By Jackie Manning, ARNP, Strive! Health and Rehabilitation
The way out is through. No pain, no gain. You’ve got to face your problems head on.
We hear these phrases all the time, and it’s easy to roll our eyes. Why? Well, for starters, we’re not always convinced they’re true. What if we suffer, put in the blood, sweat, and tears, and work relentlessly toward our goal…only to find there is no reward? No light at the end of the tunnel? Or worse! What if we find out there was a much easier way and that we bypassed the road to less resistance?
Here’s the rub, though. When you mask pain, you don’t get to the bottom of the cause. Sometimes what appears easier and painless on the surface, causes more suffering in the long run. If you have the option of a pill or a physical therapy experience, the PT route, although more time-consuming and strenuous on the surface, can offer long-term healing and lasting benefits.
Are you looking for a drug-free pain solution?
Pain can be helpful in alerting us to something in our body that needs fixing, but it can also be an annoyance that calls the shots and ruins your quality of life! Many times, pain problems are rooted in deep-set underlying conditions, originating from a completely different part of the body than the area in which the symptoms present. Most often, medication masks pain and provides only temporary relief. While temporary relief may be needed for a short period, a long-term, more meaningful pain solution may be the answer for a chronic underlying functional problem. At Strive, we offer a variety of drug-fee options that are uniquely designed for each patient.
Origins of pain
Oftentimes, the cause of acute pain is clear, especially if it accompanies an auto accident or work injury, infection, operation, or event that you can pinpoint. However, this may not be the case with other forms of pain. Chronic pain can linger for months or years with no obvious cause in sight. This type of pay may be due to:
-Internal scar tissue buildup that restricts neighboring muscles and connective tissues.
-Muscle weakness, knots or spasms related to poor posture or an unbalanced body.
-Frozen shoulder as a result of holding your arm in a sling for a long period of time.
-Degenerative joint conditions like osteoarthritis.
-Fibromyalgia, which may affect both nerves and muscles.
-Chronic overuse injuries, like tendinitis, plantar fasciitis or carpal tunnel syndrome.
Often these are treated with medication early, in an effort to alleviate pain problems. However, this can turn into another problem. These drugs are designed to mute the pain but not treat the source of the problem causing the pain. This creates a long-term pain problem, forcing you to rely more and more on medication.
Other strategies for pain relief
Our team of healthcare providers have succeeded where painkilling drugs have failed. With highly trained experts and state of the art technology, we understand the actual origin point of your pain and work as a team to provide a regimen aimed at correcting or at the least improving function. We start by addressing your immediate discomfort with a combination of treatments and therapies, such as physical therapy, trigger point injections, deep tissue massage to break up adhesions, ultrasound therapy, heat or cold application, and/or electrical muscle stimulation, to tap into your body’s natural painkillers.
After your body responds to these types of therapies, we can introduce additional or different therapies and modalities to provide a long-term solution.
Contact Strive today! Our team of experts are ready to help you stop pain at the source!
