Back pain is one of the most common and disabling pains. That is no surprise given our sedentary lifestyle but what to do when it hits you? If you can afford the time off, staying in bed might give some relief but even then the pain is ever present.
For most people the use of TENS devices will help considerably to alleviate the pain and today we are reviewing one of the best designed and most practical of these units: the WiTouch Pro from Hollywog. Spoiler alert: it’s a brilliant device!
The Hollywog WiTouch Pro is unique in that it doesn’t have any wires to the electrodes to stimulate the skin as is the case with all TENS machines. Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation is a proven technology which gives pain relief by suppressing the pain transmission in the nerves. The best thing is that it is completely drug-free.
Both my wife and I suffer from pretty severe back pain resulting from a car accident more than 2 decades ago. We have tried this technology over the years and the best unit we found was a professional device which had wires to electrodes that you apply to the skin. It worked but wires are per definition a bit messy and the unit itself had to be worn on a belt or something similar.
The WiTouch is completely self-contained and very slim. It can easily be applied on the small of the back without anyone ever noticing the device. It simply sticks on and can be reapplied many times. Even though it has all the necessary controls like on / off and increase and decrease buttons on the unit itself, it might be hard to reach when the unit is underneath your clothing and that’s why Hollywog also provides a small remote control that duplicates these buttons.
As you can see from the photos the WiTouch is extremely well designed with the integrated electrodes (the green flaps) and runs on 2 AAA batteries which will be good for about 150 sessions of half an hour each. This stimulation of the nerves has varying patterns in that half hour timeframe and can be set to low intensity or very high and everything in between. Very high is too high for me, it’s pretty powerful.
The design makes it perfect to combat back pain but sometimes TENS machines are also used to reach other places which obviously cannot be done with this device.
Experiences
We have been testing the WiTouch Pro over several weeks and here are some observations:
- It is highly effective for most types of back pain.
- It’s easy to apply, much easier to use and wear discreetly under clothing than previous TENS implementations we have used.
- The big green flaps cover an area that is about 2 to 3 times as large as normal sized electrodes.
- You can use it with or without the remote control.
- The Gel Pads are replaceable and last around 5 applications before they will start to lose their stickiness.
Conclusion
We can highly recommend the WiTouch Pro from Hollywog. If you are familiar with TENS technology the WiTouch is a no-brainer. It is simply the best implementation and best designed unit on the market.
The WiTouch Pro is available from uHealth Australia Pty Limited who launched the device here recently. AUD 159 is a very sweet price point.
Whilst you’re there you might check out the other medical devices, such as the LUMOback.
I think I need to check out that posture monitoring device as soon as the Android app is available… Without a doubt my computer lifestyle contributes to my bad posture and resulting back pain!
