Airing Pain 9: Relieving Pain: TENS and acupuncture

 How acupuncture and TENS can help relieve pain, plus, a new web service aiming to educate health professionals about pain

We take a look at the role of the pain specialist nurse in the community, eavesdropping on two consultations given by Kathryn Nur at her nurse-led clinic at Tenby Cottage Hospital, Pembrokeshire. We hear how Kath helps her patients, learning about what TENS machines are, how to use them and how they can help those in pain, how acupuncture can also help, and the importance of listening to what the patient has to say.

On the contentious issue of how little training medical students receive on pain matters – fewer hours than vets – Ann Taylor from the faculty of pain medicine at Cardiff University talks about a web service that may go some way towards redressing the imbalance.

Issues covered in this programme include: TENS, acupuncture, electro-acupuncture, web service, educating health professionals, pain specialist nurses, back pain, depression, ache, listening to patients, GPs and insomnia.

Contributors:

• Kathryn Nur, Specialist Pain Nurse, Hywel Dda Health Board, West Wales
• Richard, Kathryn Nur’s patient
• Ann Taylor, Faculty of Pain Medicine, Cardiff University.