Oh, that aching back! Have you ever had that real bad pain in your lower back or in your leg before? You know, you can’t sit for long. When you go to stand, you feel like your 80! Man, it can really be something that affects your whole quality of life. At that time, you might feel like you will never get out of the pain you are in, but it’s amazing with some treatment, education, exercise and lifestyle modifications, you can live without lower back pain and/or sciatica. At Flaherty Physical Therapy, we treat lower back pain and sciatica in three moving parts: pain management, activity modification and return to fitness and life.
PAIN MANAGEMENT. Most patients that start in Physical Therapy (PT) come due to pain that prevents them from doing what they like to do. We take our first few weeks and focus on reducing pain through manual techniques, breathing exercises and stretching. Stress can be a big factor in recovery, so we talk about positions of comfort and how breathing can help to reduce stress in the body. We also talk a lot about how pain is normal, and how your body responds to pain can greatly affect your recovery. Finally, we are learning more about your needs and wants so that we can get you feeling better as soon as possible.
ACTIVITY MODIFICATION. This is where the movement starts. By increasing movement with daily activities, we find most of the symptoms start resolving within 3-5 weeks of starting PT. We help clients identify the movements that are making their symptoms worse. We show you you how to properly stretch, how to lift and carry without pain and how to do what helps and stop what hurts. Finally, we teach you how to engage your core. It’s amazing how, as we get older, we lose the ability to engage our core muscles. When the core is strong, the back is usually strong.
RETURN TO LIFE. At this point, pain is less, activity is more. Our clients are learning more about what to do to stay healthy and strong through exercise and return to life activities. We keep working on encouraging better postures, better breathing and more consistency with exercises at home, at the gym or at any time in the day. This is where many who have not exercised before will learn about how to integrate exercise into their life.
We are all about exercise and the positive effects it can have on your health and wellness. We also feel no one should ever suffer with lower back pain. No matter how old, young, active or sedentary.
To learn more, join us at Flaherty Phsyical Therapy for a workshop on lower back pain and sciatica issues on Tuesday, December 11 from 6-7 pm in our Northborough clinic. Call to RSVP to save your spot at 508-393-9000. You will leave the workshop with some easy actions that you can do at home to keep your back healthy and strong!