When should you start Physical Therapy?
Hello everyone! It’s Ricky from the PT team again. In my line of work, you get used to hearing a lot of the same phrases from the patient base. One of these that always seems to sit near the top of the list is when a patient on their first evaluation says, “I’ve had this pain for years and never did anything about it.” This can be a tricky thing for me to hear as a therapist, but it’s a common enough occurrence that I believe it’s worth exploring. Today let’s try to unpack this and talk through why people wait so long to start therapy and how we can reduce the risk of falling into this trap ourselves.
“I thought it might go away on its own”
Of all the common explanations, this is the one that is usually the most understandable to me. Throughout our lives, we have various twists and tweaks at different joints and the body will slowly heal it by itself after a few days or weeks (especially when we’re younger). However there’s a big difference between waiting two weeks for it to get better on its own and waiting six months or longer with the same mentality. As my general recommendation, pain that sticks around for longer than two weeks without improving should get some kind of medical attention (be that from a primary doctor, orthopedic, or physical therapist). Pain is your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong and if pain is not going away, it means the problem hasn’t been addressed yet.
“I have a high tolerance” or “I just tough it out.”
This one is similar to the one above, but I feel that it’s coming from a different place. Many of my patients are hard workers or were taught at a young age to push through discomfort. Many others acknowledge their discomfort, but remain quiet about it for other reasons, be it personal pride or not wanting to inconvenience people in their lives. Maybe you know a person like this or maybe you are this person yourself. This mentality can potentially be very dangerous as many injuries can worsen if not addressed. An injury may be very simple to treat at the one month mark, but very difficult to treat after five years of compensatory movement. Oftentimes these delayed cases can still benefit from physical therapy, but the road to recovery will be a longer and rockier one. When it comes to one’s health, it is important to leave the ego at the door and treat an injury with the urgency that it deserves.
“Isn’t it normal to be in pain at my age?”
To a certain degree, yes. Aches and pains are an expected part of aging, but that does not change the fact that the pain that you have is still a message from your body to address a problem (even if it is a common one). Many age related pains can be improved with simple activity and adjusting your exercise frequency as your body’s needs change. I’ll provide another general guideline from my experience: If your pain is bad enough that it makes everyday activities hard to complete, it is probably something that needs further attention. Your body will tell you where the line is, but you have to be open to listening to the signs it gives you.
Hopefully these were able to connect a few synapses for you and make you think a little bit about different pains or challenges in your life. It never hurts to seek an opinion and the team at Caruso is happy to be an ear to listen. The road to recovery usually has an easier path so long as we take it when we come to the crossing.
Richard Irace, DPT
