Being a life long sufferer from lower back pain, every now and then I have a major seize up. This happened to me on Sunday after lifting something out of the boot of my car. In immense agony I resorted to bedrest and a shed load of painkillers. After 3 days of strong Cocodamol the pain was not subsiding, but lots of good advice from fellow sufferers offering their own methods of helping the pain. The same thing kept coming up: “Have you tried using a TENS machine.?” Not being pregnant (at least I don’t think so) I had never had cause to look at a TENS machine, let alone purchase one and try it. So I sent Brabinger my butler to fetch one. He returned with the above purchase from Boots.
Inside the box it looked like something left over from an ECG machine, sticky pads, electrodes and leads to stick onto my painful back.
I read the instructions three times to ensure I wouldn’t electrocute myself and placed the sticky pads (4 in total) to either side of my painful back. Connected it to the old fashioned mobile phone device and started with the first automatic programme. Nothing seemed to be happening, so I re-read the instructions to discover I hadn’t pressed the buttons to increase the sensations. So I cautiously upped the power in 0.5 increments on both sets of pads. Then suddenly I could feel a tingling needle like sensation in my back jabbing every second. I wasn’t too keen on this sensation. I upped it a little more before I pressed the stop button. Hmm I could see this being put straight on Ebay (perfect condition, used once).
Time to try the second programme, slowly slowly I increased the power. Hmm a wave of vibration runs through my back, this is very soothing, I could like this. I gingerly increased the power and it’s like a powerful massage on my back, my muscles are vibrating with the electrical pulses. I’ll stick with this setting for a while.
I try out all the different programmes, some are intended to kill pain, others to release the body’s own endorphins and others to do both.
It’s certainly very soothing when it’s connected to my back, very calming and no pain at all. When I disconnect, the pain comes back but not as intense. I’ve been using it for 24 hours now (20 mins at a time) and I can honestly say it’s helped loosen my back up and decreased the painful spasms.
I’ve been reading lots of reviews on Google and the vast majority of them are positive and some people wouldn’t be without them.
I’ll keep trying mine and I’d be interested to hear what others think if they’ve used one with or without success. 🙂
