PHYSIO: IT MIGHT NOT BE WHAT YOU THINK!
Andrew Byrne MCSP HCPC, from True Physio in Whalley, explains how physiotherapy can help ease pain from head to toe
Our patients are often surprised by what we treat, and what physiotherapy involves. Unless you’ve been before, chances are you won’t really know what physios do or what we treat and it often seems like people have been put off coming because they didn’t think physio was for them.
Put simply, if something hurts, for ANY reason, then that’s a good reason to see a physio. Physios like us are known as musculoskeletal physios because we deal with the muscles and skeleton (amongst other things including nerves, tendons and ligaments). That means that if you have pain, from a headache, right down to pain in your toe and everything in between, we can assess you and normally tell you what’s causing the pain, and what can be done about it.
Pain happens for all sorts of reasons, and a lot of people seem to think they have to have had an injury to see a physio. This is not the case. In fact, the majority of the people we see haven’t had an injury – the pain has simply come on and won’t go away! Equally, we do see plenty of people who have injured themselves doing something specific. Sometimes that will be sport, but often it’s an activity around the house or at work.
So that covers what we treat – pain for whatever reason, wherever it is in the body.
Next up, a lot of people are put off because people think physio will hurt. I won’t lie, some of the things we do are painful, but then again you’ve come to us because you’re in pain, so the techniques we use may be painful briefly, but they will help, sometimes immediately, sometimes over the following few days. An overwhelming majority of our patients wish they had come sooner and often it doesn’t hurt anywhere near as much as they think it will!
Most people think physio is just massage. We do use massage, but we also have lots of other techniques we can use to help you improve quickly including mobilisations, manipulations, taping, acupuncture, specific exercises and electrotherapy to name a few. Alongside this, we make sure you understand your problem, and that in itself can often help you feel better quickly.
Lastly, a lot of our patients think we’re going to keep them coming back for a long time. Our job is to get you to your goal whatever that may be, and get you back to the things you want to do, as quickly as possible. At your first session we’ll talk to you about how long we expect your recovery to take and how many sessions it might take so you know what to expect at every session.
If you’re not sure we can help, don’t be shy, get in touch and one of our physios will happily discuss things with you over the phone.
