It can also be effective in helping decrease nighttime trips to the bathroom. "I use TENS on a regular basis with patients to help decrease bladder pain and improve bladder frequency and urgency complaints. This type of training is referred to as desensitization strategies. Over time with gradual exposure to an unpleasant experience, the brain can become less “alarmed”. TENS works best when it is used in conjunction with gradual exposure to the unpleasant experience. In and of itself, TENS is not a “cure” for chronic pain. TENS can be used to temporarily block a pain signal while gradually re-exposing someone to the uncomfortable experience with the end goal of turning down the volume knob on the brain’s perception of the unpleasant experience. Lack of movement and/or lack of exposure to the experience can make the experience more intense.
Once the brain starts to perceive these experiences as harmful, one might have a tendency to avoid situations, movements, and/or positions that cause the unpleasant experience. However, sometimes this “alarm” signal becomes so “loud” that it sends up a “danger” signal when there is no actual threat. Pain is intended to alert the brain when the body is in danger. Pain is an unpleasant sensory or emotional experience. TENS, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, is a low frequency electrical current stimulating a sensory nerve (signal going to the brain) that blocks the pain signal. This is why we often rub or shake an injured body part, and why TENS units work! TENS units activate the large nerve fibers by creating a tingling or massaging sensation on the injured area, which blocks pain signals and temporarily reduces our perception of pain. In other cases, the signals may be inhibited or stopped entirely.Īctivating the large nerve fibers with normal sensations can help inhibit the pain signals sent by the small nerve fibers and help relieve pain. For some injuries, the signals pass easily, and we feel intense pain. This is the idea that before your brain can receive pain signals, a “pain gate” at the end of the spine allows or blocks the signals from passing through to the brain. In the early 1960s, Ronald Melzack and Patrick Wall proposed the idea of “ pain gating,” or gate control theory. Our ability to perceive pain depends on the brain receiving the pain signals and decoding them into the feeling of discomfort, etc. Large nerve fibers send signals when we experience normal touch or pressure, while small nerve fibers send pain signals when we’re injured.
To experience pain and other sensations, our body’s nerve fibers send sensory signals to the spinal cord, which then sends the signals up to our brain so we can perceive the sensation.
0 kommentar(er)
