Cosmetic Dentistry Blog

What is TENS?

Transcutaneous Electrical Neural Stimulation (TENS) is a term given to battery operated instruments that provide a gentle painless electrical stimulus through the skin to nerve pathways. At Dream Smile Dental, we use ultra-low frequency TENS to deliver a stimulus through the nerve pathways of the head and neck. These gently exercise the muscles controlled by those nerves, and causes the muscles of the head and neck to relax.

How are muscles related to dentistry?

Head, neck and jaw muscles play a very important role in your dental health. Different muscles come into play for posturing, opening, and closing the jaw and swallowing. The muscles that keep your jaw from falling open are small and go from the jaw upward through the cheeks, into the forehead and around the ear. If your teeth don’t fit together properly, these muscles are over-worked. Subconsciously holding these muscles tense for a long time can result in muscles spasms, and tension. Tense muscles restrict blood flow and oxygen to those muscles, and also prevent the washing away of waste products like lactic acid. This eventually leads to headaches or other head and neck pain.

Can’t I just relax these muscles?

No. If your teeth don’t fit together correctly, you subconsciously hold your jaw in a position that often causes muscled tension. It is very difficult to change this on your own and often requires a lot of training. Ultra low frequency TENS relax the muscles of the head and neck.

How does it work?

Electrodes are placed on your skin over the nerves controlling the muscles of the head and neck. The TENS unit is attached to these electrodes. It delivers mild stimulus to those nerves every 1.5 seconds. This causes the muscles to react, and it causes the rhythmic exercising of the muscle. As time passes, these muscles begin to relax and blood flow through them is increased. Because it is repetitive it causes the rhythmic exercising of the muscle. As time passes, these muscles begin to relax and blood flow increases clearing away lactic acid build up and producing healthier more relaxed muscles, resulting in comfort and relief. In most cases, the muscles become relaxed after 45-60 minutes.

When does Dream Smile prescribe TENS?

If we are treating you for a dental issue where we want to relax the head and neck muscles in order to find your best bite, TENS is applied in the office. However, there are occasions when we will prescribe a small TENS unit for home use called the BNS-40. This is a much smaller version of the office  unit which applies the same stimulus to the muscles.

We may prescribe the home unit for the following:

•   To relax your muscles before you come to the office for dental treatment or analysis.
•   To relieve muscle tension pain.
•   To determine whether relaxation of your facial and neck muscles will lead to pain relief.