Looking For Physical Therapy In St. Louis?
If you're looking for physical therapy in St. Louis, there are an abundance of physical therapy providers. The choice can be overwhelming!
How To Choose A Physical Therapist
The question you need to ask yourself to find the BEST physical therapy provider in St. Louis for you is, "What outcome do I want from going to physical therapy?"
Don't Just Go To The Closes Physical Therapy Office Near You
A lot of people get a prescription for physical therapy from their doctor, they call the closest clinic to them, and make an appointment.
It's just physical therapy right? Won't the doctor tell the physical therapist what my problem is and what treatments I should have?
So the patient arrives at their first appointment, and the physical therapist asks, "So Mrs. Smith, what brings you in today?" And Mrs. Smith thinks for a minute and responds, "Well, Dr. Jones sent me. Didn't he tell you what to do on the prescription?" The physical therapist looks down at the prescription and sees written, "Back pain. Physical Therapy. Evaluate and treat."
This essentially means the physical therapist has discretion to decide how to best treat you.
So make sure that you find the physical therapist that's best able to help you get the outcome you want from your physical therapy.
So, let's look at what occurred in this VERY COMMON situation. Mrs. Smith arrived at physical therapy UNCERTAIN OF WHAT SHE WANTED TO GET OUT OF IT, and believing that Dr. Jones would tell the physical therapist everything to do. And the sad truth is, Mrs. Smith will likely get EXACTLY the outcome she wanted... UNCERTAINTY.
So the physical therapist goes on to give Mrs. Smith some common physical therapy exercises that are used to treat back pain. They help a little bit, but the pain never goes away completely.
Eventually Mrs. Smith either hits a plateau, runs out of visits covered by her insurance, or gets tired of doing silly exercises that aren't really helping anymore.
Soon enough, she stops going to physical therapy and the pain goes back to the way it was before she started physical therapy... or sometimes even worse!
The moral of the story... DON'T BE LIKE MRS. SMITH!
Get Specialist Physical Therapy In St. Louis
A Specialist Physical Therapist Can Help You Get The Most Out Of Your Treatment
If you just want a few physical therapy sessions because your doctor said so and don't care about getting a certain outcome, then by all means, go to any physical therapist and you'll get exactly that.
But, chances are more than likely that SOMETHING SPECIFIC caused you to go to the doctor in the first place. A lot of times that is a symptom of pain. Most people can tolerate a little bit of pain though.
However, when the pain starts to interfere with the things you need or want do, or you start to worry about not understanding what is wrong, losing your independence, or possibly facing surgery, then it becomes a problem.
Then, you take action to do something about it... such as go to the doctor or go see a physical therapist.
Furthermore, the pain is just the symptom, and if you only treat the symptom and don't address the CAUSE of the pain, then just like Mrs. Smith, the pain will eventually come back!
So if you want a successful outcome from physical therapy that is more than just temporary, the question to ask yourself is:
"What is the Number 1 Thing that I want to get out of going to physical therapy?"
If you don't have a definite goal in mind, then how in the world can your physical therapist help you to achieve it? It's like giving a St. Louis Blues player a hockey puck but not telling him which goal he needs to shoot at in order to score!
Not all physical therapy is the same
The most common experience in physical therapy is to get a bunch of exercises, maybe a 10-20 minutes of hands on treatment at most, and maybe some heat, ice, ultrasound, or electrical stimulation.
The rest of the time, you either do exercises on your own, or work with a technician who may have either a high school or college degree, but no formal training in physical therapy.
Your physical therapist will often treat 2-3 (or sometimes even 4!) patients at a time and bounce back and forth between them.
Often the exercises you get are general exercises that people get for back pain, or knee pain, or neck pain. And where did the physical therapist get those exercises?
Often, its not from doing an in-depth evaluation and daily re-evaluation of your symptoms, but rather they replicate what the physical therapist they learned from did. And that person replicated the therapist before them... and that person the therapist before them... and so on, without anyone ever taking the time to sit down and as "WHY?"
Now if you want general exercises for a general problem, then general run-of-the-mill physical therapy, will probably work just fine for you.
However, if you want a solution to YOUR specific problem based of YOUR unique needs, goals, and values, then you need a physical therapist who will take the time (more than 10-20 minutes) to LISTEN and find out what concerns you the most and what you hope to get out of coming to physical therapy. And that's exactly what we do at More 4 Life!
So ask yourself again:
"What is the Number 1 Thing that I want to get out of going to physical therapy?"
...and let us know:
Use this form to tell us WHO you are (your first name), WHERE your symptoms are, WHAT concerns you most, WHY you are considering having physical therapy (Your Number 1 Thing that you hope to get out of coming to physical therapy), and HOW we can get in touch with you to help you decide if More 4 Life is the BEST choice for you.
We look forward to hearing from you and helping you work toward YOUR goal, whatever it is, to help you move better, feel better, sleep better, and live a happier, healthier, less painful life!
About Dr. Dave Candy, PT, DPT, OCS, ATC, CMTPT, FAAOMPT
Owner of More 4 Life
Board-Certified Specialist In Orthopaedic Physical Therapy
Fellowship-Trained Orthopaedic Manual Physical Therapist
Dr. Dave Candy is St. Louis’s leading expert in helping women age 40 and above gain control over nagging aches & pains and improve their health, energy, & quality of life. Dr. Candy has been a physical therapist since 2008, and shortly after starting into practice, he realized that there was a group of “complex patients” that failed to find pain relief despite having other treatments including pain medications, chiropractic, massage therapy, traditional physical therapy, injections, or even surgery. Dr. Candy sought out on a mission to learn more about how to offer help to these “complex" patients even after they have been unable to find pain relief from other treatments. From 2010-2012 Dr. Candy completed a 2 ½ year fellowship in orthopaedic manual physical therapy, and then in 2015 he further continued his education gaining certification in dry needling. During this same time, Dr. Candy did a lot of independent study to learn more about the science of pain and why we feel things the way we do. Through this process, Dr. Candy became increasingly frustrated with the direction of the healthcare system in our country in that it encourages medical providers to spend less time with their patients and just treat the immediate symptoms rather than taking the time to find out the root cause of patients’ problems. Dr. Candy now uses not just "physical" therapy, but rather, he takes a unique whole-person approach to treating pain that takes into account each patient’s specific needs, goals, and values. He takes time to truly listen and analyze the problem in order to determine the root cause of the pain so that he can help his patients improve their health, energy level, and quality of life.
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