New Treatment

My physical therapist asked ages ago about using "electrical stimulators" to help relax my muscles. I didn't pay much attention to this because growing up this meant TENS units:

They have large sticky pads and a heavy control box. In my experience the low settings did nothing and the high ones hurt like hell. Even when it felt good while it was going I never had lasting effects. I never liked them.

Well, apparently technology has taken a leap forward in the years I wasn't having surgeries. What Steve (my PT) showed up with today was something I'd never seen before which is saying something. It more closely resembled Mortimer the Marker from Picture Pages than a TENS unit.

It was a large pen like object. It had a small display screen and a few buttons, but the end looked like the tip of a pen.

He had me sit in a chair at the dining room table while he used it starting with my back. It felt like nothing when he pressed the end against my skin for the most part, but it was noisy. It's high pitched squealing would change key suddenly and I'd feel a strange vaguely painful sensation.

Apparently, it's a biological stud finder. It's yells until it finds a nerve ending and then it sends feedback. The idea is based on reflexology principles that if you can find the nerve endings you can effect the muscles of the body profoundly. I had a lot of luck with reflexology, but I could never go regularly. I learned why I hate people to touch that spot on my ankle (it's linked to my low back).

While he was using it on my feet and toes to relax my hip muscles I noticed the more it hurt when he found the nerve ending the more dramatic the muscle release I'd feel very shortly after. It was like Kerplunk you knew the microsecond after you begun to pull that stick those marbles were about to rain down. When I stood up after less than 10min with this crazy thing my left foot that has been turning in because of hip tightness since surgery wasn't. It was pointing straight and my foot felt soft. Loose, I'm never loose. It was surreal and lasted until I went to bed.