Department of Medicine

Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology

Vibration helps reduces pain in chronic sufferers, UF researchers find
Rubbing or massaging is often an instinctive response to pain. Now researchers have found that another kind of touch, vibration, can also help reduce certain types of pain by more than 40 percent. The researchers are encouraged by the prospect that vibration therapies could bring pill-free pain relief to chronic sufferers.

“The vibration truly represents an analgesic effect,” said Roland Staud, M.D, a professor of rheumatology and clinical immunology in the University of Florida College of Medicine. “This is exciting because it is something that provides pain relief that is not associated with great cost.” <Read more>

Westley H. Reeves, M.D.
Professor and Chair, Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology
Eminent Scholar of the Marcia Whitney Schott Chair in Rheumatoid Arthritis.

The Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology is nationally and internationally recognized for excellence in basic and clinical research and patient care. The Division has been under the leadership of Dr. Westley Reeves since October 1999.

Full-time faculty members include Drs. Michael Bubb, N. Lawrence Edwards, Paulette Hahn, Minoru Satoh, Eric Sobel, and Roland Staud. Faculty members serve on the editorial boards of several medical and scientific journals, including the Journal of Experimental Medicine, Journal of Immunology, Modern Rheumatology (Japan), Molecular Biology Reports, and Clinical Immunology. Several faculty members serve on peer-review committees for the National Institutes of Health or private foundations (Arthritis Foundation, American Heart Association) as well as on advisory committees of the American College of Rheumatology and Arthritis Foundation. Dr. Reeves edited Textbook of the Autoimmune Diseases and several Division faculty members have contributed chapters to major rheumatology and clinical immunology texts including Arthritis and Allied Conditions, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Autoantibodies, and Manual of Clinical Laboratory Immunology.