Pain is a message!

Why is pain important?

It is often the decision point that drives people to seek help.

There are different types of pain. People feel or experience pain in different ways.

Chronic pain is pain that has been there for a long time that is ongoing.

Acute pain is pain that just started and often occurs with an injury. Pain often affects your quality of life , interfering with your being able to do the things you want to do, or need to do. .

Pain is mostly why people seek out treatment ,but it is not the problem.

It is the communication “that there is a problem”.

Many Musculoskeletal pains are self limiting , or go away within a few days or weeks. If you have had pain for more than a couple weeks it is time to get help. A Physical Therapist can help!

Fixing pain is not the BEST THING that we can do for you. Why?! Because if you really want pain relief you would go to the doctor’s office or visit your local pharmacy. ( You’ve probably already tried painkillers and it hasn’t worked or hasn’t had a lasting effect so that you could stop taking the painkillers…)

The best thing we can do for you is to find (and help you) fix the root cause of your problem- the reason why you developed inflammation and pain.

"What we do is in the first few sessions of working with you is decrease inflammation, reduce the pain by 50% or more, and work with you to start to actually fix the root cause or actual problem."

So to recap:

Pain is a message.

It is the communication “that there is a problem”.

What we do: My job is to help decipher the message, and help you to take care of it ,at the source, or where the problem actually is.

We look at your body holistically to see why you are getting this message . This takes looking in places other than where you feel the pain. This can be confusing to people who might point to the pain area eg. knee, when I am examining their foot, ankle , hip or pelvis and remind me the pain is in their knee. There is a reason we look at areas other than just the knee. The knee joint is a stable hinge joint. the hips and ankles are designed for mobility, So if there is a lack of mobility, it can become a problem in the knee.

Our bodies are innately intelligent, and always working to self heal where possible.We give your body optimal conditions for that self healing to occur.

How?

We help decrease inflammation, restore movement and give your body the best opportunity to self heal.

It is a common misconception that Physical Therapy is ONLY about FIXING PAIN.

If all we do is fix the pain, the main cause of the problem will still be there.

The pain will come back in a week, 6 weeks or 6 months.

Then people say- “Yes I had Physical Therapy, or whatever other option they tried, but it didn’t work”.

They missed the window of opportunity to resolve the real problem once the inflammation was down.

You can go to a pharmacy and get some pills if that’s what you want, but you’re still going to have a problem in your joints, your muscles are going to be stiff and tight.

Pain and inflammation dance together!

When there is pain, there is inflammation. If we take down the inflammation the pain goes away. Inflammation is the source of pain .

The questions should be:

“WHY is there inflammation?

What is the root cause of the inflammation ?

What we’re going to do, (which may be different from other physical therapy clinics, is to find the the source of the problem ,find what contributed , make lifestyle changes )so that you don’t have to see us or your doctor over and over again.

The Most Common Mistake People Make When Coming To Physical Therapy is that they STOP GOING to Physical Therapy after the pain disappears. The pain going away is the first part the process of getting you back to the activities you love.

The more important part of Physical Therapy, is to fix the problem that caused your pain in the first place.

Next time you find yourself in need of Physical Therapy, don't forget the MORE IMPORTANT PART!