Uses Of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation

By Jasmeen Kaur

The use of a TENS machine should be as one part of a pain board program under the guidance of your doctor/healthcare practitioner.

How To Use A TENS Machine
The unit may be hooked to a belt and is connected to two or more electrodes. The electrode placement is subject to experimentation to find the positions that work best for you. Electrodes may be placed over the painful area, surrounding, over the nerve supplying the painful area, or on the opposite side of the body.

TENS is also used to convey topical steroid medication through the skin to treat critical episodes of pain. This treatment is called Iontophoresis. The mild current causes the medication to migrate into soft tissue serving to reduce inflammation.

TENS Machine provide Short-term Pain Relief:

Sensory Level Stimulation - The Gate domination theory of pain means that the electrical input of the TENS machine interferes with the transmission of pain signals, by blocking the neural "gate" through which the pain travels.

Motor Level Stimulation - The goal of motor level stimulation is to cause the release of the body's own opiate-like substances to achieve pain relief.
Benefits of TENS Unit

The main working of TENS Unit is to block the pain signal between pain area and brain. This device mostly confuses people with EMS device which look similar. EMS stands for Electrical Muscle Stimulation and its main purpose is to stimulate muscles.
There are many benefits of TENS Unit. On the other hand, there are some cautions as well. It is not recommended to use on people who have heart pacemaker implant and also who are pregnant.

Nerve damage can often lead to pain or loss of movement. When the nerves are not able to receive or send signals correctly, pain or difficulty to move will follow. By using a machine, you can retrain your confidence to work properly. Often seen being used by physical therapists, the electric impulse will trigger a user's muscle retraining the brain and nerve patterns. This compulsion is often enough to let the nerve follow the correct path to the muscle. With enough time, this may allow you to regain lost mobility due to an injury or accident.

Many makers are contributing Tens units that act as massagers. This element will follow a different pulse pattern to supply a massage to the user. For instance, the intensity levels may rise, lower and rise even higher to massage the muscle internally. Even standard components now come with programmable settings that allow users to essentially massage themselves with a unit.

Tens units are advanced medical tools, but they are very easy to use at home. Users can point the included pads on the muscle that needs stimulation and the machine will do the rest. Unlike complicated units of the past, newer units are simple to use and adjust. Users directly have to change a dial or choose the right schedule setting to allow for correct usage.

Pain can easily lead to a drastic change in lifestyle. With pain, fear often follows when doing the most mundane tasks. This guides to rehabilitation taking even longer, or it can lead to a person develop a phobia that sources them not to perform certain movements that may cause an increase in pain.

Also, it is better not to put TENS Electrodes or TENS Pads over the eyes, on the front of the neck, on wounds or ill skin tissues, on tumors and directly over spinal column. The latter is also not advised for the regular hand massage.

The Author has personal experience of using   tens therapy for back pain, electrodes are placed on the skin over an area of pain in the back. This creates electrical instinct that travels along nerve fibers and creates a tingling sensation.