TENS machine for pain

[laine]

Has anyone here ever tried a TENS machine for dry eye pain?.I know that they can be used for headaches and TMJ and quite often the pain radiates from my eyes into my head and jaw.
Am curious to try. Live in Canada and have never seen them for sale here. I know that in England they sell 'TENS Pens'.
Elaine

[Lucy]

Laine, I have a TENS machine that I used for knee/leg pain prior to a knee replacement surgery 4 years ago.

I have trigeminal neuralgia pain (in left eye) from lasik surgery. This is not like a regular headache. I'm just pointing that out as I'm not a regular sufferer of headaches. The trigem encompasses the left forehead, left eye and cheekbone. I tried using the TENS machine once on this area of my face, keeping it clear of my eye of course.

It was not a good experience and I never would try it again. What I have just was not helped by the TENS machine. In fact it took it to a fever pitch. But, for someone with a headache (and there are many kinds) it might prove beneficial. Probably depends on the type of headache you have.

Sorry I couldn't offer concrete info re: headaches, but for what I have the TENS was a no-go.

Lucy

[Silverlady]

I have

Laine, as Lucy says..the Tens used on the face area was a no-go for me. Very unpleasant. Would never do it again. But the Tens used on the small muscles, tendons at the base of the spine worked wonders for my headaches. I am now using a Tens for lower spine pain. I bought my last Tens from the internet but had a professional therapist adjust it for me. They need to be sort of customized in their settings.

Billye

[Eric]

Tensing. Don't Do It!!

I had a slight problem with my meibomian glands. I had lots of water in my tears. Then I tried Myotronics with a TMJ Dr. The Dr finds your "true bite" by tensing the jaw. He tensed me 3 times. Each time, the watery part of my tears went down. After the 3rd tensing, my water glands (lacrimal) were all but dead and still are!! They never came back! I am certian tensing killed them!!

[LoydH]

Trigeminal neuralgia

I am curious about your trigeminal neuralgia from LASIK. I had Wavefront LASIK in 2005 in the left eye (monovision) and am still suffering corneal pain (dry eye syndrome), which has been officially diagnosed as corneal neuropathy (http://www.aao.org/publications/eyen...007/cornea.cfm). I have tried almost every known intervention and none has been successful. The doctor who screened and the doctor who performed the LASIK both failed to note a pre-existing condition for which LASIK was contra-indicated. As a last resort to deal with the chronic, debilitating pain, I was advised to try the TENS pain unit. I had the trial on June 12th and will begin home treatments when I receive the device. No one is sure that it will work, but since the positioning of the electrodes will vary to hit all possible spots on the trigeminal nerve (where most of the docs agree the pain is emanating from), I will at least be able to see if there is some pain relief. I was told there would be no irreversible effects using the TENS. This is opposed to an injection to block the trigeminal nerves which I almost had, but fortunately canceled when I learned that it could cause permanent damage or loss of vision in the eye.Please share more of your experience with the LASIK complications you have suffered and let me know of any, for sure, associated with using TENS as a treatment option. Thanks in advance.

[Rebecca Petris]

LoydH, I just saw your posts. Sorry to hear what you've been going through. Please let us know how things go with the TENS.

[Aaron77]

I found that the fischer wallace device recommended by Dr. Rosenthal from BFS gave me some short term relief from my eye and head pain - would often feel very clear headed after using it for 20 minutes - like I had just gotten up from an gr long massage. Problem was that the relief was for the most part just temporary, did help me sleep better though.