September was Pain Awareness Month, and we touched on how Pain and Spine Specialists helps those facing chronic pain. We thought it might be useful to discuss in more detail how physical therapy can treat this highly pervasive medical issue. According to the Institute of Medicine, an eye-popping 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, costing Americans approximately $600 billion a year in treatments and lost productivity.
Why Use Physical Therapy?
The challenge with treating chronic pain is that pain is very subjective. What hurts intensely for one patient may feel like a small, but ongoing pinch to another patient. There can be many reasons why someone may experience chronic pain, including a past injury, other illnesses, emotional/mental illness conditions, previous surgeries, and others. That’s why when treating patients, we believe it is essential to listen closely to what patients are telling us, ask questions to probe the depth of their pain or discomfort, and get a bigger picture of a patient’s health, all before recommending a treatment.
Physical therapy is often an excellent tool to use in managing chronic pain. Too often, a patient’s knee jerk reaction to pain is to take medicine. Turning to physical therapy instead of medicine can not only can it help ease pain, but it can also help strengthen muscles.
What Does Treatment Look Like?
The goal of physical therapy is to increase flexibility and movement in the area where pain is being experienced. Treatments tend to fall into the following categories:
Stretching: Gentle stretching exercises and instructions on how to complete at home.
Strengthening exercises: In addition to stretching, we often use strengthening exercises to build up the muscles that support the area of the body experiencing pain. Oftentimes, pain is a symptom of having supporting muscles that are too weak. For example, if a patient is experiencing back pain, we may recommend exercises to strengthen the patient’s abdominal muscles in order to provide more support to the back.
Temperature treatments: Using hot and cold packs can help reduce inflammation, providing temporary relief.
Massage: Massaging the inflicted area can also often help reduce pain by gently stretching, stimulating, and relaxing muscles.
TENS and Ultrasound: Transcutaneous electrical nerve incitement, or TENS, uses a machine to send a low-voltage electric currents to the skin over the afflicted area. Ultrasound sends sound waves. Both may offer help by impeding the pain signals that go to your brain.
Of course, all treatments are personalized to the patient’s situation, level of pain, and medical history. Call Pain and Spine Specialists Today!
Be sure to schedule an appointment with one of our pain specialists. We treat many conditions and injuries of the lower back, neck, and spine by taking a whole-person approach to care. Our focus is getting you back on your feet in good health. Call us in Maryland at 301-703-8767, in Pennsylvania at 724-603-3560, or in Virginia 540-433-1905 to make an appointment or use the form on our site to send us a message.
I could not resist commenting. Well written!