Tag: Pain Relief

Types of Physiotherapy That Help Lower Back Pain

Lower back pain plagues Americans to the extent that 80% will suffer from it at some time in their lives. It is one of the most common reasons people visit the doctor. For many, the problem is more than a passing incident; they need physiotherapy.

Physiotherapy of different types can be used to treat lower back pain. Acupuncture is fast becoming an important method for the relief of such pain. The doctor has the patient lie face-down and inserts the acupuncture needles across the back. The doctor then finishes the procedure for lower back pain. Pain relief after a series of treatments usually lasts months.

Massage is also used for lower back pain. The massage used must be done by someone well-versed in the treatment of lower back pain. A massage done by an untrained person may do more harm than good.

These methods are called passive therapies, or modalities. They are done to the patient and not by the patient. There are other modalities that are commonly used. Heat and ice packs are a well-known form of passive physiotherapy. They can be used separately, or they can be used alternately by a person who is suffering from acute lower back pain.

A transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulator (TENS) can be used as another modality for lower back pain. The patient will feel the sensation of the stimulator instead of his pain. If the TENS unit seems to work well for him, he will be sent home with one to use at his convenience.

Ultrasound is especially useful as a passive therapy for anyone with acute lower back pain. It delivers heat deep into the muscles of the lower back. This not only relieves pain. It can also speed healing.

Back exercises may be assigned by a physiotherapist. These exercises will help with lower back pain if one does them correctly and faithfully. The only exception is if the back is in an acute condition requiring emergency care or surgery.

The exercises that will help with lower back pain the most will be assigned and supervised by a physiotherapist. They may be done at home, but it will be necessary to follow instructions and check in frequently.

These exercises include ones for lower back pain that stretch or extend the back and ones that strengthen it. One is an exercise where one lies prone and moves as if swimming. This protects the back while giving the surrounding muscles a workout.

Lower back pain exercises called flexion exercises strengthen the midsection to provide support for the back. If the lower back pain is reduced when one sits, these exercises are important. One is a knee-to-chest exercise.

Aerobic exercise such as walking is excellent for reducing and preventing lower back pain as well. Massage and acupuncture can be counted on to relieve pain for most patients. Exercises can make the back stronger to both relieve and prevent lower back pain. Any physiotherapy that can help relieve lower back pain will help millions of people.

How Physiotherapy Can Help With Sports Injuries

When players have sports injuries, they turn to physiotherapy for rehabilitation. Physiotherapy, also called physical therapy, offers help whether the player is having surgery to correct the damage or not.

One example of the many sports injuries is an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. This is an injury to the knee. It is one of the common sports injuries in people who play sports that challenge their knees, such as hockey, skating, skiing, basketball, and of course, football. It can limit the range of a player’s motion in that leg, and make the leg weak.

Surgery is sometimes done for these sports injuries, but physiotherapy is always a part of the treatment. The three major exercises done to start the healing process of ACL are heel slides, quad sets, and straight leg raises.

Heel slides are exercises for ACL sports injuries that are easy to understand, but may be painful to do at first. One simply lies on the bed or floor with the foot down. Then, one slides the foot slowly towards the buttocks until it hurts a little, and slides it back. This and the other exercises help prepare the knee for surgery or to heal without it.

Another of the sports injuries that physiotherapy is used for is tennis elbow. One might get tennis elbow from playing tennis, certainly, but it can also come about from any activity that involves twisting the wrist.

Sports injuries like tennis elbow are treated with a comprehensive plan of physiotherapy. Exercises are explained and assigned. Another common procedure for sports injuries is the use of ultrasound. Ultrasound is a way of applying heat deep into the muscle for pain relief.

Electrical stimulation can be used to keep pain from being felt through the nervous system. It is used for tennis elbow and many other sports injuries. Massage and manual therapy can also be used for physiotherapy.

Massage is one of the forms of soft tissue manipulation. However, soft tissue manipulation is to muscles what chiropractic is to bones. It deals not only with muscle, but with tendons and connective tissue as well. It is a specialized field of physiotherapy that has been used for people with sports injuries on many occasions.

As many children’s sports teams are becoming ever more competitive, sports injuries among youngsters is increasing. Often, a well-meaning parent will tell the child to shake it off and keep playing. It is even more important for children to get adequate physiotherapy than it is for adults. Children are just developing, and a problem in childhood can lead to lifelong pain.

Some sports injuries happen because something physically traumatic happens to your body. Someone runs into you as you run with the football towards the end zone, for example. Other times, it is simply a matter of the physical demands you put on your body.

Physiotherapy is instrumental in the healing of many sports injuries. Many professional sports teams have physiotherapists on their staffs. In fact, either ACL or tennis elbow can become permanent conditions without the use of physiotherapy procedures.

Do Magnets Relieve Pain-It Depends On Your Experience

Being in pain isn’t any fun, and many people are willing to go to just about any lengths to find relief for their pain. There are all kinds of products that promise to ease pain, but some work better than others while others don’t work at all. Magnets are one of the more controversial methods of pain relief, so it’s only natural for you to ask do magnets relieve pain.

As of now, there appears to be no definitive answer. Modern western medicine and science tell us that there is simply no way that magnets can have an effect on your pain. They don’t “realign the blood”, or cause “energy vortices that change the chemistry of your body to stop sending pain transmissions through the ether”. There is nothing that a magnet can do to the body that will reduce pain, at least not according to the current understanding of western medical science.

So, we know what modern science has to say about magnets, but what are some of the claims in support of their ability to relieve pain?

History tells us that the ancient Greeks used magnets to cure or reduce many types of pain. It’s possible that older cultures from other parts of the world believed the same thing, but the Greeks offer us the earliest known documentation. There is a tendency for some people to assume modern medicine doesn’t know what they’re talking about and that the ancients somehow knew more than we do now. It would be hard to argue that we know less now, but it would be fair to say that there are still things that we don’t understand.

Perhaps the ancients knew something that has been lost to the ages, or maybe not. However, magnets are not only touted as curing pain. Some have gone so far as to claim that magnet therapy can cure (not just treat or alleviate) arthritis, depression, nausea, immunity disorders and cancer. The mechanisms by which these “cures” take place will vary by whoever is giving the pseudoscientific explanation. The sad part is that they could be profiting from the terminally ill, from the very people who should be seeking treatments that work, and not some oddball claim.

So, back to the question of do magnets relieve pain. It looks like each side of the debate has a definitive answer, but they each contradict each other. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that if they do relieve pain it is only because of the placebo effect. In other words, the only reason the reported pain level goes down is because the person using the magnet believe magnets work. Okay, does it really matter?

Ultimately, you will have to see for yourself. Even if it is the placebo effect at work, who cares? The main thing is that the pain starts to go away; and whether that’s because of some modern mystery, some pseudoscientific jargon, the placebo effect or something just doesn’t matter. The best answer is to try them for yourself and see just effective they really are.

Symptoms Of Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Main symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome include abdominal pain that lasts for about 2 months. Along with this, the pain must be accompanied by at least two of the following factors in a period of 12 weeks, although not necessarily consecutive. The three factors are: change in the appearance of the stool; change in the frequency of stool excretion and pain relief after defecation.

Other sets of symptoms that doctors watch out for are: abnormal frequency of defecation, which sometimes reach three times a day or less than three times in a week.); abnormal appearance of the stool, which are often lumpy and hard or watery in form.); abnormally hard passage of stool, characterized by a feeling of incomplete evacuation, difficulties that lead to straining and urgency to defecate. In some cases, there are mucus threads that are found on the stool. Mucus is a substance that aid in the passage of stools by moistening the path.

Another symptom is bloating, perhaps because of the inability to defecate or the feeling of abdominal distention. Remember though that these are all secondary symptoms and not the main ones. These symptoms only serve as support for the main symptoms. Their presence, even all of them, is not enough for a diagnosis.

Some patients that suffer from irritable bowel syndrome also complain of experiencing heartburn and nausea. About 25 to 50 percent of the patients diagnosed with irritable bowel movement report these. Another symptom that patients may feel is the early feeling of satiety when eating, brought on by the fullness of the stomach.

Many patients suffering from irritable bowel syndrome also experience fatigue and muscle pain. There will also be sleep disturbances and even sexual dysfunction. Although these items are also symptoms, these may already be consequences or complications that have arisen from body dysfunction.

As with other problems, symptoms may vary from one person to another. A patient will not feel all the symptoms. The severity of each symptom particularly the abdominal pain also varies from one patient to another. In fact, some patients have abdominal pain that is so mild that they do not even know that they have a problem.

This is often the problem with irritable bowel syndrome. In addition to having no direct cause and no specific diagnostic test, the symptoms are so varied and so common that people do not even recognize the problem. Most, in fact, believe that they have just suffered from a mild case of food poisoning when they do feel the pain and experience diarrhea.