How to Use a TENS Unit Successfully

A TENS unit, which has been known to be the transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation unit, is a safe way to relieve your stress and pressure. Coming with the small and light-weight design, this unit becomes globally popular. Though the device is small, it could deliver a plenty of gorgeous features to make people feel comfortable and relax. However, it will lead to several health consequences in wrong use. Learning about this smart tool provides basic knowledge to help you effectively deal with common pains in your life. Let’s have better understanding about the ways to use a TENS unit by following our article.

Best Tens Unit for Back Pain

Clean and test the TENS unit

Ensure that your unit has enough electric power to start the treatment. It means that you should fully charge your battery before using. Remember to turn off 2 knobs on the device before making test. Based on your specific requirements, you could adjust the levels of your nerve signals to be strong or weak. Another important requirement is that regularly cleaning the skin areas where you place the electrode pads. As you know, oil skin will negatively affect the performance of a TENS unit.

When the device is not in use, let’s unplug it to ensure the safety. Moreover, if you want to clean the TENS unit, removing the batteries is an essential requirement.

Learn about pad placement and use

Stick a layer of gel on your skin before you place the electrodes. This helps efficiently transmit electrical signals to your nerves. All you have to do is sticking electrodes on your painful areas. There is an available instruction to guide you in a right way. Start your treatment at slow pulses. After the treatment finishes, removing electrodes is the next important step. A soft cloth is suitable for wiping out the sticky areas. You had better use the mixture of water and soap to do this task, not alcohol or vinegar. This is because alcohol or vinegar may destroy different components inside of the unit.

You shouldn’t make any pad placement in these cases: over eyes or heart, healed skin and joints. Moreover, avoid using damaged or wet electrode pads on your skin. Each part of our body has specific ways to place the electrode pads. Ask the doctors or read the instructions about the best ways for pad placement, including pains in shoulder, knee, foot, plantar fasciitis, fibromyalgia and lower back. For example, the idealist place to stick electrode pads on your shoulder is the shoulder blade. If you are suffered from knee problems, placing the electrode pads around your knee joints is necessary. It is so simple with foot pains, in which you place the electrode pads on lower calf muscle of both back and top foot. To deal with fibromyalgia and lower back pains, carefully place the electrode pads on painful areas.

Many people wonder the time and frequency of using a TENS unit. That’s the reason why we are here today to help you solve this question. More specifically, the number of using this device is dependent on the instructions of doctors. Normally, applying your treatment 3 to 4 times per day and minimum of 30 minutes per time is a popular recommendation.

Properly store the unit

Over time, your unit should have right maintenance for better longevity. It is advisable for you to replace your electrode pads after several times of use. This means you have to replace new pads, not the TENS unit. Users should clean the pad and store them in a right way after uses. Ideal places for storage should be safe to protect the device from bumping out, knocking or sitting on.

Safety precautions

There are several cases that you shouldn’t use a TENS unit such as pregnant women, wounded injuries, epilepsy, numbness, etc... The TENS unit is effectively used to deal with chronic pains and musculoskeletal health conditions. Before using this tool, ask the doctor whether you could use a TENS unit or not.

Other important thing that you must keep in your mind is that never allowing the touching between the electric unit and shower, bathtub, etc…Besides, remember to avoid placing the unit near your sensitive areas such as heart, veins, neck and more or using the unit while sleeping.

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Comments

[Jessica Roggers]

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[Anna Picket]

It sounds like the gel is really important if you want the tens machine to work. We will have to make sure that we prep the area well before we get started. If this machine could reduce my pain, I'd be willing to try it. Is it hard to find one?