Physio solves back pain

[admin]

Britains Daily Mail has a story from the editor of GQ magazine, telling how he suffered with back pain for 18 months.

He saw all sorts of "specialists' who charged him lots of money, but none of them appeared to know what was wrong or could solve his pain, until he tried a "physio". Simon, the physio said "'I think you've got a particularly complicated trapped nerve. But if I keep on doing this for a while then we should be able to get rid of it.'

And he's now pain free.

How's your physiotherapy going?

[Chriswa]

sounds like a good success story for physiotherapy. Good for them!

[Craftweb]

Physical therapy is concerned with identifying and maximizing quality of life and movement potential within the spheres of promotion, prevention, treatment/intervention, habilitation and rehabilitation.

[Paula]

Great article!

I'm all for physical therapy ("physiotherapy" UK), but in my experience it vaires a lot on who you get as your physical therapist.

When I had knee tendinitis once, I was told by a physical therapist that I had a "low pain threshold" because I insisted I was in pain, yet she said I had full range of movement in my knee. But it was only in pain when bent so far, and while I was putting weight on it.

The "full range of movement" test was done while I was lying down, so she was not recreating the same conditions, but she didn't listen to what I was saying.

She had wanted me to lift myself up some steps, but it was too painful; I could only use the other knee. So she sent me home and said not to come back until I could do it.

I actually managed to get rid of my knee pain in just a week, by doing a diluted version of what she was asking me to do.

I could bend this knee a little bit, without any pain at all, so that's what I did three times a day. "Baby squats" as I called them!

I also told my gym instructor, and he said if I can do tiny squats without pain, I should, in theory, be able to add weights to strengthen the thigh even faster and take the pressure off the knee.

I didn't think this would work at all. But it did work. And body-builders all know this!

Don't get me wrong - I'm a total wuss! This was not hard core weight lifting; only the weights I could manage. But as long as I didn't bend my leg too much I was fine. (I did get a few funny looks from the other gym-goers though, as it must have looked like I was hardly moving). I only did 4 sets of 8 reps (8 tiny knee-bends, then rest. Repeat 3 more times). I went to the gym 3 times in that first week as well as continued to do my baby-squats, and at the end of the week I could not only walk up a full flight of stairs without any pain, I could cycle again too.

It's a handy little hack you can do to fast track your healing, and even now while my knee is fine I regularly do squats to keep my thighs strengthened, so my knees are less likely to be damaged.

I have since applied this technique to other areas (as most of you will know; when we have back pain, we also have other pain!) and as long as you know your limits, it works for any area.

So next time you see your physical therapist, do the exercises they suggest, but if it is too painful to begin with, do a milder version of the exercise.

I know it sounds like adding weights is not the milder version, but in my case, I was not in pain when the knee was only bent slightly.

[Amarion]

Definitely its vary case to case and patient to patient but i know one thing it is vert painful in the beginning of physical therapy sometimes patient can not bear it and leave it and this is very wrong decision...........