Last post Fri, Jan 25 2008 3:15 PM by hansgirl1. 5 replies.
Hi, I was wondering if anyone has considered TENS for chronic joint pain. There is a place in downtown Toronto called KinActive Health and Fitness that has them, as well as lots of other alternatives such as Biofreeze and Therapain. I found them at http://www.kinactive.ca
The pain wasn't in my joints but I used a TENS for awhile. The best diagnosis I could get was myofascial pain. I did find it helpful, but after awhile my pain got better by other means and I found it was more trouble than it solved. Still I could definitely see myself trying it again in the future. It's not a bad idea to try it before you get one, if you can.
i've got a TENS unit. i've found it helps with my hand but not with knees or shoulders. when i used it on my knee it was spasming for hours afterwards and with my shoulder it dislocated straight away, it was good for my hand though although the instructions said use it once or twice a day for 15 minutes i didn't find it made any difference for that time so i use it for a couple of hours every day. probably a good idea to talk to a doctor first
I have a TENS unit and for me, it works GREAT for muscular pain and tension, but not for joints.
I have a friend with Rheumatoid Arthritis and she found a recipe for purple grape juice and Certo and swears by it.
Julia
I feel that the tens unit was just annoying that it did nothing for my pain, I am happy that some have found relief from it. It just depends on what pain a person has. I have nerve pain and nothing seems to help that, not even morphine
Hello,
I'm not currently dealing with chronic pain, but I have in the past. Thankfully there was a surgical solution to my problem. I am partially paralyzed and have alot of spasticity. Because my left leg was so weak and the tone was so strong it had pulled my hip about half way out of the socket. So it was constantly grinding and quite painful. I have an intrathecal pump (internal) to help with my spasticity so they were able to mix in some dilaudid (hydromorphone) in with my baclofen. Between the pump and the occasional pill (for bad days) then I was able to handle my pain fairly well. After about a year and a half of that though I decided to have an operation to remove the ball from the socket (called a girdle stone). So when I woke up I was essentially pain free, except for surgery pain. I was then able to just let the meds in my pump run out and back off things orally as well. The next time they refilled my pump it was just baclofen.
But there are pumps that are just for pain meds. They are similar to the baclofen pumps, just a bit smaller. The great thing about them is that you are using MICROgrams instead of MILLIgrams and getting just as effective of pain relief. If I had to be on oral baclofen alone I would have to be taking so much that I would be completely out of it. And adjusting and refilling the pump is easy as well. To refill they just put a needle into the port (they use a template to line things up) and draw out any remaining meds before filling it up with the new stuff. To adjust it they have a handheld device that has a little mouse-like attachment that they hold over the pump and it reads the pump and can make adjustments to it, either turning it up or down. And they can use pretty much any pain med that can be put into liquid form, they can even combine them, when necessary, for better effectiveness. And there are even pain meds they can use that are non-narcotic. One that I know if is called Prialt. It originated from slug venom but is now synthetic. The great thing about it is that if it ever becomes ineffective or you have any adverse reactions then they just take you straight off of it. There are no withdrawl symptoms. Granted, there can be some big side effects/reactions/problems that come with it, but those are usually due to getting too much of the med. You would have to discuss the risks with your doctor I suppose. :)
Anyhoo, I've rambled on long enough. :) Here is a link to the pain control section of the Medtronic site (the ones who make the pump I have) http://www.medtronic.com/patients/pain.html I hope that this helps. :)
Blessings on your day,
Jennifer
