After my last appointment with Dr. Moore, I now use a tens unit every day. This is NOT an easy thing for me to have on my knee but it seems to be the only thing that gives me a little reprieve from the pain I’ve been feeling in my knee for over two years now.
After the first day of using it, my Mom and I realized that I couldn’t have it on my knee without my compression sack on. Because my leg will get really swollen. So, we hook it up to my leg and then pull my compression sock over them.
This procedure adds 45 minutes to an hour for me to get ready in the morning. My Mom will pull my compression sock down put the electrodes on my knee. (Three in the front and one in the back of my knee) She then pulls my compression sock up over the pads and turns the system on because at this point, my leg has begun to swell because my compression sock is tight around my calf. With the stim. on, it eases the pain a little bit because I still have to put my pants on! 
I really hate to put this picture in because I have ugly knees but it shows what I have to put on my knee every day and the fact that my knee is already beginning to swell by not having my compression sock on and pulled up. You can see my scar from ACL reconstruction and if you look really closely, you can see the scars from my meniscus repair on either side of that scar and the Tenex procedure I had done Scar is on the lower right just above the compression sock. It is still kind of red because I had that procedure in February.
So this is what my Mom and I do every day. Well, mostly my Mom!
I couldn’t figure out why I started getting headaches and I’ve had a headache every day since I started doing the tens unit. I have since learned that one “con” of using a tens unit is that you can experience headaches. If you are prone to migraines, it will be a migraine. I don’t get migraines; my Mom and my brother do but it is because of the electric stimulation being surged into my body that causes the headache.
The tens unit has been the only thing that has taken the pain away so I keep it running on my knee until I begin to feel a headache at which time I turn it off and take some Tylenol. I don’t wear the tens unit when I go to bed.
Well, last night as I laid in my bed on my back watching YouTube videos, my right knee popped out. I gasped and rolled over onto my stomach until my knee popped back in. I think it’s crazy that this is still happening a year and a half after surgery and more than two years after my injury! Naturally, my knee hurt even more this morning so I kept the tens unit on until just a little while ago for which I had to turn it off because I was getting a headache… AGAIN.