Patient-Administered Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation for Postoperative Pain Control After Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy: A Randomized, Sham-Controlled Feasibility Trial.

Patient-administered TENS is safe and acceptable. Future studies may use sub-sensory TENS as a proxy sham control to more reliably blind patients. A larger, double-blinded RCT employing these techniques is now needed to determine the analgesic efficacy of TENS in an enhanced recovery setting, and its potential to reduce opiate usage.