Physical Therapy Exercises For Fibromyalgia: Yes, You Can Definitely Exercise!
Introduction to fibromyalgia
Fibromyalgia is a kind of disorder which is characterized when a person has musculoskeletal pain with some other symptoms including mood swings, memory loss, fatigue and lethargy, and insomnia.
Fibromyalgia is the second most common condition which affects our bones and muscles.
This disease is often misdiagnosed and even misunderstood. The most common symptom of this disease is fatigue, muscle pain, and joint pain.
Although, there is no definite cure of fibromyalgia, a combination of medicines, exercising, a healthy way to manage stress, and good healthy eating habits may eradicate these symptoms assuring you can lead a normal life.
The real cause of fibromyalgia are not exactly known but doctors suggest that it is a problem with how the brain and the spinal cord process pain signals from our nerves.
Fibromyalgia is common among women and who have mood disorders for instance anxiety problems and depression.
If people in your family have fibromyalgia you are more likely to get this disease and it is also common among people who rarely exercise or were emotionally abused.
What is meant by physical therapy?
Physical therapy means the treatment and healing of physical injuries and disabilities.
A regular physical therapy session is the best way to control the disease fibromyalgia as it makes you focus more on the lifestyle changes instead of the pain and illness.
Your doctor who is responsible for your physical therapy will help you to keep a proper posture which will make your muscles to function properly and reduce the stiffness in your muscles. This will give huge relief to the pain in your muscles as well.
Your physical therapist may make you slow stretching exercising which will improve the flexibility of your muscles.
Other kinds of exercises include muscles relaxation exercise which will reduce the tension in your muscles.
Proper exercising by your physical therapist might make it easier and possible to overcome this illness quickly.
How would a physical therapist help in treating fibromyalgia?
A physical therapist is capable of treating fibromyalgia as he/she must have had a great background in the study of a movement known as anatomy and kinesiology.
Your physical therapist will then create stretching and strength related programs in order to meet all your needs individually.
A physical therapist works with all types of patients of all ages, from infants to adults.
They even provide health-related services to improve mobility, give relief to pain, and to limit disabilities.
A physical therapist working with his patient will make sure to restore the fitness and health of his patient in order to provide a full recovery.
How can physical therapy help to cure pains associated with fibromyalgia?
Although, there is no evident cure for treating fibromyalgia it is known that physical therapy might help to ease the pain associated with this disease.
Physical therapy also helps to reduce stiffness in the muscles and weakness and fatigue.
Apart from exercise, a physical therapist might use other resources to treat fibromyalgia such as a deep tissue massage or else by doing ice and hot packs for the purpose of hydrotherapy.
With the help of these techniques, physical therapists help to reduce the pains associated with fibromyalgia and help to move the joints through some exercises.
The benefits of physical therapy exercises
One of the main benefits of physical exercises is that it makes a person suffering from fibromyalgia more prone toward working closely with a specialist physical therapist and go through a specific training program.
A good physical therapist undergoes this process of treating you and keeps a check on you if you are following good therapy habits and if you are properly doing your homework regarding exercises at home.
The purpose of physical therapy is to learn the kind of treatments and exercises that will give you relief from this illness and do them daily or when needed at your home.
What is the reason that a physical therapist uses hydrotherapy?
Hydrotherapy is done by the use of a hot and cold ice pack. These hot and cold ice packs stimulate the healing powers in your body and make the healing process to be quick.
For example, if you apply cold packs they will reduce the swelling by contracting your blood vessels.
On the other hand, warm compresses done on painful areas dilates the blood vessels which hereby increases the flow of blood, oxygen and other vital nutrients and removes the toxins quickly from your blood.
Hydrotherapy is a good option for the relief of many kinds of pains and not just fibromyalgia.
If ever you get a sprain or a strain, cold compresses may reduce this kind of pain. Heat compresses gives relief to chronic pains or joint pains.
In order to do the hot compresses, you will need a heating pad, a wet towel or a hydrocollator pack.
Another way is to sit down in the tub or on a stool and let the hot water hit all the painful areas of your body. This will be very effective in giving relief to all the painful areas of the body.
A physical therapist might recommend you to use moist heat for a while before and after performing your aerobic exercise.
This will make your exercise to be more effective and less painful. Using a moist heating pad twice a day for fifteen to twenty minutes may increase the chances of reducing the pains associated with fibromyalgia.
Not everyone prefers to do the hot compress, some people prefer to do the cold compress to get relief from pains.
Some other tools which a physical therapist uses to treat fibromyalgia
Your physical therapist might use a variety of tools for fibromyalgia patients. Some of the tools which a physical therapist uses include:
- A deep tissue massage
- Water aerobics, aerobic conditioning
- Exercises for pain relief
- Strengthening and stretching exercises
- Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation or TENS units
- An ultrasound
It is not necessary that a physical therapist might make use of all of these techniques in order to treat fibromyalgia.
He might use one of them or even all of them depending on the severity of the condition or the intensity of the pain.
How can you find a licensed physical therapist?
When looking for a physical therapist it is very pertinent to first find out if your health care insurance covers these visits so you can plan out your visits and your costs.
The next thing which you need to find out is for someone who is professional, is trained and has the license to be a physical therapist.
You should also consider finding a physical therapist who has had prior experience in treating patients with fibromyalgia.
When looking for a professional physical therapist, you should talk with your friends and family members if they can help you find someone who is capable enough of dealing with the situation with care and expertise.
There are many places where you can find physical therapists for instance:
- Doctor’s offices
- In schools
- Outpatient clinics
- Hospitals
- Health agencies
- Nursing homes
- In fitness gyms
You can easily find physical therapists in these places. Make sure to find an experienced physical therapist who has the expertise to deal with fibromyalgia patients.
Fibromyalgia and exercise, of course, you can do it
Exercise is known to be beneficial and relief to fibromyalgia. It might not be too easy in the starting but it is worth trying to exercise to get relief from the pain.
It is not easy to pluck up the courage to exercise while having fibromyalgia but if you take up your doctor’s advice and start aerobics it will be very beneficial for you.
Medication, education and exercise, all these factors play a great role in managing fibromyalgia.
With time, exercise reduces pain and tenderness with pain so it is very important to exercise along with this disease.
Expert physical therapists say that they start the exercise regime slowly in the beginning and once the symptoms of fatigue and pain and under control, the pace is gradually increased.
The first step taken by physical therapists is to assess the current situation of the patient after which they can recommend start exercising.
Firstly, they check the level and stamina of the patient and try to improve their stamina.
Initially, only 20 to 30 minutes of exercising are done and that too twice a week. Once the patient is quite set and has gained pace, the exercising span is increased.
Physical therapists not only make the patients exercise but they also encourage them and make them confident enough to set goals and fight with this disease.
Water aerobics, a great way to fight fibromyalgia
For people having fibromyalgia, water aerobics is the best way to get relief. Expert physical therapists say and believe that doing water aerobics is fun and people with fibromyalgia enjoy doing it.
Research conducted about water aerobics reached to the conclusion that water aerobics improved the health and life of women having fibromyalgia and it is recommended for women to start doing water aerobics.
Water aerobics start from warm water pools in to which people need to get a warm soak in water for quite some time.
Water aerobics is done in groups so it is a great social activity as well where people can make new friends, interact with new people, get more ideas and even get motivation about fibromyalgia from them.
Meeting new people on this platform can even mean that people can share different experiences about their fibromyalgia condition and this can help a lot of people.
It is said that people who have fibromyalgia go into depression and become isolated and aloof from everyone so this is the best way to get started and it can be extremely beneficial as well.
Some other exercises to fight away fibromyalgia
It is not necessary that everyone has a pool in to which they can do the water aerobics.
There are other kinds of exercises as well such as walking, cycling, biking and other exercises which serve similar benefits such as those of water aerobics to a person having fibromyalgia.
Researchers believe that exercising strengthens the mind and makes the patient strong enough to combat this painful disease.
Exercising can divert the mind of the patient and make them more prone and concentrated towards it and they will be quite focused as well.
Exercising is not the complete solution to get relief from fibromyalgia but it is sure to provide some benefit to fight the pains associated with this disease so it is greatly advised by experts and doctors to follow the exercising pattern so you can get some relief from this problem.
The best way to fight fibromyalgia
Doctors have led to this discovery that exercising is one of the main things known to fight fibromyalgia and its symptoms.
The real problem is that when a person is in so much pain, he or she cannot possibly think of doing exercise let alone perform it.
With the strong effects of fibromyalgia, some of the patients revealed that they had to continuously rest.
They mentioned that they might be having had about a million pain creams which they would keep on using in hope for the pain to subside.
The real problem that has not led to any solution regarding the diagnose of fibromyalgia is that the medical community does not know about it at all so there is a lot of error and trial in it. There are medicines that are available for this disease, but you cannot be sure that they will work or not.
A lot of patients who suffered from fibromyalgia used to take painkillers got rid of the pains associated with this disease but it is also true that these medicines have terrible side effects and that they are not preferred unless there is some real emergency.
It’s so true that fibromyalgia is often misunderstood. A friend of mine has it. However, I’m not sure if she’s aware that she can still exercise. She’ll appreciate learning that and will probably want to consult with a physical therapist before trying to exercise.