I often say where the pain is located is not often where the source of the problem is located. So often when we start to have pain we try to do our own treatment options based on what google or facebook tells you :-), then we go to the doctor. They look at that body part where the pain is located and that is as far as they get. They are not always looking at other possible sources of the problem.
You may be told to just rest and here are some medications. Then a month down the road you still have pain, so lets get an MRI. The problem with that is, MRI’s are not reliable on giving information about the source of the problem, which can show a meniscal tear in the knee (meniscal tears or degernarative changes show 60-80% of the time in normal pain free knees who have been given a MRI) and then may go to physical therapy and they only focus on the knee or worse you have surgery.
Does this sound like you? Or someone you know? It is common…..
I have had numerous patients and the source of their knee pain comes from so many different sources and it is my job to rule those sources out. I start out with a lot of questions to understand what is going on and what they have tried in the past. The sources could be coming from the back, hip, weakness in the hip, soft tissue tightness, knee derangements, among a few- which all are very much fixable to get you back to what you love to do.
I recently had a patient who has had knee pain for years. They had surgery and therapy but was still having problems. They could not sit and then get up without having pain and limping. They were told there was nothing else they could do. Luckily they were referred to us by a past patient. They did not have full knee ROM. He had a lot of tightness around the knee. They were also having back issues at the same time. This would fit the model of hurting after sitting and walking.
We started with the back. This did help his back but no changes to his knee. We then went to the knee and started showing him self joint mobs and doing soft tissue work to release the tightness as well as giving him stretches for around the knee. No change in his pain. We then went to the hip. We had to do hip mobs and hip joint stretching. Once we started this, his knee pain went away that week. He could sit and walk without problems for the first time in 2-3 years.
So often in healthcare we focus on where the pain is located. And so often where the pain is located is not where the source of the pain coming from. The body works together and we need to look at the whole body. Our healthcare likes to focus on treating the symptoms and never getting to the source.
At mPower Physical Therapy in Dallas, we love to provide education and help others in their journey to better health. We want to be a resource and hate it when we hear people have been hurting for years without help. If this sounds like you or someone you know, we do free consultations. We have conversations to truly understand what you have been going through, what this injury is stopping you from doing and to see if we can help.
If you are interested in setting something like that up, CLICK HERE and you can get set up to speak to one of our p physical therapists. We have limited spots each week, so do not delay if you want to take advantage of this offer.
