Services

Pain Management

Pain has been mismanaged in our country for years. The opioid crisis is evidence of this.

  • Chronic pain is often due to a hyper-sensitive nervous system. We educate our patients about pain science and knowledge gives you power to take control of your pain.

  • Movement is the best medicine! Prolonged rest is like letting our bodies rust!

  • Physical therapy is a safer, more effective approach to pain management than surgery, injections, and medication.

 Let us help you manage your pain!

ADDITIONAL FAST FACTS

Starting physical therapy sooner rather than later leads to:

1) A significant reduction in the rate of spinal injections and surgeries. (Gellhorn et al. 2012).

2) Reduced imaging costs and opioid use. (Child et al. 2015).

3) Lower overall medical costs. Total medical costs for LBP were $2736.23 lower for patients receiving early PT. (Fritz et al. 2012).

Read Joe's Story:

Joe's story of gaining his life back after years with chronic pain with the help of Willow Grove Physical Therapy.

Joe had back pain and pain down to his left ankle for over 15 years. During that time, he was having frequent injections and taking oxycodone to help with the pain but had minimal relief. He stopped taking oxycodone and was referred to Willow Grover Physical Therapy. He arrived to the first visit unable to walk back to the exam room without needing to sit down due to pain. A week prior, he had been on vacation and needed to use a wheel chair to get around because walking and standing was so painful. His goals with therapy were to avoid a spinal fusion (which was being recommended to him by all of his doctors), get back on his motorcycle, and walk more than a few feet at a time. Joe was educated in detail on pain science and was started on a personalized exercise program. Pain science is a recent development in research and we know that the more people understand how pain works, the better they are able to control it. Pain is our body's alarm system and in chronic pain our nervous system becomes too overprotective and unreliable.   We educated Joe on ways he could calm his overly sensitive nervous system through regular exercise, deep breathing, relaxation, mindfulness, 8 hours sleep, and proper nutrition. We had to retrain Joe's brain to not consider movement/walking as a danger.  He would walk to the point of pain and take a break and get up again and walk.  Joe was dedicated to doing his exercises at home and his walking tolerance improved. After 2 months of therapy he can now walk for up to 20 minutes before needing to sit down. He is once again riding his motorcycle for up to an hour at a time and is doing things he has not been able to do in years. After doing his exercises each morning, Joe has no pain! It is important to remember that our bodies are designed to move and when we stop moving normally we increase the sensitivity of our nervous system and are more likely to feel pain.  The therapists at Willow Grove Physical Therapy with their training in pain science can substantially help patients overcome chronic pain/disability.So, if you or anyone you know have chronic pain or are reliant on pain medication to get through your day, please consider Willow Grove Physical Therapy, we have many stories of helping people just like Joe regain function and a better quality of life.

Dr. Margaret Fitzpatrick PT, OCS, Cert MDT, President

Check out our blog post: PT and the Opioid Epidemic

Share this page
Printer
WE MOVED! NEW WILLOW GROVE LOCATION MARCH 2022
X