Pain relief without drugs
TENS gives a non-pharmacological option, and once you know the settings you can use a unit at home.
Physiotherapy
Electrotherapy (IFT, TENS, Ultrasound)
Useful adjuncts, honestly described.
- 10 to 20 minutes
- Application time
- Tingling or warmth
- Sensation
- Adjunct, not standalone
- Used as
Overview
Electrotherapy covers several distinct machines. TENS modulates pain signals through the nervous system. Interferential therapy (IFT) uses medium-frequency current to reach deeper tissue comfortably. Therapeutic ultrasound delivers sound waves into tissue to influence local healing and reduce muscle spasm.
These are adjuncts. They are genuinely useful for settling pain and spasm enough to make active treatment possible, and that is how we use them — as a bridge to hands-on work and loading, not as the treatment itself. Anywhere they will not add value, we will say so rather than fill the session with them.
Consider this if
- Pain intense enough to block you from starting exercise
- Acute muscle spasm that manual work alone will not settle
- Post-injury or post-surgical swelling and pain
- Persistent pain where you want a drug-free option to use at home
What it does
Electrotherapy (IFT, TENS, Ultrasound)
Deeper reach
IFT reaches deeper structures than surface stimulation, at an intensity that is comfortable to tolerate.
Spasm settled
Ultrasound and IFT can bring acute spasm down enough for hands-on treatment to be possible.
A bridge to activity
The point is to get you moving, not to keep you on a machine.
Inside a session
Indicate
Confirming a modality is actually appropriate, and checking contraindications such as pacemakers, pregnancy and altered sensation.
Apply
Electrodes or ultrasound head placed for the target tissue, at an intensity set with you.
Combine
Manual therapy and exercise in the same session, using the window the modality opens.
Review
Continuing only while it is adding value. If it is not, it is dropped.
Common questions
Does electrotherapy actually work?
For short-term pain and spasm relief, there is reasonable support for it. For changing the course of a condition on its own, there is not. That is precisely why it is used here as an adjunct alongside manual therapy and exercise.
Is it safe?
For most people, yes. It is not used over a pacemaker or implanted stimulator, over the abdomen in pregnancy, over active malignancy, or on areas with lost sensation. We screen for all of these before the first application.
Can I buy a TENS unit for home?
Yes, and for persistent pain it is often worth it. We will set the placement and parameters with you so it is being used properly.
This page is general information, not a diagnosis or a treatment plan. What is right for you is decided at assessment. If your symptoms are severe, worsening quickly, or follow an injury, seek medical care first.
Also in this discipline
Not sure this is the right one?
That is what the first consultation is for. Ninety minutes of assessment before anything is recommended — including recommending nothing.