Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) has been widely used for the treatment of pain in general, including chronic pain. Inexpensive units can be purchased for under $25 at drugstores or online. They are generally intended to be placed on or near the painful part of the body.<\/p>\n
Recently a very advanced TENS unit, Quell, was approved by the FDA for chronic pain for both daytime and sleep (quellrelief.com<\/a>). The comments on Amazon suggest that this unit has been very helpful for many people, even for neuropathy and lower back pain. The manufacturer says that the mechanism is the stimulation of production of endorphins, the body\u2019s natural opioids. Thus, though it is worn on the leg, it works even for pain that is not in the leg since it uses the general opioid gates in the lower brain rather than the specific gates along the spine.<\/p>\n The question mark in the heading of this section is because TENS has not generally been used for retraining the brain, but for temporary pain relief. Perhaps the benefit of TENS could be enhanced with the idea that you are choosing to use TENS, or any other temporary relief method, as a way of retraining your brain that it is not important to pay attention to the chronic pain. You find out that you do just fine, probably better, without the \u201cbenefit\u201d of the pain so why choose to pay attention to the pain and thus strengthen it?<\/p>\nAcupuncture, hypnosis and psychoactive drugs<\/h2>\n