by naama » Fri Aug 24, 2007 9:14 am
For anyone who has a Boots machine, you can contact tenscare and they sell leads for Boots machines which allow you to use different sized pads. You can get some really tiny pads which, I guess, would work on hands and feet up to some really quite large ones that are ideal for your back.
The best thing my pain management nurse taught me was that you can mix and match pads, so if you have SI pain you can use a big pad on the SI joint and a smaller one on the outside of the hip if you have pain there too. She also suggested I used mine on the manual setting and told me the ranges to use for constant settings and burst settings.
Having said that, I don't use it much because during the day I have an SI belt on and don't want to be using a TENS machine under the belt. the other option is keep nipping into the loo to take the belt off to use the TENS machine for a while and then put the belt back on again.
Another good thing she taught me was that when you have the two pads on an area, if one is more sensitive than the other, make sure the red lead (on a boots machine) is on the more sensitive area because that lead doesn't have as strong a current as the other one, so you can turn it up higher.
You shouldn't turn it up so high that the muscles twitch. If they do, even on a low setting, try moving the pad slightly. On my shoulder I can only use it on about 3 out of 15 because the shoulder capsule area is so sensitive. On my SI joint and back I can use it on 15