If you’ve ever had to deal with pain, whether long-term or short-term, you know how much it can affect your day-to-day life. Many of our patients have come to us feeling frustrated because nothing seemed to work. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again — physical therapy works… as long as you find the right physical therapy clinic. At PMP Pain Center, we offer a lot of physical therapy treatments, and we understand that it can overwhelm some of our patients who aren’t familiar with all these techniques/modalities.
In this blog post, we’ll help you understand the programs we offer so you will know the right treatment for your condition or goal. Let’s start!
1. Manual Therapy
Manual therapy is one of the most popular physical therapy treatments that focuses on using the hands to treat muscle and joint issues. This technique is often performed to reduce stiffness, apply gentle pressure, and improve circulation. It is also often used to treat conditions like muscle strains, joint pain, arthritis, and back discomfort. While it may sound painful, manual therapy can actually be soothing as it helps relax tight muscles and ease any tension in the treatment areas.
2. Advanced Soft Tissue Release (ASTR)
ASTR is a manual therapy technique that focuses on addressing tight muscles, tendons, and fascia. It uses controlled pressure to break down scar tissue and release restricted soft tissues. It’s especially effective for conditions like muscle strains, tendonitis, and chronic pain. Aside from improved mobility, it also reduces pain and enhances flexibility so you can move more comfortably.
3. Electrotherapy
Electrotherapy uses controlled electrical currents to treat pain and promote healing. By using electrical impulses to the treatment areas, it stimulates muscles, nerves, and tissues to manage pain and treat conditions like tendinitis, bursitis, swelling, arthritis, and many more. At PMP Pain Center, we use the ACCU-O-MATIC Machine and the TENS device to provide the most effective electrotherapy treatment for our patients.
4. Shockwave Therapy
Instead of electrical currents, Shockwave Therapy uses sound waves to stimulate healing in injured or painful areas of the body. It is often used to treat conditions such as stress fractures, plantar fasciitis, golfer’s elbow, and patellar tendinopathy. Our physical therapists use this therapy to improve our patients’ recovery and improve mobility without the need for extremely invasive procedures.
5. Tecar Treatment
Tecar treatment is a therapy that uses non-ablative and non-invasive electrical currents to help your body heal faster. It works by improving blood flow, reducing swelling, and speeding up the recovery of muscles and joints. It’s great for conditions like muscle strains, joint pain, and arthritis. This treatment is often used for sports rehabilitation, but it is now being widely used to address a wider range of musculoskeletal conditions.
6. Dry Needling
Dry Needling is a treatment where thin needles are inserted into tight muscles to help relieve pain and tension. It targets specific “trigger points” in the muscles that can cause discomfort or stiffness. It might sound painful, but it’s actually virtually painless. This treatment is best used for treating shoulder and neck pain, tendinopathy, spinal problems, pelvic pain, and many more.
7. Trigenics
Trigenics is one of the most advanced physical therapy treatments that involves three techniques: muscle pressure, nerve stimulation, and breathing exercises. It targets the nervous system so that it retrains muscles and restores mobility and flexibility. Trigenics is usually performed to treat conditions like knee pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, disc bulges, and many more. Our licensed physical therapists perform this technique to restore joint mobility, reset resting tonicity, and reduce pain.
8. Laser Therapy
Our laser therapy uses low-level light energy to help treat different conditions. It works by targeting pain and inflammation and promoting faster healing in muscles, joints, and tissues. This non-invasive treatment is great for conditions like arthritis, muscle strains, and sports injuries. At PMP Pain Center, we use our BTL machine to perform this treatment.
9. Therapeutic Exercise
Therapeutic exercise is all about moving your body to help it heal and feel better. It’s made up of simple exercises that focus on strengthening muscles, improving flexibility, and helping you move more easily. Our licensed physical therapists will come up with an exercise plan tailored to our patient’s condition and goals. It also works best when combined with other physical therapy treatments.
10. Kinesiotaping
In Kinesiotaping, our physical therapists use a special elastic tape that is designed to support muscles and joints without limiting movement. You might have seen this being used by athletes, mostly in Volleyball. Taping also helps improve blood flow and relieve pain, which is why it’s often used for musculoskeletal injuries, lower back pain, arthritis, and more.
11. Spinal Manipulation
Spinal manipulation is a manual therapy technique that involves a licensed physical therapist applying controlled thrusts to your spine to ease tension, reduce stiffness, and also get rid of pain. Usually, this treatment is used for conditions like back pain, neck pain, and headaches. While it may be terrifying at first, you don’t have to worry as this treatment has been recognized as safe and effective, as long as it is performed by a qualified professional.
12. Cupping Therapy
If you’ve ever tried cupping therapy at a spa for relaxation purposes, this will be a familiar treatment for you. However, the difference is that therapeutic cupping focuses on healing and recovery rather than just relaxation. In this treatment, the cups are placed on your skin to create suction. That “suction” will then improve blood flow and promote healing in the targeted areas. Cupping therapy is mostly used for pain relief and muscle stiffness and tightness.
13. Muscle Blading Therapy
Muscle blading may look very painful at first, but it’s actually not if performed correctly. In this treatment, our therapist uses a smooth, flat tool to gently scrape over your skin. This process will then release tight muscles, improve blood flow, reduce pain, and promote healing. It is often used for stiff and sore muscles.
14. Percussive Myogun Therapy
Percussive myogun therapy uses a handheld device called a percussive gun. This vibrating device can deliver quick, gentle pulses to your muscles which then relaxes tight spots, improves blood flow, reduces soreness, and promotes healing. There are percussive guns or massage guns available in the market, but you have to know that it’s better to have professionals perform this therapy for you. While massage guns are handy, using them without proper knowledge can sometimes cause more harm than good, especially if you’re dealing with injuries or sensitive areas
15. Joint Mobilization
Another manual therapy technique, joint mobilization is performed to restore and improve overall joint function. In this treatment, our physical therapist will gently move and stretch your joints to restore flexibility and mobility and reduce pain if there’s any. It might feel uncomfortable at first, but once you get used to the movements, you’ll feel relief. This treatment is mostly used to treat acute and chronic back pain, wrist fractures, hip and knee osteoarthritis, and many more.
16. BTL Spinal Decompression Therapy
BTL Spinal Decompression Therapy is a gentle, non-invasive treatment that helps relieve back pain and pressure on the spine. Using our BTL machine, this therapy carefully stretches the spine to reduce tension on discs and nerves. This, in return, improves blood flow and promotes healing so you can move comfortably again. It is proven effective for conditions like sciatica, herniated discs, and chronic back pain.
Final Thoughts
There you have it! We hope you’ve had a better understanding of the treatments we currently offer. While we offer comprehensive treatment programs, we always try to educate our patients in the best way we can to help them understand what they really need. Don’t worry though, because when you visit one of our branches, our licensed physical therapist will perform an in-depth assessment to determine the best course of treatment for your condition.
If you want to learn more about our physical therapy treatments, please visit our Programs page. You’ll find all the information you need about every treatment we’ve discussed here. If you wish to book an appointment at a PMP Pain Center clinic near you, you can do so by going to our Branches page, selecting the branch of your choice, and clicking the appointment button. We look forward to seeing you soon!
