Caring Medical
& Rehabilitation Services
715 Lake Street, Suite 600
Oak Park, Illinois 60301
708.848.7789 Phone
708.848.7763 Fax

PHYSICAL THERAPY BLOGS

PHYSICAL THERAPY BLOGS
Physical therapy increases pain?
If a muscle is weak and you exercise it, it should feel better correct? What if the person feels worse? What if even gentle movements cause excruciating pains? Could these be from a muscle problem. We doubt it. When exercise and/or gentle movements under the guidance of a physical therapist, personal trainer, or other rehabilitation specialist cause significant pain or make the person worse, well, you know what we would be thinking. This person has a ligament problem and that ligament problem will respond very well to Prolotherapy! Ligament tension can increase drastically with gentle movements especially if the ligament is torn or injured.

Is physical therapy or massage going to help?
Physical therapy is the major component of the orthopedist’s “conservative” approach to low back patients. The Caring Medical experience is that the results are often disappointing in chronic back pain patients.

Many acute back injuries get better by themselves. Many of these patients do take some PT, whether formally at a Physical therapy facility, or more haphazardly at a chiropractor's office, but it’s difficult to tell whether the results are any better or faster than they would be without the PT. Cases in which there is muscle weakness should have a prescribed regular program of strengthening exercises.

Prolotherapy accelerates the alleviation of pain far beyond anything that the best physical therapy could ever achieve. It does so because it is working to correct the source of the problem. Massage can make people feel better, and it does not interfere with Prolotherapy results as adjustments may do. But it works on muscles that are tightening in response to the ligament pathology underneath, so you should expect the results to be only temporary.

Q. Physical Therapy and Prolotherapy
I had Prolotherapy in 2003 after an on the job injury and re-injury during worker's compensation therapies. I was reluctant to do so because it isn't "main stream" therapy But I am so glad that I did. I was re-injured in 2004 in a car wreck and had a "booster" to the original Prolotherapy. Now in early 2006 I still have muscle weakness that is bringing back a less than before pain in the area. I started PT today and am hoping that by strengthening the muscles in the general area of the previous Prolotherapy so long ago, will lessen my pain and increase my flexibility. Can you comment on this?

A. When you have an injury or trauma and that injury or trauma lingers on, the muscular around the injury or trauma atrophy or weakened. It always important to keep muscle strength up. The ligaments provide stability to the joints but the muscles are the ligaments back-up. In other they are suppose to become painful when the joint is being stretched too much. Weak muscles, make ligament and joint injury more likely. Doing exercises with the Prolotherapy is almost always a good idea, as the person recovers quicker.

Answered by Ross Hauser, M.D.