Physiotherapy for Chronic Pain

How HealthX Physiotherapists Help With Chronic Pain:

Our providers have advanced training and bountiful experience using specialized chronic pain physiotherapy treatment techniques such as IMS (Intramuscular Stimulation) and Shockwave Therapy.

Effective management of chronic pain requires a team of health providers working together to:

• Help you understand chronic pain
• Help you take back control and better manage your pain
• Improve your physical function and mobility
• Get you back to a better quality of life

The HealthX team is highly skilled at assessing how the pain affects your ability to move and will help find ways to get you moving again. Research shows physical activity is an important strategy to manage chronic pain. Your physiotherapist will work with you to set up a realistic program that is safe to perform.

What is Persistent/Chronic Pain?

• Chronic pain physiotherapy helps treat pain that has lasted beyond the expected period of healing (more than three to six months).
• Persistent/Chronic pain usually develops after a minor injury or illness. Instead of getting better over-time, the pain often increases, long after the initial injury or illness has healed.
• With Chronic pain, it becomes difficult to move, work, and enjoy a normal life. Chronic pain sufferers often become depressed and isolated and develop a sense of frustration and helplessness.
• It is estimated up to 15% of Canadians suffer from chronic pain.

What Causes Chronic Pain?

Chronic pain physiotherapy treatment is different from the physiotherapy treatment offered to relieve short-lasting acute pain that occurs after an injury. Treatments that normally work for acute pain do not often work for chronic pain. That is because the pain is no longer coming from the injured area but instead from how the brain and body sense pain.

In chronic pain, the body’s nerves and brain rewire themselves to become supersensitive to normal things like touch and movement. This makes simple everyday tasks like getting out of bed, walking, and sitting very painful. Emotional stimuli such as stress and anxiety increase the pain by producing chemicals that make the body and brain sensors even more sensitive.

Meet Your Therapists