Sometimes getting the kind of treatment you need is difficult, particularly for back pain. Most conventional treatments like pain medications neglect to solve the problem. The average doctor, while highly capable in lots of areas, is not well-equipped to diagnose causes of back pain. Spinal abnormalities show up on imaging tests, but most back pain cases are due to muscular and biomechanical problems which are less perceptible.
Often, properly diagnosing the source of your pain takes a trained eye that may identify dysfunction by observing the way you hold yourself and how you move. A physical therapist will help you pinpoint why you have your pain, whether it's poor posture, improper body mechanics, muscle imbalance or muscle weakness. Each one of these problems can disrupt spinal and pelvic stability in addition to cause muscular pain, knots and spasms.
Unless your back pain presents with certain "red flag" symptoms, such as leg pain, weakness and/or numbness or lack of bladder and bowel control, standard protocol would be to wait it out for a month or so. Almost everyone has back pain at some time, and it is often short-lived. For most, though, the pain recurs. For a few, it becomes chronic. Should you have back pain not attributed to an obvious cause, for instance a fall, an awkward movement or overexertion, then you may have a muscular dysfunction which could lead to further pain later on.
Physicians may be unwilling to refer one to physical therapy for an incident of back pain. Fortunately, in lots of states, it is possible to seek physical therapy with out a referral; that is called direct access. Many insurance firms will grant reimbursements to patients who forgo the physician's office and head right to a physical therapist. See http://www.apta.org/StateIssues/DirectAccess/ for updated info on immediate access by state and changing legislation. Contact your insurance provider to find out their policy on direct access.
Some argue that immediate access encourages patients to misdiagnose themselves and overuse care. However, a large-scale study concludes otherwise. The analysis, conducted by Jane Pendergast, PhD, and director of the guts for Public Health Studies at the University of Iowa et. al., viewed almost 63,000 medical records of patients being treating with physical therapy. About 25% of patients in the analysis were self-referred. Contrary to the above arguments against immediate access, the study found that self-referred patients had fewer physical therapy visits and lower overall healthcare costs linked to the health concern that physical therapy was sought. Direct access patients weren't overusing health care or overlooking important health concerns; they were simply eliminating the center man. More with this study can be found at http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-10/apta-dat101311.php.
With more studies emerging in support of immediate access and the progress that is made toward this end over the past decade, there's reason to believe that getting the sort of treatment you want can be easier in the near future. Many hurdles are still set up concerning alternative medicine, but physical therapy is really a natural treatment which has edged its way into mainstream, conventional medicine. Opening Click for info of it'll allow more patients to bypass the route of expensive imaging tests and medications.
Physical therapy might help the body move better and function better. Should you have nagging back pain and so are worried about body mechanics, posture or muscle imbalance, consider seeing a physical therapist.
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