You Don’t Have to Risk the Harmful Side Effects of Drugs – Find Natural Relief with Physical Therapy
Pain can be a helpful messenger, a warning that something needs to be repaired in your body—but it can also be an agonizing nuisance that destroys your quality of life.
To make matters worse, many pain issues are rooted in deep-seated underlying disorders, often arising from a part of the body other than a part of the body with symptoms.
Medication may mask the pain momentarily, but it’s not going to fix a chronic underlying functional issue. Take advantage of the drug-free options that we provide at our physical therapy facility for a more meaningful pain solution!
Why is PT better than opioids?
As stated by the APTA website, “The White House has announced that APTA is among the organizations that have joined a public-private partnership to combat opioid usage and prescription drug abuse, and that the association will reach out to the public and its members to deliver the message that pain can be effectively managed through conservative, non drug approaches.
Physical therapists can help individuals manage pain, and greater use of physical therapy could make a real impact on the tragic levels of drug abuse in this country—abuse that often begins with a prescription for pain medication.”
If you are living with pain, you don’t need to turn to the pain-relieving effects of drugs. Physical therapy can help you find that same relief, at a long-term level. Are you ready to find relief from your pain? Our team of physical therapists can help.
Getting to the root of your pain
The cause of acute pain may be clear enough, especially if it accompanies an auto accident injury, work injury, infection, operation or other event. As the affected part of your body heals, the pain generally fades away.
But this is not necessarily the case with some forms of pain. Chronic pain may linger for months or years with no obvious cause in sight. This pain may be due to:
- Extended disuse after a lengthy recovery period (such as frozen shoulder after many weeks with your arm in a sling)
- Chronic pain syndromes such as fibromyalgia, which may affect both nerves and muscles
- Chronic overuse injuries such as tendinitis, plantar fasciitis or carpal tunnel syndrome
- Degenerative joint conditions such as osteoarthritis, which produce chronic pain and inflammation
- Muscle weakness, knots or spasms related to poor posture or an unbalanced body
- Areas of internal scar tissue buildup that restrict neighboring muscles and connective tissues (adhesions)
Modern medicine tends to turn to drugs early and often in an effort to alleviate pain problems. Unfortunately, this approach may turn out to be nothing more than a stopgap.
The drugs may mute the pain for a few hours, but the underlying problem that’s causing the pain remains untreated. As long as that problem persists, so will your long-term pain problems.
This may force you to use more and more medication ‒ a troubling proposition, especially for addictive personalities or individuals who are already on other medications.
How PT can provide natural, safe, and effective relief
Our physical therapists can succeed where painkilling drugs fail. Once we understand the actual origin point of your pain, we can prescribe a physical therapy regimen aimed at correcting (or at least reducing) that functional abnormality.
Our physical therapists may start by addressing your immediate discomfort with passive physical therapy techniques. These natural treatment techniques can include any combination of:
- Deep tissue massage to break an adhesions grip on your internal tissues
- Ultrasound therapy, in which sound waves enhance blood flow and relax tight muscle fibers
- Heat or cold applications to reduce swelling and inflammation
- Electrical muscle stimulation, which uses tiny amounts of current to stimulate your body’s natural painkillers (endorphins)
Once you’re responding to passive physical therapy, we can introduce active physical therapy. Our physical therapists can prescribe exercises that address both localized pain and referred pain problems.
For instance, gentle stretching exercises from our physical therapists can loosen tight, painful muscles and increase mobility in arthritic joints, while core training exercises that correct your balance may relieve chronic strain or neurological symptoms in the body.
How effective is physical therapy as a drug-free natural pain solution? The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) states that non-pharmaceutical pain treatment is to be preferred over pharmaceuticals such as opioids ‒ and may actually do a better job of controlling pain conditions.
Find holistic pain relief today
Our physical therapists are ready to help you stop the pain at its root, without the need for medications. Contact Total Body Physical Therapy today to schedule your appointment!
