January 2009

Muscle injuries (Acute / chronic) For acute muscle injuries, use programme 5. Electrode placement depending on the muscle group affected (see the manual for optimal placement options). If programme 5 does not help much within the first day, proceed to programme 8. Programme 8 is identical to programme 5, except that it allows you to use much higher intensities of current (which penetrate deeper into the muscle). For larger muscle groups and larger injuries, programme 8 will be the better option. Programme 8 is also useful when more than one site needs to be treated.

Healing chronic wounds Use programme 3 and bracket the wound site with the electrodes. Again, the electrodes do not need to be close to the wound site, as long as the current flows through the injured area. Once a day is enough. You should see significant results within four to six weeks. As with acute wounds, the placement of positive and negative electrodes relative to the wound site is NOT critically important.

Wound healing Skin lesions (Acute / chronic) To assist wound healing in recent wounds, you can use either programme 2 or 4. These two programmes are identical in all respects, except in their duration (15 min vs 25 min). Treat for longer time for larger wounds. One treatment per day is all that is needed, but you can treat for longer or more often a day if you wish. Example: Surgery – if you are going in for elective surgery, treat the area to be cut a few hours BEFORE you go into theatre, and then daily after surgery. Electrode placement: Any placement that brackets the injured site is good. It does not even have to be close to the wound site, as long as the current flows through the wound site. Positive and negative placement not so important here.

Intensity For all the programmes outlined below, the optimal intensity is one that you just-just can NOT feel. In other words, increase the intensity until you feel the pulse, then decrease the intensity by a click of the Arrow Down button. Don’t think you HAVE to feel it for the current to work. For pain treatment, higher intensities may be needed – let your pain guide you. You cannot harm yourself with the Elexoma!

Looking after your electrodes Your pre-gelled electrodes need a lot of loving care. Their expected lifespan is three months, if you use them every day, but with careful use you can use them for much longer. To get the electrode off the counterfoil, do NOT pick it up by the “tail”, but rather peel a corner off with your finger and then lift it up by the corner. If the electrodes lose their stickiness, you can rejuvenate them by rubbing a drop of dishwashing soap into the sticky side, then rinsing the soap off with cold water. Stick the wet electrode back onto the counterfoil and put it all in the fridge overnight. The next morning, the stickiness ought to be back to square one. Hygiene Try to keep electrodes patient-specific. In other words, let one person use one set of pre-gelled electrodes only (you can always order extra from us, if needed). This is specially true in cases where open wounds are being treated. However, this is only a recommendation.

Leads and Electrodes You will have noticed that you received two sets of treatment leads (cables) and two pairs of pre-gelled electrodes. This is to enable you to treat two areas of the body at once (if need be, to help you save time). Just take note that, if you use both cables at the same time, the actual current being applied to the body is only HALF of what is being displayed on the Elexoma‘s screen. In other words, if the display says you are getting 300 uAmp, you are only getting 150 uAmp PER TREATMENT SITE. Most of the time, however, you will probably only need to treat one area at a time, in which case the display is correct as shown. For Monophasic programmes, remember that the colour coding on the treatment cables becomes important: Red is positive (anode) and black is negative (cathode) (I use “red lips” and “a black mood” to remind me what goes for what…). The electrode placements for treating various body parts is outlined in quite some detail from page 19 to 32 of your manual. By the way, the picture for CES on page 20 is confusing – programme 1, our CES programme, is biphasic, so it does not really matter which colour goes on which ear.

How microcurrent therapy works Before I jump in and explain the programmes, just a note about how microcurrent therapy works. You may safely skip this section if you want, but I find it fascinating, so bear with me as I elaborate. The 1997 Nobel Prize for chemistry was awarded to a Chinese researcher, Dr Ngok Cheng, who in 1982 published a paper showing how microcurrent stimulation increased the level of ATP in cells by 500%. Oops, I did it again! I used a TLA! In this case, I am not going to explain it, however, since ATP refers to the name of a molecule and your eyes will probably glaze over if I start mentioning the names of molecules. ATP is no ordinary molecule (if there is such a thing as an ordinary molecule, that is). ATP is the body’s energy currency. Like money, you can’t do business without it. The body’s cells manufacture ATP and then various cell processes use that ATP for power. Without ATP, no reactions can take place inside the cell and the cell dies. Every day, you and I need some 75 kg of ATP to survive. Yes, that’s right: 75 kg! “Hey, wait a minute!” I hear you saying, “I hardly weigh 75 kg, so where do I get 75 kg of ATP from?” Aha, I’m glad you asked. ATP is not a use-once-throw-away-twice kind of molecule. It is quite possibly the most recycled item in the universe. Once an ATP molecule has been used to provide energy, it is recycled, re-energised and re-deployed. Every molecule of ATP in your body gets recycled approximately 1,200 times a day. Yes: A DAY. That’s once every minute, give or take. Now let’s get back to Dr Ngok Cheng and his Nobel prize. Do you understand why the Nobel prize awards committee got so excited about his research? ATP is mostly formed in the presence of carbohydrates and oxygen. If you don’t eat, you die. If you don’t breathe, you die. Why? Because your cells can’t manufacture ATP. Dr Cheng’s research showed a new way of regenerating ATP, one that did not primarily involve oxygen or carbohydrates. A weak current was all it took to increase ATP levels in the cell by 500% or more. And that is what the Elexoma is all about. What’s the big deal? Well, with all that ATP inside your cells, they are able to do the work they need to do. All the body’s cells are under continuous attack from all sorts of villains. It takes a lot of ATP for the cell to repair itself. Sometimes, cell damage is so extensive that the cell has no energy left to do anything else (think how you feel after a Washing & Ironing Monday…). That is when we experience Loss of Function, for example, when an ankle is sprained, or a muscle is bruised. The pain and swelling is the body’s way of keeping the affected area still while cell repair takes place. Every time you move, the pain tells you to stop. Now, if you apply MET to the injured area, the MET increases the ATP in the injured cells. They repair themselves much faster (think 500%) and tell the brain, “All is OK, you can switch off the pain report and drain the swelling!” (OK, that’s not quite true, but you get the picture). And this, my dear Watson, is how MET works for pain and healing. Thank you for listening so attentively. The lecture is over.

(Almost) all about MET MET, or Micro-Electric Therapy, refers to the use of microcurrent to treat the body. Typical situations where you might want to use MET are: Chronic backache, arthritis or other chronic pains. Acute pain due to a sprain, muscle tear, bone fracture, wound, etc. Wound healing, whether an open wound, bruise, sprain, fracture, etc. Refreshing of the whole body, e.g. after strenuous exercise or before a sports event. By now, you are probably tired of all the TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms). Sorry, but here’s one more: MET, short for Microcurrent Electrical Therapy. MET refers to the application of low-level electrical pulses to the body to achieve therapeutic outcomes. Technically, CES is also a form of MET, but the indications and proposed mechanism of action are different in the case of CES. As a result, MET is almost always used to refer to treatment of the body, not the brain. The “micro” in “microcurrent” refers to current intensities that are mostly less than 1 milliAmp (or 1,000 uAmp, as it is displayed on your Elexoma‘s screen). These levels are in line with your body’s own electrical charge. As with CES, MET can be applied either as Direct (monophasic) Current (DC) or as Alternating (biphasic) Current (AC). Your Elexoma Medic has no less than 7 preset MET programmes (more than any other microcurrent device on the planet). You will find details of each programme on Page 11 of your User’s manual. I won’t rehash page 11 here, but let me group the programmes together in terms of what to use when – that is all you REALLY need to know. There are essentially two reasons why you would want to use MET: injury and pain. Under these two headings, there are a number of sub-headings: 1. Wound healing 1.1 Skin lesions (Acute / chronic) 1.2 Muscle injuries (Acute / chronic) 1.3 Nerve injuries (Acute / chronic) 2. Pain control 2.1 Acute pain 2.2 Chronic pain

CES and Jetlag The Elexoma also works like magic for jetlag – simply treat yourself to Programme 1 before you depart, halfway through your journey and then after arrival at your destination (just before going to sleep). Within one day, your sleep-wake cycle will be back to normal.