tens

[Loobylou12]

evening all, sat around with my elephant woman feet up and just realised i will need a tens machine in the near future. any one with previous experience of elle tens or mama tens?x

I borrowed a tens machine from a friend to use on ds, have to say i found it more of an irritant than a help. Only lasted about an hour with it before I had to rip it off - just plain got on my nerves!

oh :-( was hoping it could be my lifesaver!

Mine was fabulous. definately helped me cope with just tens and gas and air for both my births.

Googling (it was 5 year ago) I'm pretty sure it was the elle tens I had. I would definitely recommend it. It has a great boost which really helped through the contractions.

I had a mamatens and it seemed to help. I did turn it off during pushing because it got to the point where it was annoying me. But I'm sure it helped in earlier stages and the batteries lasted the whole 60ish hours I was using it.

I loved mine!!

Thought it was crap to start with until I realised that I was being too cautious with the dial. I didn't think it was doing much until I took it off to get in the bath and a contraction hit, next time I had a bath I waited until I had my feet in until I allowed DH to unhook me!!

I managed over 24hrs of labour with no other pain relief and I'll definitely have one next time.

I've just hired an elle tens which should arrive tomorrow. Whilst I can't recommend a brand as didn't use them for ds's birth, I have a thread here which might give you some information?

I had an Elle Tens and I swear to god it was the best money I have ever spent. I had an agonising 30+ hours of early labour (failure to progress so apparently I was eligible for any pain relief, stupid guidelines) and it was an absolute lifesaver.

Get one with a boost button for when the contractions hit. And don't be afraid to ramp it up - I kept it low for hours because I was scared that I'd 'run out' of levels before I needed them, but by the end I only had it half way up and it was really bloody painful then! (but painful in the good way that distracted from the contractions)

A tens machine was a life saver when I was in labour- I have no idea which one I used though :S

I ripped it off after about ten seconds as found it really annoying. In te end I had just has and air. I will try it again if I'm lucky enough to have another little one though - I don't think I really gave it a chance! My labour was very quick though.

I agree with several posters that it was absolutely brilliant for me. With DS (second child) I only had the Tens machine (although no idea which brand - it was hired from Boots) and it did me just fine, although you do need to not be scared to use it. Mine had to be readjusted during labour and boy did I know about it for the contraction when I couldn't use it!. You turn it down for pushing so that you can feel the sensations, but by then the pain is different so it's fine.

I used one for both DC and swear by it . 2nd time around it helped so much that we only made it to hosp reception before DD arrived so not even chance for gas and air!!

Anyway u can hire from boots for 4 weeks for £50 I think but you get £25 refund when you take it back.

Pads etc are all disposable so def recommend hiring one

Good luck!

I had mamatens all three times, and was brilliant. I knew ds3 was coming more quickly than the other two when I had ramped it up to the third level after about an hour, rather than the 8 or 9 hours with the other two.

thanks everyone x