Thiis is what you were probably taught in school but probably just enough to not hurt anyone. There is much more for you to learn. So let’s begin.
Continuous Here the effect is from the “frequency” chosen along with how strong the stimulus is. Depending on the frequency chosen, you are stimulating a certain nerve pathway which generally causes the release of brain chemicals such as endorphins. Since the stimulus is constant, you will run into the adaptation response and over time the patient will feel it less and you may have to turn it up some. Generally the stronger they feel it, the stronger the effect. But once it becomes uncomfortable, you are stimulating the sympathetic part of the nervous system which is not what we want. But the adaptation response is one way we get pain relief. We are basically telling the brain to ignore signals from that area. In addition, there are a range of frequencies that increase muscle tone and should not be used near tight or spasmy muscles. But I have used them to increase muscle tone. there are frequencies I use a lot to increase production of endorphins. I use Continuous stimulation a lot but usually with a polarized waveform.
Intermitant stimulus is used mostly with muscle exercising to give the muscle a chance to relax. These machines often give you the ability to choose how long the stimulation and relaxation periods are, typical values used are 10 or 15 seconds. I tried this in my rehab from my stroke. The muscle did activate but it did not give me any control over it. Only scalp acupuncture did that.
Dense-Disperse is one way to avoid the adaptation response. However at least with my machines that can do it if you use high and low frequencies together, you will only feel the high frequency and not the low one so you will only get the effect of the high frequency. Han et.al. do not mention this. Neither do they mention the effect of frequency on muscle tension. But their research does show the value of using certain frequencies. The only time I use it now is to combine the effects of two frequencies such as healing with pain relief. But now I have better ways of doing that.
Interferential is useful in several ways. FSM uses an interferential setup but slightly different than normal. See that section for more information. I use it to treat a large area. For example, I had a patient not long ago who had pain in the pelvic floor that doctors couldn’t figure out why or how to treat it. Palpation revealed sore muscle attachments in the inner upper thigh. So I thought tight muscles. So I needled ST channel points in the area which were tender and then hooked them up in an “X” pattern. I then used frequencies that relax muscles and release endorphins. And it worked. And adjusting his diet to balance his macro-minerals helped also. I used it to treat a large area of back pain too. But now I have better ways to treat that.
In China they use electro-acupuncture to treat deficiency or excesses, But I never found that particularly useful. For example, they treat deficient yang by on purpose causing pain! How stupid is that? Of course it works by stimulating the fight or flight response of the sympathetic nervous system which is yang, but your patient will probably not come back! I use DU20 for that purpose all the time and it works fast. But I do not needle it like you do. I needle the sympathetic nerve at the point to get an even stronger effect.
#electroacupuncture #acupuncture #dense-disperse #intermittent #classical electroacupuncture #scientificacupuncture