Follow these steps on how to deal with pain
New research released yesterday indicated how many Brits are suffering in silence when it comes to pain, rather than turning to qualified medical professionals for help.
If you are one of the 30 million Brits ignoring pain, Simon Cabot, Clinical Lead physiotherapist at Nuffield Health in Canary Wharf, outlines the role of a physiotherapist to help you get back on track following an injury -
1) Reassurance- firstly, you might have an idea of what is causing the pain but you need to be reassured about how best it can be managed. Our job is to answer any questions you have and put any concerns at ease.
2) Repair- You will need to know what treatment can be best used to help speed up your healing process, which can, of course, vary significantly depending on the person and the cause. This may include different exercises and manual therapy, including acupuncture, myofascial release and deep tissue massage.
3) Recuperation – The next crucial stage is to outline what can be done to help settle the ‘acute pain’ phase. This might involve rest, prescribed medication, the use of heat/cold packs, stretches, other rehab exercises as well as additional wellbeing advice.
4) Recovery – During the later stages, it’s a good opportunity for you to make the gentle return to activities, which may be directly and indirectly related to their injury. It’s important that this is slow, graduated process. For example, recuperative exercises such as yoga or gentle swimming can be a great low impact exercise to get you back to full fitness.
5) Resilience – So you’ve recovered, but what next? This final stage takes you through the advice and exercises that can be incorporated in your workouts, both inside in the gym and at home so that the pain and injury is less likely to return in the future.
It’s crucial for you to understand when the right time is to turn to professional help. If you are ever in doubt, book an appointment with your GP, but as a general rule, we would recommend that pain should begin to heal around two to four weeks after the initial occurrence and during this period anti-inflammatory pain killers may be appropriate. However, if the pain doesn’t improve or indeed worsens, then seeking professional help with a physiotherapist, for example, is recommended.
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