Chronic pain may be a great burden, interfering with almost every part of your life to the point where it seems impossible to ever feel “normal” again. Physical therapy can help.
Chronic pain can become increasingly difficult to manage as time passes, whether as a result of normal wear and tear or as a result of a traumatic event such as an injury or a car accident. Learning to cope with discomfort isn’t always possible, so rather than live in agony, many people seek ways to disguise it—often through the use of painkillers.
It’s time to find more appropriate strategies to manage your pain; strategies that can genuinely help to lower the severity of your chronic pain, while also having a major positive influence on your quality of life!
Instead of relying on drugs to manage pain in the long run, talk to your physical therapist about natural alternatives that could help you get real pain relief.
What’s the problem with prescription pain killers?
Let’s face it: pain pills and over-the-counter drugs have little effect on the healing of chronic pain.
While pain medications are sometimes advertised as the best answer for chronic pain, all they can do is provide a reprieve from the discomfort. The pain will return once the medication dose has worn off, and you may need to take larger and larger doses of pain medication to achieve the same amount of comfort. It’s not a pretty sight!
To add insult to injury (no pun intended!), many pain medications come with a long list of complications of their own. Many pain medications are opioid-based, which means that they are highly addictive and can cause damage to the body if used for a prolonged time.
For many people, the withdrawal period that occurs when they attempt to stop taking opioids is more severe than the initial pain itself, and in some situations, the use of pain medications for a long time can lead to an array of additional health issues, including damage to the intestines, liver, and even the heart.
Pain medications cannot be considered a primary therapy option for chronic pain relief. They also will not allow you to make a full return to a normal way of life. While opioids may be advised for short-term usage to help you overcome the agony of an accident, other treatment choices are safer and more effective at reducing pain and improving your quality of life.
What natural methods for pain relief are there?
One of the most successful ways for getting relief from chronic pain is to work with a physical therapist. The biggest difference between physical therapy and pain medication for addressing chronic pain is that pain medication will never actually fix the source of the pain, it will only cover it up.
Physical therapy may not help you to feel that immediate relief in the same way pain medication would, but it will help you to feel gradual improvements in your experience of the pain so that you can eventually start to live your life free of discomfort.
Physical therapy can assist you with identifying problem areas, targeting the true source of your pain, and providing you with solutions to help increase your range of motion and lessen discomfort, whether the pain is caused by an injury or wear and tear over time.
How does physical therapy help relieve pain without medication?
Here are a few of the ways that your physical therapist can help you find relief from chronic pain:
- Deep stretching: Your physical therapist can guide you through specialized stretching techniques that will target the source of your pain, thereby helping to improve your range of motion and support the development of muscle mass in the area of your pain.
- Hot and cold therapy: The combination of hot and cold therapy can help to reduce swelling and alleviate pain, and when used in combination with other natural strategies can be a great source of relief from chronic pain.
- Weight lifting: As you begin to experience tension relief and decreased swelling in the targeted area, your physical therapist can then guide you through the process of building muscle mass to support a full and healthy recovery.
- Targeted massage: Your physical therapist can identify the area that may be causing the pain and utilize massage techniques to reduce tension in that particular area, thereby helping to alleviate pressure in your joints and reduce pain.
Call our physical therapy clinic today for an appointment
It’s time to get back to leading your life the way you want to, not the way your pain forces you to.
Physical therapy can often be used to help people overcome chronic pain. In some situations, such as when there is an injury like a torn tendon or damaged muscle, surgical repair may be necessary to help repair the damage prior to the use of physical therapy to restore range of motion.
Working with your physical therapist to utilize these natural strategies can help you to avoid the long-term use of medication, feel greater relief from pain, and experience an improved quality of life in the process.
To start feeling better, contact Oklahoma Hand & Physical Therapy for a consultation!