subject: TENS Found Not To Work [print this page] TENS stands for Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation. The principle behind it is to send electric currents through the skin to try to relieve pain. It's basically a little battery operated machine that sends pulses through electrodes that are connected to your skin. Most of the time it's only two electrodes, although you can use many more. It's been a very popular treatment for pain, especially back pain, for years, and now it looks like it might have been a big waste of time for most people.
According to the American Academy of Neurology, it appears that using TENS for back pain, or more specifically chronic low back pain, doesn't work. A physician and professor of neurology at the University of Kansas medical Center in Kansas City Kansas, did a three-month study comparing a regular TENS unit with a placebo TENS unit and found no difference between the two as it pertained to relieving back pain on patients.
Like many other studies, however, and this one has brought up some contradictory views. A group of physicians from a university in Germany wrote an editorial stating that there hasn't been enough research on TENS, even including this particular study, to prove that TENS doesn't work across the board. In their opinion, TENS is a safe, user-friendly treatment that doesn't cost that much to try.
Other therapists seem to agree that if nothing else has worked for a patient, TENS still might offer some sort of effective treatment, stating that many patients who have been recommended to use TENS have reported positive results in the past.
As a sidebar, it seems that TENS might have the possibility of having a positive effect on people that suffer from diabetic nerve pain. However, it's not known if TENS should be the most recommended treatment for the pain as opposed to other methods for treating the pain.
For now, physical therapist will probably still recommend TENS treatment for many of their patients who are suffering from lower back pain, and because of the controversy it's unknown how many physicians or therapists might potentially decide to move away from TENS therapy.
