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Sometimes menstruation is accompanied by pain. Jovi is not the answer.


Last month I wrote about energy medicine pain patches, calling them laughable quackery. Now there’s another one: Jovi. It was brought to my attention by a correspondent who belongs to a Facebook group for chronic migraine sufferers. She reports that members of the group are all excited about a new product that they hope will put an end to their migraines and menstrual cramps: Jovi, a reusable patch. When I tried to look at Jovi’s website, I got a warning that it might be impersonating jovi.com to steal my personal or financial information. It said I should close the page, so I did. But it wasn’t hard to piece the story together from Facebook and other sources.

Jovi makes the same pseudoscientific claims as other patches. It allegedly uses technology developed to enhance reception in communications devices used by the U.S. Navy SEALS. It talks of nanocapacitors and neuro capacitive coupling. It is non-invasive. It allegedly acts as a bioantenna that picks up and enhances the body’s electrical fields to somehow prevent pain signals from reaching the brain. Essentially the same incoherent nonsense as Signal Relief and Kailo patches.

Their new marketing strategy specifically targets menstrual cramps and migraine pain. There are testimonials galore on social media. It is specifically designed to appeal to women, even stressing that women were involved in the product’s development. There are no controlled studies. In a courtroom, the testimonials would not be acceptable as evidence; they would be dismissed as hearsay.

Does Jovi work? Well yes, because placebos “work”. In placebo-controlled clinical studies, a third of subjects report that the placebo is effective. But it is unethical to promote placebos by falsely claiming that they are not placebos.

Conclusion: Just more of the same old nonsense

As Christopher Hitchens said, “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence“. I have no hesitation in dismissing Jovi.

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  • Harriet Hall, MD also known as The SkepDoc, is a retired family physician who writes about pseudoscience and questionable medical practices. She received her BA and MD from the University of Washington, did her internship in the Air Force (the second female ever to do so),  and was the first female graduate of the Air Force family practice residency at Eglin Air Force Base. During a long career as an Air Force physician, she held various positions from flight surgeon to DBMS (Director of Base Medical Services) and did everything from delivering babies to taking the controls of a B-52. She retired with the rank of Colonel.  In 2008 she published her memoirs, Women Aren't Supposed to Fly.

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Posted by Harriet Hall

Harriet Hall, MD also known as The SkepDoc, is a retired family physician who writes about pseudoscience and questionable medical practices. She received her BA and MD from the University of Washington, did her internship in the Air Force (the second female ever to do so),  and was the first female graduate of the Air Force family practice residency at Eglin Air Force Base. During a long career as an Air Force physician, she held various positions from flight surgeon to DBMS (Director of Base Medical Services) and did everything from delivering babies to taking the controls of a B-52. She retired with the rank of Colonel.  In 2008 she published her memoirs, Women Aren't Supposed to Fly.

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