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How to Manage Pain at Home With TENS Therapy


Experiencing sudden, severe or chronic pain can really affect your life and hinder your daily activities. If you feel like you constantly have to go to the doctor for a prescription or the chiropractor for treatment, you should consider Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS), a drug-free alternative for managing pain at home.

What is TENS?

TENS is often prescribed as an effective way to relieve pain because it works at the cellular level to aid in the healing process. Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation restores the balance of the electrical current found in our body, which is often disrupted when an injury occurs. TENS units also relieve pain by stimulating endorphins in the brain, the body’s pain fighting hormone.

How to do TENS at Home

If you are using a TENS unit for the first time, follow the eight steps below to manage pain at home:

  1. Turn the frequency on the device to max
  2. Turn the pulse width to the max
  3. Set mode to normal
  4. Set timer to 45 minutes or longer
  5. Plug in lead wires to the channel
  6. Place electrodes on pain points
  7. Make sure electrode pads are not touching and are not too spread apart
  8. Turn on device and set intensity

Remember, pain is unique to each individual, so make sure you use the right settings for you. We recommend using the normal mode at first since it is the easiest to get used to, but it is important to note that TENS units have five modes: burst mode for short-term therapy sessions, normal mode for short or mid length therapy sessions, and three modulation modes for long-term therapy seasons. Only make one adjustment at a time to see if there is an improvement in your results.

An additional benefit of a TENS unit, such as the Ultima 5 TENS electrotherapy device, is that it is fully portable, so you can put it away when you are finished and you can take it with you when you travel. This handheld device makes pain relief at home easy, convenient, and affordable. You no longer have to make an appointment each time you experience pain.