Does rolling over in bed shoot pain across your back?
What about bending over? Walking?
I can go on and on about how back pain sucks the joy out of life because that is what I experienced after getting hit head on in a car accident.
I have been a physical therapist for 30 years but my quest to become the best back therapist on earth started when I needed one for myself.
Fortunately, I never when down the pain medicine path but I get it. All one wants is relief.
I did go down the path of injections and surgery. Both gave me temporary relief.
The problem with back pain is that it just gets worse if you go to your easy chair and settle for a boring sedentary life. And it is not just the pain that gets worse it is all the things you do becomes more and more challenging.
I have come to realize how much this whole experience has made me a better therapist.
I can recognize movements in patients that are making them worse. We can work together to find the movements your body needs to move back towards your youthful years when it came naturally.
Good physical therapy in my opinion is not just a series of exercises. It is about recognizing the things that you do that make you hurt and then freeing up your body’s ability to use those muscles and joints that you unconsciously stopped using. I can help you.
Life for new moms can get hectic. Between changing diapers, feeding, and everything else on your plate, it can be difficult to take even just a few minutes for yourself. Many mothers neglect physical therapy after giving birth and suffer negative health consequences. The following are reasons why new moms should consider postpartum physical therapy.
Control Incontinence
Many women have difficulty controlling their bowels and bladders after giving birth, but thankfully, there are many ways to help this. Through noninvasive, postpartum physical therapy, your body can recover and regain control.
Pelvic Floor Rehabilitation
Your pelvic floor is the group of muscles that make your pelvis and lower back stable and strong, help control bladder and bowel function, and contribute to sexual performance. After giving birth, it’s very common for these muscles to need some rehabilitation to keep you feeling healthy and strong. Our therapists can work you and teach you exercises to rehabilitate your pelvic floor, and you can undergo other treatments that will help you stay strong and feel good.
Alleviate Lower Back Pain
Pregnancy and lower back pain often go hand in hand. After recovering from childbirth and all of the bending and lifting that comes with motherhood, it’s common for this pain to continue postpartum. Our team works with new mothers to manage and alleviate back pain through strength training, stretching exercises, and other methods of treatment.
Just Feel Good
There’s no bond like that of a mother and child, but as a new mom, it’s also important to take a little time to think about your own health. Our team can work with you to get back into a physical routine, improve your fitness, prevent future pain, and contribute to your overall wellness.
New moms have so much to look forward to, and it’s important that they are able to present their healthiest, best self during this pivotal time in their lives. To learn more about our physical therapy services for women’s health or to schedule and appointment, visit Women’s Health Care today!
Rue and Primavera Occupational and Physical Therapy
Why Aquatic Therapy Offers More Options for Pain Relief
For individuals who suffer from chronic pain and restriction of movement due to pain that affects their mobility, it can be deeply discouraging when common treatment methods don’t work. When “everything hurts” and relief seems impossible, the outlook is quite bleak. But Aquatic Therapy offers more options for pain relief, and is sometimes more successful than other treatment methods due to its alternative approach to treating pain.
One of the most superficial reasons why aquatic therapy is a more successful treatment for pain is the environment. Aquatic therapy is done in a pool to help increase blood flow as you move, while the resistance of the water helps tense muscles relax. The nature of your body’s buoyancy in water reduces your body weight by up to 90 percent when submerged, supporting your weak muscles enough to allow you to exercise and strengthen them with aquatic therapy.
Since buoyancy significantly reduces the aggressor of gravity, you can enjoy greater flexibility and range of motion as you perform your aquatic therapy sessions. The force of water molecules on your submerged body, called hydrostatic pressure, has some greatly beneficial effects that contribute to aquatic therapy exercises. It automatically reduces edema and even pain, dampens the tactile sensory input to the brain to allow you to relax and experience less pain sensitivity (this is great for people who are tactilely defensive), and stimulates circulation to get blood to injured areas.
The nature of hydrostatic pressure is that it puts pressure equally around the body, creating muscle balance that can help relieve a lot of common problems such as orthopedic issues and back pain. The patient can stand, support their own body weight, and even perform gait and strength training exercises in the water, which they may not be able to do on land.
Finally, aquatic therapy is a treatment method available for some individuals who are unable to do other more common exercises to treat their pain. People with traumatic brain injury, and others who are unable to support their bodyweight on land fall into this group.
Ready to see if aquatic therapy can help you? Please click here to contact us or call 360-279-8323 and book your consultation appointment.
Back pain can be one of the most debilitating problems that individuals can experience. The spine is so central to overall functionality, and back pain in some areas can restrict or even prohibit movement. About 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain; low back pain is the most common.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, “Back pain is the leading cause of disability in Americans under 45 years old. More than 26 million Americans between the ages of 20-64 experience frequent back pain.”
Back pain is exhausting, but also makes it difficult to sleep. Debilitating pain in your back affects your ability to do housework, and is one of the most common reasons for missed work. Individuals who suffer from chronic back pain often face frustration from their supervisor or employer for missed work, and their loved ones feel helpless to relieve their pain. Then, the depression sets in.
I see it all the time. If only we could see you before it gets to this point. Once you have pain shooting all the way down your leg, it means that a nerve is being compressed. Nerve pain is awful. I know, I have had it. But I knew what to do early on to stop it in its tracks. That is what I want to do for you, and I can give you tools and exercises that you can do on your own at home to relieve and treat back pain.
Now, if you do have pain shooting down your legs, we can still help. I do not believe in “No
pain, no gain.” I believe in “No pain, huge gain!” Your treatment and exercises should not be painful. They should be pain-relieving and restoring of normal muscle balance.
