Tired Of Relying On Prescription Painkillers And Medication To Control Your Pain! Ask Your Doctor About Physical Therapy!
Our bodies are incredible machines. We all know that they have the ability to heal and repair themselves, but they can also adapt to nearly any situation. That includes the types of things we put into them. This can include supplements, food, and medications.
Temporarily taking medicine to control your pain as you recover from an injury or surgery can be a viable part of your treatment plan. However, taking these medications on a regular basis, over a long period of time creates dependency and fails to address the underlying problem. Along with being very risky in terms of addiction and dependency, many find that they don’t work as well as they thought they would.
Fortunately, physical therapy can reduce this dependence on pain medication all while restoring the body’s function and making it feel better than it ever has. Call our office today to find out how a physical therapist can help.
Wondering How Pain Medication Works? Here’s How
There are two basic types of pain medication everyone should know before seeking treatment – non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and analgesics. While NSAIDs are aimed at reducing inflammation in a specific part of the body, thereby reducing pain, analgesics (this also includes opioids) work by impeding the pain receptors in the brain.
Whenever you are hurt, your body produces natural opioids. WHat these do is travel to the brain where they combine with opioid receptors to ease pain levels throughout the body. When you take prescription opioids, you are flooding the brain with these chemicals that quickly bind to the opioid receptors and keep pain signals from reaching your brain.
Now this may sound like a great short-term solution immediately after surgery when pain levels are high, physical activity levels are intentionally low, and anything that will lessen the pain in your body and make it easier for you to cope will do the trick. However, there is still the very real and dangerous risk of dependency even in short-term courses of medication.
The Crucial Differences Between Dependency and Addiction
The words “dependency” and “addiction” are often thrown around interchangeably. However, these two processes are very different in the body.
Remember how we said that your body has an incredible ability to adapt to nearly any situation? As your brain is flooded with synthetic opioids, it then has to adapt to having that level of opioid readily available. Your body delivers less opioid by itself while your mind starts to rely upon the elevated levels for alleviation.
Before long, you’ll need higher and higher doses of the painkiller to receive the same benefit. And as you start to need more and more of the drug with the underlying issue getting worse, your body will also begin to feel more and more pain. Addiction refers to the draw and compulsion to use a drug despite the negative effects it will have on you.
Physical Therapy Is The Answer To Your Problems
No matter what the source of the pain is, prescription painkillers fail to address the structural problems at the root of your discomfort and result in nothing but dependence, addiction, and long term damage to your body and mental health. Physical therapy is the process by which you regain your ability to move. As this happens, you experience less pain and require fewer prescription pain medications to find the same amount of relief.
A physical therapist will begin by taking a full history, including the amount of painkillers you have taken and are currently taking. Next, they will evaluate your body’s function and movement. Once they identify areas that require physical therapy, the physical therapist will create a treatment plan designed to help restore your mobility, flexibility and strength.
Over the course of your physical therapy experience, they will give you non-drug pain-relieving methods such as ice, heat, electrical stimulation, massage, ultrasound therapy, and more. They may prescribe specific stretches or strengthening exercises to incorporate into your day at home or at work. But you have to stick to their treatment plan because the closer you follow it, the more your body will adapt to your new norm, and the better your body will feel.
Instead of short term fixes that seek to provide momentary and superficial numbness to the pain, physical therapy will provide actual solutions. Solutions tailored to the pain you’re experiencing in an effort to end your suffering and get you to the place you need to be.
Make the decision to end your relationship with pain and pain medicine, call our office today to schedule your free consultation. It’s our physical therapist’s mission to make you pain-free and ready to get back on your feet!
