Hi folks I'm Bob Schrupp physical therapist. I'm Brad Heineck physical therapist. And together we are the
most famous physical therapist on the internet. you know say no more Bob. My
wife would actually sit down with you for three hours and talk to you about
this but okay today we're going to talk about how TENS can help you help your
pain neck pain back pain shoulder pain knee pain basically I don't know how you
use a TENS unit Brad but with I have it with patients mostly it's it's kind of a
treatment of last resort kind of almost last resort you know there are some
variations but yeah because the biggest thing is because even if they are
successful you still have to deal with the wires and there's a bit of
inconvenience that sometimes doesn't so it doesn't know you know yeah it's not a
it's not an easy thing to use all the time although a lot of times you can
just put this thing in your pocket and the wires you can run up through the
sleeve won't even see it sure they've they've you know Brad and I have
the benefit of age in this one I and I've been at this longer the Brad has
actually and I remember when tens units first came out sure and I and we
actually had representatives I was working at the Mayo Clinic and representatives would come
down from EMPI and they were showing us this new thing I mean so uh and back
then the you know back then the pads were so terrible and you put your own gel on
and then needed to tape the pads on- oh my gosh it was just awful and the machines
were bigger. People don't care about that. okay alright let's go ahead let's start
talking so what we're gonna do but wait Bob Oh 372 people just walked in in case
you've made a mistake of clicking on our channel we might as well make another
mistake and subscribe to this we provide videos on stay healthy fit pain-free and
we upload everyday also please go over to the Facebook and like us because Brad
and I asked children we're traumatized and not liked and
therefore we'd like you to turn that around for us. We're catching up now
all right so we're today what we we're going to use is a tens unit from I don't
know how do you say this Brad Oh hu hu (Ohuhu) and they call it a
mini massage which we don't quite understand yet
but we thought the price intrigued us and the quality of it the price is
incredible yeah it's a really good price though we did more research and we've
been working with it trying to see you know is it really gonna do the job and
so far it's passed and everything with A pluses yeah our only criticism is the
use of the mini massager because it's not a massager it's a TENS unit sure and
secondly it doesn't go into the different modes I want to talk a little
bit about those today Brad because you're not gonna know which mode you're
on I mean I'm guessing which mode we're on right we know things as high tens and
low tens and burst right and and obviously I can feel those but I can
tell when I when I'm on one of them but the average person's not gonna know
right okay all right so let's let's do this first off what does a TENS unit do
Brad so when you're getting pain I'm glad you're answering it I'm gonna
answer this so when you get pain let's say you you hit your thumb I'll put a
big thumb right there oh and it hurts and you hit it with the hammer cuz
you're like me and you don't know how what you're doing it sends a signal I'll
use to red for that yeah a little fiery red so it sends a signal all the
way up through the nerves up into your brain and that's why this guy looks sad
yeah cuz this unit what it does it stimulates the A beta nerves
no you're gonna keep get some eyes glassed over so these nerves actually
when you stimulate them they inhibit the passing of this pain message okay so it cuts
it off and it's called the gate theory gate theory I distinctly remember that in school
and so I cuts it off there's just no pain now my experience with TENS units
is that generally I don't know maybe 40 to 50 percent of the people find it
helpful right and I'd say about the same and some people really like it and some
people think it has not worth it all right so if you buy one of these
understand that you might be one of the people that it doesn't help I mean it
just it just doesn't make any difference but I have an uncle he's had some severe
injuries from being electrocuted and he's 87 years old and he's been using
for 20-30 years yeah they they off they used to use them after surgeries
and sometimes implanted the leads Remember when they used to to implant them yeah so it you know there's
definitely it if they have some merit to sit the research shows that it works a
little bit better on acute pain than chronic pain but again it's there's
the big thing about this is really no side effects
you know there's certain conditions we don't want you to use it on we might as well go
over those now sure I mean I got these written down to make sure pacemaker
right you don't want to do it over the carotid sinuses you want to show where
that is Brad over the neck- if you have a blood clot you don't want to
use it if you're pregnant I wouldn't use it over the pelvis trunk low back you
know anywhere around by the baby alright I just stay away stay away Yes use a
cold pack yeah if you have decreased sensation I wouldn't use it
alright good point you've got neuropathy right right good point skin irritation
open wounds right if you have a high fever if you have an infectious disease
they said high blood pressure - I'm not sure why I'm the machine it said that
the machine that's probably being pretty cautious because yeah on that one okay so
let's let's start off with this particular unit Brad you're not going to
be able to see some of this because it's so small but what this unit has is it
has basically well maybe I could show it on here Brad oh yes it has an M M as in
Mary as in mode mode it has a circle here and then like this and O for the
control button yeah the control button then it has a T and that's time and over
here it's got a positive and over here it's got a negative you know Bob I'm
thinking of people are you know 35 years or 40 years or younger they're just
gonna figure they're gonna figure it out quicker than we are but I just
by pushing the M button that's the mold button and it's got six
different pictures on there and that's my other criticism of this you've looked
at these pictures right Brad yeah there you can't tell what these are I have no
idea what they have little one looks like a little kidney almost jumping
around and another is a brain or I don't know so you're just gonna have to try
the different modes and then we can talk about which ones are which okay so you
got the little machine you're gonna take you get two sets of
leads all right this is this is called a lead and it goes into the bottom right
yep okay and it's got two sets 2 types of pads
it's got larger pads it's got smaller pads there's a small one is a small one
now the the larger ones are going to be obviously for a larger area of the body
if you're doing like the calf muscle maybe I'd use two small muscles or small
pads right but if you if you're doing it almost any other area you could use the
one of the larger pads I've got them stuck on my arm right here hey why don't
you go and hook yours up Brad okay now the other thing is is these pads are
sticky and they're they're good pads I'm impressed with them however if you are
putting them on an arm and you're a hairy person you gotta shave
yeah you really need it works much better when there's no hair you want to
clean the skin actually probably put some alcohol on it right and then the
other thing is these pads don't share them between people just like
needles and also to prolong the pads life a lot of times just put a few drops
of water on there and it'll it'll kind of revive - revive them yeah and
you can buy additional pads for for these units right so online yeah can we
do everything on Amazon so he's right now he's gonna turn it on which the
switches up here and he flipped that on and then he's gonna hit the M mode maybe
we couldn't how is that Lonnie can you a little bit so then he's gonna hit the M
mode which picks which mold here I am I'm gonna hit that now I'm on this
second one now I went over this so it looks like it has to me looks like
a stomach and this one looks like maybe for headaches this one has a little foot
then this one has a ear really don't know what the little things mean but
what do you what you're gonna want to do is you're gonna hit the mode and then I
want you to hit the intensity which you only have to hit it like one or two
right so on the bottom bar here tells the intensity there's only one bar there
I can barely feel a tingle so this feels like pins and needles now you have to be
careful that you don't go up too fast if I hit the plus you'll see the bar here
there are two bars now I have this on a trigger point on my muscle that's why my
muscle is yeah I was gonna hold it Brad and really movies but then watch what
his arm is doing- can you see that Lonnie now it's pulsing yeah now look his hand
is curling up like that he didn't do that you did it I mean the Machine did
that see no this is for a pain I would move these pads because I don't
really want to have my muscles contract right you know what I'm saying
yeah if I move this pad over here I probably wouldn't get that why don't we
turn it off I'll do that quick well the other thing is Brad that you could do if
you went on a wider area I think I mean you could use the smaller pads there but
you know but I'm think that's it's an actual trigger point isn't it a muscle
trigger point yeah it probably is right there we'll see all right I'm gonna let you
turn it up cuz I don't want to be I don't want you screaming like
a young girl or young boy now this is uh this Mode is going on and
on now I've seen a lot of them where there will be a light that flickers and
there we go this is getting pretty strong I'm amazed at how strong see I
would probably turn this down because this is too strong for me I'm gonna go
down and I don't like this Mode it's ramping up up up up up really strong and
then it turns off that's why it's gonna be really important for you to try the
different modes on this I found mode number one was one of the more
comfortable Modes okay I think that's what we used to call High Tens Brad so
that's a high frequency rate and the high frequency rates tend to be more
comfortable so and the low ones the ones that are more uncomfortable Brad those
tend to be the ones that remember this can naturally stimulate the opioids
in your system the endogenous opioids You've been doing your homework Bob yes I
have so the different settings will do different things you have the gate
theory and then you have the the opioids and some of them might do both sir then
is the burst one you you felt that burst one brad where it kind of it's almost
like gunfire sir that that also is for the opioids so you have to plan on
spending not a lot of you know you might spend twenty minutes to an hour going
through different modes because the instruction book on this is not real
detail no it's not you know it's $30 I guess they figure you're I don't know
what they figure but the quality of the tens it's strong again Brad every time again
because of our age we recall when these units used to go for a thousand dollars
right and and and even as of like five years ago they were going for like seven
hundred so I mean this to us is just amazing that is where you get a unit for
thirty bucks I mean you can't buy pain pills that cheap you know and the other
thing is there's no side effects on there right no side effects the other
thing is what I really like about it is it it recharges Brad because remember we
always had to get batteries a 9-volt batteries I still got some up here right
near the old ones that have the 9-volt batteries so you can plug this in your
computer yep into your computer or you got this piece right here that'll go
right into the olivet so it's just like a phone charging a phone well so what do
you say we'll give it a err I'll give it an a but I give it a you
know a c-minus for instructions and for the description it's not a massager
right and oh just real quickly bread oh so pads so placement yeah for placement
so again like if you're if you're doing your neck you know you could try it on
each side of the of the pain if the pain is right here this is the backside
that's why there's no face sir so now let's say it's across the entire upper
back I would put two of them at a slant bread like this okay now let's say
you're having sciatica I would put one on the top of the sciatic
and one down on the leg in the distance sir you uh if you go really far apart it
may not be strong enough for that you just have to play with that and see how
things go calf muscles I put to the side by side so you can yeah you can put them
you know horizontal like this you can put them at an angle like this or you
can put them side by side vertical they always should be at least an inch apart
okay so yeah all right well I think we spend enough time on this bread but it
is it is gonna to invest a little time and learning how to use it and which
mold to use right yeah it's a complicated unit to go through
everything and you know ten minutes so yeah we're doing our best all right
thanks everybody for what we care for
you