Tips & Tricks

The best iontophoresis tips on one page

If you are finally successful with your iontophoresis therapy, it is time to optimize your treatment.

For this purpose, all details surrounding the therapy must be adjusted as well as possible to save valuable treatment time.

Iontophoresis therapy is usually easily integrated into everyday life, for example while watching TV on the sofa.

Hopefully, this section will answer many of your questions concerning the water level, optimization, and time management.

One of our specialities is iontophoresis while travelling. After all, everyone wants to go on vacation sometimes. Our customers usually have the following questions: can I do a possible pre-treatment to bridge the holiday time? If I want to take the device with me, how can I perform the therapy at the vacation site?

Will the local water be right for me? How can I optimize my therapy to save space and time?
In this case, the iontophoresis set - suitcase, treatment tubs and electrodes - should be as small as possible.

If you are a beginner and have just started therapy, please consult this page instead.

We are going into depth on the following topics:

Therapy details

Beginners especially should take the time to read up on the following aspects. It's worth it!

At the beginning of the iontophoresis therapy (initial therapy)
Iontophoresis threshold - a hurdle to overcome
First success - leave breaks

Tipss for optimizing the therapy - beginner-friendly

Problems that may occur in the beginning of the therapy:

Interesting insights for those who don't yet have a device

Pulse width

Find the perfect settings for the pulse width
Does a pulse width adjustment make sense?
Pulse width and the feeling whilst the treatment current increases and decreases
Recommended settings for the pulse width for beginners

Iontophoresis problems

Problems and solutions

Various problems with iontophoresis require creative solutions

Tips sorted by topics/jump to topic keywords

Magic Number: what it is and what role it plays for iontophoresis

Wrong iontophoresis settings: accidentally selected a wrong program?

Adjustable pulse width and its influence on the sensation, strength, and behavior of the current

Swapping Hidrex for Idromed - what to do when you want to swap or exchange your device

Efficiency of the iontophoresis treatment above the water level

Free tricks: hand treatment, creating your own edge guards

Excluding areas from the current flow - lowering, stopping or intercepting the current flow

Keep treatment water at comfortable warm temperatures for longer

What to do with the electrodes - positions and usage

Distance between the electrodes

Alternating the polarity does not always make sense

Practical tips for polarity change

Which treatment length makes the most sense?

Iontophoresis and nutrition - get our nutritional advice

More tips from our advice drawer

Immersion monitoring / its purpose and how you can outsmart it a little

When treating armpits or feet, it is quite simple: your hands are free, and you can make all desired adjustments easily.

What if you are treating your hands and notice that your current strength is set too low or too high (no tingling/unpleasant current sensation)?

Here, it becomes necessary to decrease or increase the current. But your hands are in the water, and it seems that you need a second person to adjust your treatment perfectly.

This is not always an option, or perhaps the person who is willing to help you becomes impatient with the procedure.

How, then, can one adjust the iontophoresis values without and assistant and without needing to start the routine again and again? The automatic immersion detection monitors the electric circuit. If it detects that the circuit is closed, it will slowly increase the current to the set value.

A possible risk of treating at high values (strong tingling) is skin irritation, whereas low values (no tingling) are often a waste of treatment time. Both options are undesirable.

Therefore, if you are unsure whether you need to adjust the values during your hand treatment, place the device on the floor and take off your shoes!

On the Hidrex, press the amperage button with your big toe and increase the current strength to the desired value. The Hidrex controls are easy to handle and set at a certain distance to one another, so that it is unlikely that you will press the wrong button by accident.

On the Idromed, turn the control wheel to the left or the right. Perfect! This procedure does not take much practice, since the wheel is easily adjustable thanks to a special indentation.

Immersion monitoring: most modern iontophoresis devices have this function. The device notices when the circuit is closed by a human body.

This triggers the beginning of the beginning of the therapy. The device gradually increases the current until it reaches the set value.

If the increase or decrease of the voltage happens too fast, it can lead to an uncomfortable feeling.

Therefore, the device takes a certain time to decrease or increase the current strength to make sure that the sensation during the start and end phases of the therapy are pleasant and comfortable.

If you treat your hands and feet at the same time, simply put a towel next to the tubs on the floor and take out only one foot for the adjustment. Since the feet are relatively insensitive, the short moment during which the full current is applied to your other foot is easily tolerated. Alternatively, hands and feet can be treated separately or simultaneously with a second person who helps you make the adjustments.

Hand treatment: massive time loss due to several changes of the current level during the routine

If you readjust the current five times during one iontophoresis setting, you have to take one hand out of the water each time, dry it, make an educated guess at to the adjustment, and then start up again. All of this is wasted time that prolongs the therapy and is quite annoying for the user.

For this reason, learning to adjust the device with your feet is a useful skill that saves you from having to start the therapy again and again.

The sensation of the treatment current can change during the iontophoresis setting. The first five minutes are a "warm-up period". After that, many users report that the sensation decreases and that it is time to readjust the settings. This is due to several reasons. The water usually cools down and the skin thickens and swells due to the wetness, so that the body resistance increases. All of it influences the iontophoresis current.

The sensation of the device booting up or down can feel uncomfortable to some users. If you are one of them, it makes sense to find the pulse width that feels most pleasant to you, so that you will feel comfortable during each phase of the therapy.

In the past, iontophoresis devices did not have immersion monitoring. For this reason, tiny electric shocks were possible during a sudden circuit break. This felt just like touching an electric fence. However, modern devices have highly decreased the risk and intensity of this effect, which is especially important when treating children.