Efficacy:
Safety:
Cost:
Ways to Administer: Coil or a hand-held device

Bottom Line: I have some reservations because of the upfront cost and lack of evidence and regulation. With that said, the therapy appears to be quite safe.

Overview

People who’ve been dealing with Lyme for a while have probably heard about the rife machine. In the mid-1930s, an American scientist named Royal Raymond Rife developed a one-of-a-kind microscope capable of seeing bacilli, a class of bacteria that he believed contributed to many diseases, including cancer. Following his hypothesis, he created the Rife Frequency Generator, a machine he claimed could kill bacilli and diagnose and eradicate several illnesses using electrical impulses emitted by diseased tissues in the body. A short time later, The American Medical Association spoke out against Rife, halting further research into electrical therapies. However, in the last 20 to 30 years, interest in rife therapy has increased, and stories of people seeing improvements in their health abound.

Efficacy

Rife therapy isn’t approved by the FDA. There’s little research to support the therapy’s efficacy, and the devices are unregulated. Maybe it doesn’t actually kill bacteria? Maybe it works by stimulating immune cells in some way? I would give it higher points for efficacy if the exact mechanisms of action were known. It would be nice to see some evidence because I’m at a loss to explain how the technology specifically targets a few species of bacteria scattered among the other 40,000 different species in the body.

Safety

Though the potential for harm with Rife therapy appears to be low, it’s not regulated and has no supporting research, so the actual safety issues or side effects are unknown at this point.

Cost

Rife therapy is a sizable upfront investment for a technology that hasn’t been well investigated and isn’t regulated.

Dr. Bill Rawls’ Treatment Guide

Want to see more Lyme disease treatment ratings? See What Dr. Rawls has to say about popular treatments and therapies in his Lyme Disease Treatment Guide.

Dr. Rawls is a physician who overcame Lyme disease through natural herbal therapy. You can learn more about Lyme disease in Dr. Rawls’ new best selling book, Unlocking Lyme.
You can also learn about Dr. Rawls’ personal journey in overcoming Lyme disease and fibromyalgia in his popular blog post, My Chronic Lyme Journey.