♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi folks I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist
- Brad Heiner, physical therapist
- And we're the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course,Bob.
- Today we're gonna talk about how to use a TENS unit
with mid back pain.
We're gonna show you correct pad placement
and as a bonus at the end
we're gonna show you an exercise
you can do along with the application of TENS.
- Right we found it very successful with our treatment.
- Yeah, a lot of people have really responded
to this exercise.
Today as far as which TENS unit to use,
Brad and I have tried dozens of units
and all of them seem to work pretty well
to be honest with you.
We've been sent a lot of units.
They're all pretty powerful.
A lot of them have very poor instructions.
Some of them almost have no instructions
to be honest with you.
And so after a bit, Brad and I,
after trying a lot we decided we're gonna endorse one brand
we decided to endorse the iReliev.
Specifically what we're gonna do
on other videos,
we're gonna show you how to use
three of their different models.
- Sure.
- They have the 1313,
which is their low end model less expensive,
but it's not rechargeable.
- Oh no, it's this one.
- They have the high end model,
which is the 5050 which is wireless.
- Yeah, no.
No leads to deal with.
- Quite a bit more expensive.
And then, they have the 8080,
which is a nice in between model.
Brad and I really like that one.
And, these, well yeah if you wanna watch us demonstrating
how to use these models step-by-step,
go to bobandbrad.com.
Go to the program section
and under the program section look for TENS.
- TENS.
- And then under TENS,
you'll find the different videos
that show you how to use it.
- Right.
- In addition to the videos--
- Ahh.
- We have a print out with each video, including this one.
- A PDF.
- A PDF, that you can print out
and it's gonna show you how to use the unit,
but it's also gonna show you the pad placement that
we're gonna talk about today. - Right, right.
- So, why don't we jump into that now Brad.
The pad placement, so we're gonna--
- No.
- So, right now, because all of you
have signed a release saying they don't want us
to take our shirt off--
(laughs)
We're gonna have our cameraman come in
and take his shirt off
and Brad's gonna show where to place the pads.
- Right.
- For mid back--
- Mid back.
Right around that scapula or shoulder blade area.
- [Bob] So, I'll keep commentating.
We didn't put a mic on Mike,
because we don't, we're afraid of what he might say.
And he's got his SpongeBob shirt on.
He's so proud of that. - Oh God, yes.
- [Bob] But, we made the joke on the last one,
it's not that he's got a sponge body,
it's a SpongeBob shirt.
- So, here we've got the iReliev.
This is the 8080 unit that we like.
It's got rechargeable. - [Bob] Right, right.
- We're not gonna hook up the leads to the pads,
just because it gets in the way.
We're focusing on where to place the pads
and how to place em.
There's a few different options.
- [Bob] Why don't we start with one sided Brad.
If the pain is just on one side.
- You ready for this Mike?
I got cold fingers.
You might jump.
So let's say, a common place for pain
is usually right in this area.
- [Bob] Now this one, we're doing more mid back, Brad.
We're gonna do one for upper back too so--
- Oh, sorry Bob.
- [Bob] Keep her down.
(laughs)
- Then we do have it actually in here.
- [Bob] Right.
- The mid back, lower back, mid back
and then neck and upper back kind of--
- [Bob] Right, right do it together.
- So what we're gonna do, so let's say the pain.
You know I thought I had a marker here Bob.
Doggone it.
All right, we'll use our imagination.
Right--
- [Bob] We'll use our imagination.
- Right there.
Maybe I can make his skin turn red.
There you go kind of.
So, we go right over the top.
Sometimes people have, you know,
they say a knot right there,
that just feels like it needs to get cracked or whatever.
And you're gonna put pad right over that, okay.
- [Bob] The point we should point out,
or make right away Brad
is that there's not specifically
a right or wrong place to put the pads.
- Right, exactly.
- [Bob] We got some general guidelines here,
and so what you wanna do is experiment.
So the first experiment we're doing
is we're putting one pad right on the pad, pain
and then you're gonna place the other pad,
what, above the pad?
- We can go above.
Don't let em touch each other,
even be close.
They should be the width of one pad apart.
There like that.
No, some, I say pads it could be electrode,
you could call it a number of things,
but we're referring to these. - [Bob] Yeah.
- And down, these are yellow.
We put the yellow tape on there
so you can see the difference between channels.
We could go over here,
we could go over here
and actually, you could even you know,
practice with kitty-corner
if we will.
- [Bob] Yeah, so there's multiple variations
that you can use.
- So, again the pain is right there.
The other option if you're using one channel
is to bridge or cross over the pain.
So the pain is here.
I'm gonna put one pad above,
one pad below it
and then turn it on,
assess it, see how it responds to it.
Once you find the spot,
you don't have to keep doing all this.
- [Bob] Right, if you find one that works--
- Yep.
- [Bob] Just stick with that.
- And chances are, you're not gonna do all these.
You'll probably find what works
within a couple trials.
- [Bob] Right.
- We can go over here, we can go here.
If you wanna use,
should we go with the four pads?
- [Bob] Sure, yeah.
Let's go with four pads.
- Let's say it's not so, of a pinpoint.
It's a little bit broader pain,
over the one side.
Then, we're gonna use all four pads
using two channels.
Four pads.
- [Bob] And as one rule of thumb,
we generally don't put the pads right on the spine.
- Right.
- [Bob] Yeah, so.
That's right on the spine.
We wanna avoid that, stay into the soft tissues.
And again as we've mentioned before,
we put the color coding on these pads.
- Right.
- [Bob] They usually come,
they're black or they're white or.
- So you just have to keep track of which channel.
- [Bob] So, you wanna show why you put em that way.
The conductivity that occurs between pads Brad?
- Yep.
So here we've got.
This would be hooked up like this.
One lead here.
Boy this is really easy without my glasses,
I can't hardly see.
(laughs)
Okay, so the current's gonna go through one wire
to channel two and it's go green to green
or two to two.
A criss cross there and go back
and little education on current of electricity flow.
And then the same happens with channel one.
So the current goes here
and it goes here
and it forms that cross.
- [Bob] X, yeah.
- And these can be rotated at any.
- [Bob] Right.
- At any location.
You know, we could go vertical
with the channel two or the green
or diagonal oops, these pads are--
- [Bob] Yeah, we've been using these pads a lot,
so they're, they're not sticking.
- And Mike didn't wash,
we didn't mention that, did do we?
- [Bob] Yeah.
- You really wanna wash your skin while soap and water,
Make sure it's very dry.
If you happen to have a hairy back,
you really need to shave it,
because the hair's gonna decrease how long the pads last,
cause some of the hair actually sticks to it
and pulls off.
It's not very comfortable either.
- [Bob] Yeah, the oils of the skin
interfere with the stickiness too.
- Yeah, exactly.
- [Bob] And you can revive the pads a little bit,
by just putting a little water on them.
- Yep.
- [Bob] You can take a washcloth--
- We're gonna have a video on that as well.
- [Bob] Actually Brad, we did it.
We didn't realize, I didn't realize we had done one.
- Oh, we did that already.
- [Bob] That's how smart we are, so.
All right, and you can go across the spine too,
the same way.
- If you got a real broad, mid back pain.
Again, same rules.
And this is probably the, about as far apart--
- [Bob] Right.
- As you're gonna get these pads.
If you get too far apart,
they don't conduct well
and you just don't get a good response.
It may even need to go a little closer.
- [Bob] A little closer, a little tighter.
- Yep, you just have to experiment
and see what the response is.
There we go.
- [Bob] There we go.
All right.
- And that could be rotated too.
We could put the green ones here
and the yellow ones here.
- [Bob] Sure.
- All right, okay.
- [Bob] Thank you Mike.
- Thank you Mike.
- [Bob] We're gonna go ahead,
show the exercise now that you could--
- Oh yeah.
- [Bob] Now, this exercise
because of the nature of it,
you won't be able to do the exercise
when the pads are on very easily,
because you would be hitting the ball, so.
- Oh yeah, so you gotta use a,
about a six, six or eight inch diameter ball
that you would have for your children works well.
And it works good if they're a little bit,
if it's a little flat.
- How am I looking Mike?
- Or a softer ball.
- Are we okay?
Okay, so yeah.
The thing about TENS,
if you use it, a lot of times it stimulates
the natural endorphins in your system,
so there's some carry over.
A lot of times you put the TENS on for an hour.
You actually might be pain free
or pain, you know, less pain for another two,
another hour or so.
- Oh yeah.
- So that's a good time
to start getting some movement in your back,
because movement, motion is lotion.
It can help you decrease the pain level
over a long period of time,
if you can start getting the back moving.
So, with the mid back pain.
A lot of times, the cause is this slumping posture.
- Mm hmm.
- So, as a antidote to that,
we actually wanna go in the opposite direction.
- Right.
- So, it's great to use,
by the way Mike invented this,
the cameraman.
You can use like a, a ball from Walmart
or big store, big ball store.
I mean big box store not big ball store.
(laughs)
I'll get it right.
- Well, that's tough.
- So, you put it in the mid back here
and what's nice about this.
You can put it in different locations
and then you're gonna do,
what we call the Hallelujah stretch.
- Yep.
- Right over the ball.
Hallelujah, pressure on pressure off.
This feels really good,
this is a really,
it should feel good for you too.
If it hurts, try a different location.
- Right.
- And maybe not go as far.
Just start working it,
but I have had so many patients
that actually that's all I had em do
was this one exercise
and it started taking away their mid back pain.
- Yep.
Again, a soft ball.
If you use something like a soccer ball
or basketball that's fully inflated,
it will not work.
- This one does, I have to admit,
this one really does feel good
that it's a little bit deflated.
- Yep.
- A little bit of the air's taken out of it.
So, give that all a try
and remember Brad and I can fix just about anything--
- Well, except for--
- A broken heart.
- But we'll,
work on that.
- We'll work on that in our spare time.
- Be careful.
- Thanks.
(beats thump)