hey everybody's Doctor Jo, and today I'm going to show you how to use a tens / EMS
unit for shoulder pain. so let's get started.
The folks at Healthmate Forever sent me their T40AB TENS / EMS
unit, so I'm gonna use this one today, if you're interested in purchasing any of
their tens / ems products you can click on the link up there. so the important thing
to know with tens and EMS is those are different things. so if you're just
trying to do something for pain, increase the circulation, that's the tens. if
you're actually wanting to contract the muscle to help strengthen it, that's the
EMS. so it is very different things. so the channels on here you want to use
them specifically for what they are. with this particular unit it's really nice
because it has a whole bunch of options and the little icons show you what you
can use and they show you when you're trying to do strengthening. it has
somebody doing muscular stuff, and then the earlier ones on are the tens unit.
but it also has the option of if you're just doing the shoulder, the neck, the
back, you can just click on that specific one. so it will pull up a setting for
that as well. for the tens unit, you usually want to use 4 electrodes and
that's two channels. you can use just one channel which is two electrodes, but if
you're having general shoulder pain, you know if it's just kind of aching in here. maybe
you've had a surgery and you're you were okay to use the tens unit, you probably
want to use the four electrodes because that's going to get the whole area, and
if you have just a specific point tender maybe it's your bicep tendon up here in
the groove, you can use two electrodes and just really get into that spot there.
so it's really important to know which ones to use. so if you're using the four
electrodes, you want to have the two channels actually crossing each other
for an X. so the two electrodes that are connected you would do one here one here,
and then the other channel will be crossing it because the main pain is in
the middle. if you just have the two connecting here and the two
connecting here, you're not going to get much of that electrical simulation in
there. so a tens which is the transcutaneous electrical nerve
stimulation is the surface nerves. and so basically it goes in it follows the
nerve pathway. that is the the same as the pain pathway, that vibration and pain
go together and that kind of cancelled it out. but it also helps increase the
circulation to the area so it helps the healing process. so when you're doing
that I'm gonna start off with the four electrodes, the two channels, just to kind
of give you the the more general, I'm my whole shoulders kind of hurting or for
me like when I had my labral surgery, I kind of did the big general one cuz I
was pretty achey afterwards, but the great part was I only had to take pain
medication for about the first day and then afterwards I just used my tens and
ice, and I did really well with that. so it's a great way kind of an alternative
just to taking pain medication. and so it's a little safer, a little healthier, but
make sure you asked your healthcare provider because for some injuries or if
you have certain things going on, you might not should use it. you know
especially pacemakers and things like that. so make sure that you're clear by
your doctor, your physical therapist to use it. so starting off I'm going to kind
of bring up one channel that has the two electrodes. so this is channel one and so
for me let's say it's hurting here. I'm going to put channel one in the
front, and then one just a little bit in the back right there. with tens it
doesn't have to be exact. this is really sometimes something you can just kind of
play around with and work with. it's a little different sometimes the EMS, you
have to be a little more specific on the muscle that you're trying to activate,
but with the tens, you it doesn't have to be right there, it can be a little bit
further back and be a little further forward whatever is comfortable for you.
so that's kind of the great part about it is you don't have to be super
specific, but when I'm doing it I like going down the arm just a little bit
because a lot of times if you have like an impingement in your shoulder, referred
pain lots of times comes right down here. people will say hey you know I'm hurting
down here, but their injury is actually here, so making a wider range here really
kind of gets that whole shoulder. so then for the last one I would just put it a
little bit higher up. you know maybe right there. so even though these two are
close together that's okay if you want to move it a little bit you can, but
since they're on different channels it's not that big of a deal as long as
they're not on top of each other they're just touching a little bit that's fine.
but again, as you can see this is a channel, and this is a channel, so they're
crossing each other, and that's the biggest part that you want to do. so with
the tens you want to make sure that you're not getting a muscle contraction,
so if I'm getting a muscle contraction while I'm doing this
that means it's either on too high, or if you don't have a lot of tissue like me
on my shoulder where I'm very bony, you might get a contraction just because
there's not a lot of tissue there. so you might have to move the electrodes. you
might have to change the settings just a little bit. so on here there's a whole
bunch of different settings. I'm just going to kind of start with the one and
the the little icon will move so you know you're on that that channel there.
what's cool about the getting the intensity is you can do it here or on
the side. so this one is for the channel a and this is for the channel B. and so
when I start, I can you can already see that it's if I move it in a certain
position it's jumping just a little bit right there. so again that's, it's only on
a two, so what I might want to do is just pause it. a little pause button up there.
and everything will blink and then just move it just a little bit to a different
spot. and then just go again. so it's pretty much sometimes a trial and error,
but then once you get the right spot, it's pretty good. so if you're just
relaxed and it's moving just a little bit, that's okay. but if you're getting a
big contraction, that's not what you want with the tens. so if I take it up and I
get something like that where you can kind of see my whole shoulder is
squeezing, moving, that's not really what you want for this. that's something a
little bit different. so really just kind of play around with it,
try the different settings, some settings might be a little bit better for you, but
with the tens you want it to be comfortable but strong. you don't want it
to be painful because this is supposed to help take away the pain, so that's
kind of the point of that. so then if you let's say have a really specific pain
spot, like again like I was saying that that biceps tendon. then you can do just
two electrodes or one channel. so then you, once you're going down to two
electrodes, then it makes it just a little bit stronger in that area, and so
again you might have to play around with it just a little bit, but that doesn't
take very long to do to figure out. so if I'm hurting right here, most likely what
I would do is I would put one maybe a little bit lower, and then just a little
bit higher. maybe right there. so now that channel is just going to go back and
forth right there. so then same kind of thing, I would just pick whatever mode I
wanted, and then just start slowly bringing it up. so you can see maybe a
little bit once it gets going that my muscle is going just a little bit, but if
as long as it's not contracting it's okay to move a little bit, but you don't
want that big huge contraction. so really just taking it up until you feel like
it's strong but not painful. so for the EMS, which is the electrical muscle
stimulation, that's when you're actually trying to contract a muscle. so it is
different. it's usually a different current. you're trying to get the muscle
to contract. it's not just stimulating the nerves to contract. so let's say I
needed to work on my triceps. I want they they were weak. I had a little bit of an
injury. they're kind of going up into my shoulder. I'm cleared to go ahead and
start doing contractions of the muscles and exercises, but I need a little bit of
help. so what you want to do is really just kind of get on that muscle belly.
again the closer they are, the more concentrated it is, so if you want to go
down just a little bit lower, sometimes then that gives you a little more surface area.
so on here, you want to look for the ones that are actually the muscle
contractions, and so here it's 20, and it has a little human figure kind of
holding onto weights, and that just in the case that is for muscle building. so
once you get there, then you can start taking it up, and you can see that it's
starting to contract those muscles back there. so for the EMS, I tell people this
is the one that it's not comfortable. it's sometimes even slightly painful, and
how high should you go? you should go as much as you can tolerate, and then maybe
even one after that. so I'm getting a good contraction here.
I really should try and go one more as long as it's not just painful. so I'm
just like whew that's nice and strong, but you can see there you know it makes
that muscle contract, contract, and then as soon as they let's go you can see my
body just kind of relax and let go. I wouldn't start off with a lot of time
with this. some protocols do ten minutes, but then you usually do like it's on for
ten seconds and then it's off for a minute, so when it's going continuously
like this, I just start off with one or two minutes because it's going to really
work that muscle, especially if you haven't been able to work it in a long
time. and you're gonna feel it fatigue out
pretty quickly. so you don't want to overdo it, you want to just get that
muscle kind of activating again so it doesn't forget what it's supposed to do.
so that's kind of what the EMS does to help with that electrical stimulation of
the muscle. so if you're interested in purchasing any of the Healthmate forever
tens / EMS units, make sure to click on the link up there, and don't forget to
subscribe by clicking down there. and remember be safe, have fun, and I hope you
feel better soon.