Have you suffered from what I call a WTF injury? Yes, you read right, WTF.

This is the kind of injury that occurs when you’re doing a normal daily task like rolling over in bed, sneezing, picking socks up of the floor, or reaching into the back seat to hand your kid a snack.

You’re probably wondering how I know that these things actually happen. Hi, my name is Dara and I am a physical therapist who specializes in helping parents in pain. In my practice, these type of injuries most oftent happen to parents between the ages 30-50 years old.

Does this sound like you?

Visiting your physical therapist following an injury

a physical therapist assessing and ankle injury

Let’s imagine for a second that you make a smart decision to see your physical therapist immediately after this injury happens. You want to address your problem right away before it gets any worse or causes more problems later on down the line.

During your first visit, your therapist is very welcoming and does a good job at listening to you and your concerns. They may even provide some type of “feel good” treatment to help you in your acute phase of pain. You end up leaving this appointment feeling like someone is in your corner, feeling better physically, and feeling confident that this was the right choice to make.

After this first visit, patients often start to wonder about what the next visit will bring. Will it feel as good? Will the therapist be as nice? Will I hurt afterwards? There’s a single answer to all of these questions - it depends.

The type of injury impacts your physical therapy plan of care

For starters, what your treatment looks like depends on what your injury looks like and what intervention is best for that specific situation. Something like a strained muscle may initially benefit from gentle manual massage, joint mobilizations, or stretching to calm down the aggravated tissues.

On a different end of the spectrum, chronic knee pain may require your physical therapist to perform more aggressive manual intervention and focus on intensive strength training.

What type of pain are you experiencing?

It’s important to keep in mind that you may or may not experience pain after PT, it’s the type of pain that’s important. If the initial pain symptoms that brought you into therapy are worsening, it is important to inform your physical therapists as soon as possible. This will help them to adjust your treatment plan to better suit your condition or may allow them to make the decision to send you to a specialist for more diagnostic testing.

If experiencing joint pain deep in the joint or instability in a certain area of the body or joints, these are also symptoms to notify your therapist of. It’s important you communicate these symptoms with your therapist so that they can modify your interventions to prevent worsening of these symptoms.

On the other end of the spectrum, if the “pain” you’re feeling is muscle soreness following your session, this is okay. This is most likely due to the fact that the right muscles are working and your body is working to build strength and stability. There is also a difference between muscle pain induced by strength training as compared to muscle soreness caused by aggressive manual work.

The importance of communicating with your physical therapist

Overall, it is important to understand that your experience in physical therapy may not necessarily be “pain free.” The type of pain that results from your treatment is what determines whether or not your pain is appropriate. Be honest with your physical therapist about how you are feeling immediately after the session and several days after so that they can tailor your interventions to your body’s needs.

By having this open line of communication with your physical therapist, your experience in physical therapy will become much less painful in the negative ways. It will allow us to better work together to get you back to doing the things you love. Things like giving piggyback rides and playing catch with your little leaguer are just around the corner for you.

If you’d like to check out the video associated with this blog post, click the link here or on the video below!