After getting in a car accident this summer, I spent the entirety of first semester in physiotherapy twice a week to treat my whiplash. This experience, while frustrating and time consuming, opened me up to two types of massage therapy, “cupping”—which you can read about here—and “TENS.”
Unless you have heard of TENS before, you’re probably thinking, “what the hell is that?” Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) is a form of therapy which uses low-voltage electrical currents to help alleviate pain. While this is often used for muscle, lower back, and neck pain, TENS can be used to treat pain associated with “joint or bone problems that occur with illnesses such as osteoarthritis or fibromyalgia,” as well as labour pain or even chronic pain.
The idea of having electrical currents sweeping through my body sort of freaked me out a little bit, but I actually tried TENS for the first time by mistake—the woman helping me with my exercises thought I had tried it before and when she asked if I wanted to use the TENS machine alongside my heating packs for fifteen minutes, I got confused and said “sure.” I cannot stress this enough: if you don’t know what something means, ask BEFORE you say “sure, hook me up to this little battery powered machine by sticking electrodes on my back.” Otherwise, when the machine is turned on, you’ll be in for quite the shock. Literally.
I started with two electrodes on my lower back, and I’m pretty sure I tensed up fairly aggressively because the woman immediately said, “oh no, you haven’t tried this before have you?” After apologizing profusely to me—even though it was my mistake—she explained that TENS sends a circuit of electrical impulses into your body which travel along nerve fibres and helps alleviate pain. She explained that there are varying rates of intensity, which she controlled during that session (after realizing I had no idea what I was doing), but which I have controlled in my sessions since.
Basically, the reason I freaked out when she first turned the machine on was she turned it up a lot higher than you normally would for someone who has no idea what sensation they are about to feel. I experienced a mix of tingling pain and shock, so TENS is definitely something to take slowly. When you are more comfortable with it, however, it is such an interesting and wonderful experience.
The best way to explain the feeling of the therapy is really just low electrical currents radiating through the area surrounding the electrodes. The higher the intensity, the more it will tingle and you might feel a little bit of pain, so make sure you adjust the settings to a level that is comfortable for you; if you turn it up too high, you will tense up and it won’t help at all. However, when you’re at the right level of intensity—where you’ll feel a strong tingling sensation—you can almost feel the current “massaging” the areas surrounding the electrode and, if you’re like me, this will lull you into a sort of fascinated trance.
This is my personal favourite placement of the electrodes, though they can be placed pretty much anywhere (don’t put them on your temples or anything—exercise a bit of common sense on this one).
The cool thing about TENS is that it is totally safe to do yourself so you can experience the benefits of this therapy from the comfort of your own home. However, if you aren’t responsible with the machine and overuse it or constantly put the intensity too high, you could experience pain, muscle twitching, soreness, and skin irritation. If done correctly, however, this therapy could really help manage acute or chronic pain symptoms and could be (and is) life changing for many people. And, quite honestly, it’s pretty hard to mess up unless you ignore what your body is telling—or screaming at—you.