Hey everybody, it's Doctor Jo. And today I'm going to show you how to
use a TENS / EMS unit for pain relief. So let's get started.
So first off, what is TENS and EMS. So TENS is transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation.
Well, that's why usually people just call it TENS. EMS is a general term for
electrical muscle stimulation. In some places, you might see different letters like neuromuscular
electrical stimulation, but usually EMS is just the general term. So with the TENS,
it follows those surface nerves. And it's really for pain control. There's a whole lot of specific
details of how it works. But basically, it follows the same pathways the pain pathway,
and cancels it out with the vibration. So a lot of times, it will help you get some pain relief.
So you can do the stretches and exercises you might need to get better and feel better and
kind of heal things. It also increases the circulation to the area. So it does have a
healing component as well, that electrical muscle stimulation retrains the muscles, but it's not
going to bulk up those muscles is retraining them. So if you've had an injury, and your muscle just
kind of shuts off a little bit, which, you know, if you've had an injury, it helps kind of remind
it what it's supposed to do. But again, it's not going to bulk it up, it's retraining it. So then
you can do the stretches and exercises, you need to get it better and stronger. So that's
kind of the process of how it works for pain relief. And sometimes people will say, well,
the electrical muscle stimulation or the EMS, if it's just strengthening the muscle or help
retraining the muscle, how is that for pain relief? Well, the stronger your muscles are,
and if they're doing what they're supposed to do correctly, then that helps relieve pain, because
then you're balancing the muscles are doing what they're supposed to be doing.
A lot of times that those muscles are activating, things become unstable, and that causes pain as
well. So that's kind of how that works in general. So the folks at EVERYWAY4ALL sent me their
iStim ev-805 TENS EMS combo unit. So I'm just going to use this today to kind of show you how
it works on your knee. But what I really like about their unit specifically, is not
only does it have 24 preset modes to it, where you can just kind of press the button and go.
But it also has where you can manually change the pulse rate and the pulse width, which is for some
people who really like to get into tech and stuff and want specific things, you can use the manual
settings to change those. And there's a whole lot of detail that goes into it. But if you want to do
it manually, there's information out there for that. So that's really nice as well. But again,
it also has the preset ones, which are great to use. And it also has an intensity that goes from
zero to 99, which makes it really, you know, powerful going up to get that, you know,
strong current if that's what you need. But you can also have the lower and the high. And so
I'm just going to kind of show you a couple of different things
on my knee here. So we're starting off with TENS. So for pain control, usually with tins
doesn't have to be, you want to use two channels, which is four electrodes, each channel has two
electrodes to it. So if I'm hurting on my knee, and I want some pain control for that intense,
I'm going to put a channel crossing one way and a channel crossing it the other way. So
one channel would be the electrode here and here. And then another channel would be the electrodes
here and here. So it gives that x pattern, which means then it's going to get the pain
in that area. Now sometimes you'll see that it's just, you know, one here, one here,
and then that's okay, I mean, you're still gonna get pain relief. But I really like that crossing
pattern because it's going to get that whole area out there. So for example, and you can see
they have some really great electrodes. And what's different for them is they give you 24 electrodes,
which is really nice, because sometimes if you get a unit, it'll just give you a maybe four
electrodes. So you have definitely enough to use for a little while. And then so you can see here,
cross, this is the channel, and then the other one here crossing, so I have that x pattern. And then
so when I turn the unit on, I just changed the mode to tins. And then I start taking,
so channel one and channel two, so you can just go back and forth with those. You can use two
electrodes or one channel for TENS. So if I was maybe really just hurting on the outside,
I could just have one here. The idea is wherever the pain is, you want it to go on either side.
You don't want it to go on the pain because the currents go towards each other. So that's
why if you're using for tins, that that cross pattern is a great way to use it. So with that,
you can use four or two. Now, if you're using EMS then you really want to put the electrodes
over the muscle that you want to activate. So I'm going to take these back off here.
And then for EMS, again, retraining the muscle making the muscle kind of do what it's
supposed to get, do, again, if you've ever had, specifically for the knee and knee injury or knee
surgery, a lot of times this quad muscle right here, life's ago, no, I'm on vacation, I'm not
going to activate anymore. And so you really want to just help get that muscle going again.
So with this one, we're just going to use two electrodes or one channel here.
And so you really kind of want to get it on the muscle belly, sometimes this is a little bit of
a trial and error, if I was going to get that quad muscle, I'd maybe put it you know, here in here,
sometimes if you're in the clinic, they might want that medial quad. So they might kind of go over at
an angle a little bit. And then you just start turning it on and seeing if you start feeling
that muscle working. So with the EMS, you usually want that contraction in there,
you want to feel a contraction, but with the TENS, Ideally, you don't want it to be a
sustained contraction, it might jump the muscle a little bit, but it's really for pain control.
So that's what you want it to be strong, but comfortable. EMS is different. You want it to be
strong, you want it to be activating that muscle, so sometimes it's very uncomfortable. But it's
activate that activating that muscle. And ideally, once you feel that it's activating the muscle,
then maybe you want to do an exercise with it as well. So if I'm here, when I feel it on,
I want to maybe squeeze maybe do a quad set where I'm trying to activate that muscle to or even
maybe try and do a leg lift or something while it's on and that's just going to help retrain
those muscles a little bit more. So a couple different ways you can do it. But in general
10s. And EMS is great for pain control, you can use it on most areas of the body, there are some
precautions and places where you shouldn't be using it. And another great part of the eye stem
is they have a really great instructional manual. And again, they have this nice carrying case
that you can open up and see. So their instructional manual is very nice and detailed
where sometimes with these units, it's just a little sheet and there's not much instruction
to it. So if you want to do some of the manual portion of it, it goes into good detail about
that. And they also have a nice guide. And then again, you can see all the electrodes that come
with it. So it's a great way to kind of either do the preset modes, or do something manually
if you're really wanting to kind of have control of how things work. So if you're interested in
purchasing the iStim ev805. Make sure and click on the link up there. And if you're interested
in maybe finding out some knee exercises and stretches to go along with it, you can click
on the playlist over there. And remember, be safe, have fun, and I hope you feel better soon.