 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
| Your resource for specialty nutritional supplements, books, DVDs, resources for better living, health news & more! |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
| |
|
Search our extensive library for information, solutions & support
|
|
|
|
|
September 15, 2004
Electrical Twitch Obtaining Intramuscular Stimulation (ETOIMS) for Relief of Muscle Pain and Discomfort
Electrical Twitch Obtaining Intramuscular Stimulation (ETOIMS) method is beneficial for patients with various nerve related muscle discomfort conditions such as fibromyalgia, myofascial pain, muscle tightness, aches and soreness. ETOIMS works by automated rapid insertion of a thin needle electrode into specific muscle-nerve junctions at different depths within the muscle. A small amount of electricity applied for 0.5 second, facilitates these areas to "twitch". The stretch and exercise effects of the twitch mobilizes and loosen deep muscle tissue. This is essential to relieve acute and chronic muscle pain and discomfort.
(PRWEB) September 2, 2004 -- At the age of 31, Jerry Zaslow sustained a lower back injury that caused his left foot to go numb. Fast forward . . . at 79, he has completed fourteen 26 mile, 385-yard marathons, that include one London Marathon, one Marine Corp Marathon, eight New York Marathons and four Boston Marathons. How does Jerry, a marathon man, keep going after being disabled by an injury that would keep most people from exercising altogether? Through ETOIMS.
ETOIMS is Electrical Twitch-Obtaining Intramuscular Stimulation. Jennifer Chu, MD, associate professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Director of the Penn Soft Tissue Comfort Center, created this innovative technique that sends very brief electrical pulses to areas with irritated nerves to relieve muscle pain. Like many of Dr. Chu’s patients, Zaslow found Dr. Chu and her revolutionary technique by accident. After taking up running – despite his lower back injury and against the advice of orthopedic surgeons from Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore – he ran for 17 years without any adverse affects. In 1990, the numbness in his left foot became severe, and Zaslow was forced to seek medical help.
“I thought I’d need surgery so I could keep running,” said Zaslow. “That’s when a running buddy of mine asked if I’d tried acupuncture. My son-in-law, a physician in rehabilitation medicine and a former resident of Dr. Chu suggested that I make an appointment with her.” The rest is history.
Dr. Chu determined that Jerry Zaslow’s chronic pain condition stemmed from nerve root irritations related to spinal stenosis and herniated discs. But ETOIMS goes deeper than traditional acupuncture – literally.
ETOIMS is an automated form of electrical muscle stimulation from within the depths of the muscle. Instead of following traditional “energy” lines or meridians as in acupuncture, Dr. Chu follows the lines between and within muscles and inserts a needle electrode automatically to give a brief electrical pulse at nerve-muscle meeting points. This stimulation causes the muscle to twitch. Since acute and chronic muscle pain can be caused by nerve irritation that tightens a muscle, focussed exercising of the muscle through twitch related contraction and relaxation at many points within the muscle alleviates muscle pain.
“When you irritate or damage a nerve, muscle fibers close around the nerve fibers like a fist,” says Chu. “The electrical pulse uncurls the fist from the nerve fibers, thus relieving pain and restoring function.”
Dr. Chu first pioneered TOIMS. Unlike the theories of acupuncture where many needles are used to balance excess and deficient energies, TOIMS places only a single needle electrode into the muscle to stimulate nerve muscle meeting points for ½ second at each point, one at a time. This causes the muscle to twitch focally, exercising the stimulated area. The local exercise helps restore local circulation essential for healing muscle and nerves around that area. While the initial procedure was arduous and done by hand, pain relief did occur. ATOIMS automated the process and electrical stimulation with ETOIMS made the method more efficacious.
“ETOIMS is so much faster and much less painful,” said Zaslow. “And definitely more effective.”
This latest update of the technology now makes the procedure easier and allows Dr. Chu to treat patients whom otherwise couldn’t have been treated.
Zaslow says, for the time being he has retired from marathons, but not from being physically active. He is the CEO of a manufacturing and distribution company who are sole source global suppliers to institutions that include schools, hospitals, prisons and government agencies. He works eleven-hour days, trains on a treadmill, Nordic Track and vigorous hill climbing. His objective is to return to running and have his ETOIMS therapy and exercise activity counter-balance, enhance and compliment each other. Zaslow says, “I wouldn’t be able to do this without Dr. Chu. Long live ETOIMS.”
For more info: http://www.painfree-international.org/
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
Dr. David Bell on XMRV Research: "Now We Can Get Down to Business" [more]
CFS Advisory Committee Meeting - Live Online Oct 29-30 [more]
Heard Through the Grapevine: Test kit for XMRV to be available from Reno-based VIP Dx [more]
Dr. Charles Shepherd Updates His Advisory on Swine Flu & the Vaccine for ME/CFS Patients – A Highly ... [more]
Don't Miss the New York Times Q&A on XMRV by Dr. Klimas [more]
|
|
|
