Consumer Reports recently published an article entitled Best and Safest Strategies for Pain. You can read it by clicking the hyperlink of the title. We wanted to share it with you all because it’s filled with safe, conservative, proven techniques for pain relief. 

The theme of the article is that these strategies can avoid or minimize the use of, or boost the effectiveness of opioid medication. As opioid prescription is simultaneously booming and scrutinized, we wanted to be sure our readers had all of this wonderful information in order to avoid using unnecessary and possibly harmful prescription medication. 

Another reason we wanted to present this article is that a lot of these strategies are not described to our patients until they get to our office. Although it’s true that this information falls in the “better late than never” category, it would be great for people to try these techniques or begin utilizing them regularly before starting physical therapy as it will improve and speed the rehabilitation process. One of the tips listed in the article is that people who move and participate in minimal impact exercise are typically in much less pain than sedentary individuals. This is a major theme in our education with patients! There is a point at which you can push your body too hard and aggravate your pain, but we find a lot of our patients tend to quickly reduce or eliminate physical activity due to pain. Physical activity improves your cardiovascular fitness as well as improve blood flow and synovial fluid synthesis within joint surfaces. These benefits all speed healing. Let us or whatever physical therapist you are working with, help determine what types of exercises are appropriate for your body or how to modify certain activities you may already be doing that could slow your healing. We can also suggest healthy alternative activities you can partake in if your preferred activity is not appropriate at the moment. To be clear, please listen to your body when it hurts, but do NOT top moving!

We also want to point out that this article does not specifically recommend physical therapy as much as we believe is appropriate. Physical therapy can help with all of the conditions listed in the article. Additionally, Integrate 360 Physical Therapy’s use of Postural Restoration Institute (PRI) physical therapy is a global, integrated, and more functional form of physical therapy than you will receive in a standard outpatient office. Therefore, if you’ve tried PT before for your pain and not experienced the outcomes you want, please come see us and let us explain why we’re different and how our approach will differ from your previous experience. 

Written by Lesley Callaham, MPT, PRC December 11, 2018