We all know pain is costly. Pain can mean time off work, going to medical appointments, or taking pills to get through the day. It can mean feeling stuck, frustrated, or older than you really are. It can put stress on our closest relationships. It can mean missing out on doing the things we love. And, though we know living with pain is costly, we tend to put up with it rather than taking action to solve it. But did you know that solving your injury can actually save you money in the long run?
Let’s explore a real-life example of this by looking at Mrs Y’s case.
Mrs Y came into the clinic after three days of constant pain in her lower back and throbbing pain down her left leg. She couldn’t sit, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t walk without pain. She was waking up three time a night because of the pain. It was affecting her ability to care for her three young kids. Not only that, but she was painting the interior and exterior of her house to finish off the last of some lengthy renovations.
This wasn’t a new problem. Her back had been bothering her on and off for the past twelve months. She had tried physio and reformer Pilates in the past, but the improvements had only been temporary. So she had accepted pain as part of her life and tried to function despite it.
Besides the pain itself, there was an emotional cost to Mrs Y’s injury. She was frustrated that she couldn’t do the work she wanted to do. She was anxious that she wasn’t able to look after her family like she normally would. Her quality of life was being impacted by the persistent pain.
“I can deal with some pain if I move in the wrong way, but I need to be able to sit, sleep, and walk without ongoing pain.”
Unfortunately, because the end of her house renovations was in sight, Mrs Y often spent 12 hours or more working on the house. Weeks of squatting to paint skirting boards, shovelling heavy rocks in the garden, and sanding in awkward positions had built up strain in her body over the months. Now the painful twinges had reached a tipping point and her body finally told her ‘enough is enough’.
Mrs Y came to Northwest Physio Group with the goal to manage her pain while continuing the work on her house. If she were to stop now, she would have to pay to have her house painted, which would cost her well over $18k. Determined to do the job herself, she decided to invest her money in getting pain-free instead.
With our thorough whole-body assessment, we carefully treated muscles and joints from all over the body to narrow down to the underlying cause of Mrs Y’s severe sciatica. In the end, we found the drivers weren’t in the lumbar spine at all – tightness in her left popliteus (a muscle behind her knee), stiffness in her neck, and left piriformis muscle were the underlying causes.
When we found part of the problem was coming from her neck, Mrs Y mentioned that she had had problems moving her neck for years. Putting a bag strap over her head and towel drying her hair consistently sent pain down her spine, but she had never known why.
From there, it was necessary to dig deeper – why had these areas become so strained in the first place?
She had spent weeks squatting low to paint her skirting boards. Sometimes she would stay kneeling for hours. This had aggravated her hip and knee muscles to the point where it was giving her the sciatica pain down the leg.
Mrs Y received weekly treatment while finishing the renovations to her house. By addressing the main cause of her issue, we were able to alleviate her symptoms even through the hard work on her body.
Her spasms disappeared. She could get a full night’s sleep. She was able to lift, bend, and run after the kids. She was also able to towel her hair without a problem, something that hadn’t been possible for years. She even started walking more and going to the gym three to four times a week.
“I never thought I’d say it, but I’m becoming a gym junkie!”
Rather than spending $18k on a painter for her house, Mrs Y spent $2k over six weeks on physiotherapy treatment instead – saving her and her family $16k in the long run. And that wasn’t even the biggest saving. She regained confidence in her body and was able to have the active lifestyle and quality of life she had been missing out on because of pain and stiffness. Now determined to keep it that way, Mrs Y has followed on with our tune up program, seeing us to prevent injury rather than waiting for her body to break down.
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