Tens Machine - whose used one?!

[angelfaces]

Im 38 weeks pregnant and i'm thinking of hiring or buying a tens machine, any recommendations, advice or comments on experiences before i do?

Found it useful for the early stages of induced labour with DS1, but went on to have pethidine and then an epidural in the later stages. Found it no help whatsoever during labour with DS2.

I used one and in fact even used the hospitals one as I was getting no relief from it. LOL the hospitals one was no better.

Useless..imo..!!

No use for me.

In my notes it reads 'xxxxxx requests the removal of TENS as it is 'bugging' her'.

I do remember saying 'this is fu**ing shit'

loved mine in the early stages of labour,(since the labour was 17 hours long and we had to get to the hosp 40 miles away ),i'de say itearned its (rented from the small ad company in the baby mag)keep.
dh has a bad back so i actually bought one for him, and he uses it.

Hated it! like being crawled over by a swarm of ants, IMO. I didn't practise much with it before the great day though, which could be where it went wrong.

Message withdrawn

I hired mine from Tens Hire - reasonable price and good flexible company.

However..it did nothing for me - just an annoying buzzing feeling on top of my contractions! I jumped in the bath and that was much more soothing!

ok guys i've hired a tens machine, its all done and its arriving tomorrow by express delivery, thanks for all your advice and comments xx

What ever you do dont let your OH get hold of the button to turn it on and off. In the very last minutes of my 2nd labour DH thought he would help out by pressing the button every time he thought I was having a contraction. He was actually turning it off as I had already pressed the button to turn it on a couple of seconds before. It took a while for me to realise what was going wrong and by that time I was unable to ask nicely for him to "leave the button alone please dear", so I screamed a few obscenities and he got the message. They work a treat otherwise, not removing the pain but making it feel fuzzy and far less of a problem.

Had great fun with the tens we hired after we had baby. I wired DH up to it and whacked it on full blast. Punishment for what he made me suffer!

Hired our from boots by the way.

I borrowed a tens machine and found it great in the early stages of labour when I was still at home.

However when I got into hospital (and I had a long difficult labour) I ended up throwing it across the room as everytime I went to sit or lie down one of the wires would come out and I'd get a small electric shock - not happy!

I'd recomend getting one, it really did help me and I would hope if my labour had been easier I would have used it all the way through. I'd hire/borrow one though as they are expensive.

However as others have said - DON'T LET YOUR OH TOUCH IT! - you'll live to regret it if you do. They seem to have an inability to leave any gadgets alone. They'll keep switching it up and down, changing the type of pulse and generally make you want to throttle them.

Hi angelface,
with first ds, now 10y.old I rented one, from Boots, I think...and I used it until about an hour before I had him...it was fab.
For one reason or another I didn't with my other 2 ds's...didn't need one anyway with ms, but wish I had one with ys, as I had a very painful backlabour with him!

I had one for the birth of DD.

I didn't think it was doing much, as the pain didn't seem too bad anyway, until I had to take it off to be prepared for an emergency CS (long story, but not TENS-related ) - boy the pain hit me BIG STYLE then

So I would say it was definitely working for me & I would use one again.

Agree with BB didnt realise how good it was until I took it off.