Back Pain
Back pain is incredibly debilitating and colors every aspect of your life. You may find it challenging to complete your work duties and household chores. Even trying to rest at the end of the day and sleep at night may feel impossible.
Although the pain might feel like it’ll never go away, there is a solution: specialized back pain treatment in Flagstaff. Our physical therapists can use their skills and expertise to diagnose the cause of your pain, relieve your discomfort, and help you heal.
Causes of Back Pain
Everything from medical conditions to your lifestyle can leave you with mild to severe back pain. The most common causes include:
- Sprain
- Muscle strain
- Herniated disc
- Degenerative disc disease
- Fibromyalgia
- Pinched nerve
- Arthritis
Obesity, poor posture, and a lack of core strength can also contribute to the development of back pain. Improper lifting techniques can injure your muscle, ligaments, and tendons near your spine, especially when moving heavy items. Sometimes, the symptoms suddenly come on just from moving the wrong way.
Depending on the cause, the pain may affect any of the four areas of the spine: cervical, thoracic, lumber, sacrum, and coccyx. In severe cases, the pain may encompass your entire back from the top of your neck to the end of your tailbone.
Oftentimes, pain in one area of the back radiates to other areas or even into your limbs. If any nerves get pinched, you may also notice numbness, tingling, and burning in your arms and legs. It’s not uncommon for all your symptoms to worsen in a particular position and almost completely disappear in others.
When to Get Care
You should seek care for back pain as soon as it starts. The longer you wait, the longer you’ll have to live with the pain affecting every aspect of your life.
When the discomfort first starts, it’s referred to as acute pain. After four weeks, it moves into the subacute stage and then turns chronic after 12 weeks. By getting care at the acute stage, you can potentially halt the damage in its tracks with help from your physical therapist.
The care process begins with a thorough evaluation and diagnosis. From there, our physical therapists can create a comprehensive treatment plan designed to meet your needs. The plan will help manage your pain, promote healing, and improve your mobility and range of motion.
Back Pain Treatments
Our physical therapy treatments for back pain include:
- Gentle stretches
- Manual therapy
- Hot and cold therapy
- Therapeutic exercises
- Ultrasound pain management
The cause, location, and severity of your discomfort greatly influence which physical therapy treatments will help you recover. You will likely need to complete a combination of in-clinic treatments and at-home exercises. As you heal, certain therapies may get phased out or replaced with others to keep your healing progress going.
Call for Physical Therapy Services in Flagstaff, Arizona
If you’re dealing with pain in your back, it’s definitely time to reach out to our clinic for physical therapy services. Our therapists have extensive experience in diagnosing and treating acute to chronic back pain in people of all ages. We look forward to helping you live a pain-free life, so please get in touch at your convenience.
