Frequency Specific Microcurrent
Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 2:15 am
Last week I was involved in a demo booth for Hesch Method at the Expo for the 7th Interdisciplinary World Congress on Low Back and Pelvic Pain. Naturally I hit up all the other booths to see if there was anything really significant to the PN community.
The only relevant booth I found, was demonstrating Frequency Specific Microcurrent...which has apparently been around for 13 or 14 years but I had never heard of it - has anybody???? It seems to be an alternative to TENS or neurostimulation, for people who wish to try to manage their pain with electrical current.
Their website is www.frequencyspecific.com .
There is a list of practitioners on the site, who own the big units for patients who wish to go in for periodic treatment; and then they sell small personal units for home use for $1300, to people who need daily treatment. They run seminars for professionals who want to buy a machine and learn to use it, so it seems there are various skill levels involved in treatment - kind of a complicated gadget. The personal ones don't give out a generic current but are programmed specifically to the needs of the patient...or so I understand. I am still very fuzzy in my understanding of how the whole thing works.
But naturally,for the benefit of everyone here on the board, I donated my body to science and got zapped.
At 1st, based on the fact that I am a pudendal patient,the technician had me take off my underwear (in an expo booth, mind you, with another gal holding a blanket up in front of me for privacy...the things I do for you people!
Then they had me lie down and kind of wrapped my pudendal area in damp towels, starting in back around the area of my sacrum and going around front kind if like a diaper. They ran a current through the towels from their machine, which I could not feel at all. I had deliberately gone over when I was kind of uncomfortable, a 4-5, and felt no change at all.
Then the technician started to discuss my history in more detail and got a sense that I have spinal trauma (I have not only pudendal neuropathy; but neuropathy in fingers and toes, etc). So, she did a full spinal stimulation which involved wrapping a wet towel around my neck and ankles, and running current all the way through me. It was painless but I felt some tingling and began to be very relaxed in a kind of a drunk way. My pain scale went down to about a 2 in the 20 minutes or so I was on the table, and I got up feeling drunk which lasted about 15 minutes or so.
By evening I was flaring a bit more than usual. The next morning, my hands were way different in a bad way...usually until my meds kick in, the left feels kind of sore and arthritic and the right tingles a bit, but that morning they felt on fire, like they were being scalded by hot water. I was thinking, "this is not for me". I discussed it with one of the gals in charge of the booth and she told me this did NOT mean that I am not a good candidate, only that I have sympathetic nervous system involvement and need some other specific kinds of treatment. Of course I am doing this no justice as I don't understand the technology.
Bottom line was, we decided I was too complicated for "expo booth treatment". A couple of the main technicians who teach the seminars are coming here to Vegas in December for some Hesch treatment; and again in February to teach a seminar to clinicians. So I am going to be worked on with this Frequency Specific Microcurrent again in Decemeber and maybe in February as well.. I might even be their "complex case" to display during their seminar
So I will have more to report! And of course if they can really get my symptoms under more control with microcurrent so that I can cut my meds, I will be eternally grateful and will buy their $1300 gizmo.
Meanwhile just wondering if anyone has heard of this or had any experiences with it. It was news to me!
The only relevant booth I found, was demonstrating Frequency Specific Microcurrent...which has apparently been around for 13 or 14 years but I had never heard of it - has anybody???? It seems to be an alternative to TENS or neurostimulation, for people who wish to try to manage their pain with electrical current.
Their website is www.frequencyspecific.com .
There is a list of practitioners on the site, who own the big units for patients who wish to go in for periodic treatment; and then they sell small personal units for home use for $1300, to people who need daily treatment. They run seminars for professionals who want to buy a machine and learn to use it, so it seems there are various skill levels involved in treatment - kind of a complicated gadget. The personal ones don't give out a generic current but are programmed specifically to the needs of the patient...or so I understand. I am still very fuzzy in my understanding of how the whole thing works.
But naturally,for the benefit of everyone here on the board, I donated my body to science and got zapped.
At 1st, based on the fact that I am a pudendal patient,the technician had me take off my underwear (in an expo booth, mind you, with another gal holding a blanket up in front of me for privacy...the things I do for you people!
Then they had me lie down and kind of wrapped my pudendal area in damp towels, starting in back around the area of my sacrum and going around front kind if like a diaper. They ran a current through the towels from their machine, which I could not feel at all. I had deliberately gone over when I was kind of uncomfortable, a 4-5, and felt no change at all.
Then the technician started to discuss my history in more detail and got a sense that I have spinal trauma (I have not only pudendal neuropathy; but neuropathy in fingers and toes, etc). So, she did a full spinal stimulation which involved wrapping a wet towel around my neck and ankles, and running current all the way through me. It was painless but I felt some tingling and began to be very relaxed in a kind of a drunk way. My pain scale went down to about a 2 in the 20 minutes or so I was on the table, and I got up feeling drunk which lasted about 15 minutes or so.
By evening I was flaring a bit more than usual. The next morning, my hands were way different in a bad way...usually until my meds kick in, the left feels kind of sore and arthritic and the right tingles a bit, but that morning they felt on fire, like they were being scalded by hot water. I was thinking, "this is not for me". I discussed it with one of the gals in charge of the booth and she told me this did NOT mean that I am not a good candidate, only that I have sympathetic nervous system involvement and need some other specific kinds of treatment. Of course I am doing this no justice as I don't understand the technology.
Bottom line was, we decided I was too complicated for "expo booth treatment". A couple of the main technicians who teach the seminars are coming here to Vegas in December for some Hesch treatment; and again in February to teach a seminar to clinicians. So I am going to be worked on with this Frequency Specific Microcurrent again in Decemeber and maybe in February as well.. I might even be their "complex case" to display during their seminar
So I will have more to report! And of course if they can really get my symptoms under more control with microcurrent so that I can cut my meds, I will be eternally grateful and will buy their $1300 gizmo.
Meanwhile just wondering if anyone has heard of this or had any experiences with it. It was news to me!
I posted a question on the old forum site, to see if anyone had heard of it and didn't get much response regarding it. I would really look into it carefully, with a very critical eye. 
so I can really give it a critical try without worrying about throwing money down a black hole. Also I am getting it done by the experts - I really do get the idea there is some kind of learning curve on the machine. So we shall see. I will definitely use the critical eye when it comes to shelling out $$ - believe me it would have to have SIGNIFICANT impact on my life if I were to spend $1300 !! But as long as they don't start asking me for money, I am going to be able to be a test case for everybody. I'll report honestly if it works or it doesn't...my initial reaction led me to believe it does SOMETHING, jury is out on whether that something is useful.