In this video, we hear a physical therapist talk about ways that physical therapy can help back pain.  What's pretty interesting is that if you listen all the way through for the last thing he says.  Just four words from the end, he admits his own doubt.  Check it out:

In my own experience, I have a crooked spine caused by some muscle imbalances.  Which means I tilt to the left.  In and of itself, it shouldn't be painful.  Kind of like a guy who has short hamstrings because he never stretches them out.  They don't hurt, he just can't bend far.  So why would different flexibility in the right and left side of back muscles HURT?

Ok, back to the physical therapist.  After 6 weeks of "therapy", elbows digging into my back, working on the deep tissues, I was worse than I had ever been.  I went into physical therapy with a slight tilt and low to moderate pain levels.  By the end of my 6 weeks of treatment, I was truly in chronic pain.  I couldn't sit, I couldn't get up, I couldn't get in or out of a car without that "grabbing" pain.  The pain was always present in my mind.  I missed out on fun parts of my vacation because I couldn't even get into a taxi.  Yikes.

So what happened?  In my opinion, a minor problem was turned into a MAJOR problem by a negative thought pattern.  This feeling that I'm broken creates a downward spiral that – in my humble opinion – leads to chronic pain.  That's why someone with a very minor problem one day can be considered "chronic" months later.  All with no trauma.  The pervasive fear from being told by the "expert" doctors that they are broken and shouldn't do "this" or "that" leads to a continuation and worsening of pain. 

Fear prevails every waking moment.  Have you felt that your pain is a constant but unwelcomed companion?  That it's hard to think of anything else EXCEPT the pain?

In my experience, my physical therapist did nothing but feed that fear.  For an hour a day three times a week, I heard how "whacked out" my back was.  The day I fired my physical therapist and started convincing myself that I wasn't broken was the day that I started to feel better.

Tell me your experience with physical therapy?  Did it work?  How long did you go?  How much did you spend?     Tell me here.

Talk soon.

Dan