Chronic Pain Treatment Meacham Park, MO

Chronic Pain Treatment in Meacham Park, MO

Chronic pain treatment in Meacham Park, MO. If you suffer from chronic pain, you know all too well how hard it is to express the effects it has on your daily life. Sometimes, the months or years we’ve dealt with it leads us to forget how good we used to feel. At it’s worse, the pain can keep us from comfortably completing basic tasks like walking up the stairs, or the activities we love doing the most, whether that be sprinting down the field or working in the garden.

Axes Physical Therapy is a group of provider-owned physical and occupational therapy centers committed to helping our Meacham Park, MO patients find meaningful relief through custom-tailored chronic pain treatment plans, built on techniques that have been proven to work. If you’re finally ready to move on from chronic pain, call our location most convenient for you you or contact us online for successful chronic pain treatment.

What Type of Pain is Considered “Chronic”?

Chronic pain is pain that doesn’t go away after 12 weeks, which is generally considered to be the “normal” healing period. The pain can occur every day or every few days, can stay in one spot or hit different muscles or joints, and can change in severity from aching to agonizing pain.

Based on research from the CDC, in 2019 20.4% of American adults dealt with chronic pain. 7.4% of adults (over a third of those who experienced chronic pain) suffered from “high-impact” chronic pain, defined as pain that, on “most days” or “every day,” affects how somebody can work or perform other activities. Chronic pain doesn’t just hurt you physically. Chronic pain affects quality of life and leads to higher medical expenses. It can also lead to anxiety, depression, and insomnia.

What Causes Chronic Pain?

Pain, generally speaking, occurs when nerves called nociceptors detect damaged tissue, and send a signal through your spinal cord up to your brain. Often, pain is due to a specific incident or medical condition. “Acute pain” occurs at once, usually because of a known, underlying cause such as being hit with something, dental work, or surgery. It can last for anywhere from a moment to months while the injury heals.

By contrast, people can experience chronic pain for several reasons. Sometimes an injury continues to cause pain even after it’s healed . In other cases, it’s caused by an illness, or degenerative disease. Sometimes, the pain isn’t caused by a specific condition, but rather from things like poor posture, obesity, or overexertion. Common types and causes of chronic pain include:

Arthritis and other conditions that cause joint pain — The soft tissue in our joints can become damaged or wear down from overuse or overexertion, causing chronic pain in the affected joint.
Numerous different conditions that lead to lower back pain — Up to 84% of adults suffer from back pain eventually. Causes can be poor posture or technique, wear and tear at work, sciatica, or a variety of disc injuries.
Cancer pain — Tumors can cause pain when they bother other parts inside your body.
Fibromyalgia — While experts are still trying to understand the exact cause of fibromyalgia, this refers to widespread muscle pain and tenderness.
Neurogenic pain and psychogenic pain — In some cases, pain does not occur for a physical reason, but because there is dysfunction in the nervous system, or because of depression, anxiety, and/or stress.

There are many tips for easing chronic pain, and while many can lead to greater comfort, many people we see in Meacham Park, MO have felt like they tried all of them and more and still can’t feel better. Often, physical therapy becomes their path toward meaningful pain relief and getting back to the activities they love.

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Why Is Physical Therapy in Meacham Park, MO a Great Option For Chronic Pain Treatment?

Chronic pain can be treated through a variety of modalities in Meacham Park, MO, including medication, chiropractic adjustments, yoga, and regular exercise. Research demonstrates that including physical therapy into your treatment plan can lead to considerable improvement. You can come to any of our 15 locations for a free screening to learn what might be causing your chronic pain. We’ll ask you questions to better understand how we can help you. How often do you have pain? When does it come on? When does it get better? How does your chronic pain affect you in your daily life? After your screening, we’ll form a team with you and your physician to design a tailor-made course of treatment aimed at returning you a pain-free daily life.

Physical therapy can relieve pain by increasing your strength, balance, posture, and flexibility. Helping you reach optimal movement health eases pain and improves your quality of life by allowing your body to work better, and disrupting any signals to your brain that something may be wrong. Depending on you, the nature of your chronic pain, how old you are, and your desired activity level, your treatment plan in Meacham Park, MO may include:

Guided Exercise

Exercise releases endorphins, your body’s natural, feel-good chemical messengers, which not only eases pain but eases related symptoms like stress and depression. A professional Meacham Park, MO physical therapist can help you perform exercises aimed at improving your mobility without causing more pain or injury. With guided exercise, your brain will come to understand that certain movements can be carried out without pain, rebuilding your brain’s trust in the rest of your body. Through guided exercise, we’ll be able to teach you safe exercises you can do on your own.

Manual Therapy and Soft Tissue Mobilization

Manual therapy incorporates therapeutic touch to promote healing and relaxation of the surrounding tissues. Your Meacham Park, MO physical therapist will use their hands to gently move your muscles and joints. Research demonstrates that manual therapy combined with guided exercise is more effective than either technique used by itself.

With instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilization, physical therapists use specially designed tools, like Graston®, instead of their hands, to smooth out tissue and identify degenerative tissue and soft tissue restrictions.

Dry Needling

Trigger point dry needling is a relatively new tool that increasingly more Meacham Park, MO physical therapists are incorporating into their treatment plans. It involves using thin, filiform needles to penetrate irritated soft tissue. In doing so, it encourages the body to start to heal itself and encourages the flow of nutrients to the affected area.

Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS)

TENS works by placing electrodes on the skin near where you are experiencing pain. It sends low-voltage electrical currents to release endorphins and awakens nerve cells that prevent your brain from receiving pain signals.

Patient Education

Understanding why you’re experiencing pain and how to deal with it in your daily life can do wonders for your chronic pain treatment in Meacham Park, MO. We’ll help you learn the best way to sit, stand, and move, in addition to healthy lifestyle suggestions like how to keep a healthy diet.

Other services we offer in Meacham Park, MO include:

Chronic Pain Treatment Meacham Park, MO | Physical Therapy | Pain Management Near Meacham Park

Call Axes Physical Therapy For Your Chronic Pain Treatment in Meacham Park, MO

At Axes Physical Therapy in Meacham Park, MO, our goals are simple: to deliver positive patient outcomes and help people get back to their best life. Whether you want to be able to hit a breakaway layup like you used to, or just want to carry the groceries in pain-free, speak to a physical therapist in Meacham Park, MO today or request an appointment online for lasting chronic pain treatment.