There are a number of reasons for employing a device which uses high frequency combined with specific modulated frequencies and microcurrent. The first reason is patient compliance. The best response to any appropriately prescribed course of electronic or medical therapy is obtained by the patient who actually fulfills the orders of the practitioner.
There are four primary factors which create that outcome;
1. ease of application,
2. patient comfort,
3. speed of response and
4. effectiveness of the therapy.
Many patients have difficulty managing multiple parameters when using an electronic stimulator at home. A well designed device will have as few controls as possible for the patient to manage. To use the MicroStim Personal Stimulators effectively, the patient has to manipulate only two controls - frequency and current level. Any patient can learn to use it correctly and effectively in only a few minutes. Microcurrent therapy generally requires much shorter treatments that the millicurrent devices. Often five to twenty minute treatments give relief for hours to days. One to three short daily applications are generally sufficient. Finally, patient comfort is assured because microcurrent devices seem to function best subliminally, that is, below the level of the patient’s threshold of sensation.
Even more important than comfort and compliance is effectiveness. A double blind study by Paul Meyer, MD used microcurrent stimulation on 40 patients with low back pain for a total of 16 treatments each. Follow-up eight weeks after the completion of therapy showed a 75% reduction in pain in the treatment group as compared to only a 6% improvement in the placebo group. The extraordinary effectiveness of microcurrent seems to be explained, at least in part, by a 1982 study by Ngok Cheng MD on the effects of electrical stimulation on adenosine triphosphate (ATP) concentrations and protein syntheses in mammalian skin.
ATP deficiencies are common in areas of chronic pain, and sufficient ATP is essential to power the processes of cell respiration. ATP supplies the energy to the sodium pump, the active transport mechanism that removes metabolic waste from the cell’s interior and imports metabolic substrates (food) from the bloodstream into the cells. In Cheng’s study, he demonstrated that the ATP concentrations were increased by as much as 300 to 400 percent in cells stimulated with currents between 25 microamps and 1000 microamps (the microamp range).
The following is an explanation for some of the electronic phenomena involved with the reduction of pain and the relationship to the healing process as it related to ATP concentrations in the cells. It appears that; What is the combined effect of these two pieces of information? Consider the predicament: The tissue in the area of involvement needs energy in the form of electricity. The patient's body contains more that an adequate quantity of energy to produce the desired effect. Unfortunately, the electrical resistance in the area of involvement is so elevated that the body's energy flow cannot enter the area because the laws of physics require that energy travel only via the path of least resistance. The result, energy traveling in the body will circumvent the area of pathology because it always takes the path of least resistance, which is around, rather than through, the area of pathology. If there is an inflammatory process in the area of involvement, the inflamed tissue, which naturally has a very high electrical conductance, takes the body's energy and transforms it into heat. (Like a toaster's elements heat up and turn red when electricity is applied) The heating process is like a constant energy leak and can easily drain the body of massive amounts of critically needed energy similar to a slow drip in the bathroom using up many gallons of water. Since we can't change the laws of physics, we must enable the energy to pass into the area of pathology while obeying the laws. In addition, we can aid our cause by increasing the body's ability to actually produce and store energy in the area of involvement. This is done by charging the tissue in a manner comparable to charging a battery. Tissue cells, like battery cells, have the ability to hold an electrical charge. The greater the charge on the cell the lower the resistance to the flow of electrical energy. The term for the quantity of charge a cell can maintain is called capacitance. As the health of a cell improves, capacitance increases. The capacitance is directly proportional to the concentration of ATP in the cell and ranges from about 1 to 3 microfarads (units of charge). It has been demonstrated that areas of the body which have pain, often have deficiencies in ATP and high electrical resistance. The charge in those areas is generally low because the body's natural electrical currents cannot penetrate the resistance. ATP serves a direct vital function in the active transport mechanism known as the sodium pump. This molecular and ionic transport system is directly responsible for the movement of sodium, potassium, and calcium across the cell's membranes. Large amounts of energy is required to move ions in and out of the cell. When the pump is not functioning, cellular metabolic waste builds up in toxic concentrations. What we have when the sodium pump is not functioning is a hypo-polarized, toxic, starving cell, not a pretty sight. Re-establishment of the sodium pump occurs as ATP concentrations rise. The work of Cheng has shown that under the influence of microcurrent electrical stimulation, ATP concentrations increase when the applied electrical flow is in the 25 to less than 5000 microamp range. Old type millicurrent tens devices operate in the 20 to 80 milliamp and higher ranges. Far into the levels which have been shown by Cheng to deplete the cell's ATP concentrations and metabolic processing capabilities.
1.) The electrical resistance of tissue with chronic pathology is higher than that of the immediately surrounding normal or less pathological tissue. Acute injuries generally have a combination of abnormally high and abnormally low resistance, and
2.) Regeneration is a series of endothermic electrochemical reactions. This means that electricity is used in miniscule quantities by cells to provide the energy to fuel the regenerative process.
