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Why Didn’t Physical Therapy Help My Knee Pain?




Why didn’t physical therapy help my knee pain?

Scottsdale, AZ – I am floored by the number of patients, that ultimately find me, say these words “I don’t know what else to do, we have tried physical therapy at multiple places and have seen multiple doctors and have had multiple MRIs and nothing worked and we have no answers”. It makes me sad to hear this over and over again, especially when after I assess their biomechanics and analyze their pain history I am able to identify exactly why they are still experiencing unnecessary knee pain.

Why didn't physical therapy help my knee pain?

Why didn’t physical therapy help my knee pain?

Yesterday I had this same scenario occur once again, 13 year old softball player and has had over 3 years of knee pain, MRI that revealed multiple ganglion cysts and patella tendonitis and has gone through many many months of physical therapy at multiple locations to get zero results. She stands in front of me, at the beginning of her assessment, and I can instantly observe how restricted her range of motion is across multiple joints and it is very clear to me what needs to be the first priorities of her treatment plan. Her hip flexors are ridiculously tight and quads over developed, pelvis rotated and SI Join locked to the point she can’t even touch down her heel to the ground on that leg! Plus glute activation and strength is non existent, and leg power on that leg is significantly weak. I ask her what exercises she did at therapy and she tells me they strengthen her quads and stretched her hamstrings a lot…exactly opposite of what should have been done!!!

I then have to proceed to tell the patient (and/or parents) my diagnosis of the “cause” of their pain and inform them of my treatment plan and they are utterly amazed that no other medical professional has addressed the same things I have mentioned. I just don’t understand how other medical professionals, such as physical therapist or orthopedic physicians do not place focus on the “cause of the symptoms” rather than just the symptoms themselves. If we can get all sports medicine professionals to focus on getting down to the biomechanical and neuromuscular cause of symptoms, I wouldn’t hear these same type of scenarios happening over and over and these young athletes can get out of pain much quicker.

If this scenario sounds similar to you, please contact the Experts at Efficient Movement to finally get you over your knee pain.

Efficient Movement | 9332 N 95th Way #104, Scottsdale, AZ 85258 | (602) 358-8862