hey everybody it's Doctor Jo and Brian my awesome model, and today I'm gonna show
you how to use the tins unit for low back pain. so let's get started.
The folks at HelathMate Forever sent me their YK15AB TENS/EMS
unit and if you're interested in purchasing any of their tens EMS units
make sure and click on the link up there. and so while I'm doing the low back pain
I'm just gonna use the tens unit. some therapists might use the EMS for it, but
I personally think when you're doing for low back pain, you really don't want to
contract that muscle and with the tens you really shouldn't be contracting the
muscle. this is for that transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation just those
surface nerves, helps increase circulation to the area, helps control
that pain because it follows the same pain pathway as the pain pathway. so I'm
just gonna use the TENS. if you want to use the EMS I would talk to your
healthcare provider, physical therapist, doctor about it, but you should talk to
them in any case because TENS and EMS sometimes if you have an injury or
certain ailment you might not should use it, especially if you have a pacemaker or
defibrillator or something like that. so make sure that you're getting cleared
for the okay before you use something like this. so the great thing about the
TENS is you can use one channel that has two electrodes or you can use two
channels that has four electrodes. and sometimes you can even use a really big
electrode just for the one channel but it has two connections in there, and I'll
show you that at the end. I usually like the four electrodes the two channels
because it can get a whole surface area. so a lot of times when you have that low
back pain maybe that SI joint pain area in there, just this general back pain,
it's not specific, it just hurts. so if you use four electrodes that covers more
surface area and I like that. but you want to make sure each channel crosses.
so if I have channel one I want the electrodes to be here in here, and then
channel two crosses so you have that cross motion to get everything in
between. if I have a channel here and a channel here then I'm not really getting
that stimulation in the middle. so you want to make sure it crosses. that's
the really important part. so I'm gonna go ahead and set up
the electrodes how I want to if Brian was just having general low back pain in
this area. maybe he had worked out a little bit too much and he was just
feeling really sore, kind of that you know back extension, back flexion was
hurting but nothing specific, just general back pain. so the channel one I
would take and these might be a little cold sorry Brian. I'm gonna do a big area
so I'm just gonna go kind of up here and then this one I'm gonna go a little bit
lower right at his belt line. if you want to go even lower kind of down into the
buttocks area you definitely can do that that's your preference, but the great
thing about the TENS is that it's pretty general. you don't have to be specific
like an EMS where you have to get on the muscle belly. so then I'm just gonna kind
of mirror the other side. again it doesn't have to be exact, but just kind
of in the general area. so when they start going again they're crossing like
that, and so they're getting that whole low back pain area. so then once you get
it set up you can go ahead and turn it on. and so this unit is a nice simple one.
some of the ones they have are a little more fancy, they're touch screen and stuff
like that, but if you're not really into that, you just want something simple that
works just as well, this one's great. and it even has the areas that you can use.
so if you want to do the back, or if you want to do the neck, or the shoulder, or
the elbow, you can just tap on that button and then kind of go. so we would
go to the back, the mode 3. and then you have your timer that you can set for
whatever time you want it to go, and then you can just start increasing the
intensity. so you can do that on the side here. this is channel a, and that's
channel B, but both of these are channel a, so he's going to just increase it on
the left side. so I usually let the person that has it on them do the intensity
because sometimes the very first one is is pretty strong, so you want to have
control because you want the, you know, the intensity to be strong but
comfortable. you know it might be slightly uncomfortable, but you certainly
don't want it to be painful and you don't really want those muscles to
contract. so if he were to go up high and this would start really contracting and
he'd kind of feel that muscle tightening, he either has it too high or maybe we
just need to move the electrodes a little.
so that's fine you can move those electrode.s you don't have to just be in
one specific spot. that's the great spot about it, and sometimes you're just kind
of maybe over a nerve or over the muscle belly and it is going to start
contracting it, but you don't really want that with the tens. so he's got it going
and that's that's good for him, but if you're gonna move the electrodes make
sure you take the intensity back down, just because it it will get you a little
bit on your finger if you do that. so you can do a big general area maybe if he
was a little more specifically painful in here you could move them inwards just
to get it a little bit closer to the spine. or if you wanted to, another great
component about it is you could just do one channel with the two electrodes, or
you could do the one channel with the big electrodes. so I'm just gonna take
one off and then I'll show you really quickly like if there's a specific area
maybe even something like his SI joint that's specifically hurting. so he really
just wants to get that specific area, so let's say he's really just point tender
kind of right on this spot right here, and that's bothering him. you can either do
one on top and one on the bottom right below his belt line, or you can just do
it side to side. usually it's just your preference. for someone really lean like
him, you probably want to get it where it's a little more meaty, so maybe a
little bit more on the outside because sometimes because he's so lean and
doesn't have a lot of tissue there, he's gonna feel it pretty quickly. so if you
get it a little bit more on a meaty part it won't be quite as intense. so just the
same thing then he can take it up to comfort level. so the cool thing about
the healthmate forever is they've got a whole bunch of different sizes of
electrodes too. so if you're looking to do like just a mamma-jamma, a good big
coverage of your low back, you can do a big one here like this. so this one has
just the two here, so you would want to do one channel with this big one. so make
sure that you're doing just the one channel and you got to come and find it
here, and then put that on there. so again with this you don't have to be
super specific with the placement. usually with a pad this large, it's
usually just when you're having that general muscular pain in there. it's not
really a specific spot and so you can just take this thing off, and I usually
like to have that middle piece kind of go along the spine. so you can have some
equal amount on each side. so maybe -whoo it's cold- something kind of like that
right there. and then again he could kind of take that intensity if he wanted to,
and whatever comfort level and then he could kind of just put that in his
pocket and kind of go on about his day. so it's really nice because then you
have the timer, and so you can set your 15-20 minutes, and then it'll
automatically shut off. and then you know a couple hours later you can turn it
back on. so if you're interested in purchasing any of the health mate
forever TENS units, make sure and click on the link right above my shoulder over
there. and don't forget to subscribe by clicking down there. and remember be safe
(especially with the big electrode), have fun, and I hope you feel better soon.