Today’s blog post is really a story about a recent patient of mine. It’s a story I chose to tell because I know it will resonate with a lot of people. So here it goes…. My patient’s name is Beth. Beth is familiar to The Training Room before she started PT for her shoulder. I had treated her son many years ago for multiple sports injuries and I had treated her husband for low back pain.
Beth’s story is that she had shoulder pain for over a year. She owns Dare Boutique, a dress shop in Cherry Hill, NJ and she does a lot of overhead reaching and lifting throughout the day. Beth attributed her shoulder pain to her repetitive work and had resigned herself to dealing with the pain. She had tried various things to help reduce her pain. She used ice packs and hot packs. She took Advil and Tylenol. She even got frequent massages. Although these treatments helped reduce her symptoms, they only provided temporary relief. Finally one day after a year of dealing with the pain and limitations from her shoulder, she decided to schedule and evaluation with me. I don’t need to get into all the gory details of her poor range of motion, inflamed rotator cuff, and abnormal shoulder blade rhythm, but that’s what Beth had going on.
She came to PT and got evaluated to uncover the root cause of her shoulder pain. After her first treatment she had noticed significant relief. She was treated for a total of 6 visits. Manual stretching, joint mobilization of her spine and shoulder, scapular control drills, and a home exercise program is what it took. I saw Beth yesterday and discharged her from my care. She is now pain-free and able to use her arm for lifting dresses and all the activities she wants to do.
The reason I am telling this story is not to pat myself on the back and show how quickly I got someone better, because honestly that’s not always the case. The point of the story is that there is usually a solution to the pain when you can find the root of the problem and address it. Providing temporary relief with band aid procedures only masks the pain and allows for further compensations to develop. Taking care of the problem based on the underlying causes is the best solution to not only fix the problem but also prevent it from recurring again and again. I encourage anyone who has been dealing with pain, whether it is your shoulder, your knee, your hamstring, your back, or anywhere in between, come in and get evaluated by our physical therapists to see if we can help you get to the root cause of your pain and fix the problem once and for all.
If you’re in pain, please contact The Training Room Sports & Orthopaedic Physical Therapy to book an appointment.
