By Nurse Mark

TENS therapy – it’s a modern miracle, an example of the wonders of applied technology, and the list of uses just keeps growing. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) therapy uses low-voltage electrical current for pain relief, and it can also be used for muscle stimulation.

Patients tell us they use TENS-type devices to relieve pain from many illnesses and conditions.

Some common uses are to treat muscle, joint, or bone problems that occur with illnesses such as osteoarthritis or fibromyalgia, or for conditions such as low back pain, neck pain, tendonitis, or bursitis. Many people have also used their TENS to treat sudden, acute pain from muscle strain or overuse, and even labor pain, and chronic pain such as cancer pain. Diabetics have reported good results with the use of these devices to improve diabetic neuropathy. Bodybuilders use these devices both for soothing relief after a workout, and as a muscle stimulator for very targeted muscle exercise (Like working a biceps for example).

Now we have found that there is another, surprising use for this device – relief of motion sickness!

Motion sickness (kinetosis) is also known as travel sickness. Researchers believe it is a condition in which a disagreement exists between movement that we see visually and our inner ear’s sense of movement. Depending on the cause, it may also be called seasickness, car sickness, simulation sickness (experienced by pilots using flight simulators), airsickness and even spacesickness in astronauts.

Because it affects so many people, especially highly trained (and expensive) people like military pilots and astronauts, there has been research into ways of combating it’s effects.

In doing some related research, Dr. Myatt came across a study performed by the Institute of Aerospace and Undersea Medicine, School of Medicine, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan that found TENS stimulation to be highly effective in their test subjects of healthy young men from the Aviation Physiology Research Laboratory of Gangshan Armed Forces Hospital in China.

The bottom line?

Anyone who has ever suffered from motion sickness of any kind knows just how debilitating it can be. It can strike in seconds, without warning, and can effectively debilitate the sufferer. This is especially important for people like pilots, who must be able to continue their duties – there is no pulling over to the side of the road for a few minutes when you are flying an airplane!

The Chinese studied the use of TENS to combat motion sickness that occurs in flight simulators – presumably because that is easier and safer to do that to induce airsickness in actual, flying pilots. Their findings?

Preventive TENS was effective in reducing SS [Simulator Sickness] symptoms and alleviating cognitive impairment. The beneficial effects of TENS should aid researchers and occupational therapists in implementing best practices for their clients receiving simulator-based training or rehabilitation services.

So, if motion sickness has held you back from doing things that you would like to do, this is a treatment that is well worth trying: it is easy, non-drug, non-invasive, has no side effects, and the TENS unit itself is relatively inexpensive with a wide variety of additional uses.

Those who wish to replicate the treatment used in the Chinese study will find it very well described in this paper:

Simultaneous transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation mitigates simulator sickness symptoms in healthy adults: a crossover study. 

This article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/13/84

Dr. Myatt feels strongly about the benefits of TENS therapy and makes a very high quality device available at a significant savings – check out the IREST Mini Massager here: https://www.drmyattswellnessclub.com/TENS_Unit.htm

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