FAQS
You may be wondering...
WHAT ARE COMMON CONDITIONS TREATED BY DOCTORS WHO SPECIALIZE IN SPORTS MEDICINE?
Because of the strenuous and high demand stressors athletes endure on their bodies, a wide variety of injuries can occur. This includes broken bones, dislocations, disc injuries, ligament tears, sprains/strains, and neuropathies. Both doctors specializing in sports medicine allows them to look at these injuries in a return to play mindset. This helps the athlete to get back to play much quicker, learning how to strengthen the injured areas and prevent injuries from happening again.
WHAT IS INVOLVED IN A TREATMENT PLAN FOR BACK PAIN RELIEF?
When a patient first comes in for back pain our first goal is to evaluate the injury. We want to know what exactly is causing the pain because once we deduce the cause of the injury, we can refer to the biomechanics that caused the injury and therefore can reverse engineer them. Following the diagnosis, phase one is to get the patient out of pain. Once we have achieved that we begin to strengthen the tissues surrounding the injured area showing you how to correctly access these muscles. In our third phase we begin to incorporate the activities you love to do to continue strengthening your injury and preventing the injury from reoccurring.
CAN MY BAD POSTURE BE AFFECTING MY NECK?
Posture has been the talk of the industry. As jobs have evolved to mainly sitting at desks, that has caused some physical side effects. However, attacking posture first is not our main approach. First, we have to get you out of pain or the muscles we need to be on and active for good posture are not accessible. In the meantime, we do give you cues and ways to protect your neck helping your posture. After getting you out of pain we work with you to add strength which in turn improves your posture!
CAN MY HEADACHE BE COMING FROM MY NECK?
Absolutely. There are many little structures in your neck that can affect the nerves that refer pain up and down the spine. Many neck injuries will send referred pain up causing headaches or down to the inside border of the scapula causing discomfort. This is very common. For short term relief, lying on your back with your knees bent on a hard surface with an ice pack under a supported neck is beneficial to manage the symptoms. For long-term relief, please make an appointment. Our team will help you diagnose your neck pain and help gain strength to prevent the injury from reoccurring once it is healed.
WHAT IF I DON'T WANT MY NECK "CRACKED"?
Some patients prefer to not get their neck adjusted which is completely fine. There are many other methods to achieve the same goal. Not every injury requires a cervical manipulation. The goal of a manipulation is to increase the motion in a joint. Some injuries occur because there is too much motion in a joint so a cervical manipulation would not be the chosen treatment. If a manipulation is suggested the doctor will discuss the course of treatment with you and proceed only once you are comfortable. A patient is completely in charge of his/her treatment and the entire treatment experience should ease, not cause you pain or anxiety.
CAN YOU REHAB A POST-SURGICAL SHOULDER?
Yes. We work very closely with surgeons, pain management specialists, and orthopedists to co-manage patients. If a shoulder does end up as a surgical case we will help you in your pre- and postsurgical treatment. Adding stability to the shoulder joint, strength to the muscles around the shoulder, and keeping the rest of your joints moving to progress treatment are all things we focus on.
MY CHILD IS EXPERIENCING SHOULDER PAIN, DO YOU WORK WITH CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS/TEENAGERS?
We work with patients of all ages. Whether your child is having shoulder pain related to a sport specific injury or not, we can help them. Often we will see children who are training in overhead sports including football, baseball, basketball, dance or gymnastics. Regardless of the cause, we treat patients of all ages with shoulder pain. Children and adolescents get different injuries than adults and it is important that the treating physician understands this and looks for these specific and unique injuries.
I HAVE CHRONICALLY TIGHT HIP FLEXORS, WHAT CAN YOU DO?
The first question we ask ourselves is why you chronically have tight hip flexors. If the issue is simply a tight muscle, stretching the muscle out and doing soft tissue work may completely alleviate the symptoms. However, if the symptoms continue, we’ll ask why does this condition keep coming back? Differentiating if the symptoms are mechanical or anatomical is step one. Does the way you move keep causing the hip flexor tightness or is it tightness or a restriction from another body part that is causing the pain? These questions are necessary to diagnose and then stop a chronic condition.
WHEN I WORKOUT MY KNEES HIT EACH OTHER, WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?
In many workout classes you will hear trainers or instructors give the que to push the knee out so it isn’t crossing the midline. This position is termed a valgus collapse, and research shows us this is the position which causes many injuries to occur. The valgus collapse does not stem from this knee. Our job is to find out what is causing the collapse, and fix it. Although this is common in athletes and people, this is not normal. Many rehabilitation tools we teach are geared towards getting you to move in a stable and neutral position not putting you at risk for an injury, including knee injuries caused by valgus collapse.
DO I NEED TO LIVE WITH THE PAIN CAUSED BY CHRONIC PLANTAR FASCIITIS?
NO. No one should chronically live in pain because they think there is no other option. If someone is consistently feeling tightness or pain on the bottom of their foot or feet there are many things we can do to address this. First we must find out why there is repetitive tightness and pain and get you out of that pain. Then we move onto phase two where we begin to build strength and prevent resistance in the structures of the foot, ankle, and surround musculature.
ANOTHER DOCTOR TOLD ME I HAVE TENDONITIS BUT IT HAS BEEN A MONTH AND IT IS NOT FEELING ANY BETTER, HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE?
A lot of times with a true tendonitis taking time off from certain activities is unfortunately not enough to help the affected area heal. Daily life activities that can continue to irritate the tendon slowing down the healing process. Finding ways to support the elbow ,to take pressure off the injured tendon, and keep the area as pain free as possible throughout the day and night is especially important. Doing therapies to take pressure off the injury then allows the tendon to heal without mechanical stress.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REHABILITATION AND PHYSICAL THERAPY?
Rehabilitation and physical therapy share common characteristics and have similar goals. The two practices are branches of strengthening, but have different focuses. Rehabilitation and physical therapy both strengthen parts of your body but physical therapy is more specific. For example, if you come in with a moderate ankle sprain, we will spend time doing more of physical therapy modalities (ultrasound, massage, cupping etc…) on your ankle. The process of alleviating the pain, swelling, and bruising and then transitioning into ankle specific exercises would all fall under rehabilitation. Once we get your ankle feeling substantially better and exhibiting increased strength we start with a more functional rehabilitation process. This could be getting you back to running, yoga, hiking, standing at work, or whatever your functional goal may be.
HOW DO I KNOW IF I HAVE A CONCUSSION?
You may not know you have a concussion until you are evaluated by a medical professional. During an evaluation a series of questions and tests are performed to determine the diagnosis. If a concussion is in fact established then we would go through a proper educational session so you have a full understanding of what happened. Next your treatment plan would be discussed as well as your return to activity protocol.
IS A STANDING DESK BETTER FOR YOU?
Many people think that standing instead of sitting will take all their “work related” pain away. The thing is sitting is not bad for you when done correctly, just like standing is not good for you if done incorrectly. Our bodies become fatigued in both positions, so building the strength to sustain the position and changing when we are tired is important. NASA released a recent study that showed our neurological system resets after changing positions for 20 minutes. So sitting correctly until you feel fatigued and then standing for about 20 minutes is beneficial. Having a desk that changes positons is optimal ergonomics.
SHOULD ALL SOFT TISSUE BE DEEP AND PAINFUL? MORE PAIN MORE GAIN… NO?
The soft tissue massage we practice often depends on the injury itself. When a patient comes in with an acute injury and in pain our goal is to get them out of pain. The objective with our gentle soft tissue massage is to start calming down the affected tissue and take the load off the injured structures. Our goal is not to irritate the tissue. Generally, we have found that adding more pain with deep soft tissue to an aggravated area does not have the calming effect we are looking for and slows down healing.