Burnaby Burn

While sitting in a public house, enjoying a beverage, on the giant screen directly in my line of sight played a Major League Baseball game. The teams competing are irrelevant; however one thing was glaringly obvious. Every player on the field was wearing a similar necklace.

Grabbing my phone and taking to Twitter, I tweeted “what are those necklaces all the MLB players are wearing?” Within seconds I had my answer, complete with links: Phiten.

Established in 1983 in Kyoto, Japan, Phiten was initially a principle of health, healing, wellness and energy in body and mind. It was less about a necklace or a wristband (or the true retail plum of MLB branded merchandise) and more about developing a product that will help the human body reach its maximum potential.

Sound ridiculous? Hold on, it gets better.

It bears mention that I am not a professional athlete. I’m barely an amateur athlete. After years of playing hockey my 34-year-old body has taken a beating; a beating which is not over yet. After a night on the ice I do have occasional recurring pain that I have to deal with in the form of a bad hip from a car accident when I was younger. I’m always open to/skeptical of natural cures to ease my discomfort.

Within a few minutes of that initial tweet, my friend BBM’d me and we discussed getting Phiten necklaces. I’d like to make it clear that my years in journalism and public relations have left me virtually incapable of believing a single word uttered from any source, so I knew that before I decided to spend hard-earned cash on something this potentially ridiculous, I was going to do my due diligence.

I did research. I watched videos. I read testimonials. I read a lot of hype. I found it difficult to come across a bad word about Phiten, but I also found it difficult to find any facts regarding the products, which is pretty much the hallmark of pseudo-science.

I have to do this. I have to test this. According to popular opinion, it’s not going to hurt me (other than in the wallet).

My friend and I looked through the Phiten online catalogue and we made our choices, but my friend ended up getting them while he was in Bellingham (the pricing from the Canadian distributor site is appallingly higher than its American counterpart), but the selection was limited, so we ended up with a matched set of 22” X30 Diamond Pattern Titanium necklaces (shown above).

Let’s talk about the technology. Phiten has three different technologies that it applies to their various products: Aqua-Titanium, Micro Titanium Spheres, and Aqua-Gold. The necklace I got uses the Aqua-Titanium “Phild” process, which, according to Phiten, dissolves titanium in water and then soaks the various materials used to make the various products in that now titanium-rich water. The line from Phiten is that the titanium that is now embedded in the fabric of the necklace emits energy that effectively controls your body’s bioelectric current.

But don’t take my word for it:

I wasn’t convinced the necklace was going to help from the outset, or even that the necklace contains any actual titanium, since on the box it simply says rubber, plastic and nylon and I have to assume that they’ve been diligently soaked in titanium water.

The big question that everyone is asking is “does it work?”

The big answer is “not sure.”

I’ve been wearing the X30 for 2 weeks now and I don’t feel any better. I don’t feel any worse, either. To me, it feels like this is something I need to believe in to make it work, like the bible and dreams, so I will remain skeptical.

If nothing else, it looks pretty cool.

UPDATE

I was at my local apothecary filling a prescription when I noticed she was wearing the same necklace, so I asked her about it and mentioned that I had the same one. She told me she tried the patch for a few hours and felt better, so the necklace was no-brainer. I’d only been wearing mine for a short time, and had not really anything to contribute to the conversation, but we were both of the same mind in that it certainly isn’t making us worse.

Thinking about it when I got home, it was a bit surprising to see a medical professional wearing a junk science bauble. Then again, if your job involves issuing prescription medication to the infirm all day long, you’re probably going to try anything to avoid ending up like the folks you serve.