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How Mobile Electro Therapy (MET) Relieves Pain.

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How Mobile Electro Therapy (MET) Relieves Pain

Does electrical stimulation relieve pain? The answer has, and always will be, yes. But how does it work? Well, that's a bit more involved.

The pain relieving mechanism of electrical stimulation is multi-factorial. All sorts of issues factor in - including the type of stimulus, its frequency and duration. Acceptance of the technology by the user plays no small part, meaning that there is a strong psychological component to any pain experienced - so how one interprets pain and the choice of analgesia for that pain can be central. Having said all that, the three most important physiological factors are endorphin release, pain 'gating' and the 'unlearning' of pain.

The Endorphin Effect
Endorphins are hormones, occurring naturally in the body, that reduce pain and promote a feeling of wellbeing. They are released in response to injury and physical stress. Morphine, and related medications, have a similar chemical structure to endorphins - which explains their strong pain killing effects. (In fact, 'endorphin' is made up of two words: Endogenous - native to the body, and Morphine - opiate like substance.)

Runners, and other athletes, experience a natural 'high' after about half an hour of sustained physical exertion. This is attributed to the steady release of endorphins during exercise - which reach a threshold point within an hour, below which they cannot be felt to be working.

Electrical stimulation is a well accepted medium for inducing a release of endorphins - and much like exercise, may take 30 minutes or more to take a noticeable effect. However, once the pain relief is evident, the effect may last for several hours before endorphin levels in the body need to be increased again.

The body will release endorphins if the rate of electrical stimulation is low - less than 7 pulses per second (ie. 'L' on the dial of a BioStim™ unit).

The Gating Effect
This pain relieving effect is very simply described by the example of a person who stubs their toe, then rubs it to ease the pain. When the toe is stubbed, the pain messages travel in the nerves to the brain - where the messages are interpreted and tell the person that they actually 'feel' the pain. However, when the toe is subsequently rubbed vigorously, these new, 'non-painful' messages also travel to the brain where they compete for attention. The non-painful messages are processed in favour of the pain messages, and subsequently we feel less pain. In other words, the rubbing sensation has 'closed the gate', so that painful messages cannot get through. And we know from personal experience that the faster we rub our stubbed toe, the better the results.

Electrical stimulation works in just the same way. It generates electrical impulses which block the pain. The faster the pulses, the better the pain relief (ie. 'H' on the dial of a BioStim™ unit).

Remember - with a BioStim™ machine set to a high rate and 'modulated' - ie. the pulses fluctuate between fast and slow - one can get the best of both these effects. If you own the Analgesic model you needn't worry - the machine is preset to modulate.

Unlearning Pain
After a course of treatment with electrical stimulation, the body may be reprogrammed so that pain is no longer perceived. It has been taught to 'unlearn' the pain.

If, during a course of treatment, the pain messages are switched off or broken often enough (through the above effects), this new state of reduced pain slowly becomes the norm. This may produce prolonged relief lasting weeks, months or more. This is a complex mechanism, and is poorly understood - although it does appear to have something to do with the pain messages as they travel in the spinal column to the brain.