Chattanooga
™
Primera Operation Manual
5
Chattanooga Primera ™ uses a small battery operated unit to provide a non-
invasive, drug free method of controlling acute and principally long term
intractable pain. It can also be used as adjunctive treatment in the management
of post surgical traumatic pain problems. Mild electrical impulses are
transmitted through the skin via surface electrodes to modify the body’s pain
perception and/or to stimulate muscle and nerve fibres using precise electrical
signals via various predetermined or programmable stimulation modulation
options.
When we feel pain it is the body’s process of informing us that something is
wrong. To feel pain is important, without this feeling abnormal conditions may
go undetected, creating damage or injury to critical parts of the body.
Although pain is essential in warning our body of trauma or malfunction,
nature may have gone too far in its design. Continued long-term chronic pain
has no useful value apart from its importance in diagnosis. Pain begins when
a coded signal travels to the brain where it is decoded, and analysed. The pain
message travels from the injured area of the body along small diameter nerves
leading to the spinal cord. At this point the message is switched to a different
kind of nerve that travels up the spinal cord to the brain area. The brain then
analyses the pain message, refers it back and the pain is felt.
Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) uses a small battery
operated unit to provide a non-invasive, drug free method of controlling acute
and principally long term intractable pain. It can also be used as an
adjunctive treatment in the management of post surgical traumatic pain
problems. In TENS mild electrical impulses are transmitted through the skin
via surface electrodes to modify the body’s pain perception. TENS does not
cure problematic physiological conditions; it only helps to control the pain
perception. TENS will not work for every user, please seek advice from your
Doctor.
There are millions of small nerve fibres throughout the body and it only
requires a few impulses to produce chronic pain. In addition to small fibres,
which allow the sensation of pain to be felt, the body is also made up of
larger diameter nerve fibres. These larger nerve fibres transmit less unpleasant
sensations such as touch or warmth, assisting us to form an impression of our
environment. Stimulating the larger nerve fibres using TENS may have the
effect of inhibiting the transmission of pain along the smaller nerve fibres to
the spinal cord [known as the ‘Pain Gate Theory’].
Intended Use
What is Pain?
What is TENS?
