What is TENS?

The transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) is a proven procedure in the modern pain therapy. By means of small, portable devices (Zapper) electric impulses with an analgesic impact are delivered to the tissue via skin electrodes.

Historical aspects

Already in the year 40 A.D. Scribonius Largus recognised the analgesic effect of the black crampfish which delivers electric impulses: Gout patients should lie down a living crampfish under the feet in the sea water, until pains decreased.
The analgesic effect from electric impulses fell into oblivion long, until there was discovered in 1965, that pain stimuli are not passed to the brain any more on by the electric stimulation of nerves.
Newer researches support this theory and show in addition that different endogenic Opioide (the substances which are similar to the natural opium in structure and effect) with analgesic effect are released by the TENS use with different parametres.

Pains are a part of us

Pains in themselves are vital, because they warn and protect the organism against menacing damages. Nevertheless we probably feel pain as the most disagreeable body perception.
Pain is a very subjective phenomenon and cannot be expressed in units. Everybody percepts it differently. The pain feeling is dependent on the time of day and it is subject to the individual biorhythm. In the evening and at night it is stronger, during the day it decreases.
Pain has many faces: It can be piercing sharply, beating, but also pressing, vague, paralyzing and nerve-killing. It can appear as sudden, as periodically or over and over again.
Pain can be felt only if the information about pain is perceived in the brain. This happens via different conduction tracts and special receptors or injured nerves which pass on the pain information to the brain where they are processed in certain brain areas. By the persistent pain information to the brain, a change of the cells and the suitable pain perception will happen: it develops a so-called pain memory. This means that the brain cells learn to perceive pains, even if the pain cause does not exist for a long time any more.
One makes a distinction, in the diagnosis as well as in the suitable therapy, between acute and chronic pains.
Acute pain is a sensible warning signal of the body, e.g., with the hand on the hot stove one pulls away the hand without having to think about it - the body acts automatically.
Chronic pain is pain lasting for more than 3 months. This form of pain has lost its warning function and can lead to the developing of a pain memory.
The aim of the modern pain therapy is to avoid the chronification of pain and to prevent the development of a pain memory.

The effect of TENS

By the choice of different parametres different mechanisms for a pain reduction will be activated.
The high-frequency TENS therapy (frequency approx. 80-120 hertz [hertz]) leads to an inhibition of the pain forwarding to the brain. Besides it comes to an increased release of Dynorphin, an endogenic Opioid which acts analgesic.
A stimulation with 20 hertz [hertz] has a general analgesic effect to Rife.
By a low-frequency stimulation (frequency approx. 1-10 hertz [hertz]) also increases release of endogenic Opioide (endorphin, Encephalin, Endomorphin) which differ from those of the highfrequency stimulation.

A combination of the TENS therapy with other pain-therapeutic treatment measures is possible.

Discuss the TENS therapy with your treating therapist (doctor or non-medical practitioner)!

TENS works invisibly

There are a lot of different methods to treat aching areas in the motion apparatus. The transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) stands for transcutaneous (pervading the skin) electrical nerve stimulation. This procedure serves as electrical "pain-relief", also called electric analgesia (= pain reduction). By regular TENS uses the human body produces materials (hormones) which alleviate mostly untolerable pains of the affected persons – without remarkable side effects.

That might sound like magic – but it’s just our own body which removes pain. For this effect a counterstimulus is demanded of our body by the therapy device TENS merely in the form of stimulus current. This works according to the easy pattern "stimulus" – "answer", "stimulus" = means current and "answer" = hormone.

Individual therapeutic options

One use can last approx. 20 minutes, but may be expanded up to hours. One can adjust the strength in the device itself, reaching from a pleasant prickle up to the pain threshold.
Most successfully and most frequently the TENS therapy is applied with the following complaints:

• myalgias
• stump pains and phantom pain
• pains in connection with Cancer illnesses and circulatory disturbances
• acute pains (possibly in the area of the cervical vertebra column)
• after accidents and damages with hematomas

In the suite of the TENS stimulation endorphin, Bradykinin, serotonin, histamine (all endogenic painkiller) are released increasingly and mix to a hormone cocktail. This might lead to a very much relaxed body feeling. At the same time the pain transmission is restrained by the nerve fibers and the blood circulation is stimulated locally.

The good thing is: The user feels a pleasant, relaxing prickle about the self-adhesive electrodes several times or simply merely.

The TENS method is recognised as pain-therapeutic medicine since 1982. Referring to medical instructions patients with returning or chronic pains are able to use the handy devices for selftreatment. In certain cases the costs are taken over by the health insurance funds.