Is Physical Therapy painful?

Pain relief is a very common goal among our patients. In order to obtain long term pain relief, your physical therapist will recommend corrective exercises or perform skilled manual therapy techniques that may initially be painful make you sore. We will prescribe specific  exercises and perform manual therapy techniques focused on your weaker muscles, and stretches for your tighter muscles and joints. Often times, you will experience "delayed onset muscle soreness" or DOMS. This is soreness that will increase and peak around 48 hours after doing some newer exercises that have been prescribed. This is normal and expected following the performance of newer exercises or some manual therapy techniques.  We do not want you to experience elevated pain levels during your exercises. At times with stiffer joints, more muscle tightness, or early in the postoperative timeline you may experience some elevated pain with your visits. We will guide you on methods to reduced these elevated pain levels. Please communicate to us if your pain levels feel elevated during your sessions or with your home exercises. There are always methods to adjust your program to help reduce episodes of elevated pain. It is very important to provide communication to your physical therapist about your symptoms at the beginning of every visit.  This feedback helps guide us with modifying your program to reduce symptoms, or to continue safely progressing your program.

What should I wear to my physical therapy visits?

It is important that you are comfortable when you are at your physical therapy sessions. We provide patient privacy in our treatment rooms for your evaluations, re-evaluations, and manual treatments. Your attire depends on the area that is being treated. For neck, arm, and shoulder blade regions, we recommend that females wear a sports bra or loose fitting shirt. For men, we may ask that you remove your shirt for assessments or treatments. We will also use gowns and properly drape the regions being treated for privacy.  This will allow us to access the muscles and joints for a more accurate assessment and effective application of manual therapy treatments and/or therapeutic modalities.  If you are coming in for your knee, please wear shorts or loose fitting pants. With lower extremity diagnoses, please bring in your dress shoes and exercise/ running shoes. We can examine the wear pattern of your shoes for abnormal foot strike, as well as make sure the shoe the best fit for you. For your safety, it is important that you always wear closed toe shoes while in the main gym area.

What do Physical Therapists do?

Physical Therapists are experts in identifying movement impairments, improving your pain free functional mobility, and helping you reduce the risk of future injuries. We will guide you by designing a specifically tailored program directed at increasing muscle strength and flexibility, improving movement patterns, recovering from surgery, and in some cases avoiding surgery. Physical Therapists work as ergonomic and body mechanic consultants in industrial and office settings to improve the design of the workplace and reduce the risk job related injuries.  We also provide services to athletes at all levels to screen for potential problems and institute preventive exercise programs, and assess for return to sport following an injury or surgery. We can treat a wide variety of issues related to musculoskeletal  injuries, neurological related problems, scoliosis, oncology related rehabilitation, vestibular diagnoses (ENT) , TMJ disorders, osteoporosis, pre/postpartum pain, abnormal balance ( fall prevention), and general deconditioning.  The foundations of your physical therapy treatment are therapeutic corrective exercises and manual therapy. In addition to our “hands-on” care, we also educate patients on activity modifications, proper body mechanics and posture, and home exercises programs. Depending on the particular needs of a patient, we may also mobilize or manipulate a joint,  or massage soft tissues to promote proper movement, reduce scare tissue, and help manage pain. Your physical therapist may recommend the use various modalities such as ultrasound, electrical stimulation, hot packs, and ice. These modalities are used to help manage inflammation, improved blood flow, and improve mobility. 

Why is Physical Therapy a good choice?

More than half of all Americans are suffering from pain. Whether it is an acute injury or chronic pain,  there is a tremendous amount of evidence showing that physical therapy is a safe and effective choice for dealing with pain and resolving limitations. We can help you recover from your current surgery or pain, reduce the risk of future injuries, and optimize your performance. We view performance as ANY task that you do on a regular basis that affects your quality of life.

Which medical insurances do you accept?

As of July 2020, we now accept the following insurances:

Blue Cross Blue Shield 

Aetna 

Gilsbar

Cigna

Humana/Human Gold

Medicare 

Workers Comp Providers 

If you have a different insurance, please give us a call to discuss your options!