TENS Therapy Benefits

Not all chronic or acute conditions require medications to treat.

Using non-invasive therapies, such as TENS, to reduce pain and improve overall health can limit the number of drugs a patient must take.

It also protects them from adverse side effects.

If you have chronic pain, depression, or headaches, research indicates that using electrical stimulation through a TENS unit can help you achieve better health with fewer side effects.

If you are ready to feel better and take fewer drugs, then TENS therapy may be able to help you.

 

What is TENS Electrotherapy?

Electrotherapy has long been used as a method for stimulating nerve endings and promoting healing.

TENS, or transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, is one of the many types of electrotherapy used today.

It is a non-invasive form of therapy that is very safe and is relatively inexpensive.

TENS therapy can be used to stimulate nerves all over the body, which makes it perfect for use to treat a wide range of symptoms.

TENS therapy is most commonly used to reduce pain, due to inflammation or nerve damage.

However, it can also help with other disorders and symptoms.

We will explore the many uses for TENS therapy, based on the scientific literature.

As researchers learn more about this method of treatment, new treatment options and applications are being discovered.

 

How TENS Therapy Works

Doctors and researchers have not discovered the exact mechanism that explains how or why TENS therapy works.

However, there are many theories, based on scientific data, that could explain its abilities to heal the body.

Most believe that TENS alleviates pain, by shutting down the pain signal pathways that lead from the brain to the part of the body in pain.

When TENS is applied to the skin, it stimulates large swaths of nerve endings, and over time, the brain may shut down responses to this overstimulation.

This may end the pain signals that are also being sent (1).

Others believe that this type of nerve stimulation causes the release of natural painkillers created by your body.

When pain is caused by muscle tension or spasms, repeated use of electrical stimulation may gradually change the muscles, allowing them to relax and cause less pain (2).

 

How to Use a TENS Therapy Device

TENS units are widely available today.

While each may be slightly different, they all share some of the same functions and features.

Be sure to read the manual for your particular unit carefully, before using it.

This will help you understand how to apply the pads and work the controls.

A TENS unit consists of a control unit and stimulation pads.

Some devices have two, while others may have four or even six pads, which are placed on the skin in areas where you want to stimulate the nerves.

It is best to apply the pads to clean skin that is thoroughly dry.

Your unit’s manual should give you recommendations on how to place the pads for best results.

Your unit will likely have two control knobs or features.

One should adjust the intensity of the electrical signal, while the other changes the pulse rate.

To find the right pattern for you, you should start with both controls turned to their lowest settings, then slowly adjust each, until you find the optimal level of stimulation for you.

The placement of the pads will determine how effective your TENS therapy is.

You may need to try several different arrangements to find the one that works best for your ailment or symptoms.

The pads should never touch each other (3).

Your doctor or physical therapist may recommend specific placements for your pads or techniques for treating your pain or other symptoms.

TENS units can be used in several different ways.

Your needs may require variations that are not used with other patients.

Most people place TENS stimulation pads on acupressure points, which are where various nerves intersect with major neural pathways (4).

Stimulating these points often supplies the relief you need from pain and inflammation.

Stimulating the vagus nerve, which runs through the neck and ear, can help treat many different mental health problems, including depression (5).

There are also other forms of electrotherapy.

These include percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (PENS), electrical muscle stimulation (EMS), interferential currents (IFC) units, electroacupuncture (EA), and pulsed electromagnetic field therapy (PEMF).

Each of these uses different frequencies and intensities of electrical stimulation to penetrate the body and help improve health (6, 7).

TENS has been shown to be comparable or even more preferred to other forms of electrotherapy.

In one study, TENS therapy was compared to electroacupuncture, which uses small needles to deliver the electrical stimulation directly to the nerves.

While EA was more effective at reducing lower back pain, it is not a treatment option you can use on yourself at home (8).

TENS was found to be just as effective as interferential currents (IFC) units at lowering back pain (9).

 

The Health Benefits of TENS Therapy

There are many different reasons you may choose to use TENS therapy, including the reduction of chronic pain or lower discomfort after surgery, to enhance mental health, to boost cardiac function and to help relieve migraine headaches.

There is evidence to support that using TENS could help treat a wide range of health problems, and we explore the current research on this form of treatment below.

Many early research studies of TENS therapy did not use control groups or placebos.

This makes it difficult to draw conclusions based solely on this research.

However, newer studies confirm these early results.

This helps us to feel more confident in these results.

Here are the most important ways that TENS therapy can enhance your health and improve your well-being.

 

Reduces Chronic and Acute Pain

There are many reasons why you may have pain.

For those with chronic conditions that cause pain, finding relief is essential.

TENS therapy has been shown to help improve chronic back pain.

Study participants with chronic back problems were treated, and nearly half reported improvement, most within one hour of treatment (10).

Similar results were noted in a study involving upper back pain (11).

For those with certain conditions that result in pain as well as the loss of mobility, TENS therapy can also help.

Patients with paralysis that yielded shoulder pain, reported improvement when treated with TENS (12).

They also had better range of motion and movement after treatment.

Using a TENS unit to stimulate your nerves and reduce your pain, can help you to avoid unnecessary trips to the doctor’s office and hospital (13).

When patients with certain conditions that limit mobility, like arthritis, use TENS therapy, they are better able to move and enjoy their lives, thanks to reduced pain (14).

 

Improves Post-Operative Pain

Researchers are discovering that using TENS to treat patients who have recently had surgery, can reduce their pain, minimize their need for prescription painkillers and help them recover faster.

This can reduce the risk of patients developing drug dependency, as well as improve patient alertness and healing.

Similar results have been noted in many different studies.

For example, patients undergoing spinal surgery, who used TENS therapy, required fewer medications to manage their pain, resulting in fewer side effects (15).

Similar results were noted in a study that involved over 1,300 patients (16).

These are promising results that help patients, the healthcare industry and hospital staff.

TENS therapy can even be used to help reduce pain when large incisions are required, such as during open-heart or lung surgery (17).

When placed on acupuncture sites, TENS therapy was shown to not only reduce pain but also lower the blood pressure and heart rate for some patients (18).

TENS therapy can help relieve pain as well as pain medications, while also improving other important health metrics, like respiration.

When it is used in conjunction with medications, TENS therapy can reduce pain more effectively than just medication alone (19).

However, there is some conflicting information in the literature.

This could be due to a difference in how the TENS therapy was administered.

More information is needed to confirm (20).

TENS units can even be used to help reduce pain after dental procedures, eliminating the need for pain medications in many patients (21).

 

Reduces Feelings of Depression

One specific application of TENS, known as transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) has been shown to be successful in helping to treat depression symptoms.

The vagus nerve can be stimulated, when probes are attached to specific parts of the ear.

When this technique is used, it can help to fight many of the feelings that are experienced by those with depression (22).

Stimulating the vagus nerve translates into stimulation of specific parts of the brain that are known to affect depression.

When conducted regularly, this type of TENS therapy can help to reduce the frequency and severity of depressive episodes, as well as manage some of the other symptoms of this mental health disorder (23, 24).

 

Improves Cardiovascular Function

For those who currently do not suffer from heart disease, you can use TENS therapy to help keep your heart strong and healthy.

For example, TENS therapy has been shown to improve the resting heart rate and improve blood pressure regulation for some patients (25).

These same results were not seen in patients, who had undergone pulmonary artery bypass, however (26).

 

Enhances Recovery from Stroke

For patients recovering from a stroke, TENS therapy could be a possible treatment option.

Strokes are caused by a blood clot or rupture restricting the supply of oxygen to the brain.

After a stroke, a patient may have trouble with motor functions, speech, memory, and other tasks.

TENS could be used to help improve the outcomes for stroke patients.

When combined with other forms of stroke therapy, such as exercise, TENS treatment was shown to improve patient recovery and enhance their ability to move and balance (27).

This confirms earlier research, which indicated that TENS therapy enhanced patients’ ability to walk and balance, while also reducing muscle spasms and problems with a range of motion (28).

Patients who use TENS therapy have also reported improvements in the distances and speeds that they can walk (29), along with their control over their limbs, which improves their overall walking ability (30).

 

Treats Migraine Headaches

Stimulation of the occipital nerve using TENS therapy can help to decrease the duration of headache pain for some migraine sufferers (31).

Because TENS has no adverse side effects, it is often a better choice for those who suffer from migraines, especially chronic ones.

Migraine medications can often interfere with your ability to enjoy your life.

TENS therapy can help by reducing the frequency of headache outbreaks, as well as their severity (32).

This allows many migraine sufferers to function with less medication, which can mean fewer adverse effects (33).

Using a TENS unit regularly can help reduce the number of days you have migraine pain, and the best results are achieved by those who adhere strictly to the protocols outlined by their physician (34).

 

Boosts Athletic Performance

There is some evidence to suggest that TENS may be able to improve athletic endurance, reduce muscle pain and improve range of motion.

This can help an athlete to perform better.

For example, one study found that athletes who used TENS therapy while stretching were able to improve their mobility and reduce overall muscle discomfort (35).

This same study found that TENS therapy helped athletes to perform longer, due to decreased pain.

 

Helps for Those with Prostheses

For those who have lost a limb, TENS therapy can help with some of the more difficult aspects of this condition.

Many people who have had a limb amputated, notice phantom limb sensations.

As a result, they experience feeling and even pain in the limb that is no longer there.

If researchers could learn to mimic these neural responses and harness them for use with prosthetic devices, patients would have better use of artificial limbs, as their nerve endings could behave as if they were, in fact, their own body parts.

Recent research has been using TENS therapy to stimulate this lost limb response.

As scientists learn more about the mechanism and how it works, they can apply this to their work with developing smarter, more sensitive prosthetics in the future (36).

 

Reduction of Pain During Menstruation and Labor

Dysmenorrhea is common among women.

It results in painful menstrual cramps.

TENS has been shown to effectively reduce menstrual pain, leading to a significant improvement for many of the participants (37).

This is supported by additional research which showed the TENS therapy decreased both the intensity and duration of cramps (38).

Because TENS units are portable and discrete, they can be used unobtrusively just about anywhere, making it a convenient treatment option.

Women also experience intense pain during labor.

This is another area where TENS therapy may be helpful.

In one study, women who were given TENS treatment during labor reported significantly less pain both during and after labor, indicating that this could be used as a possible treatment for birthing mothers (39).

 

Boosts Respiratory Function

Patients with certain lung and respiratory disorders may also receive help from TENS therapy.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an inflammatory lung disease that results in obstruction of the airflow.

This blockage makes it hard to breathe and usually results in coughing and wheezing.

In one study, patients with COPD were able to increase their lung capacity and feel better overall, when they used TENS treatment (40).

This was confirmed in another study, in which COPD patients showed improved respiration during exercise (41).

These results have been consistently reported in similar research on COPD and TENS therapy, which makes this form of treatment a practical choice for those suffering from this chronic respiratory ailment.

 

Treats Chronic Diseases

TENS therapy may be an effective treatment for several different chronic illnesses, including urinary incontinence, fibromyalgia, and Parkinson’s disease.

Here is what we know.

Adults with overactive bladder may have positive results when using a TENS device.

In one study, half of the patients reported positive results while using this treatment, including two-fifths who reported no urinary incontinence while using the treatment (42).

Similar results have been seen in children who have nighttime incontinence, with one study showing a small reduction in bed-wetting episodes, when using the treatment regularly (43).

For people with fibromyalgia, TENS may offer relief from the pain, fatigue, anxiety and other symptoms of this disease.

Clinical trials have shown the TENS treatment successfully reduced both pain and fatigue in sufferers, which enhanced patients’ quality of life and ability to work (44).

Further research is needed, however, to confirm these results.

For patients with Parkinson’s disease, TENS therapy may offer a treatment for decreasing the severity of tremors.

The uncontrollable motor tremors that are the signature of Parkinson’s diseases, were seen to decline in a significant number of patients who used TENS therapy regularly (45).

In addition, TENS was shown to improve the ability to walk freely, which can be impaired in Parkinson’s patients.

Patients enjoyed an improved ability to walk, as well as increased walking time (46).

 

Precautions

Because TENS therapy is often administered at home by patients rather than in a doctor’s office, it can make it difficult to study its effects or to draw reliable conclusions from anecdotal information.

The way you use your TENS unit at home may be inconsistent from session to session, which can cause you not to receive the best possible results.

This is why researchers try not to draw conclusions from a single study or clinical trial but instead look at the data on TENS effectiveness more holistically.

TENS is commonly used to treat pain.

How one person experiences pain is subjectively different than how another does, so it is important to remember that you should focus on how the therapy is working for you.

Each person’s physiology is also different, which makes it difficult to determine a standard dosage recommendation for using TENS at home.

Your best frequency and intensity may differ from day to day, depending on your symptoms.

Some conditions also benefit more from more intense stimulation than others.

Talking with your doctor about your dosage will be important, as well as changing your unit’s settings to meet your needs, when necessary.

Following the instructions given to you by your medical professional, will provide you with the best chance of success when using TENS therapy (47).

In nearly all cases, TENS therapy does not yield any adverse reactions.

The only negative side effect reported is skin irritation at the pad sites, or pain when removing the pads.

These are both relieved quickly and do not seem to affect the result of the therapy.

If you have an implanted electrical device, such as a pacemaker, there is a small chance that TENS therapy could interfere with its operation.

There is not much evidence to support this possible interaction, but it is something you should be aware of if you have such a device.

 

Conclusion

TENS therapy can be an effective way to lower pain and treat other health conditions.

It is a form of electrotherapy which sends pulses of electric energy through the skin into the body to trigger nerve function.

TENS units use pads that are placed on the skin to deliver the electrical stimulation, which then penetrates to the nerve endings below.

The most common use for TENS therapy is to reduce pain.

Other applications include to improve heart function, treat mental health issues, improve athletic performance and lung function and to treat migraine headaches.

TENS therapy is usually administered at home by the patient, which makes its study more difficult than treatments that take place in a hospital or doctor’s office.

Be sure to follow the instructions provided to you by your doctor, when using a TENS unit to achieve the best results.