Chronic Pain Management in Fort Lauderdale, FL

Chronic pain can impact your total health

Chronic pain is often defined as pain that lasts more than 8 to 12 weeks. In just that short amount of time, chronic pain can impact multiple aspects of a patient’s life including:

  • Mood
  • Physical Activity
  • Sleep
  • Daily Routines
  • Memory
  • Attention
  • Cardiovascular Health
  • Mental Health
  • Social Life
  • Sexual Function
  • Work

As chronic pain persists it can be an indication of or lead to a number of disruptive conditions, such as:

  • Degenerative disc disease
  • Stenosis
  • Arthritis
  • Spondylosis
  • Overuse syndromes (e.g., tendonitis, bursitis, impingements, golfers’ & tennis elbows, etc.)

With such a reach over your health and well-being, being proactive about pain management is critical.

Effective pain management requires identifying the root causes

Beginning with an understanding of the pain – the root causes – is an important first step. In addition to co-existing medical conditions, a combination of other health-related behaviors could be influencing the pain, such as:

  • Acute or chronic pain at other sites
  • Mental and emotional strain
  • Weight
  • Physical activities
  • Exercise routines
  • Sleep postures and patterns
  • Nutrition
  • Clothing and accessories
  • Family or co-worker reactions to pain
  • Demands of work
  • Vitamins and supplements
  • Habitual body motions
  • Smoking
  • Alcohol consumption

Considering the many potential factors at play, chronic pain cannot be managed in isolation. So Clear Choice Physical Therapy conducts comprehensive evaluations of what has been done to date in combination with a patient’s current lifestyle factors and expectations. Fully understanding how a patient’s life is affected by chronic pain is crucial to providing the best, most effective treatment.

Approach to treatment

But this takes dedicated attention. Ensuring the same physical therapist is spending one-one-one quality time with these patients is how Clear Choice Physical Therapy’s practice in Fort Lauderdale distinguishes itself from others.

Consistent time spent together during follow up visits gives the physical therapist the opportunity to explore multiple facets of a patient’s life. This helps the physical therapist to identify the unique factors at play for each individual and recognize key patterns or trends. As a result, significant breakthroughs into treatment protocols for someone suffering with chronic pain can often take 2 to 3 weeks. The total length of treatment can range considerably for pain management patients and is often influenced by:

  • Body response
  • Co-existing medical conditions
  • Pain aversion
  • Stress
  • Physical history
  • Lifestyle

However, on average, treatment for chronic pain lasts about 6 to 12 weeks and consists of a full explanation of the cause of pain and a customized plan of care. Plans of care can include a combination of:

  1. Direct interventions (e.g., soft tissue massage, stretching, E-stim, ultrasound therapy, etc.)
  2. Secondary supports (e.g., back braces, orthotics, outside of the box accessories, etc.)
  3. Exercises and strengthening (e.g., abdominal or core isometrics, leg strengthening, etc.)
  4. Lifestyle changes (e.g., lifting or body mechanics, modification of exercise routines, mattress considerations, footwear, etc.)

The ultimate goal is the patient’s independence. At the completion of treatment, you will be better equipped to navigate and identify what might be causing pain in your daily life so that future flare-ups can be avoided.

Clear Choice Physical Therapy in Fort Lauderdale, FL can help you find relief from chronic pain

Many times, flare-ups of pain can be managed and eliminated with some initial resting, staying away from an activity, at home icing and/or minimal over-the-counter pain meds. Other times the body’s natural healing process doesn’t happen automatically, and it needs some fine-tuning to complete the job.

Clear Choice Physical Therapy in Fort Lauderdale can help if you have been dealing with pain for more than 1 to 2 months and noticed that it has begun to:

  • Sideline you from activities, feeling as though you should avoid them in order to avoid the pain
  • Alter your body mechanics – “how” you are performing certain activities
  • Cause weakness
  • Make you generally reluctant to move
  • Turn you towards more frequent doses of over-the-counter pain pills, or towards considering a stronger prescription medication

Before scheduling surgery or other invasive treatments, it’s important to understand all of your options. Physical therapists are best positioned to realistically lay out what those options are, as they are not pre-disposed by one specialty and are able to take a broader, generalist view. At Clear Choice Physical Therapy, we’ll help you weigh the risks and rewards of all your options so that you can control your pain in the way that’s most comfortable for you.

At Clear Choice Physical Therapy, we’ll help you weigh the risks and rewards of all your options so that you can control your pain in the way that’s most comfortable for you. Contact us today!

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