Electrical stimulation

I’ll be honest, I was a little freaked out when my physical therapist asked me if I’ve ever had electrical stimulation. Today my physical therapist was John. After introducing himself, John left the room and came back with what looked like an iPod in his hand.

“Did Paul do this with you yesterday,” John asks.
“No, what is it?”
“It’s electrical stimulation. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt, most people say it feels good.”
“What does it do?”
“It uses an electrical current to cause a muscle to contract,” John says as he sticks electrodes to different parts of my leg.

After he finished placing the electrodes, John explained that soon I would feel the electrodes “grabbing” my muscles and to let him know if it was too strong. 30 seconds later I felt a tingling on my leg and John increased the wattage until I told him it was too much. He set the electrodes to pulse for 20 seconds, and rest for 10 seconds, and repeat.

“How does it feel,” John asks.
“Good. How long am I doing this for?”
“About 12-15 minutes.”

It felt pretty good, and I almost fell asleep. 15 minutes later John returned and disconnected me from the electrodes. We then did some hip strengthening, nothing too rigorous. After, John once again hooked up the electrodes, wrapped an ice pack around my leg, turned on the electrodes, and left. 15 minutes later Paul came in and disconnected the electrodes. Good times.