Heather Arranie 
Living with chronic pain turns your life upside down.
Millions of people wake up each morning and start their day. For them, pain management has become a way of life. They may rely on medications, injections, or surgeries.
But wait…
There’s a better way. Physical therapy is an effective solution that addresses the source of your pain rather than masking the symptoms.
Here’s what you need to know:
- Physical therapy is movement medicine.
- Physical therapy for pain management works by addressing the source of pain.
- There are real, quantifiable benefits to getting physical therapy for pain management.
Physical Therapy for Pain Management
Physical therapy is a hands-on approach to treating your pain with movement, exercise, and other specialized techniques.
Instead of covering up pain with medications or injections, physical therapy retrains your body to work properly. It’s an approach that goes after the source of the problem and fixes it rather than just slapping a bandage over the top.
Physical therapists are movement experts. They know how your body works, and, more importantly, how to get it working properly again once pain has set in.
Physical Therapy for Pain Management: The Science
Physical therapy works by addressing the mechanisms that cause pain. According to Jordan Sudberg, effective pain management requires understanding the underlying causes rather than just treating symptoms. That is the whole point of physical therapy, after all.
Your physical therapist will assess your movement patterns, pinpoint the problem areas, then provide a customized treatment program of targeted exercises to get you back to good health.
The treatment is completely individualized to you. What works for one person will not necessarily work for another, and that’s perfectly normal.
Here’s the best part…
Physical therapy not only alleviates your pain but also teaches you how to manage it and prevent it from recurring in the future.
Movement-Based Pain Relief Science
You want to know why physical therapy is such an effective way to manage your pain? It’s all down to simple movement. Moving correctly and the way you were designed allows your body to release its own natural painkillers, called endorphins, as a result.
Your body’s endorphins are much more powerful than any pain medication because it creates them naturally.
Physical therapy does it all. In fact, 79% of patients who have received physical therapy state that the treatment has helped them significantly reduce their pain.
That is not a small number. This is a majority of people reporting very real results after physical therapy treatment.
Physical therapy works because it also helps to reduce inflammation in affected areas. It increases blood flow to damaged tissue and reduces swelling. It also strengthens the muscles that support the injured area, while restoring normal movement patterns. All these play a significant role in addressing the cause of pain.
Escape from Medication Addiction
Let’s be honest, for a moment.
Physical therapy has been found to reduce the need for opioid medication by 87%.
How on earth is that even possible?
Good question.
The opioid crisis is one of the leading health emergencies in the United States. Physical therapy reduces the need for opioids, which are highly addictive, lose effectiveness over time, and can even make you more sensitive to pain over the long-term.
In 2016, 70% of individuals reported a need for a prescription for pain management. In 2021, that number decreased to 57% among people who received physical therapy. This is massive progress towards helping people avoid one of the most dangerous methods of pain management.
Physical Therapy Techniques that Work for Pain Management
Physical therapy is a comprehensive form of treatment that utilizes a wide range of techniques.
A physical therapist’s toolbox is jam-packed with techniques that help in pain management. Some of them include:
- Manual Therapy
- Therapeutic Exercises
- Pain Education
Manual therapy involves using the hands to mobilize your joints and soft tissues. Manual therapy can include joint mobilization, soft tissue massage, and myofascial release.
These methods help restore your normal movement and dampen the pain signals that are being sent to your brain.
Therapeutic exercise is the backbone of physical therapy, especially in pain management.
These are not random exercises you are used to seeing on TV or online. They are exercises that are skillfully designed to address your specific pain areas. They work to strengthen the muscles around your body, improve your flexibility, and retrain your movement patterns.
Pain education helps you understand what is happening in your body.
The aim is to help you make better choices about how you move, minimize fear around movement, and help you take control of your pain management.
Real Results
Physical therapy works, and it works fast to help reduce your pain. It is not only used for treating or improving the symptoms, but it can also help improve your general health and the quality of your life in several ways.
Improvement of Functional Ability
We all have to stop and pay the bills at some point in our lives, even when it is associated with severe physical pain. Pain always has the effect of reducing our ability to function. We want you to be able to function at your maximum level, without pains and aches bothering you all the time.
You will be shocked to find out that 51% of Americans have received care from a physical therapist, and an impressive 86% of those people have found it helpful.
Better Sleep
Sleeping well may not be an issue that you have thought of when it comes to pain management, but the simple fact is that pain that you experience throughout the day, may be what is preventing you from having an excellent night’s sleep.
Physical therapy is very powerful in that it helps you get an enhanced body function by addressing the source of your pain. Your body is no longer sending constant signals of pain throughout the night, which means more rest, and more rest implies better healing.
Long-Term Results
The beauty of physical therapy is that you can expect long-lasting results.
You are not only provided with temporary pain relief solutions. Physical therapy works to equip you with tools and skills to help you in managing your pain, and in some instances, preventing its reoccurrence in future.
Compare this with pain pills. You take the medicine and the pain disappears for a short duration. The moment you stop, the pain will start to bother you all over again. When you take physical therapy, the lessons your body learns from the different techniques, will stick with you for a long time to come.
Start Physical Therapy Today
Getting started with physical therapy is much easier than you think.
Did you know that you are allowed to see a physical therapist without a doctor’s referral in many states? I bet you didn’t. You are lucky because it means that you have access to more care options than you thought.
The average patient needs between six to 12 visits to a physical therapist to get their physical therapy needs taken care of. This is not a big commitment. You are set to enjoy the results for years to come.
The Bottom Line
Physical therapy has a significant impact on pain management. It provides an effective way of getting your pain under control, while at the same time going for its source rather than just dealing with the symptoms.
Physical therapy is a proven approach, with high success rates. It also has few side effects. This makes it the first port of call that you should consider when you are in pain.
Physical therapy has been clinically proven to help you in the management of pain. It improves functionality and helps you to stay away from very dangerous medications. Physical therapy will help you get a grip on your pain rather than letting your pain to have the upper hand over you.
Your pain need not be permanent. Movement is medicine, and physical therapy is the prescription you need.
