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Five years ago, when someone sprained their ankle, what did everyone tell them to do? RICE! Rest, ice, compression, and elevation!  Some of the ideas behind the old acronym for acute injuries remain the same, but RICE was often taken too far. Individuals hindered their recovery by resting the injured body part too long. Because of this, RICE has been replaced by a new acronym, POLICE:  P: Protect the injured joint, ligament, or muscle – this means resting the area for a few days, and then after that, when you do start moving the area, continuing to protect it (for an ankle sprain, this might look like using crutches).  OL: Optimal Loading – while still in the protection phase but after a few days of rest, you should start gently moving the joint, first passively, then actively, and finally with exercises. In the past, injuries often lead to lots of muscle atrophy and stiffness; this optimal loading focuses on beginning to move and strengthen the muscle at the appropriate time rather than getting stuck in the “rest” phase as the muscle continues to weaken and the joint stiffens up.  I: Ice can help temporarily decrease the swelling around your injury. The inflammation is one of the contributors to the pain you feel around your injury, so icing for 20 minute increments can help manage your pain.  C: Compression can also help with swelling. Think: ACE bandage, compression sock, etc. E: Elevation: Placing the injured body part up is another means of reducing swelling and inflammation. If your ankle is injured, try lying down and placing your ankle/leg on a stack of pillows. The main difference is that “rest” has been replaced with “protection” and “optimal loading”. Protecting the injured area and getting a few days of rest is important, but it is also essential to begin moving the area and progressively loading it as your body heals, for optimal recovery. If you’ve just experienced a strain or sprain, whether mild or severe, and have questions on how to handle it, feel free to call and ask for one of our experienced physical therapists! They will be able to give you guidance to help you recover as quickly (and fully) as possible: 616-662-0990.  By: Lisa Pfotenhauer, C-EP
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 When people complain of heel and foot pain, one of the most common terms tossed around is “Plantar Fasciitis”. Exactly what is Plantar Fasciitis? It is inflammation of the plantar fascia, or in layman’s terms, inflammation of the thick band of tissue that connects the heel bone to the toes. It is responsible for supporting the arch of your foot.  It presents itself as a sharp pain in the bottom of the foot. It is usually around the heel or just in front of the heel bone. The pain is usually worse when you first get out of bed or get up after sitting for a long time. In addition, being on your feet for long periods of time usually exacerbates the pain. Discoloration and significant visible swelling do not usually occur. It is, however, tender to the touch.  What is the best treatment for Plantar Fasciitis? Common sense says if it hurts, don’t use it. This is impossible, since we all need to walk! I recommend three basic steps to begin the healing process. First, always wear shoes, even around the house. It is important to wear shoes with good arch support. A quality tennis shoe works well. This will take some of the pressure off the plantar fascia. Going barefoot usually increases pain due to the lack of support.  Second, stretch your calves. One of my favorite stretches is to create an incline that you can comfortably stand on for 1-2 minutes at a time. By making the calves more flexible, some of the pressure is taken off the plantar fascia.  Third, ice the painful areas of your feet. This helps take some of the inflammation and, in turn, pain out of the foot (since inflammation is contributing much of the pain). My favorite way to ice is to freeze a water bottle and roll it on the bottom of the foot over the painful area. This not only ices the area but massages it as well. Plantar Fasciitis treatment is usually pretty straight forward but requires time and patience. Two things are important to remember: First, “no pain no gain” is not a good approach. You want to keep your treatment pain to a minimum while still making strides to stretch the area when pain is minimal. Second, try to catch it early! If you can catch it before it gets bad, it is much easier to treat. Give it a month or so of supportive shoes, resting, and stretching, and it should improve. If not, it is time to see your local physical therapist to try some more exercises and treatment options.  By: Brian Colvin, PT Exercising is not only for losing unwanted weight; it has many health benefits that are important to everyday life. A lot of people have the idea that they don’t have enough time in the day for working out with housework, families, jobs, social life, etc. and while that is partially true there are a lot of ways you can work out without even knowing you’re doing it or setting time aside for it.  Tips for exercising throughout the day:
 While at first these may seem like unreasonable steps to do, if you incorporate them into your daily routine it will feel normal and eventually you will start to not even think twice about it like brushing your teeth, taking a shower, etc. Now why should we do this? Why is it important to get that exercise in and work on good habits? Studies have shown exercising and movement can reduce diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and many more. Exercise helps with sleep and feeling more rested while increasing your energy level! Mental health is a big plus with working out, getting more active can help you feel better and help accomplish your goals.  By: Rebecca Popma Whether minor or major, muscular imbalances from your left side to your right side are common. For example, if you are right handed, you may be stronger in your right arm and shoulder muscles. When people are stronger in one side, they tend to reinforce this strength by using that side more (because it’s more efficient). They may also become stiff and have inadequate range of motion on one side more than the other. An imbalance can eventually lead to pain and dysfunction in your body.  Performing unilateral exercises (movements that put stress on right or left side), can help correct asymmetries, by putting equal stress on both sides independently (so you can’t “cheat” and bear the load on your dominant or stronger side). Unilateral exercises isolate one side, and engage your core uniquely as your body is challenged to balance. Here are a few unilateral exercises for your upper and lower body you can incorporate into your exercise routine. 1. Reverse Lunges: Take a big step backward with your right leg and lower yourself (slow and controlled) until your knee is a couple inches off the ground (or more, if this is difficult). Make sure you have a chair or wall nearby for balance if needed! Do 10x on the right side, then 10 on the left. Repeat.  2. Unilateral Half-Kneeling Overhead Press: Kneeling with your left knee out in front of you, and a dumbbell or kettlebell in your right hand, perform an overhead press. Do 10x with hand in your right hand, then switch (so right knee is out in front, and weight is in left hand). Repeat.  3. Single Leg Romanian Deadlift: Balancing on your left leg, hinge forward at your hips until you feel a good stretch in your left hamstring or until you’re parallel with the ground. Keep your core tight so that you don’t hunch forward in your back. Your left foot should be grounded, and your left knee should not be locked.  Unilateral training is great for muscular asymmetries, core strength, and balance training. Let us know if you have any questions or are dealing with any pain in your exercise routine! 616-662-0990  By: Lisa Pfotenhauer, C-EP Your neck is made up of 7 vertebrae at the top of your spine, and surrounded many muscles and tendons that control the head movements and support your neck and head. Unfortunately, neck pain is pretty common. Here are some of the most common causes, and how to handle them if you experience neck pain: 1. Poor posture – Less-then-ideal posture can put stress on your neck, and can even cause headaches. The force of gravity and the weight of your head when it’s out in front of your torso is much greater than when it’s aligned with the rest of your body, causing a strain on your neck. If you suspect too much slouching at your work computer, driving, or phone time may be causing your neck pain, check out these blogs on posture tips for driving, and posture tips for at your desk! If you need some guidance on fixing your posture, we have lots of exercises and stretches we recommend! Give us a call.  2. Acute muscle strain – Maybe you were playing a sport, or slept funny, got whiplash in your car, or just turned your neck in an unusual way, and now you’re feeling the pain every time you turn your head. Don’t fret, this is not uncommon and usually goes away within a couple days. Do: ice to calm the pain, take ibuprofen if needed, rest, gently stretch your neck as tolerable, and see your physical therapist or doctor if the pain has not subsided within a week.  3. Herniated or degenerative disc, osteoarthritis, or a pinched nerve – These are a few of the more common serious neck injuries. Fortunately, they can often be effectively treated with physical therapy. If your neck pain has been going on a long time, or is very sharp, we would recommend starting with physical therapy. Physical therapy is very effective for creating the stability and mobility your body needs to alleviate pressure that may be on your disc(s) or nerve. If it appears you may need surgery or another route, our physical therapists will help direct you and find the route that you need for your neck pain.  Neck pain can be very debilitating, and our goal is always to help you take control of your care and be able to do the things you love, pain-free. If your pain has been going on a while or is severe, don’t hesitate to give us a call. We can get you set up with one of our licensed physical therapists within 24 hours: 616-662-0990. Sources: “Cervical Pain,” William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP, FACR, 2019, medicinenet.com “Neck Pain,” Mayo Clinic, 2019, mayoclinic.com  By: Lisa Pfotenhauer, C-EP It is always important to do research for everything you do, so why wouldn’t you with physical therapy? Many physical therapy offices around here have different specialties and things to offer, so hopefully this will help you decide what is best for you when it comes to your care.
At Hudsonville Physical Therapy, we do not have any PTA’s or aides; you will be seen by a licensed physical therapist one-on-one for every appointment. Your first visit will be between a half hour and an hour. It will include an evaluation and the start of treatment. Every other appointment is about 30-45 minutes for treatment.  We have three experienced physical therapists: Steve, Brian, and Mason.  They specialize in a variety of orthopedic areas, including:
 
 If you have any questions about our therapists, specialties, or our facility, we would love to assist you. Please call 616-662-0990!  By: Becca Popma Low back pain has become one of the largest causes of pain and disability in the United States. Billions of dollars are spent on trying to care for and remedy this issue. People are advised by friends, coworkers, and physicians to seek out certain types of treatment such as physical therapy, chiropractic care, medicines, diets, or other newfound treatment approaches.  So what to do? If your back is hurting which track do you pursue? While pain can be a very complex problem there have been ways that consistently show how someone can at least better manage their pain if not altogether get rid of it. The Journal of Pain Research has proposed factors to consider when deciding how to address your pain.  Obviously, physical problems within your muscle or nervous system can be a direct cause of your pain. Structures in your body can become quite sensitive to pain causing a compounding problem that never seems to resolve. Even having a sedentary lifestyle or being deconditioned can cause structural deficits which can cause pain with movements or mobility. Another area can be more of an environmental factor such as work satisfaction, perceptions or demands at your job or even the attitudes of your employer. These can cause a higher risk or predictability of pain.  Some people also say, “I have a ‘high’ or ‘low’ tolerance for pain.” These pain-related beliefs and attitudes can have a real effect on someone’s ability to recover from a painful condition. Often time someone’s expectations, beliefs, or perception of their condition can have a direct effect on their ability to overcome the condition. Our attitude as physical therapists is to educate each individual on their specific condition, so they understand what will positively and negatively influence their symptoms. Also, we promote that the person have an ACTIVE involvement in trying to manage their care. Many studies have shown that individuals who actively participate in managing their condition do better than those who passively receive care.  You may be faced with many recommended options to help take care of your back pain. We would recommend that you first understand that there can be many causes of your back pain and especially many things influencing the level of your perception of pain. We feel a conservative approach such as physical therapy often helps people to manage or alleviate their symptoms. If physical therapy doesn’t work for you, there are other options that you can pursue as well. Give us a call to sign up for a free consultation if you'd like one of our physical therapists to sit down and talk with you about your low back pain, and discuss what PT can do for you.  By: Steve Bartz, PT You commonly hear terms like sprain, strain, broken bone, fracture, tendonitis, and bursitis, but do you know what they mean? We’re going to break down some common diagnoses so if your doctor tells you that you strained your hamstring, sprained your ankle, or your child broke their arm, you know a little more about what exactly that means. Strain vs. Sprain  STRAINS are the overstretching or tearing of muscles or tendons (tendons are the dense tissue that connects bones to muscle). For example, if you're carrying something very heavy with poor form and injure your back, it may be a muscle strain in muscles of your back. SPRAINS are the overstretching or tearing of ligaments (the bands of tissue that connect bones together in a joint). A common sprain you've probably heard of is an ACL tear or sprain (ligament in the knee joint), or an ankle sprain (most commonly in ankle sprains the anterior talofibular ligament on the outside of the ankle is overstretched when the foot rotates inward).
Both strains and strains can be debilitating depending on the severity of the tear/stretch. Both can lead to swelling, pain, and limited flexibility. Fracture vs. Break Fractures and broken bones are the same thing. There are many different types of fractures, but all involve trauma to a bone due to the stress on the bone being greater the the strength of the bone.  This stress on the bone that causes is to "break" (fracture) can be caused by different circumstances:
 Tendonitis vs Bursitis  Tendinitis is the inflammation of the tendon (like we talked about earlier, the tendon connects the muscle to bone and is tissue making up a chord-like structure). You've probably heard of rotator cuff tendinitis (inflammation of the tendons that make up the rotator cuff). Bursitis is inflammation of the bursae, which is a fluid-filled sacs that cushions bones and tendons/muscles to reduce friction. Bursas and tendons are located near each other, and tendinitis and bursitis share some common symptoms. Often tendinitis and bursitis often occur concurrently at a given joint. These similarities cause the two terms to be assigned incorrectly when there's pain and swelling at a joint. If you are suffering from a sprain, strain, fracture, or other musculoskeletal injury and live in the Hudsonville, Jenison, Grandville, or West Michigan area and need physical therapy, give us a call! These types of injuries are our specialty and it's our goal to get you better efficiently so you can get back to your favorite activities this Spring!  By: Lisa Pfotenhauer, Cert. Exercise Physiologist We have already talked about the difference between physical therapy and occupational therapy (see blog post below, PT vs. OT), so now let's talk about the difference between physical therapy and chiropractic work.
To reiterate, physical therapy is the treatment of disease, injury, or deformity by physical methods such as exercise (strengthening, stretching, neuromuscular training, etc.), hands-on treatment, massage, and other modalities (heat, electrical stimulation), rather than by drugs or surgery.  A chiropractor is a practitioner of the system of integrative medicine based on the diagnosis and manipulative treatment of misalignments of the joints. A chiropractor works to correct subluxations, which is a partial dislocation or a slight misalignment of the vertebrae, regarded in chiropractic theory as the cause of many health problems.  The main difference between a chiropractor and physical therapist is the chiropractor focuses on your body’s alignment, and physical therapy focuses on a person’s posture, proper joint motion, strength, and mobility from an injury, surgery or disease.  By: Rebecca Popma It’s Spring again! When you look outside, the robins are back, the thermometer is trending upward, and it’s back to the diamond for one our favorite pastimes, baseball. This leads me to the topic of this blog: the overuse of the young baseball players’ arms.  Kids (or their parents) seem to specialize in sports at younger and younger ages. Many give up the variety of sports to specialize in one at a very young age. Travel baseball teams start as early as 9-10 years old. Some of them are even practicing almost year around. Also, there has been a significant increase in elbow and shoulder injuries in MLB and college pitchers. I believe this is in direct correlation with the number of pitches and types of pitches thrown by these players as they are coming up.  The first factor is the sheer number of pitches thrown. If a player starts at an early age and is talented, he will throw a lot of pitches by his senior year in high school. Let’s face it, the good pitchers are going to throw the majority of the innings. Coaches, player, and parents want to win. But, there are rules in place to look out for kids. The Little League limits 7-8 year olds to 50 pitches per day, 11-12 y.o. to 85 pitches per day and 13-16 y.o. to 95 per day. Their guidelines are well minded but vague. Each player has to be looked at separately. There is a huge difference between a 13 and a 16 y.o. Each child is at a different maturity level, body build, and over all conditioning.
Another factor to take into consideration is the season timeline that they are pitching in. Is it the first game of the year or the last? Even the pitchers in the Majors don’t throw over 100 pitches early in the season. They also have 3-4 months of “off season” to not throw and recover. It is crazy that some young athletes have less recovery time! The second factor is the type of pitches thrown. I am not a fan of throwing curveballs at a young age. I think it’s much more important to work on pitch location and mechanics. Many young pitchers have poor mechanics, and trying to throw a curveball puts extra unwanted stress on the elbow. Dr. James Andrews (renowned orthopedic surgeon) advises not throwing curveballs before the age of 14.  These are just some general guidelines to go by. All kids are different, and each case should be looked at individually. But, the bottom line is, let’s do our best to keep our young athletes injury-free so they can enjoy the great game of baseball. And if you or your athlete is struggling with an injury, don't hesitate to give us a call. We are passionate about helping athletes from the Jenison, Hudsonville, Grandville, Allendale, and surrounding areas make full recoveries, and we believe in educating them with techniques and exercises to prevent future injuries. 616-662-0990  Brian Colvin, MPT |
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