TENS Units - Can they be Painful?

[SteelMan]

I have no real experience in using TENS units or estim equipment...but it seems to be relatively safe to use commercial estim units (otherwise, they would not sell them). My question is, are these units powerful enough to cause pain? Ideally, I would like to find a safe, commercial TENS unit that can be used to deliver pain to the user.

I remember reading somewhere on the internet that distributing the electric charge over a larger area (with larger pads) resulted in a more muted sensation - and that greater distances between the pads would yield a less intense sensation. In theory, this means that very small, closely spaced contacts should perform best at producing painful sensations.

While it would require a great deal of experimentation to even consider using in a self-bondage setting (to avoid setting the power unbearably high), some TENS units would lend themselves quite well to this - specifically, those with audio inputs. This provides an easy method to generate random and unpredictable shocks.

The last thing I want to do is buy a high-end TENS unit for this purpose, and discover that it is incapable of producing such sensations.

[lj]

I can say, with direct and very personal experience that conventional TENS units can be extremely painful

It does, as you suggest, depend upon the method of connection, and you are right in that small contact areas are more painful than large ones.

The usual pads supplied with TENS units spread the connection quite widely as they are intended to stimulate nerves over a general area. Make the same connection with a bare wire and the effect changes. Improve the connection with a conductive gel, water or sweat and this also either increases the effect or spreads it according to how much you spread the connection surface.

Bear in mind you can make a very good connection with one electrode, ie a spread one such as piece of aluminium foil, and then use a very narrow one like a piece of bare wire for the other - you will really feel the effect at the narrow connection! but barely notice the other.

Somewhere on here I described doing a variant of the "chair" scenario, the chair having a layer of aluminium tape on it connected as one electrode, and a loop of bare wire round the end of my cock for the other. Sitting down with a bare bum closed the circuit, but restraints prevented me standing up, so it was a predicament scenario. It was excruciatingly painful and I have never tried anything like it since, though a session with a violet wand came pretty close, but that was a "partnered" play scene.

Do make sure you have experimented whilst un-restrained, and don't do what I did and wind the power up just before locking the last cuff!

[ruru67]

I have no real experience in using TENS units or estim equipment...but it seems to be relatively safe to use commercial estim units (otherwise, they would not sell them). My question is, are these units powerful enough to cause pain? Ideally, I would like to find a safe, commercial TENS unit that can be used to deliver pain to the user.

Yeah, they can hurt. It's a different kind of pain from say a flogging, and it varies depending on the placement of the electrodes.

I remember reading somewhere on the internet that distributing the electric charge over a larger area (with larger pads) resulted in a more muted sensation - and that greater distances between the pads would yield a less intense sensation. In theory, this means that very small, closely spaced contacts should perform best at producing painful sensations.

Neither of these are more than slightly true. Larger pads mean more contact area and therefore more current. And the distance effect is minimal. The reality with TENS is that most of the resistance is in getting through the skin; the flesh below the skin is quite low resistance, so the total resistance isn't significantly affected by how far apart the pads are. The actual sensation is far more heavily affected by electrode placement and current path.

While it would require a great deal of experimentation to even consider using in a self-bondage setting (to avoid setting the power unbearably high), some TENS units would lend themselves quite well to this - specifically, those with audio inputs. This provides an easy method to generate random and unpredictable shocks.

I've done this with computer controlled relays in series with the TENS outputs (you run the TENS unit constantly, and mess with the output). It's ... interesting.

The last thing I want to do is buy a high-end TENS unit for this purpose, and discover that it is incapable of producing such sensations.

A low-end unit is more likely to be adaptable to external control. In any case, a high-end unit won't give you more power (since they're subject to the same constraints). The high-end units will allow for different patterns of stimulation, whereas the low-end ones tend toward static settings. So unless you really want the extra features, get a cheaper unit -- you can always upgrade later if you decide you need them. Cheap units will give you control of power per channel (usually 2 channels), pulse length and frequency. Many come with an automatic off after 15 or 30 minutes, or it the auto-off can be disabled, and there's often an intermittent mode. The latter isn't much use if you're doing external control, and of course you want to be able to disable the auto-off.

[lj]

just to add an extra comment.

Random shocks are FAR more effective than continuous ones. The nerves get either acclimatised or simply numbed (the nerve junctions need time to recover, so regular fast stimulation loses its effectiveness).

In my experience, I would think a random pulse is something like twice as effective as a continuous pulse train.