A home TENS unit puts a pain-easing tingle in your own hands: a palm-sized battery unit and sticky pads for use between clinic visits. The mode, session length and how often are all set by your physician.
This item is supplied only on a physician’s order, and it is fitted on you in the clinic.
What is a home TENS unit?
A pocket-sized unit and a set of sticky pads. It gives you, at home, the gentle electrical tingle that ends a clinic visit.
How does it help you heal?
Used when pain spikes, whether in the evening, on the job or in bed, it dials the pain signal down. Less pain can mean more movement and fewer pain pills.
How should it feel?
A strong, comfortable tingle under the pads, and never pain. The mode, the time and how often all come from your physician’s order.
How do you wear it, use it and keep it in shape?
Wash and dry the skin first, then set the pads around the painful area, keeping an inch or more of space between each one. Keep the pads stuck to their plastic liner between uses, and replace any pad that no longer holds. Stop and call us if you find redness or a burn beneath a pad, or if dizziness or a racing heart shows up.
When should you call us?
Follow these limits every time, and call us if you are unsure:
- Keep pads off the throat, eyes and chest, and off any cut or broken skin
- Never use it when driving, operating machines, sleeping, bathing or showering
- Pacemaker, implanted stimulator or pregnancy: only with your physician’s okay
How long do you use it?
Use it the way your physician ordered.
We size the item on you and coach you until you can manage it on your own, from strapping it on to taking it off. Written instructions go home with you, and the signed receipt stays in your chart. Phone us about any pain, a bad fit or a broken piece.
What to remember
- Clean, dry skin, with pads at least an inch apart.
- Not while driving, asleep or wet.
- Red or burned-looking skin where a pad sat: shut it off and phone us.
Show us you have it: Place the pads, power the unit up and pick your mode while we watch. If any part is unclear, ask us to go over it again; there is no limit on that.
You will have felt the same tingle in the clinic during TENS therapy. If you take pain medicine, read what happens to your prescription when the pain gets treated.
Other equipment in the program
This page belongs to the Gateway Midwest physician-directed physiotherapy program. On Natural Bridge Road, the physician who examined you signs each order, and no treatment runs without a physician on site.
Hurt in an accident? Start here.
You do not need a lawyer, a police report or a referral to be seen. Bring your symptoms and we will work out the rest.
Monday–Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Same-day appointments are often available for new accident and injury patients.