You Don’t Have to Be an Opioid Statistic – PT Can Help
Find Relief for Your Pain without the Harmful Risks
It is no secret that long-term opioid consumption is not the best strategy for chronic pain management. In addition to the risk of addiction, opioids simply reduce the symptoms of your condition, rather than treating the condition itself.
Physical therapy has been shown to be a much better option than opioids or other pharmaceutical painkillers for a very real and measurable improvement over chronic pain.
If you have been considering taking opioids or other pain relief drugs, but would like to explore other options first, please contact our office to consult with a physical therapist today. Read on to learn more about how physical therapy could be the natural pain relief solution you’ve been looking for!
With physical therapy, you can achieve long-term relief
Researchers at Stanford University have shown that turning to physical therapy early on (especially as soon as a person is diagnosed with musculoskeletal pain) reduces the need for opioid pain prescriptions by 7-16%. Among patients who required pain relief opioids for various reasons, the duration of use of painkillers was reduced by as much as 10%.
Physical therapy helps patients by treating the source of the pain, rather than simply masking it. For example, if a patient is living with arthritis or any other type of chronic pain, a physical therapist may teach the patient how to move and use key muscle groups in such a way that the source of pain does not worsen.
Another goal of physical therapy is to strengthen the muscle groups that directly support aching or painful parts of the body, so that real healing can take place.
Your choice to pursue physical therapy will not, in most cases, be a quick solution to pain relief. Fortunately, however, your physical therapist will construct a customized plan that will produce measurable results in pain relief. Because the work in physical therapy is designed to treat the source of pain, patients can often eliminate the need for prescription painkillers or opioids altogether.
Why you should turn to physical therapy for your pain relief needs
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an average of 130 people die from opioid overdoses every day here in the U.S. Since 1999, the number of opioid-related deaths has multiplied sixfold.
The opioid epidemic in America has become so severe in recent years that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is now recommending that patients explore alternative, more holistic options for pain relief.
In fact, the CDC now recommends that opioids be considered as the “last option” for only the worst cases of pain. Alternative and holistic pain relief methods, including physical therapy, are admittedly not as quick-acting as opioids, but they also do not pose the extreme risks of addiction and overdose.
It is important that anyone suffering from pain should understand that opioids will not solve the underlying physical problem that causes pain. In fact, opioids can actually cause the original problem to worsen over time.
Suppose, for example, that a person has chronic pain several months after undergoing a surgical procedure to the shoulder. The wound from the surgery has been healed for a long time, but the pain still persists. If the patient relies on opioids to soften the pain, they actually run the risk of re-injuring their shoulder.
Pain is the body’s way of telling us when something is wrong. With the pain-removing opioids, the patient may use their shoulder muscles incorrectly and ultimately make the underlying problem worse.
If the same patient had begun working with a physical therapist to relieve their uncomfortable symptoms, they would have had a much better chance of completely eliminating the pain, rather than numbing it and potentially making it worse.
Much like this example, many injuries and chronic conditions can be treated with physical therapy, manual therapy, proper exercise, body mechanics, and posture work—all without turning to addictive opioid painkillers.
Get started on a PT treatment plan today
If you have been living with chronic pain and would like to know more about how physical therapy can help you find relief, please call our office today to schedule your initial consultation with one of our licensed physical therapists.
We’ll help you get on the path toward recovery, without any of the harmful side effects!
