New treatment (ETOIMS) for Relief of Muscle Pain and Discomfort
Electrical Twitch Obtaining Intramuscular Stimulation (ETOIMS) method benefits patients with various nerve related muscle discomfort conditions such as fibromyalgia, myofascial pain, muscle tightness, aches and soreness. ETOIMS works by automated rapid insertion of a thin needle electrode into specific muscle-nerve junctions at different depths within the muscle. This automated electrical acupuncture facilitates the stimulated area to "twitch". The stretch and exercise effects of the twitch mobilizes and loosen deep muscle tissue. This is essential to relieve acute and chronic muscle pain and discomfort.
(PRWEB) September 2, 2004 -- At the age of 31, Jerry Zaslow sustained a lower back injury that caused his left foot to go numb. Fast
forward . . . at 79, he has retired from marathons but
remains very physically
active. His retirement from marathons
occurred at age 64 because of progressive lower back and left leg pain relating
to training for and completing fourteen 26 mile, 385-yard marathons, that
include one London Marathon, one
Marine Corp Marathon, eight New York Marathons and
four Boston Marathons. How does Jerry, a marathon man,
keep physically active after being disabled by an injury that would
keep most people from exercising altogether? Through ETOIMS.
ETOIMS is Electrical Twitch-Obtaining Intramuscular
Stimulation which is an automated version of deep tissue electrical medical acupuncture. Jennifer Chu, MD, associate professor of
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Pennsylvania School of
Medicine and Director of the Penn Soft Tissue Comfort Center, created this
innovative technique that sends very brief electrical pulses to areas with
irritated nerves to relieve muscle pain. Like
many of Dr. Chu's patients, Zaslow found Dr. Chu and her revolutionary medical acupuncture technique by accident. After taking up marathon running, despite his lower back injury
and against the advice of orthopedic surgeons from Boston, Philadelphia and
Baltimore, he continued running for 17
years without any adverse affects. In 1990, at age 64, the numbness in his left
foot became severe, and Zaslow was forced to seek medical help.
"I
thought I'd need surgery so I could keep running," said
Zaslow. "That's when a running buddy of
mine asked if I'd tried acupuncture. My
son-in-law, a physician in rehabilitation medicine and a former resident of Dr.
Chu suggested that I make an appointment with her". The rest is history.
Dr.
Chu determined that Jerry Zaslow's chronic pain
condition stemmed from nerve root irritations related to spinal stenosis and
herniated discs. But ETOIMS goes
deeper than traditional acupuncture,
literally.
ETOIMS is an automated form of electrical muscle stimulation
from within the depths of the muscle. Instead of following traditional "energy"
lines or meridians as in acupuncture, Dr.
Chu follows the lines between and within muscles and inserts a needle electrode
automatically to give a brief electrical pulse at nerve-muscle meeting points.
This stimulation causes the muscle to twitch. Since
acute and chronic muscle pain can
be caused by nerve irritation that tightens a muscle, focussed exercising of the
muscle through twitch related contraction and relaxation at many points
within the muscle alleviates muscle pain.
"When you irritate or damage a nerve, muscle fibers close around the
nerve fibers like a fist," says Chu. "The electrical pulse uncurls the fist from
the nerve fibers, thus relieving muscle pain and
restoring function".
Dr. Chu first pioneered TOIMS. Unlike the theories
of medical acupuncture where many needles are used to balance
excess and deficient energies, TOIMS places only a single needle electrode into
the muscle to stimulate nerve muscle meeting points for ˝ second at each point,
one at a time. This causes the muscle to twitch focally,
exercising the stimulated area. The local exercise helps restore local
circulation essential for healing muscle and nerves around that area. While the
initial procedure was arduous and done by hand, muscle pain
relief did occur. ATOIMS automated the process and electrical stimulation
with ETOIMS made the method more efficacious.
"ETOIMS
is so much faster and definitely more effective," says Zaslow.
This
latest update of the medical
acupuncture technology now makes the procedure easier and allows Dr. Chu to
treat patients whom otherwise couldn't have been treated.
Zaslow says,
for the time being he has retired from marathons, but
not from being physically
active. He is the CEO of a manufacturing and distribution company who are
sole source global suppliers to institutions that include schools, hospitals,
prisons and government agencies. He works eleven-hour days, trains on a
treadmill, Nordic Track and vigorous hill climbing. His objective is to return
to running and have his ETOIMS therapy
and exercise activity counter-balance, enhance and compliment each other. Zaslow
says, "I wouldn't be able to do this without Dr. Chu. Long live ETOIMS".
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/9/prweb154552.htm