Low Back Pain/Sciatica
Lower back pain can have multiple different causes leading to different treatment routes. Sciatica, the tingling and numbness down your leg, is due to lower back dysfunction more often than not as well and can be solved with our treatment approach as well. The spinal nerve roots that exit off your spinal cord and make up the sciatic nerve can become irritated with inflammation in your lower back, decreased space where they exit your spine, or from being tensioned/stretched over prolonged periods of time. Our initial evaluation will consist of different tests to determine the root cause of your pain and help formulate a treatment plan.
Typically, we treat lower back pain with traction and myofasical release/cupping to the lower back prior to proper lower back strengthening, core strengthening, and stability work in all planes of motion.
Knee Pain
Knee pain has varying different causes whether it be ligament sprains, tendonitis, meniscus injuries, or muscular strains. Your evaluation and subjective history will help your Physical Therapist determine which of the above is the root cause of your pain.
Knee pain when relating to tendon injuries is treated with offloading that knee and gradually exposing that knee to varying degrees of difficulty strengthening exercises.
When it comes to ligament and/or meniscus injuries the emphasis of our treatment is placed on stabilizing that knee. This can be done from proper knee and hip strengthening, ankle/foot strengthening, and single leg stance stability training, it all depends on your goals! If your goal is to return to sport, especially with ligament injuries (ACL, MCL, LCL, PCL), our PT’s are educated and trained in return to sport protocols and how to ensure you are ready to go back to doing the things you want to!
Neck Pain
Neck pain oftentimes is due to poor posturing, decreased tolerance to prolonged positioning, and weakness of our neck muscles.
Treatment of neck pain will include gentle stretching/mobilization of your neck, traction when indicated, and myofascial release of neck musculature. Following that the emphasis of our program is to actually strengthen your neck! Most have never done so but can help vastly with stabilizing, and better preparing your neck for the demands of daily life, sports, etc.
Shoulder/Upper back Pain
Typically shoulder pain can be due to weakness and/or dysfunction in shoulder stability muscles causing referred pain with more dynamic motions.
We treat shoulder pain with a combination of shoulder, biceps, chest, and shoulder blade myofascial release depending on where the painful area is. Following that we work mainly on stability and strengthening of shoulder stabilizers like your rotator cuff, scapular muscles, and deltoids to ensure pain free mobility and exercising going forward. On top of this upper back mobility and postural strengthening/endurance can go a long way in helping not only upper back but shoulder pain.
Ankle Pain
The most common cause of ankle pain is ankle sprain(s). Other issues can present themselves in the forms of tendonitis of your calf musculature.
Treatment will include myofascial work to the calf including release and cupping techniques. Exercise when working with ankle sprains will include strengthening of the entire leg to create more stability in single leg stance and the demands of your sport. Once improving, a gentle return to plyometrics (jumping) to ensure proper return to sport/activity guidelines are being met. With tendonitis and strains of calf muscles it is treated with gradual exposure to increasing difficulty of calf strengthening exercises.
Plantar Fasciitis
Plantar fasciitis is a very common bottom of the foot pain that is typically felt in mornings more so. The plantar fascia is a band of tissue spanning from the bottom of the heel to the base of your toes. Much like muscles the plantar fascia can become weaker over time and some studies have looked into cases of it atrophying/degenerating much like muscles.
Plantar fascia is treated with myofascial release, scraping using tools, cupping to the calf, and mobility work. Following that we load the plantar fascia to strengthen the tissue and better prepare it to take the daily loads of walking, running, lifting, and playing sports. This is done with targeted exercises as well as barefoot strengthening. Barefoot strength training helps to strengthen the muscles of your feet and ankle and improve single leg stability. This can help with foot/ankle issues as well as issues up the chain in your knees, hips, and lower back.