Consider Physical Therapy First
As we go through life we experience a vast amount of interactions, some good, and some not so good. Either way, these experiences leave a mark on the body, like a journal. These journal entries occur every day and leave a trail or “bread crumbs” on what’s happening in the body. The body leaves these “clues” in the form of pain, kind of like a “check engine light.” If you ignore it long enough, eventually the “car” will break down.
We all know that the sooner any project gets started, the sooner it will be finished. However, with the body we need to remember that it’s organic and constantly changing and adapting to the stresses we put on it everyday. With these adaptations we learn new muscle memory patterns that feed into these compensations to avoid pain. At this point pain may not be a problem, but the body is learning a bad habit. Over time these bad habits can create their own problems and may lead to additional issues in other areas like knee or hip dysfunction contributing to low back pain.
Studies have shown that delaying treatment of common orthopedic injuries (knee, shoulder, hip, etc.) will have an effect on recovery time and healthcare costs.
A study done by Fritz (2012) noted that patients that delayed PHYSICAL THERAPY intervention by more than 14 days following a visit to the physician incurred the following:
4x more primary care visits
1.8x as likely to be prescribed pills
2.2x as likely to get surgery
2.4x as likely to get an injection
3x as likely to get advanced imaging (CT, MRI, etc.)
We can look at these stats and recognize we’re spending more time and money in the primary care office. We must also be aware that the pain is likely worsening during this time which is why the patients went back to the primary care 4 additional times.
Early PHYSICAL THERAPY intervention will:
Reduce overall healthcare costs
Help avoid surgery
Get you back to life faster
Improve pain levels
Educate you on proper healing
As an experienced physical therapist, I have seen many patients avoid surgery with proper PHYSICAL THERAPY intervention. The longer patients wait to treat the problem, the worse it will get and the more costly. Remember that treatment doesn’t start until YOU do something about it!!! It’s your body, own it.
