safety, electro-stimulusIt’s generally accepted that play with a TENS unit carries a certain amount of risk.
That said, if one chooses to engage in such activities, what are the general guidelines to minimize severe and/or permanent harm during play?
I’ve often heard “never do anything above the waist” and that makes sense, given the proximity to the heart, but I was wondering if there were other guidelines that people follow in order to maximize safety (other than abstenance).
The biggest risk from TENS units is from current crossing the heart. That can induce a heart attack, with obvious potentially lethal consequences.
Some of the risk will vary depending on the power of the TENS unit you’re using. A low power unit has much lower risk of doing any damage than a high power one; if you’re just buying a cheap off-the-shelf unit, it’s not going to be very high power. That doesn’t mean you can be reckless with it, however.
The common guideline I’ve heard is the one you mention: nothing above the waist. That said, the leaflet that came with my TENS machine recommended a variety of pad positions on the back for treating certain kinds of back pain; I assume this still has a low risk provided you don’t also attach contacts to the front of the torso. The rules for Kink.com shoots additionally allow “Nipple Clamps where the nipple completes the circuit (electricity passes on through the nipple, not from breast to breast or breast to other area of the body)”.
Another rule I’ve not seen repeated very often but makes sense to me is to avoid using two people to complete a circuit, for example don’t have one contact near the penis and the other near the vagina for vaginal intercourse: unless you’re otherwise covered in rubber, there’s a risk you could, for example, touch your partner’s face or torso, and suddenly there’s a path for current to travel across both partners’ hearts.
Wikipedia has some more safety guidelines, which I’d summarize as keeping contacts away from the head and the spine.
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