How Hands-On Physical Therapy Helps Relieve Chronic Pain
For millions of individuals, chronic pain is such a debilitating factor that it slowly eats one's life up. Acute pain is associated with a direct onset with a new injury and usually fades with time within a few weeks to a few months. However, chronic pain lasts much longer (by definition, three to six months if not beyond) and lingers for an undetermined period of time even when people feel they have healed from their initial injuries.
Chronic pain manifests as constant dull pain, pulsing pain, tightness, burning, stabbing, or shooting sensations. As such, they render you incapable of performing even the simplest activities of daily living.
Therefore, if you find yourself living in Ashburn with chronic pain, the last thing you want to do is welcome more discomfort and frustration when it comes to seeking relief. However, there are many avenues for chronic pain treatment. But hands-on physical therapy is one treatment approach that works wonders since it is uniquely effective and holistic for true relief and restoration.
What Is Chronic Pain?
Before learning how hands-on physical therapy can help with chronic pain, it's important to note what chronic pain is first, in treatment. Chronic pain is not just the extended version of regular pain. When pain becomes chronic, the brain and spinal cord become hypersensitized to the ongoing situation.
- Pain signal volume is increased: What could be a slight feeling becomes an overwhelming pain.
- Pain continues, even without tissue damage
- Emotions become engaged: Chronic pain feels worse (and more complicated to resolve) when stress, anxiety, depression and even fear or avoidance of movement are associated with it.
- Movements change: People with chronic pain often develop involuntary compensatory movements. Thus, over time, through muscle atrophy and stiffness, dysfunction occurs.
Some examples of chronic pain we treat at State of the Art Physical Therapy include:
- Chronic Low Back Pain
- Chronic Neck Pain and Headaches
- Fibromyalgia
- Chronic Joint Pain (Osteoarthritis)
- Nerve Pain (Neuropathic Pain)
- Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS)
- Chronic Pelvic Pain
- Whiplash
- Post-surgical pain or lingering pain from previous surgeries
How Hands-On Physical Therapy Can Help Chronic Pain
Although exercise and education are paramount to chronic pain treatment, hands-on physical therapy offers specific benefits that directly address many of those underlying concerns associated with chronic pain. Manual therapy is when a physical therapist uses their hands to expertly assess, diagnose, and treat musculoskeletal concerns.
Here is how hands-on physical therapy helps you during chronic pain treatment
Soothing Your Nervous System
Gentle joint mobilization, soft tissue manipulation, and sustained pressure can activate certain receptors in your skin, tendons, ligaments, and joints that generate soothing signals back to your brain to reduce general hypersensitivity.
Releasing Natural Painkillers
Physical touch and hands-on therapy can stimulate your body's own production of analgesic compounds—endorphins! This can lead to instant relief.
Interrupting the Pain-Fear-Avoidance Cycle
When hands-on therapy successfully reduces your pain (however temporarily) it can disrupt the common pain-fear-avoidance cycle. When you feel less pain, movement feels less daunting, allowing you to participate in your own recovery.
Restoring Motion
Chronic pain leads to stiffness and muscle tightness due to disuse or defensive postures you adopt. Manual therapy provides the stimulus necessary for the body to restore normal joint movement.
Releasing Fascial Restrictions
Chronic pain affects your fascia, the vast web of connective tissues encasing all muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Myofascial Release is a gentle technique used to lengthen restricted fascia. As these release, normal tissue mobility returns, and the overwhelming feeling of "tightness" begins to diminish.
Restoring Elasticity
Soft tissue can lose elasticity over time, especially with chronic pain. The application of soft tissue mobilization or manipulation can promote elasticity in muscles, tendons, and ligaments, which makes them less prone to irritation and adaptable to movement.
Relaxing Muscles
Chronic pain often involves chronically tense muscles. This is the body's approach to self-protection and energy conservation. Manual therapy "resets" these hyperactive muscles so they are less likely to contribute to your pain. Techniques like strain counterstrain or Muscle Energy techniques are gentle positional or patient-assisted contractions that lead to ultimate relaxation.
Re-orienting Your Brain
You might become confused when you're in chronic pain. This distortion of proprioception and body part movement occurs due to chronic pain. Manual therapy, a sensory experience, can help "retrain" your brain, improving awareness of where and how you move.
Restored Confidence
Chronic pain fosters fears surrounding movement. Once pain dissipates and misconceptions are cleared up, it's easier to feel confident moving one's body again. This confidence is critical for adjusting long-held views about moving when in chronic pain.
Preparing for Movement
For some, exercising seems impossible during a flare-up of chronic pain. Manual therapy can be a pre-exercise modality to relieve enough pain and stiffness so that active exercise becomes tolerable.
Facilitating Therapeutic Exercise Benefits
Joint mobilization and muscle tension reduction mean that therapeutic exercises are more successful because patients experience less pain while performing motions meant for strength, endurance, or flexibility.
In conclusion
There's no reason to live with chronic pain for one more minute. If you're searching for loving, effective chronic pain treatment in Ashburn, VA, find out how hands-on physical therapy at State of the Art Physical Therapy can do wonders. We're here to help you regain control of your body, significantly reduce pain symptomatology, and return to the quality of life you deserve
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