Written by CrashMD staff
Being involved in a car accident puts a lot of stress on your body. Even if you suffer no pain symptoms immediately, there is a great chance that you will experience pain on some level, and hopefully not for an extended period of time. One of the best treatment methods for helping car accident victims manage current pain symptoms and avoid future additional pain symptoms is physical therapy.
Physical therapy is a non-invasive way to help a person experience not only pain relief, but also address the source of pain. It’s most often (in the case of non-life threatening injuries) the first course of action recommended by pain management specialists for car accident victims, and is a great option for helping to strengthen the body and provide relief.
If you’ve recently been in a car accident, partnering with a pain management specialist who can accurately diagnose and address your particular pain symptoms is crucial for finding relief. Hopefully physical therapy is the only course of action you’ll need to take, which is great! You’ll learn helpful exercises and movements that will help you now and in the future.
Physical Therapy for Pain Treatment
Trained physical therapists are able to not only address a person’s pain symptoms, but also the underlying source of pain. Through a unique combination of strength training, exercises and focused movements, a physical therapist is able to help patients find pain relief through physical therapy. Not only can physical therapists help provide pain relief now, they can also prevent it from coming back. They are able to successfully strengthen related muscle groups to improve endurance and range of motion. Additionally, they can teach the patient about how to best utilize their body so they can hopefully prevent future injuries.
To accurately address the source of chronic pain, physical therapists will provide a physical examination to determine why certain muscle groups or soft tissues are weak or still. They will then create customized exercises that are designed to reduce stress that is being placed on those particular areas where pain is being felt, with the goal to reduce pain and improve mobility and function.
When you first partner with a physical therapist, they will ask you a series of questions in addition to performing the physical exam. They will want to know:
- The location of your discomfort
- How often you feel pain
- Are there any specific movements/motions that increase your pain sensations
- How your daily lifestyle has been affected
- Your medical and health history, as well as any previous treatments
They will also test your range of motion, flexibility, strength, posture, balance and endurance. It’s important to communicate exactly what you’re feeling as you go through this stage in the process as it will help your physical therapist create the best and most customized treatment plan for you.
What Does Physical Therapy for Car Accident Pain Involve?
One of the main benefits of physical therapy is that it is a non-invasive treatment option for helping patients manage their pain after a car accident, help them to avoid their pain from turning into chronic pain, or addressing their chronic pain symptoms. Physical therapists are able to provide pain relief through physical therapy methods to help patients improve the health of certain muscle groups or tissues that are weak or stiff.
The goal with physical therapy is to provide customized exercises that help to reduce stress on the affected areas with the goal to reduce pain and improve mobility and function, thus leading to an improved quality of life.
While physical therapy methods vary from person to person, they generally include:
- Exercise: performing certain exercises help with strengthening muscles and joints, improving mobility and function, and interrupt the pain sensations that are being received by the brain. Low impact aerobic exercises, like walking or swimming, help to increase the heart rate without placing additional stress on the joints. This is also a great warmup exercise before strengthening exercises. Strengthening exercises, which can include resistance bands, or your own body weight (i.e. push ups), and core muscles that focus on the abdomen, glutes, and back, as well as other parts of your body, help to target the areas where you are experiencing pain. Pain-relief exercises and stretching are both great options for reducing stiffness and pain, and help with both warm-ups and recovery periods.
- Passive therapy: your physical therapist will also work with you to recommend ways you can reduce your pain outside of their office. These include utilizing heat and ice packs to reduce inflammation and pain, as well as enjoying massage therapy from a trained massage therapist. They will also teach you how to best handle your body when you’re at home and out and about, including how to lift, bend, run, exercise, stand, sit, etc. properly. They may even recommend transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) that delivers a low-voltage current to the skin over the area where you have pain that helps to prevent pain sensations from reaching the brain.
Overall, there are several ways a physical therapist can help to provide pain relief through physical therapy. The goal is to help patients comfortably experience relief, and help them to enjoy their pre-car accident quality of life. Physical therapy is an essential step in the pain recovery process and an absolute must before resulting in more invasive and surgical methods. If you’ve been living with chronic pain for months or years, there’s a better option for you with physical therapy.
Does Physical Therapy Hurt?
Not as much as surgery! It’s important to note that physical therapy shouldn’t hurt, and it will be a safe treatment option. The overall goal of physical therapy is to strengthen the muscles and tissue where the patient is experiencing pain, all through stretching and strengthening exercises.
Chronic, or even acute, pain from a car accident tends to affect a certain muscle group or joint, depending on the location of the injury. This pain is often severe enough to interfere with a person’s flexibility and motion, and in turn, their quality of life. Without the ability to comfortably walk, sit, lift, exercise, sleep or stand because patients cannot move a particular joint or muscle, their day-to-day activities and abilities will diminish. This is why physical therapy is so important for pain relief.
A physical therapist is able to recognize exactly what is ailing the patient and partner with them to customize a specific exercise and stretching regimen to help them regain their standard quality of life.
That being said, patients can expect to experience some sort of discomfort after their physical therapy sessions. This could be similar to a workout, but less extreme. Due to the fact that you’re focusing on areas of your body where you’re experiencing pain, you might feel soreness or temporary tightness after your sessions. But, this is temporary, and after time you will feel much more relief than soreness.
Also, every person deals with pain differently. If you were suffering with minor pain at first but then now have chronic pain, you might have a higher pain threshold than someone who recognized pain immediately and sought help immediately. Being open and honest with your physical therapist will help you to enjoy the best outcome because each physical therapy plan is tailored to each individual. If you’re finding that you’re very sore after each appointment, then your plan might need altering. Or, if you feel you can be pushed a little more at each visit, then your body might be responding well to treatment and ready for more intense therapy. This will be up to you and your physical therapist as you mutually work to achieve your lifestyle goals.
Benefits of Physical Therapy
Physical therapy is an effective treatment option that provides patients a wide range of benefits. These include: One of the most important benefits is that it not only. Additional benefits include:
- Helping to provide immediate pain relief, as well as providing pain relief over time and on a long-term basis
- Allowing patients to avoid taking pain medications for extended periods of time
- Encompassing a variety of treatments, allowing patients to utilize a compressive treatment plan
- Infinite possibilities for a customized exercise and strength program that can be custom tailored until the patient feels profound pain relief
- Helping patients to avoid more invasive treatment methods, such as surgery, that involve additional risks, complications and extended periods of recovery
Due to the fact that physical therapy is a non-invasive and effective treatment option for patients who are needing pain management, there is simply no reason not to attempt this form of pain as a first step. Physical therapists are highly trained in the best ways to relieve pain with the goal to help their patients live their best life now and for years to come.
If you have recently been in a car accident and are dealing with pain symptoms, seeking physical therapy for pain management is a great option that will benefit you now and in the future. Physical therapists are experts in how to best alleviate pain symptoms through the use of exercise and strength training, and are adept and crafting personalized care for their family of patients. If you believe you are suffering from chronic pain, or have tried pain medications and at-home methods without noticeable improvement, then a physical therapist can certainly help. The CrashMD team is dedicated to helping their patients not only find pain relief now, but also learn ways to help them stay healthy and strong for the long term. Please reach out today to schedule an appointment so that we may learn about your symptoms and partner with you to reach your health and lifestyle goals.
