MODERATOR WARNING: ELECTROSTIMULATION DEVICES

Ideas and instructions how you can make your own bondage toys.
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Imaginary_Girl
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Re: MODERATOR WARNING: ELECTROSTIMULATION DEVICES

Post by Imaginary_Girl »

I LOVE playing with electricity. Love it love it love it. I have a fair bit of knowledge of electronics too(but nowhere near the amount to say I'm "trained" or anything like that). When I was quite young (< 10 yo) I discovered my grandma's TENs unit. I didn't do anything kinky with it, but I did play with it and learned I really like the feeling of electricity. So it was only natural that later I wanted to do kinky things with it :D I remember when I was first wanting to try estim probably 10 years later that I saw how tos and ideas on the internet to make a device with an audio amplifier. I knew immediately that was a seriously BAD idea. Almost no isolation from the mains, no real idea what type of current you are dealing with, totally not designed for use on the body and so on and so forth. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of money, so at the time I couldn't buy a device to play with.

And as much as it sucked, I simply waited.
And if you are in that situation - YOU SHOULD TOO. Fortunately nowadays you can get TENs units on like Amazon for pretty cheap. BUT I question how well some of those are made. I dunno, I mean I like the feeling of electricity lots as I've said. But I also like being alive. I might trust some suspicious Chinese company to make a video game controller for me, but a device that will literally be running electricity through my body? I don't think so. Get a good, made for play unit made by a well known company. That's my recommendation.

Anyway eventually I did buy a made for play unit, one which I still have today. I did do one modification to it. It nominally runs on a 9v battery, but I modified it to run on mains power through a wall wart transformer. Said transformer is 12v which gives it an extra kick. However, since we are in a safety oriented thread I'm wondering if that was a really good idea... Well, I've been using it for many years like that and it hasn't killed me obviously. I've measured the output with my multimeter and it's certainly within safe limits. It should be good.

Anyway what I really wanted to discuss is this. One of my hang ups with estim is that I VERY MUCH want to put stuff on my nipples. I love nipple play, I love electricity so of course I want to combine them. Now, I've seen LOTS of disagreements on whether this is a good idea or not, but the most sensible advice seems to be to only do it with bipolar electrodes(i.e. such that electricity flows through the nipple, not from one nipple to the other). But the problem is that only hurts. It doesn't give me the feeling I want.

Anyway fast forward a few years from when I bought that made for play unit. I have some serious back problems and I was prescribed a TENs unit by my doctor. (Yay, another toy to play with!). I have both lower and upper back pain. Because of the aforementioned advice(no electricity across the chest), I asked my doctor. I asked him if I could use the TENs on my upper back or if that could affect my heart.

What he told me was that TENs units are designed to be used with the human body and there are only a few limitations to where you can use them. Not on the head or face, not directly on bones which are right under the surface of the skin(e.g. like your spine or kneecap), not on broken skin. According to that doctor(and a neurologist I asked later) - it was perfectly fine to use the TENs on my back, even if the path would cross where my heart was. The original doctor told me the only way a TENs might affect my heart is if I put one pad on the front, one on the back, directly over my heart. Obviously I've no reason to do that.

Now, basing on that information, since that point in time I have used the device on my nipples. Yes, in the bad way - from nipple to nipple. I don't do it super often, but sometimes my horniness gets the best of me. I do take comfort in what those doctors told me. If it's safe to use on my BACK where the current path crosses my chest, it should be safe on the front I think.

But just in case I will say I'm not recommending that anyone take this as advice. IT IS TOTALLY NOT ADVICE. I'm only just relaying my experiences. We all do stupid shit when we are horny sometimes I think. Remember, it's your LIFE on the line here. Is cumming really really hard worth it if it's the last time you ever cum? I don't think so. 100s of good orgasms is better than 1 really great one that got you killed.

However as I said we all do stupid shit when we are horny. And information is power. So I did want to relay what I heard from those doctors, because I think it's useful and it makes sense. FWIW, I do use my proper TENs on my back for pain, and I do use it on my upper back where it crosses my heart, and that obviously hasn't killed me either.

Whether that sort of risk is one you are willing to take is up to you. But make no mistake - IT IS A RISK. Even if a perfectly functional and okay TENs unit couldn't kill you at all by playing with it this way, yours might not be perfectly functional. Mine might not be. Or it could develop a fault. Even batteries can put out a fair amount of amps, so it's possible for the unit to fail and produce a stimulation way outside of spec. A dangerous stimulation. They SHOULD be designed in a failsafe way, but you never know right?
KinkInSpace
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Re: MODERATOR WARNING: ELECTROSTIMULATION DEVICES

Post by KinkInSpace »

Let me add to this Estim through the heart area thingy.

I'm a heart patient. Born with a complication that required surgery when I was 3 months old. Every year I go see my specialist to ensure things are still going well.

My heart beats irregularly sometimes so for me estim is even more dangerous than for anyone else.

I won't lie and say that I have tried estim on one breath by placing two pads near eachother and create current that goes through the nipple that way. The biggest difference with this than using a bipolar nipple clamp, is that because the surface area is bigger a much bigger area of your body is being stimulated.

The lowest setting on my e-stim was not a problem. I felt it, but didn't give me the feeling of pain in my nipples that I was after. I did ramp it up and got to that pain level what I wanted to feel, but I also felt that it was hitting my heart. My heart is very strong also due to the complication that I have, but I felt it was fighting hard, so I stopped the e-stim. I suppose that because of this problem and me being so aware of the risks, I was paying extra attention. I could easily have ramped it up causing all major problems.

That being said, after I did this, I started to develop more serious irregular beat problems. From time to time, my heart can decide to go crazy, and while doing nothing, it can suddenly beat 145 bpm. If I decide to move a lot, it has to pump more blood around going to 160 or higher causing me to become very dizzy and pass out. I have to be careful and wait for my heart to slow down again and I'll be fine. When this started, it could be that it went crazy for 10 seconds before returning to normal. These moments could happen once and then not for months. Then they became longer, where the longest episode I've had is about 4 hours.

Now I've also found out that my ribs are not in place correctly, and if they are bent into a certain degrees, they seem to be pushing something that changes my hearts position slightly, and it seems that this causes these episodes. I'm currently using manual therapy to get my back problems sorted out, and this seem to have reduced the episodes and severity of it.

My conclusion therefor is that the ESTIM has caused muscle contractions to bend my ribs, and make my heart receptacle for these kinds of episodes.
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I'm not yet very comfortable expressing my love for kink from my private life. I will therefor hide behind my username KinkInSpace and not allow any connections to who I really am. I'm sure you'll understand.
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Imaginary_Girl
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Re: MODERATOR WARNING: ELECTROSTIMULATION DEVICES

Post by Imaginary_Girl »

Slave_L wrote:Let me add to this Estim through the heart area thingy.

I'm a heart patient. Born with a complication that required surgery when I was 3 months old. Every year I go see my specialist to ensure things are still going well.

My heart beats irregularly sometimes so for me estim is even more dangerous than for anyone else.

I won't lie and say that I have tried estim on one breath by placing two pads near eachother and create current that goes through the nipple that way. The biggest difference with this than using a bipolar nipple clamp, is that because the surface area is bigger a much bigger area of your body is being stimulated.

The lowest setting on my e-stim was not a problem. I felt it, but didn't give me the feeling of pain in my nipples that I was after. I did ramp it up and got to that pain level what I wanted to feel, but I also felt that it was hitting my heart. My heart is very strong also due to the complication that I have, but I felt it was fighting hard, so I stopped the e-stim. I suppose that because of this problem and me being so aware of the risks, I was paying extra attention. I could easily have ramped it up causing all major problems.

That being said, after I did this, I started to develop more serious irregular beat problems. From time to time, my heart can decide to go crazy, and while doing nothing, it can suddenly beat 145 bpm. If I decide to move a lot, it has to pump more blood around going to 160 or higher causing me to become very dizzy and pass out. I have to be careful and wait for my heart to slow down again and I'll be fine. When this started, it could be that it went crazy for 10 seconds before returning to normal. These moments could happen once and then not for months. Then they became longer, where the longest episode I've had is about 4 hours.

Now I've also found out that my ribs are not in place correctly, and if they are bent into a certain degrees, they seem to be pushing something that changes my hearts position slightly, and it seems that this causes these episodes. I'm currently using manual therapy to get my back problems sorted out, and this seem to have reduced the episodes and severity of it.

My conclusion therefor is that the ESTIM has caused muscle contractions to bend my ribs, and make my heart receptacle for these kinds of episodes.
I just don't see how that is possible. The part about it bending your ribs anyway. I mean think about it - another human being can sit on your chest and that doesn't bend your ribs. Ribs don't bend, if anything they break. So yeah, I just don't see that being the real situation here. Obviously I'm not trying to call you a liar, I just personally think you are mistaken. Especially since you didn't even turn it up that high. I've had mine ludicrously high on my chest - to the point where it affects my breathing and contracts my chest muscles hard. Yeah, that was REALLY stupid of me, but I've done it. And I've no bent ribs.

Here is my guess - I think that you already had that problem. I think that doing the estim(which you were aware you had no business doing, especially with heart problems) made you pay very close attention to your heart where maybe you weren't before. And as a result of that, you noticed the underlying issue. That's what I think. It's definitely possible that the estim did cause the change in your heart problems though. I just don't think it bent your ribs.

Either way though yes, if you have ANY sort of heart problems I wouldn't go near estim. Certainly not above the waist. That's just too much of a risk.

(Please don't take this as an attack on you or anything, it's totally not meant that way. I just don't think the physics behind what you are saying are really possible.)
KinkInSpace
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Re: MODERATOR WARNING: ELECTROSTIMULATION DEVICES

Post by KinkInSpace »

I'm sorry, English is not my native language. By bent ribs I mean that at the point where the ribs are attached to my spinal column, its turned slightly or something.

I'm a very flexible person and I can make about every bone in my body "snap" if you know what it means. I need to do this to keep things flexible or it'll cause a lot of discomfort.

My upperbody strength is not what it should be, causing that my muscles are not counteracting wrong positions, and thus my ribcase can sort of snap into a wrong position. If it goes too far, then thats when things go badly. Also, if other ribs do this, I'm very receptible to migraine attacks. I found out that this is the case for almost everyone. When muscles in the upper body contract or stiffen and people have migraine problems, they're more likely to develop a migraine attack. The reason why migraine medicine usually works, is because aside of blocking the headache, it also loosens those muscles a bit.

The reason for this tensing up can be many things, among stress, eating much sugar (causes the body to work hard to get the waste products out of your system, but cannot do it in time, which means it is stored around your muscles, thus they tense up) and other things.

But the reason I know this is the case for me, is because it was confirmed by a medical doctor. And now that I have done quite a few sessions of manual therapy, where they reposition my ribcase, I know this is the case for me. And yes, I love hurting my nipples and sometimes I just can't resist the urge to use e-stim on my nipples even if its just my nipples. A few times after I've done e-stim on my nipples and went to a high setting, a few days later (one time even a few hours later) I noticed I was developing an attack or got one. Luckily I have exercises now that help me control this.
Formally known as Slave_L.
I'm not yet very comfortable expressing my love for kink from my private life. I will therefor hide behind my username KinkInSpace and not allow any connections to who I really am. I'm sure you'll understand.
ilikepain
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Re: MODERATOR WARNING: ELECTROSTIMULATION DEVICES

Post by ilikepain »

Hi everyone,

I'm new here :) Can I ask, does this apply to just DIY electro devices or also to commercially bought ones? Also are you saying that bondage with electro is inadvisable altogether?

Thanks
lj
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Re: MODERATOR WARNING: ELECTROSTIMULATION DEVICES

Post by lj »

There's no simple answer to cover everything electrical.

But, first rule, if you don't know exactly what you are doing with home-built gear, don't use it!

I'm a professional Electronics Engineer, but I'm not a medical expert, so if I use any electro kit, I use great caution. There are basically two ways to kill yourself with electricity. One is shock, in the medical context this means an electrical discharge that puts your body into a shock response - this might be from a high voltage applied somewhere sensitive. The other is the passage of a sufficient current through a vital part - the obvious is across the heart, but across the neck and head would also be dangerous. I suppose there is a third way - application of a a voltage that makes a muscle, or several muscles, violently contract and throw the person into a life-threatening position.

As a general rule, electro-play equipment is voltage-based and current-limited. If you don't understand why this is the case or what the terms mean, stick to professionally manufactured kit!.

Something like a violet wand generates very high voltages - several thousand - which creates anything from a tickle through to severe pain, but is generally very high frequency and travels across the skin surface, where it will trigger nerves, but not penetrate, and whilst potentially scary, will not block nerve transmission and stop the heart.

E-stim equipment runs at much lower voltages, perhaps up to 100 volts but is intended to pass some way into the body to stimulate muscle groups. The devices are current-limited, so they cannot develop a dangerous current across the heart unless you go to considerable extremes (sticking long needles into the body cavity!) Things like TENS units are designed to work safely over pretty much all the body, including above the waist, as long as you follow the manufacturer's instruction you should be fine.

Personally, I would avoid solo bondage and electro-play when combined together, until you have experimented safely with both. The body behaves very differently day by day, what is hardly noticeable today may be intolerable tomorrow. From personal experience, a continuous stimulation may be tolerable, but an intermittent stimulus of the same intensity will be perceived as much more painful - you don't want to prove that for yourself just after the last lock has clicked shut :shock:
be a switch, double the fun :-)
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Re: MODERATOR WARNING: ELECTROSTIMULATION DEVICES

Post by ilikepain »

Thank you. I have been playing with a tens machine for years but I have just upgraded to an abox from e-stim systems. Should be arriving tomorrow :)
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Re: MODERATOR WARNING: ELECTROSTIMULATION DEVICES

Post by kinbaku »

ilikepain wrote:Thank you. I have been playing with a tens machine for years but I have just upgraded to an abox from e-stim systems. Should be arriving tomorrow :)
In the very past I used to stimulate my nipples with a very light TENS. Then without bondage. Now I add bondage, but always in such a way that I can get loose quickly, so never with an ice lock for example. And always do the test in advance what you can handle. Please note that this can vary from day to day.
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