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As a runner, Laurie has spent decades pounding the pavement. But like many road warriors, the 63-year-old from Allenstown, Pennsylvania, is just as familiar with the aches and pain of plantar fasciitis as she is with the meandering miles around her house. In search of relief from the chronic soreness, she’s discovered an unlikely recovery tool: wand vibrators.
Specifically, the famous Magic Wand. For the uninitiated, the Magic Wand is a wand-style vibrator with a long handle and rounded, lacrosse-ball-eque head that delivers powerful vibrations. Originally sold in the 1970s as the Hitachi Magic Wand, the now-iconic device was once marketed as a muscle massager. But it didn’t take long for consumers to discover another use, cementing the canonically white-and-blue wand as one of the world’s most recognizable vibrators.
For Laurie and her husband of 41 years, Frank, however, the vibe has worked overtime as both—a body massager and a bedroom accessory—for the last half-decade.
“One day, while home visiting, our son pulled out a massage gun and started working on his muscles,” Laurie says. Watching its rapid, “wham wham wham motion,” as she called it, Laurie and Frank immediately looked at each other, thinking of their favorite sex toy.
Laurie’s plantar fasciitis is always at its worst first thing in the morning, so the couple decided to put their theory to the test at sunrise the very next day. Frank first massaged Laurie’s feet and calves with massage oil before switching on the Magic Wand to its lowest intensity setting. Starting at her calves, he slowly worked his way down to her heels and arches, lingering along the sides of her feet, which are generally especially tight and tender.
“It felt amazing, immediately relieving some of the tension in the areas of my body that are most sensitive and sore,” she told Women’s Health. “I could really feel it getting into the tissues in my feet that the plantar fasciitis impacts.”
These days, the vibrator-cum-massager makes a regular appearance in the couple’s morning routine. “We use it multiple times a week on Laurie’s feet,” says Frank. “Laurie also uses it on my shoulder and neck when soreness arises,” he says.
While Laurie’s use of the sex toy might sound unconventional, physical therapists are not particularly surprised that the repurposing has been so fruitful: “Vibration has been shown to support recovery by increasing blood flow and creating a calming effect on the nervous system,” says doctor of physical therapy Nadia Ruffing, PT, DPT, known as Pelvic Doc Nads on TikTok. In fact, she actively encourages dual-use: “If someone is repurposing their vibrating pleasure devices for healing and pain relief, I say why not! It’s a great use of products you already have.”
Still, experts are quick to point out that a Magic Wand isn’t a replacement for proven recovery strategies like adequate sleep, hydration, proper nutrition, and strength training—nor is it a traditional treatment for plantar fasciitis itself.
“Vibration can change your perception of pain, stiffness, or tension and therefore offer meaningful temporary relief,” says San Diego-based doctor of physical therapy Bree Nishibun, PT, DPT. But that feeling of relief doesn’t necessarily mean the vibration is mechanically changing the tissues themselves, she says. For long-term changes to the tissues, most people need progressive strength training, mobility work, and other targeted interventions.
Even so, incorporating the Magic Wand as a recovery tool can offer another kind of wellness, too: Sexual wellness.
For Laurie, the tool helps reduce barriers to entry to sex. “It’s hard for me to want sexual activity if I’m hurting,” she explains. Fair. “So, using the tool in this way helps get me in the mood for sex, too.”
For others, certified sex educator Sarah Tomchesson, CSE, says that utilizing the vibrator for post-exercise relief can actually teach the body what relief feels like more broadly. “By helping your body learn to receive pleasurable sensations in non-sexual contexts, you’re practicing a kind of physical mindfulness that lowers stress and rebuilds trust with your own body—which can ultimately make it easier to enjoy yourself during sexual contexts, too.”
In sum, these days the Magic Wand may be best known as a sex toy. But in a full-circle moment, some people like Laurie and Frank are bringing it back to its roots as a muscle massager.
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Gabrielle Kassel (she/her) is a sex and wellness journalist who writes at the intersection of queerness, sexual health, and pleasure. In addition to Women’s Health, her work has appeared in publications such as Shape, Cosmopolitan, Well+Good, Health, Self, Men’s Health, Greatist, and more! In her free time, Gabrielle can be found coaching CrossFit, reviewing pleasure products, hiking with her border collie, or recording episodes of the podcast she co-hosts called