MVPT Patient Spotlight "Brooke"

A question I receive nearly daily both directly and indirectly is what makes Maximum Velocity PT different than any other physical therapy place.  The more times I answer that question the better I get at answering it: TIME.  Yes it comes down to time.  Do you have time to go anywhere 3 times a week you don’t enjoy or get paid for?…NO!  What about if you do break away and the person who is attending to your healthcare will only spend 10 min with you?  Was that worth your time?  Every now and again as a blog post I will post a patient spot light to highlight what we at MVPT are doing to protect your time.

Brooke is a made up name although she did encourage me to post her case.  “Brooke” reports to physical therapy for lower back pain.  Looking through her paperwork, I guessed this was an average case of lower back pain.  I guessed wrong.  Turns out she has had this episode of pain has been about 6 months and progressively is getting worse.  She has had other episodes of pain.  She cannot run due to pain and she hesitated when answering this question.  She mentioned the pain has come and gone throughout all three of her pregnancies.  Since she brought her pregnancies up it turns out on her 1st pregnancy she had an episiotomy.  That is the muscles of her pelvic floor were cut and they cut her pelvic floor after she tore.  No intervention for recovering from that trauma whatsoever.  Each successive pregnancy the tearing occurred.  Further review reveals much more problems a male PT and a female patient typically wouldn’t share.  Since I take the time to discuss during the exam and I am thorough we explored further and it turns out the pain comes with running but the urine loss is much more of a problem.  Not only is running embarrassing but inconvenient.  Running brings on the urine loss but so does laughing, jumping, and sneezing.  This is a 30 something year old fit woman who is severely limited by mostly pain but also the urinary issue.  She didn’t know they were related.  She followed all traditional routes.  The primary care sent her to OB/GYN.  He examines and says “sorry that’s what happens when you have 3 kids but the machinery looks good.  I don’t know what to tell you.”   GO TO PT IS THE ANSWER.  I would hope an OB/GYN has a women’s health PT in his/her pocket because it is an Incredibly important relationship for both of them to have.  So she was left to twist in the wind thinking she is broken and that is part of being a mom.  NOT TRUE.  I am no women’s health PT and I told Brooke that if my basic treatment doesn’t help that we would find her one.  Happy to report we didn’t need that referral. 

Brooke learned to control her pelvic floor in easy situations and the tasks became progressively more challenging.  Soon stability exercises for her hips, back, and pelvic floor allowed for full pain-free motion. What she interpreted as pain before was weakness or instability of her back.  Her lower back, hip, and pelvic floor muscles were not working together.  As a result, her laughing, sneezing, jumping, and running are all pain-free, as well as, no urine loss with each position as well.  She beams when she talks about how good she feels.  All I did was listen and spend time with her.  What is the best part?  She is fully functional with no pain or trouble in 3 visits.  She came once a week for 3 weeks.  She did her homework, applied new concepts for moving around in her daily life, and she is fully functional.  She reported to PT with “a running problem” and left with confidence and dignity while running with no issues.

So what is different at MVPT?  We offer performance improvement through education by taking the time to actually listen to the person who is sitting on the table.  Attention to details during a thorough evaluation, follow up visits that progress from visit to visit in order to develop a movement pattern that feels better and therefore will perform better.  Feel free to look around my website.  Find the button that allows you to “request an appointment.”  MaxvelocityPT.com.  Please feel free to share this post as word of mouth is the best marketing strategy.  Happy Running!