Cover Story:
The Versatile Analgesic+2
A close look at BioStim™'s "dark horse".

Therapy Closeup:
The Analgesic+2 for:
* Lower Back Pain
* Sprained Ankle
* Period Pain

Bits n' Pieces:
Generation to Generation
A look at the on-going evolution of TENS technology and therapy techniques.

User Profiles:
A working Mum's view.

The Fact Files:
Greater pain-relief with the Analgesic+2?

Speaking of better pain relief from a greater number of electrodes, here are the results of some research into this exact topic.

"Modification of TENS by constant-energy stimulation delivered through multiple electrodes: method and evaluation."

Birkan, Carmon, Meretsky and Zinder.
From: Advances in Pain Research and Therapy
Vol. 3, edited by John j. Bonica et al.
Raven Press, New York 1979

Introduction:
"Understanding on the mechanism of pain relief by TENS does not have to rely on a complex physiological postulate such as the gate theory. A masking or inhibition process, induced by a non-noxious stimulation concurrent to pathological excitation of pain-transmitting neural channels, is a sufficient and parsimonious explanation which can accommodate neural interactions on different levels of the central nervous system. In this sense, the main difference between TENS and other concurrent pain-relieving stimulation (acupuncture with twirling, chemical skin irritants, cold and hot packs) is its higher efficiency. Physiological studies suggest that, in general, masking or neural inhibition is a spatially additive phenomenon. Therefore, use of more inputs of TENS could increase its masking on pain."

Method:
"In the present study we employed six pairs of electrodes."

Patients:
"The study was performed in eight hospitals and clinics in Israel, on 233 patients who were referred for relief of chronic or subacute organic pain."

Procedure:
Each patient received six treatments - three with the CEME [Constant Energy Multiple Electrode] instrument and three with one of several commercially available TENS instruments. If there was significant pain relief, the treatment was continued, with some patients receiving up to 20 treatments."

"The patients used a specially designed, simplified chart in order to mark on a day-to-day basis their pain level according to a 4-point scale (mild, moderate, and severe pain; or no pain at all).

Results:
"The incidence of marked and moderate relief was more apparent for treatment with CEME than for treatment with conventional instruments."

" ... pain relief endured longer with CEME than with conventional instruments."

"Thus the evaluation of both the total effect of therapy as well as the effect of individual treatments showed a bias favoring CEME in terms of level and duration of pain relief."