hey everybody it's Doctor Jo and Brian, my awesome cool model. and today we're going
to show you how to use a TENS unit for neck pain. so let's get started.
so the folks at Healthmate forever sent me their
TS8 tens EMS unit, and that's the one we're going to use today. so if
you're interested in purchasing any of their tens EMS units make sure you click
on the link up there. so I'm going to show you how to use the tens on the neck
right here, where Brian our lovely model is showing. so the great thing about tens
is you can use one channel with two electrodes, or two channels with four
electrodes, and so you can use them a little bit differently. I personally
wouldn't use an EMS or electrical muscle stimulation in the neck area, especially
if you're having a lot of pain, so we're just gonna do the tens, but they are
different with the tens. you really shouldn't get a muscle contraction. so if
if you're putting it on you feel like that muscle is contracting, either it's
too strong or maybe the electrodes are in a place where you need to move them a
little bit. so sometimes you have to adjust it a little bit, but the great
thing with ten's is the placement doesn't have to be exact. you're really
just trying to cover the area of pain. so let's say Brian has some pain just
really just general kind of in the back here, maybe where those levator SCAPs are,
and so it's kind of a general pain area. so what you want to do is kind of cover
that pain area. and each channel should cross so they shouldn't be side to side
or on top like that, but the channel one should be here in here and channel two
should be here, in here. so it's crossing that big area to cover it all that area
of pain. so when you're doing that, here you can see that this is channel, one
channel, and it has the two electrodes. so they're probably gonna be cold, Brian I
apologize. and so you're just going to place one maybe here kind of where the
upper trap is, and then you're going to place the other one, just get a nice
broad area a little bit lower maybe towards the rhomboids. I usually don't
like placing it right on the scapula bone or that
shoulder blade. sometimes that's a little uncomfortable. so if you can get it on a
more meaty area that usually is a little bit more comfortable. and then so you're
gonna take the other Channel and then just cross that so kind of mirroring
each other. you again you don't have to be exact, so it doesn't have to be in the
same spot on each side, the only thing that it really needs to do is it needs
to cross. so I'm just gonna put that one there, that one there, and so you can see
how then this channel is crossing, and then this channel is crossing. so once
you turn it on its really cool because this one has eight different settings.
that's the eighth part of the name. and so when you're going the ones that have
the the person using the the weights trying to make more muscles make muscle
stronger, that's the EMS. so the first couple ones are the ten. so I would stick
with those. and then a lot of people ask me well which one should I use because
they feel differently, and you know there may be different wavelengths or
different frequencies, and to be honest some therapist might say oh you need to
use this one for this and you need to use this one for this, but with a TENS
this is really for pain control. this is to increase the circulation to that area, so
this is a feel-good kind of thing. so really I would say just try each setting
and then see which one feels best for you. but again you shouldn't get a
contraction with the muscle. they should feel comfortable. it should be strong but
comfortable. so here once you see you can press you know the one that's that's
kind of a nice one, and then you go 2 and so when you press on that, it starts
moving that means which one is going. you can also just press the plus and minus
for the intensity here, but you can also do the plus and minus buttons here. so
I'm actually gonna let Brian kind of go at his own pace because you know he's
the one feeling it. so I usually let the patient or the person that it's on to do
the intensity. but as you can see, see right there is getting him a little bit,
so that one might be a little bit too high, so I would tell him to take
down all the way back down, and then I would just move this one slightly down
and then let him try it again. so again it's not an exact. sometimes it takes a
couple times to figure it out a little bit better. yeah and then so there's
there's that little bit of contraction. so for him he might we need to go a
little bit less, or again we might just need to move the electrodes in a little
bit different places. so again it doesn't really have to be exact, but that's kind
of how you're gonna do it. so if he wants to do something now, like let's say this
side is super painful, what we can do is then just do the one channel which is
two electrodes. and that usually gets it a little more concentrated in there
because the way this works is if they're closer together it's usually stronger. if
they're further apart then it's just more general getting the area. so you can
drop down to just two electrodes and then that will make it a little bit
stronger. and then you can get a specific spot. so when you're doing that you
really want to get pretty close to the area that's hurting. so a lot of times
people might have like a trigger point or something like that, and so the best
way then to do that is let's say his trigger point is kind of right here in
the trap area, maybe right there or something.
so I would either go on top and bottom but that might trigger that muscle again,
so I would just do them on each side. so if that was the spot, I would just kind
of go right there. so then that one channel is going back and forth between
those electrodes right there. so again then I would just give him the option of
doing the settings. going up a little bit, going down a little bit, just getting
that good feeling. not super painful but you know strong comfortable kind of
feeling. if he gets a little twitch that's okay, but you don't want that big
contraction because you know he's he's lean he doesn't have a whole lot of
tissue in that area, so sometimes you're going to get a little bit of a
contraction with someone lean like this no matter what, so it really just each
person is different. the placements going to be different for each person, so again
it's great because it is kind of general and so you can just
play around with it a little bit. so you can also move the electrodes a little
bit further up the neck. sometimes it's a lot harder for people who have long hair
just because the hair gets in the way, but you can move it up higher on the
back of the neck. I would be very careful about putting it on the front of the
neck, and I would always ask your health care provider if it's okay because
sometimes you might have certain injuries or certain ailments especially
like a pacemaker or something like that, where you shouldn't use any kind of
electrical stimulation. but let's say Brian was having a lot of pain through
here his levator SCAP and it was coming all the way up maybe giving him
headaches. I could bring it all the way up to his hairline up there, and then
come down about where it attaches to that scapula or that shoulder blade, and
do the two right there. I could also, if he was having pain on both sides, then do
the cross that way as well so he might just feel it a little bit more up there.
there's a little more vessels and stuff, so again just being a little bit careful
starting off really low and not going too crazy for it. but you can go up
higher on the back. just be careful about going more towards the front of the neck.
also what's really cool for the healthmate forever is they have a lot of
different styles of pads. so if he wanted to do something maybe just across the
whole lower neck, upper back area, they have some larger pads where you can
easily do that as well. and I'm not going to put it on his back but I'm just going
to show you. like let's say he had some general pain through here the whole area,
you could do a big one like this and put it on there, and just kind of that that
middle piece just follows along the spine, and so then there's one on each
side. and you can even do that further down the back as well. so there's a
couple different placements that you could do to that, and it's just really
nice because you can kind of get that whole area of neck pain. so if you're
interested in purchasing any of the healthmate forever 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, have fun, and I hope you
feel better soon.