TENS Therapy
Healthcare providers have been using electricity to help relieve pain since the mid-1960s. This form of pain relief sends electricity directly to parts of the body. It's called transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, or TENS. A growing body of research says that TENS therapy may help some people in the right situation.
Understanding TENS
The main reason that people use TENS is to ease pain. Some of the common conditions that cause pain and may be helped by TENS include:
Some experts believe TENS therapy has the greatest use for treating nerve pain.
TENS delivers mild electrical impulses to the body. The TENS system is made up of a power unit, a pair of wires, and electrode pads that are placed on your skin near the place that hurts. A practitioner or the patient turns on the unit, and low-voltage electrical current flows into the body. Different stimulation frequencies and intensities are available.
TENS sessions usually last 5 to 15 minutes. They can be done as often as needed, depending on the case. Physical therapists and healthcare providers often give TENS. Healthcare providers also can prescribe certain units to use at home. People often say they feel a mild tingling sensation or warmth during the treatments. The tingling sensation may temporarily prevent the person from being aware of pain.
Research on TENS
Hundreds of studies have been done on TENS, but most have been small or weren't well designed. For this reason, some experts say TENS can give short-term relief. Long-term relief hasn't been proved.
More research is needed to know if TENS can help many kinds of acute or chronic pain.
For cancer pain, more research is needed before TENS can be recommended as a treatment. TENS may give short-term relief for some nerve-related cancer pain, according to the American Cancer Society.
The safety of TENS
TENS is generally regarded as safe. But it has risks just like any other medical procedure. For example, if the electrical current is too high or the electrodes are placed on the wrong part of the body, it can burn or irritate the skin. The "danger zones" include the brain, heart, eyes, genitals, and throat. People with heart problems, pregnancy, or implanted devices, including infusion pumps, pacemakers, and defibrillators, should not get this treatment.