Can you trick your brain into not feeling pain — without medication? We’ve used electricity to do that for centuries, but this method is newly popular again. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, or TENS, has become far more accessible since it was approved as an over-the-counter treatment by the US Food and Drug Administration about two years ago. Now, with the country in the midst of an opioid epidemic, doctors and patients and medical-device manufacturers are paying more attention to this form of natural pain management. Think of the machines as “using electricity to rub away pain,” says Mark Johnson, a professor of analgesia at Leeds Beckett University in the United Kingdom. TENS devices are portable machines with electrodes. You put the electrodes wherever you have muscle pain, turn on the device, and feel a tingling sensation. The machine sends electrical pulses through your skin and nerves. The electrical pulses do two things: first, it distracts the brain to prevent the pain signals from reaching the brain. Second, it encourages your body to produce more of its own natural painkillers.
Source: Can you use electricity to trick your brain into not feeling pain? – The Verge
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