AU2004201863A1 - Garment and method for pain relief - Google Patents

Description

54464 KMC:PFB P/00/011 AUSTRALIA Regulation 3.2 Patents Act 1990 COMPLETE

SPECIFICATION

FOR A STANDARD

PATENT

ORIGINAL

Name of Applicant: IAN ROSS BAGSHAW and STANLEY JOHN FARQUHAR Name of inventor: IAN ROSS BAGSHAW Address for Service: COLLISON CO.,117 King William Street, Adelaide, S.A. 5000 Invention Title: GARMENT AND METHOD FOR PAIN RELIEF Details of Associated Provisional Applications: Australian Patent Application No. 2003902141 Dated 5 th May 2003 The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to us: This invention relates to both garments and to a method of using a garment that has advantage in providing pain relief.

It is currently known to use a fabric having a number of very fine steel wires integrated there through to surround portions of a human body to reduce pain.

A material commercially sold as "FARABLOC" provides this characteristic and there is significant research which establishes that in a number of cases this provides a useful effect.

The reason as to why surrounding a portion of the body with such material, provides some advantageous effect is simply not as yet understood.

There have been studies which have replicated external magnetic fields and by this means have been able to induce pain that appears to be identical to that experienced conventionally by a potential sufferer but the actual reason as to why such pain occurs at all is simply not understood.

It is possible to speculate that the use of a fine steel screen would have the effect of shielding some parts of the body from external magnetic fields or perhaps electro magnetic signals and it is perhaps for this reason that in all of the examples given so far by those persons providing "FARABLOC" they provide a fully encircling screen around a relative body part.

For instance, they will provide a sleeve or a sock or a fully surrounding body shield.

The problem to which this invention is directed relates to firstly the discovery that the use of this type of material has been found to be useful to relieve the pain and discomfort experienced by women having periods.

This so called menstrual pain causes considerable concern among those who suffer especially and it would be of great advantage if there could be something other than drugs, which have implicitly side effects, that could at least assist in reducing such pain.

Some previous suggestions that "FARABLOC" is useful for this purpose have been limited to illustrating a fully surrounding sleeve but there has been, at least to the best of the knowledge of the inventor in this case, no specific follow up as to the effectiveness or perhaps any further problems associated with this particular problem.

My discovery has been that if one tries to use a fully surrounding shielding material such as "FARABLOC" then regardless of whether it provides a useful effect as far as period pain is concerned, it is simply very uncomfortable to wear.

Implicitly, strands of steel wire do not elastically stretch sufficiently for comfortable wearing and so, such discomfort, has been found to be of an order that strongly dissuades persons to use this technique.

Firstly, I have discovered that the effect of this type of material and here I have to say that I think a number of similar materials that is to say, fine electrically conducting material which is generally pliable, provides a very useful effect even if not fully surrounding the abdomen of a woman.

In experiments conducted so far, I have found that even one patch on one side of the women's abdomen, provides a significant reduction in a number of cases.

What this means is that conventional clothing can now simply incorporate as a patch of this type of material.

Because this type of material can generally be pliable and can be of a shape and located relevant to the clothing such that it can lie closely adjacent a particular target area of the body, this then allows the conventional comfort of ordinary clothing to be available while obtaining the advantage of this magnetically modifying material in target positions.

In one form of the invention then, there is provided a garment to be worn by a female person, including at least one conductive patch of substantially electrically conductive textile material, adapted such that in use the conductive patch lies closely adjacent to, but does not completely surround, the lower abdomen of a wearer.

In preference, there are at least two conductive patches, and the patches need not be in physical or electrical contact with each other. This allows for the parts of the garment where movement and stretch are advantageous for comfort to be free of the restrictive electrically conductive material.

In preference the garment is a pair of pants, in particular underpants, although it may also be other forms of underwear.

In a particular example of this, there is provided in preference then, a pair of ladies pants which have both a patch at a front and a patch at the back which are simply attached to the conventional cloth of a pair of pants and which, because of the implicit pliability of these very fine steel fibres, allow for conventional pliability as far as the clothing portions are concerned but at the same time, provide this magnetic modifying effect.

One particular advantage of this arrangement is that the top of underpants for women can be conventionally stretchable and therefore able to be easily taken on and pulled over body parts and apertures for legs can also equally be expandable for being brought over the legs and into a wearing position but they can also be then further easily removed.

The surprising result here is that the material as a single layer has provided significant modifying effect in at least a substantive number of ladies who otherwise would suffer severe period pains.

As was previously stated, it is not understood as to why this particular technique is of advantage.

It could be that the electrically conducting shield material acts to receive external electro magnetic signals and rather than specifically shielding, simply retransmits such signals with some modifications caused by the nature of the material and its spacing and its location.

I am aware of specific stimulation effects provided at critical junctions in the acupuncture discipline and it may be that this material provides some electrical modification to the human body's electrical fields.

However, the exciting result herein is that the benefit, however this is caused, can be achieved with comfortable clothing.

While I have referred to "FARABLOC" so as to identify a type of material, I am aware that "FARABLOC" broadly has very fine stainless steel wires carried as a part of more bulky nylon threads woven together to provide thereby what can be envisaged as a very fine wire mesh where however, the actual quantity of steel is somewhat less than the fabric which carries the individual's steel wires.

"FARABLOC" is not the only provider of such materials and I have found that other materials providing an electro magnetic modifying effect can also be used.

In particular, I have found that a material carrying steel fibres of 20 micron diameter which are woven with strands of a conventional nylon fibre where the spacing is perhaps in the order of 100 to 200 microns is suitable.

Therefore, in preference, the garment includes a substantially electrically conductive material is formed by having very fine metal wires carried by textile threads woven together to form a conducting mesh.

In preference the substantially electrically conductive material of the conductive patches, has steel fibres of 20 micron diameter which are woven with strands of a conventional nylon fibre where the spacing is perhaps in the order of 100 to 200.

In a further form, the invention may be said to lie in a method for providing at least partial relief of menstrual pain or discomfort, including the steps of providing a garment suitable to be worn in close proximity to a female wearer's lower abdomen; attaching to or incorporating within said garment at least one conductive patch of substantially electrically conductive textile material, said female wearer wearing the garment in a manner whereby the patch or patches lie closely adjacent to, but do not completely surround, a lower abdomen of a wearer.

For a better understanding of this invention, it will be described with the assistance on drawings where in; Figure 1 is a perspective view of a pair of underpants for a woman showing in the embodiment a location for a single patch, Figure 2 illustrates a rear elevation of a second embodiment in which the patch is shown as well as that shown in Figure 1, Figure 3 is a cross sectional view along the lines 44 as in Figure 2, Figure 4 is a cross sectional view along the lines 66 as in Figure 2, and Figure 5 is an electron microscopic image of the material providing the shielding effect where in relation to each bundle of strands shown, one of these is 304 stainless steel and a remainder are nylon.

Referring in detail then to the drawings, the example in this case is a pair of women's underpants or knickers.

These are conventional is every respect except that there is attached in the first instance as in the first embodiment shown in Figure 1 to one side only namely the front of the pants. The pants 1 therefore include this patch 2 which extends substantively across a front of the pants to be limited however, so that fundamentally the patch does not fully surround as is in the concept of a sleeve, but terminates at edges in the one case 4 on the left and 5 on the right and terminates at the bottom at 6.

The remainder of the pants 1 include a conventional cloth with an elastic upper edge 7 and leg defining openings which have elastic peripheries at 8 in the one case and 9 in the other.

In other words, a woman can select her own uniquely comfortable pants or that they can be designed as conventional but the modification is that this patch is attached so that it can be as large as possible depending upon the cut of the pants and the degree of comfort required for a particular case.

It is a defining characteristic however, that the patch itself does not fully surround and therefore provide a fully enclosing electrical circuit.

It is envisaged that other physical arrangements can be achieved while still obtaining the protective effect and especially the comfortable effect.

Overlapping of the patches could be in one instance another example of how this comfortable arrangement can be achieved with still getting a most effective shielding effect.

In the second embodiment shown in Figure 2 and subsequently, there is a patch on both the front and the back so that the pants in this case 10 have a patch 11 across the front and a patch 12 across the back. In each case this patch being of this material which has the fine electrical conducting fibres providing a fine broad electro magnetic shielding effect.

The shape in this case again in relation to the patch is similar to that of the single patch in the first embodiment and includes side edges at 13 and 14 a bottom constraint at 15 and a top edge at 16. This second embodiment, as in the first, has conventional clothing characteristics providing comfort.

For an understanding of the material of the type that is appropriate for this application, in Figure 5 there is shown an electro micrograph shown at a 50 times magnification where there a number of individual strands shown woven together.

A one of the strands each carries one stainless steel fibre of approximately microns diameter.

It has been found that some additional advantage can be achieved from time to time, by having additional layers of such material where the effect is modest and the wearer wishes to improve the effect.

In actual trials conducted so far, and in specific terms the second embodiment, the results have indicated that this concept provides a significant moderation in pain for a substantive number of people thus far trialled.

The effect has been in most cases not to remove the pain entirely but to reduce this so that if an original pain was at a level of say 8 out of 10, then after approximately an hour wearing this garment, a typical level of pain has been found to reduce to a level of perhaps 4 out of 10 in severity.

However, the garment itself being comfortable and being able to be treated as conventional clothing means firstly, that a woman may with very little disruption in the way that she handles her clothing, including washing this, or replacing it from time to time, can now have this relief.

Ongoing trials are continuing but it has shown thus far to be of very significant advantage.

8 Throughout this specification the purpose has been to illustrate the invention and not to limit this.

Claims (14)

1. A garment to be worn by a female person, including at least one conductive patch of substantially electrically conductive textile material, adapted such that in use the conductive patch lies closely adjacent to, but does not completely surround, the lower abdomen of a wearer.

2. A garment as in claim 1 wherein there is provided at least two said conductive patches, which are not in electrical contact with each other.

3. A garment as in claim 1 or claim 2 wherein the garment is a pair of pants.

4. A garment as in claim 3 wherein the pants are underwear.

A garment as in claim 3 or claim 4 wherein the pants are conventional pants and the conductive patches are attached to a front and/or a back of said pants.

6. A garment as in any one of the preceding claims wherein each conductive patch is removable.

7. A garment as in any one of the preceding claims 1 to 5 wherein each conductive patch is incorporated within the garment.

8. A garment as in any of the preceding claims wherein the substantially electrically conductive material is formed by having very fine metal wires carried by textile threads woven together to form a conducting mesh.

9. A garment as in claim 8 wherein the substantially electrically conductive material includes steel fibres of 20 micron diameter which are woven with strands of a conventional nylon fibre where the spacing is perhaps in the order of 100 to 200 microns.

A garment as in claim 8 wherein the substantially electrically conductive material is a material known by the trademark FARABLOC.

11. A method for providing at least partial relief of menstrual pain or discomfort, including the steps of providing a garment suitable to be worn in close proximity to a female wearer's lower abdomen; attaching to or incorporating within said garment at least one conductive patch of substantially electrically conductive textile material; said female wearer wearing the garment in a manner whereby the patch or patches lie closely adjacent to, but does not completely surround, a lower abdomen of a wearer.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the garment is a garment as in any one of claims 1 to

13. A garment substantially as described with respect to any one of the embodiments in the specification with reference to and as illustrated by the accompanying illustrations with respect to that embodiment.

14. A method for providing at least partial relief of menstrual pain or discomfort substantially as described with respect to any one of the embodiments in the specification with reference to and as illustrated by the accompanying illustrations with respect to that embodiment. Dated this 5 th day of May 2004 IAN ROSS BAGSHAW and STANLEY JOHN FARQUHAR By their Patent Attorneys COLLISON CO