From Gah to Ahhh ... Easing Nerve Pain Without Meds
- Monica Williams
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
Nerve Pain - one of the worst kinds of pain.
Nerve pain is one of the most complex, misunderstood, and challenging types of pain to treat. Whether caused by injury, chronic illness, or structural imbalance, this kind of pain often resists conventional treatment. Many patients are left suffering—misdiagnosed, medicated, or simply told to “live with it.”
But what if there was another way?
Frequency Specific Microcurrent (FSM) therapy is changing how we understand and treat nerve pain. In this article, we’ll explore the different types of nerve-related pain, why conventional painkillers often fail, and how FSM is helping patients recover where traditional methods fall short.
What Is Nerve Pain?
Nerve pain (or neuropathic pain) arises when nerves are damaged, compressed, inflamed, or irritated. Unlike muscular or skeletal pain, nerve pain often follows predictable pathways called dermatomes—zones of the skin supplied by specific spinal nerves.
You might hear people describe their pain as:
Burning
Shooting
Electric
Tingling
Buzzing
Numbness
Hypersensitive to touch
'Nervy'
These sensations reflect the abnormal electrical signaling of injured nerves.
What are some Common Types Of Nerve Pain?
Nerve Traction Injuries
These occur when nerves are stretched or pulled, often from:
Whiplash
Sports injuries
Falls
Surgical positioning
Repetitive strain
Carpal Tunnel, Ulnar Tunnel, Tarsal Tunnel, Mortons Neuroma
Brachial plexus compression
Unlike clean nerve cuts, traction injuries disrupt the internal microstructure of nerves. They don’t show up well on scans, yet cause chronic pain, aching, weakness, tingling, numbness and altered sensations.
Peripheral Neuropathy
A blanket term for nerve damage outside the brain and spinal cord, commonly seen in:
Diabetes
Chemotherapy
B12 deficiency
Alcohol abuse
Autoimmune conditions
Patients feel burning, pins-and-needles, or numbness—especially in the hands or feet.
Functional Neurological Disorders
This doesn't really go here, but it sure did cause this young woman chronic, debilitating neuralgia and seizures.
Dermatomal Pain
If you've ever had sciatica or shingles, you’ve felt dermatomal pain.
This follows a spinal nerve root, often because of:
Herniated discs
Facet, disc or joint degeneration or damage
Vertebral misalignments
Inflammation or compression of the nerve root or peripheral nerve
The pain radiates along the arm, leg, or torso in a sharp, linear dermatomal pathway.
Nerve Compression Syndromes
Tunnel syndromes like carpal tunnel, tarsal tunnel, and ulnar tunnel syndrome, along with Morton’s neuroma, brachial plexus issues all involve nerve entrapment in tight anatomical spaces where inflammation, scar tissue, or structural compression reduces normal nerve glide and function.
Carpal tunnel syndrome is where the median nerve is compressed at the wrist, often from repetitive use or inflammation of surrounding tendons, it can also be the downstreatm result of hypothyroidism and/or cervical issues.
Tarsal tunnel syndrome affects the tibial nerve as it passes behind the ankle, leading to burning or tingling in the foot.
Ulnar tunnel syndrome compresses the ulnar nerve at the wrist or elbow, causing numbness and weakness in the ring and little fingers.
Morton’s neuroma is not a true neuroma, but a fibrous thickening around a plantar nerve between the toes—typically the 3rd and 4th—triggered by irritation, footwear pressure, or gait imbalances. From an FSM perspective, treatment focuses on reducing inflammation, softening scar tissue, and restoring nerve mobility and conduction, allowing decompression and repair without surgery.
Brachial plexus injuries - the brachial plexus is a web of nerves that originates from the cervical spine and controls movement and sensation in the shoulder, arm, and hand. Traction injuries—commonly seen in whiplash, falls, or shoulder dislocations—can stretch or compress this network, leading to pain, weakness, or numbness across multiple dermatomes.
Radiculopathy, by contrast, involves irritation or compression of a spinal nerve root, often due to a disc bulge, spinal stenosis, or inflammation. This causes pain that radiates along the path of the affected nerve, such as down the arm in cervical radiculopathy or down the leg in lumbar radiculopathy.
FSM is particularly well-suited to these conditions because it can reduce inflammation at the nerve root, restore conduction in irritated or partially damaged nerves, and soften fibrosis around the spine or nerve plexus, offering relief where mechanical decompression alone may not be enough.
Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) / Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS)
RSD is now known as CRPS and is a chronic pain condition typically affecting a limb after injury, surgery, or even minor trauma. Unlike localized injuries, RSD involves abnormal overactivation of the sympathetic nervous system, resulting in intense, burning pain, swelling, temperature changes, skin discoloration, hypersensitivity, and often motor dysfunction. The pain is disproportionate to the initial injury and is maintained by a feedback loop between the nerves, immune system, and brain.
From an FSM perspective, CRPS is one of the most promising yet complex conditions to treat, as therapy can target multiple layers: reducing inflammation, calming the sympathetic nervous system , addressing nerve trauma, and supporting circulation and tissue repair.
Many clients report significant relief as the electrical signaling patterns of pain are reset and the tissue environment becomes less hostile to nerve healing. While not every case resolves completely, FSM can often interrupt the chronic pain cycle and restore mobility and quality of life.
Why Painkillers Don't Work For Nerve Pain
Conventional painkillers (like paracetamol, ibuprofen, or opioids) work by blocking pain perception in the brain or reducing inflammation in tissues. However, nerve pain originates in the nerves themselves, where signaling is disrupted or heightened.
Many people take medications for years with:
No relief
Side effects like drowsiness or constipation
Growing dependency (especially with opioids)
Gut and liver problems
Antidepressants and anticonvulsants are sometimes used for nerve pain, but they only manage symptoms, not the root dysfunction causing the pain.
How FSM Supports People With Nerve Pain
Frequency Specific Microcurrent uses low-level electrical currents—measured in millionths of an ampere—to target specific tissue types and conditions with tailored frequencies.
What FSM Can Do:
Reduce inflammation in the nerve AND at the source point of the injury
Release tissue adhesions and scar tissue that may be adhered to nerves and surrounding structures
Support fascia and to improve nerve glide and movement
Restore nerve conductivity and function with time, enhancing healing and repair
Promote cellular repair and gene expression changes
Work at the cause of the problem, such as the discs, spine, tendons, ligaments, connective tissues, circuation and oxygenation
What FSM Can’t Do:
It can’t regenerate tissue that is physically missing.
It won’t fuse broken bones or grow back severed nerves.
Fix severely degenerated discs and cartilage in just a few sessions.
For neurons that are present but not functioning, FSM may reboot and restore them, similar to restarting a glitched computer system.
Some FSM Stories
Nerve Traction Injury after a Fall
Sarah, a 36-year-old yoga instructor, came in with burning pain down her left arm after a traction injury was caused by a fall. MRI scans were inconclusive, chiro and physio hadn’t helped. She had trouble sleeping and couldn’t lift her arm without intense nerve pain.
We ran an FSM protocol for all the affected areas including:
Reduce inflammation targeting spinal cord
Nerve trauma in the nerves, spinal cord and tissues
Peripheral nerve repair
Scar tissue in vagus, fascia and nerve sheath
After three sessions, the burning had decreased by 60% and she had more mobility and range of motion, within six sessions, she had returned to yoga.
Chemotherapy-Induced Neuropathy
Michael, 59, completed chemotherapy two years ago but had ongoing numbness and tingling in his feet, interfering with balance and walking.
We targeted:
Nerves - Spinal Cord, Vagus Nerve, Peripheral
Chronic inflammation
Detoxification of the affected tissues, liver, kidneys, nerves, spinal cord, vagus nerve, and fascia
Old trauma and Emotions in the tissues
Mitochondrial support with low-frequency ATP stimulation
After six sessions, he reported improved sensation and stability. His gait normalized, and he could walk longer distances without discomfort. After ten sessions he felt so much better in himself, his energy was back, he was sleeping well, digesting better, and he no longer felt like he had a dark cloud over him.
The nerve sensations would come and a go a bit, it was never fully gone, but it not longer bothered him so much, When he was tired or overworked in the garden the sensations would get stronger and he took it as a sign he was overdoing it and gave himself permission to rest. He enjoyed the sessions, and came for monthly top ups because they were relaxing and took him into a deep meditative state.
He felt he was improving steadily after so many years of troubles; he found many things improved, like mental clarity, memory, sleep, colours were brighter, the light no longer bothered his eyes, he felt safer driving at night because his night vision improved, and his wife reported improvements in his demeanor, she felt had her husband back.
Lower Back Disc Bulge with Sciatic Pain
Daniel, a 42-year-old carpenter, developed sudden shooting pain down his left leg after lifting a heavy beam at work. An MRI confirmed a L5/S1 disc bulge compressing the nerve root. He was prescribed anti-inflammatories and told to consider steroid injections if symptoms persisted.
Three months later, he was still in daily pain, couldn’t bend or sit comfortably, could sleep, and couldn't work properly because of the pain and numbness down to his foot. He was desperate for relief.
We used FSM to target:
Inflammation on the spinal cord and nerve roots
Disc and ligament treatment
Fascia and scar tissue
Nerve pain modulation
After the first session, Daniel reported the pain had shifted from a sharp sting to a dull sensation. By the fifth session, he could sleep through the night and put his socks on without help. He knew it would take 12 weeks for the disc bulge to fully heal, and it was drummed into him that he was still healing, but he felt so much better in himself and could do so much more without pain.
FSM didn’t “fix” his disc bulge, but it restored nerve function, reduced inflammation, and gave his body the environment it needed to continue healing. His mobility, comfort, and quality of life dramatically improved.
Client Story 4: Functional Neurological Disorder, Non-diabetic Seizures
Annaleise was 23 when she was referred to me by a psychologist. She had been experiencing very scary non-epileptic seizures and nightly arm spasms for years and carried quite a lot of medical-trauma.
In her teens she underwent removal of the first rib due to debilitating Brachial Plexus issues.
When the seizures started she saw a heap of doctors and specialists. After being pinballed around she was finally diagnosed with a 'Functional Neurological Disorder (FND)' — essentially a medical placeholder for “we don’t know what’s causing this, and there’s nothing we can do for you.”
None of the doctors she had seen over the years had actually ordered a neck MRI, so we did. What we found was eye-opening: she was suffering from vascular and neurological compression in the cervical spine. The underlying issue? An undiagnosed (but obvious) Hyperflexibility condition (likely hsEDS), leading to ligament laxity and a collapse of the cervical spine structures.
Compression on all of the delicate nerves, veins, and arteries (the jugular) in the neck are a perfect storm for neurological symptoms. ALL the nerves for the arms and head come from the neck. Arm problems are essentially neck problems. Yet despite years of desperately seeking help, no one had looked at her neck or considered the mechanical consequences of connective tissue disorders. Rehabilitation of her neck and hyperflexibility enabled her to become seizure free as long she maintained neck posture and listened to her body when it was time to rest.
Book a Free 15 Minute Consultation with Monica Williams
If you or a family member has nerve pain, contact Monica to discuss whether Frequency Specific Microcurrent (FSM) therapy could support your recovery.
Based in Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast, Monica treats clients in-clinic from across Australia, with many travelling from Sydney, Melbourne, and regional areas to access her highly specialised care. As Australia’s leading FSM specialist—using seven different machine types—Monica brings deep clinical insight and passion to every treatment.
Book in for a free 15-minute consultation by following the link below.
