Post Az6IjVT8n4G6Yg2ilU by Ottermarie@ecoevo.social
(DIR) More posts by Ottermarie@ecoevo.social
(DIR) Post #Az6GcYEXuhPtCHlvJg by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-10-11T12:55:20Z
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It's easy to laugh and make fun of the medbed people... but then I remember my TENS machine and why I have a TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) machine. When you are sick, when you have chronic pain you'll try things just to see if maybe it might work. Do TENS machines work? No. Kinda? Yes? Sometimes?Basically, it's a machine that runs a current through your skin making your muscles twitch a little.
(DIR) Post #Az6Gs750deArc9jQvY by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-10-11T12:58:11Z
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They are inexpensive and when I asked my doctor about it she said "you can try it if you want, some people say it helps, I wouldn't bother, but I won't tell you it's harmful"I will say that the TENS machine produces a very strange slightly annoying sensation that distracted me from the pain. So, in that sense it "worked."Of course I wanted it to REALLY work, have a dramatic effect. That did not happen. My doctor told me it wouldn't. I messed with the damn thing anyway.
(DIR) Post #Az6GyNt53qllTo8tqC by brunomiguel@masto.pt
2025-10-11T12:59:18Z
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@futurebird I have one. It makes my pain worse, but it helps my father with his.
(DIR) Post #Az6IOIv0G4CDYHxu7s by lffontenelle@mastodon.social
2025-10-11T13:15:09Z
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@futurebird Medical doctor and former physical therapy patient here. I never really stopped to think how effective TENS was! I sort of implicitly trusted it in the hands of physiotherapists and distrusted it in home devices. The only time I found a study on TENS, it was a direct-to-costumer device for headache (migraine?), but the trial was not prospectively registered and the methods were a little off, so I just forgot about it.
(DIR) Post #Az6Idw90hQABYKyGzQ by Wendelin@ohai.social
2025-10-11T13:17:59Z
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@futurebird Yep, they work as a counterirritant.
(DIR) Post #Az6IeeuiFQSsP1czS4 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-10-11T13:18:00Z
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@lffontenelle I'm not saying it's bad. I was curious and read everything I could find about it and the results are deeply mixed. What it isn't is a solution. It's something that might help. For some people more than others. And it's not incidental or meaningless that it helped me to get through the long healing period by being something I could "do" ... the real cure being slow boring PT and time.
(DIR) Post #Az6IjVT8n4G6Yg2ilU by Ottermarie@ecoevo.social
2025-10-11T13:19:00Z
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@futurebird helped me deliver my 9 lb baby without pain meds, so yes, it worked for me.
(DIR) Post #Az6J1P0TYWs7jDAVBw by lffontenelle@mastodon.social
2025-10-11T13:22:15Z
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@futurebird My physiotherapist discouraged me from buying one for my wrist tendinitis, because it would make it easier for me to keep typing and handwriting too much 😄
(DIR) Post #Az6JElDCJD20MRULya by PeryleneBleu@eldritch.cafe
2025-10-11T13:24:39Z
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@futurebird depends on the pain, it can really really work, sometimes it continues to work a while after I stop it. You really have to tinker with the settings though. A lot of my friends have one, for some it's a last resort (unpractical and not very effective) for some it's their go-to for a particular pain. And obviously everything in-between.
(DIR) Post #Az6KlvLhjvVrJMqSMS by sewblue@sfba.social
2025-10-11T13:41:52Z
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@futurebird When I was having sciatica issues TENS was a godsend.Did not help with full blown sciatica bit it would help if I felt that little precursor twinge. Hey, that muscle reeeeeally wants to starts seizing around that nerve. Let's zap it until it changes its mind.
(DIR) Post #Az6NkYmQStUit6Nvkm by MolluskGoneBad@mastodon.social
2025-10-11T14:15:13Z
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@futurebird Someone I'm close to in a job where they are exposed to PILES of bullshit beliefs they would always laugh about ended up trying all kinds of those things when acute chronic pain made them desparate.
(DIR) Post #Az6bsUhutEkbvnxAZ6 by phooky@hexa.club
2025-10-11T13:08:49Z
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@futurebird when I was a kid I remember every gym in the world having a vibrating belt machine left over from the 60s; to the best of my knowledge the only thing they contributed to the world was making middle aged men's belly fat jiggle in screwball comedies
(DIR) Post #Az6bsWNmf3pp7wY7Si by th@social.v.st
2025-10-11T16:18:35Z
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@phooky @futurebird or those mid-century "exercise" bikes where the motor drove the pedals and moved your feet instead of the other way around.