5 Good Reasons To See a PT For Chronic Pain

Chronic pain is an unfortunate reality for a large number of people. It does not discriminate by age, race, or socio-economic status. Even those who live active lifestyles can experience chronic pain at some point in their lives. The good news is that Physical Therapists are trained to diagnose and develop treatment programs that are safe and effective for all types of chronic pain.

In this blog, we’ve provided some reasons to choose physical therapy as the logical alternative for long-term pain relief instead of the potentially harmful alternative of medications and injections or surgeries.

A Drug-Free Way to Control Inflammatory Pain

For people with chronic inflammatory pain, life presents some very real obstacles. If you’re dealing with inflammatory pain, chances are you already realize that you need a long-term solution rather than a short-term one, especially if you have a chronic illness that causes persistent or recurrent pain. Sadly, many of the medical treatments offered to you can produce chronic problems and hazards for long-term pain management.

Whether NSAIDs, COX-2 Inhibitors, or Opioids, side effects and habit-forming potential can be unpleasant and unnecessary for your pain relief. Physical therapy is a natural alternative to help you improve your body’s function and reduce your pain. Your physical therapist will work closely with your other medical doctors to help you achieve the best outcome.

Is Your Joint Health Up To Par? Physical Therapy Can Make Sure It Is!

The healthier your joints are, the less they will bother you. Chronic problems such as osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis can cause ever-increasing damage to the joints, leading to progressive pain and disability.

Physical therapy can help you minimize this damage and optimize your pain-free range of motion. Walking, swimming, and other forms of exercise keep joints limber and lubricated, while strengthening exercises will add muscles and connective tissue additional support. Education on preserving your joints long-term will add to your long-term success.

Physical Therapy Reduces Chronic Tissue Strain

The same strengthening exercises that reduce stress on your joints could also result in less soft tissue strain. Do you suffer from chronic neck or back pain? If so, you may benefit from exercises that build up the major muscle groups in these areas. Often times, tissues that feel tight and restricted are really a weakness in disguise. Your Physical Therapist will perform a careful examination of your strained areas to determine the root cause of your chronic tissue strain.

Regular exercise to strengthen your core muscles can also stabilize your balance and help you maintain a straight, healthy posture. As a result, your muscles are less vulnerable to the aches and pains caused by structural imbalances.

Avoiding Inflammatory Foods Can Decrease Pain

Exercise and physical therapy treatments can go a long way toward easing your inflammatory pain. Our physical therapist may also recommend dietary changes that emphasize anti-inflammatory foods that are also rich in antioxidants. If you suffer from an inflammation problem, medical experts agree that you should avoid these typical inflammatory foods and beverages:

• Sugar: Processed foods, sweetened beverages, and desserts
• Refined carbs: White bread, white pasta, etc.
• Red Meats: Steaks and Hamburger
• Processed meat: Hot dogs, lunchmeats, bacon, etc.
• Processed snack foods: Crackers, chips, and pretzels
• Trans fats: Foods with partially hydrogenated ingredients
• Alcohol: Limit consumption as much as possible

The same inflammatory processes that help the body cope with infection or injury can also cause chronic pain when they build up in your body due to poor diet. 

Sit Up Straight!

Having good posture can help a ton of things in your life, including the amount of pain you’re in from day to day. Do you suffer from neuropathy — pain or other odd symptoms that plague your arms, hands, legs, or feet? These symptoms are commonly caused by pinched nerves in the upper or lower spinal column. An unbalanced posture or spinal misalignment can produce (or aggravate) this impingement.

Ongoing physical therapy exercises and lifestyle changes that promote proper ergonomics can help you stand, sit, and move correctly, taking away the pinching sensation of your nerve tissue in the process to ease your symptoms. Your therapist can also assess your working environment as well to help you choose more ergonomically designed furniture, such as a standing desk or a computer chair that supports your body in all the right places.

Receiving Pain Signals

Breathing exercises, body awareness, and other mindfulness training methods can help you change your relationship with, and perception of, your chronic pain for the better. This approach can prove especially valuable for chronic pain that is idiopathic (stemming from no known or treatable physical cause). Your physical therapist can help educate you on ways to manage your pain using mindfulness, meditation, and other methods.

Pain signals are generated by the brain, so it follows that long-term pain management might include techniques to “rewire” the brain’s activities in this area.

Let A Physical Therapist Change Your Life For The Better

Your pain condition won’t improve if you sit all day and wish for it to go away. You must be willing to put forth the necessary effort to start feeling better!

As the ancient saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Take that all-important first step on your journey toward a lifetime of better health and freedom from pain. Contact your local HealthQuest Physical Therapy center today and schedule a consultation with one of our all-star physical therapists!