A Crazy Idea That Worked The great success of the "Kuznetsov's Applicator" -- on the Russian market as well as in the medical field -- never ceased to amaze me. The word "applicator " in Russian was (I use “was” because one would have a hard time finding the device in Russia nowadays) actually an abbreviation of the Russian words for heath, longevity, and energy and spelled IPLIKATOR. The abbreviation obviously sounded awkward so the Russians started using the word "applicator" which has the same meaning as in English. This device could best be described as "the bed of nails." The ancient Yogi's idea of "the bed of nails" first came to Russia in the mid-19th century thanks to the celebrity Ivan Turgenev and his sensational novel "The Eve." The hero, a revolutionary named Rachmetov, would lie down on nails to challenge his spirit. Thus, it became a symbol of revolutionary romanticism, and was very attractive to liberal youth and quite repulsive to the conservative establishment. It would be wrong to say that the progress of the Applicator was met with the classic resistance of the stagnation period prevalent during Kuznetsov's time: It did not escape the attention of five Moscow clinics, which gave it positive reviews. The Department of Health also gave approval for the IPLIKATOR. It was mass produced and distributed by Kuznetsov's cooperative firm, and could be bought in any drug store. 70 million were bought before a manufacturing collapsed in the 1990s! By this time, the device's unit looked like a plastic button with several pointed needles and little holes so people could sew it on to pieces of fabric. It isn't clear whether the figure "70 millions" meant 70 million buttons or ready-made rugs with a few dozen buttons on it -- the number looks impressive anyway. The case files of the patients took up walls of space in Kuznetsov's office. The line for appointments formed well before opening the doors. A documentary was filmed and aired through the national television. But, at the same time, there existed virtually no ideas on exactly how the Applicator worked as there were no existing professional publications whatsoever. It was the Moscow Institute of Experimental surgery where I first heard about the "Applicator of Kuznetsov". My husband worked for the institute and one day came home very excited about a new method for pre-op treatment of patients resistant to regular medicine, or allergic to it, etc. "Just imagine a rubber mat pierced with needles and a patient has to lie down on it and to stay for an hour or more. They say, it never pierces the skin and hurts for only minute or two, then people get warmed and relaxed, stop sneezing, coughing, and their blood pressure gets normal. In a few days they are ready for their surgeries." The first thing I thought, was: "It's probably because there are so many needles that eventually some of them reach proper acupuncture points." Later I discovered that the inventor’s logic had indeed worked exactly this way. Here is how the story transpired in the late 1970s. The inventor, Ivan Kuznetsov, was a music teacher in a kindergarten. He was the only man on the kindergarten's teaching team that was why one day he was asked to take care of insect treatment of the building. They supplied him with a gas mask and a coverall, but had forgotten to warn him about wearing gloves. Because he was not a professional exterminator, he did all this toxic work with bare hands, and was severely poisoned. He had chronic pain; his impaired peripheral circulation often resulted in muscle spasms so severe that he was unable to move his limbs for weeks. The only measure that worked for him was acupuncture, but this Eastern modality was just making its way to Russia and only a few outpatient clinics offered the treatment for free. As to private practitioners, they charged fortunes and he could not afford as many sessions as was required. For this reason he decided to learn how to perform acupuncture on himself. In this endeavor he failed, because, he said, many points he needed were on unreachable parts of his back. Instead, he invented his Applicator, piercing a sheet of tire rubber with office pins, 1/4'' apart, to lay on with his back. Luckily, the Law of Physics did its job well and with about a thousand single needles sharing the body weight none pierced the skin. As crazy as idea seemed -- it worked! Ivan Kuznetsov filed his invention claim in 1979 and had it granted in 1980. In 1980, a publication about this invention was released in the very central newspaper of the former USSR - "Pravda" (The Truth). By the way, there were actually two central official (unofficial just didn't exist) newspapers: the Truth and the News. Everybody knew a caustic joke about them: "The News is no truth and the Truth is no news." People couldn’t help saying this joke sometimes even jeopardizing their safety: one could get the KGB's attention for lesser a reason. In 1981 the invention was described in the popular science magazine "Inventor and Rationalizer." After that, a number of research institutes in Moscow conducted unofficial clinical trials, with results that have never been published. Here I need to comment on the mystery American term "unofficial clinical trial." There was no such thing as the FDA in the former USSR, there was a Department of Public Health and the minister of this department allowed the device to be manufactured and sold with no trials whatsoever. So the doctors interested in the method were free to try it on their patients whether they wanted it or not (anyway, nobody ever complained). There were quite a few professors in Moscow research clinics that did try it: In May of 1981, the State Institute of Physical Culture conducted 2450 sessions with the applicator. In 1982 the Institute of Neurosurgery recorded the results of 1000 sessions on 30 patients and the Institute of Experimental Surgery tested 75 patients in 750 sessions. In 1983, the Central Institute of Traumatology tried the device on 176 patients and the Department of Facultative Surgery of the Second Moscow Medical School investigated the method's effects on the electrocardiograms of 120 patients with heart diseases. In 1987 the "Medical Newspaper" published an article describing the amazing case the reporter witnessed in Kuznetsov's office: a lady who had suffered from insomnia for years fell asleep after 15 minutes on the Applicator. The author interviewed several medical doctors asking them how they thought the device worked. The answers were quite general ones like "The method aims to increase unspecific stimulation flow to the brain areas controlling general alertness. " Insomnia, colds and flu, asthma, and panic attacks. About that time, I also started using the device for my insomnia (it invariably worked) and after several weeks I realized that my previously frequent colds and flu subsided. I was also able to help a good friend of mine with severe asthma who had not been able to sleep in his bed for several months and had to spend nights sitting in an armchair. He was scheduled to visit a doctor for a second opinion and was asked to abstain from his usual asthma medication (broncho-dilators). As a result, he could not withstand the small physical effort needed to get on his feet to walk to the car. I made him lean forward, spread the Applicator upon his bare back skin, pressed hard and held the pressure for about 20 minutes. Gradually, I could hear his wheezing disappearing, his skin color improved, and he stood up cautiously, made a step forward and smiled: "I hope this medication has not been prohibited!" The Applicator has also worked for my panic attacks. Now, I am going to tell you about an unexpected and incredible consequence of using the Applicator for this particular malady. Believe me I would never risk my reputation telling this story unless it had been well documented by doctors. It happened during the 1991 coup in Moscow. I don't need to tell you how much stress there was for all of us and how much worse my panic attacks had gotten because of the situation. So, I used the Applicator several times a day. At the time, I caught flu or what I thought was flu: I had a bad fever, cough, etc. In a week the flu symptoms disappeared. At this point I need to tell you that my family was preparing to leave for the US as permanent residents (we had obtained our green card because of my husband employment offer by Duke Medical Center). As a result, we had to undergo a medical exam including TB tests and chest x-rays that had to be evaluated by American doctors. We all were given a clean bill of health. I will refer now back to my flu; I had found it very helpful for my fever and cough to use the Applicator. It was in September 1991, and in February 1992, already in North Carolina, I had to repeat my TB skin test as a hospice volunteer. The result was a disaster. I thought I would lose my forearm it became so inflamed and swollen. I rushed to the Duke medical center; my chest pictures were taken again, after which two doctors came in the exam room reproaching me for taking the TB skin test. "After having tuberculosis, you should not ever have the skin tests," they said. I was shocked: "What tuberculosis?! All my tests were squeaky clean in August!" "Well,” they said, "Apparently you had it later. What we could see on your pictures today is a well cured tiny spot in your lung telling us the treatment was timely and effective." I failed to convince them I had no treatment whatsoever but the Applicator. They strongly advised me on regular chest exams and against TB skin tests. Later, I had to go for my chest exams twice a year because I worked in a rehab center and then with newborn premature babies, and all my pictures remained clean till doctors stopped noticing the "well cured spot" in my lung at all. In my early experiences with the Applicator, I figured out that it worked for most everyone's headaches. It worked for my son's respiratory allergy, which was so severe that he had to be home schooled for 2.5 years. One of my friends suffered from some kind of undiagnosed gastrointestinal discomfort for years. After 2 month of laying regularly with her stomach down on the applicator, not only did she finally find pain relief, but also, she could wear her bikini again because of the noticeable toning of her skin. My husband inherited bad varicose veins complicated by weight lifting when he was in his 20s. After a severe accident with trauma and several surgeries, his condition deteriorated: veins swelled, inflamed, he had muscle cramps and was in extreme pain. He was told that he had no choice but surgery. It took us 1.5 months of intensive Applicator treatment to heal his veins, though not completely, to the point he did require surgery anymore. His pain, cramps, and swelling disappeared. Now, when they are back, we know what to do. Now it takes him half an hour to stop pain and cramps any time they occur..