Is it advisable to use TENS to improve muscle pain?

Question

Hello doctor,

I played volleyball on Monday night and everything was fine but then I played squash on Tuesday night. My glutes were sore on Wednesday. Just deep muscle soreness, But I chalked it up to not having played in 9 months. Then I played volleyball Wednesday night too. And things were sore. Thursday my left glute started hurting around 2 PM and by 10 PM I could not walk at all. So much pain. I have been taking hydromorphone, oxycodone, and Celebrex anti-inflammatory pills all night and day Friday and today. Not getting better. It is either a really good strain or a tear. I have iced it, and I have got my home Tens unit on it right now and often throughout the day/night.

This feels like it is the same muscle that I hurt at the rehab center three years back and it hurts. It feels like my Glute Minimus maybe. On Thursday I used my massage chair, hot tub, foam roller, trigger point lacrosse ball, and my massage gun on it. I am thinking that digging into the injury that much probably made it worse or aggravated it. Sorry, so here is my question.

I have dry-needled in the past and it has helped a lot, but is it okay to dry the needle if it is a torn glute muscle or even a strain? The tens machine seems to take some of the pain away, but could my tens be making things worse? Also, I have been in bed laid up all day and night yesterday, literally only crawling to the bathroom and back. I was hoping that staying off of it a few days will make it better but I am not sure what else I can do. Since it is the weekend and the clinic is closed, I was gonna look around for a mobile physiotherapist to come to my place and maybe dry needle me or other therapy for some pain relief. I honestly do not think I could climb into a car to drive anywhere. Otherwise, I will stay in bed for the weekend and hope that enough of the pain is gone and I can go into the clinic and see someone on Monday.

Answer 1

Hello,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

From the history, it sounds more like a muscle strain or you can say it is DOMS which is sometimes common as one lands or take a flight for taking up the shot but the pain is not reducing, is not making things clear, whether it is a DOMS or muscle strain as both of it should resolve within 3-4 days.

So what I can advice is to continue with TENS and take proper rest. TENS will never make the injury worse. It's a modality for reducing pain. I will advise you to take TENS for almost 30-40 minutes, 3-4 times a day, and allow a complete bed rest without doing much mobility. We can expect the pain to come down drastically. In case after a day or two of applying TENS for 30-40 minutes if the pain persists, we need to look for other factors but rest is what is needed without having much mobility in the muscle.