naturally
While the trial Steiner enrolled in is now closed, there are other ways you can stimulate your vagus nerve if you’re seeking relief from inflammatory conditions such as RA. There are over-the-counter handheld devices, such as the Truvaga Plus, that you place along the vagus nerve in your neck for a few minutes a day to help balance your nervous system and support vagal tone.
You can also practice vagus nerve stimulation through simple (and free!) remedies such as singing or breathing in the scent of certain essential oils. See our round-up of how to stimulate your vagus nerve naturally here, as well as easy vagus nerve exercises here.
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