Your specialist is going to help you get connected with a number of different people who can assist you with your fibromyalgia symptoms.

One of the people that you may get connected with is referred to as a physiotherapist, or to most people, as a physical therapist.

These people specialize in a number of different techniques that help your body become looser and more relaxed, especially when it comes to exercising and flexibility.

Let’s take a look at what physiotherapy is and how it can help keep your fibromyalgia symptoms under control.

Exploring Physiotherapy

Physical therapy, or physiotherapy, focuses on the physical aspect of therapy. They work with all sorts of people who have all sorts of issues.

Many of us associate physiotherapy with people who have gotten injured in an accident.

While this is, indeed, true, physiotherapy can also be associated with a number of other issues, including chronic, long-term illnesses that affect the body when it comes to pain and sensitivity.

Physiotherapists can play a huge role in helping people with pain management, and they can give you advice about how you need to go about exercising and doing other pain management exercises.

Everyone’s physiotherapy is going to be different. At a physiotherapy office, there are all sorts of different tools.

Sometimes, they will employ methods like massage and manipulation (not in the same sense as chiropractors) in order to help you do what you need to do.

Other types of therapy can include exercising on certain exercise machines, walking, yoga, and other types of exercise that are meant to help you deal with the pain that you’re dealing with.

Your physiotherapist will take a lot of time at the beginning of your therapy in order to try and figure out the best way for your body to get the help that it needs.

They will do a full physical and look at everything that your doctor sent along when they did the evaluation before sending you to the physiotherapist in the first place.

At that point, they will sit down with you and determine a plan that will coincide with the treatment plan that you are already doing with your other doctors and such.

Sometimes, they will schedule a meeting with you and your specialists at the same time so that you can get a fuller understanding of what is going on.

How Can a Physiotherapist Assist those Suffering from Fibromyalgia?

There are a variety of different treatments that a physiotherapist may use in order to help relieve your fibromyalgia pain and symptoms.

Here are some of the most common techniques that a physiotherapist will use in order to help you out and allow you to live a happier, healthier life.

– They will take you and help to move your body around, specifically in ways that make it a lot easier for you to move around in the long run.

These manual exercises will help your body to have a larger range of motion and it helps to decrease swelling for the long term as well.

They may take time to rub down your tissues and muscles, or they will stretch everything out.

– Water therapy is a huge help for people who are suffering from fibromyalgia. Because it doesn’t put a lot of pressure on your legs, it allows you to move around and whatnot so that it doesn’t stress your body out even more than it’s already stressed out.

Relaxing in a whirlpool can also help you emotionally and psychologically because it helps to relax your mind at the same time, which makes it incredibly beneficial.

– Heat is another treatment plan that you may utilize as part of physiotherapy. Since heat is known to help reduce inflammation in the joints and to increase the flexibility that your muscles have, it is often utilized in the form of packs or waxing.

By focusing heat on certain areas of the body, you will start to notice that a lot of improvement in certain areas of the body.

– In some cases, you may receive trigger point injections as a part of your treatment plan. Now, of course, this could be different based on your particular needs. Other doctors could be doing this as well.

We talk about trigger point injections in another article here on the site, but in short, it helps to relax your muscles and reduces stiffness and muscle spasms, both of which are huge problems when it comes to physical therapy.

A Physical therapist may be the person to give you this treatment because you may need it in order to ensure that your body will be able to move during your therapy session.

– Electrotherapy is another option for physical therapy as well. This type of therapy does many of the same things as trigger injections, by allowing your muscles to move and to be more flexible.

It also grants some of the same benefits as massage, because it goes into your deep tissues, where some of the least accessible pain may be located.

You could end up using only a few of these techniques, or you could use all of them. It just depends on where your treatment is, what your specialist team determines, and what your body reacts well too and doesn’t react well to.

It may take time to get into a good routine, but your physical therapist can really help you a lot with flexibility, weight loss, and pain relief.

If you are just stepping into the world of treating your fibromyalgia, it’s likely that you are still figuring out the best way to go about your treatment plan.

What will you do in order to make sure that your pain stays at bay? How will you stay active? How can you stay flexible?

A physiotherapist can play a huge role in that, and your doctor can help you get connected with one that will help you get on the path to health and wellness.

References:

http://www.webmd.com/fibromyalgia/guide/fibromyalgia-and-physical-therapy

http://www.fibromyalgia-symptoms.org/fibromyalgia_physio.html

http://www.spineuniverse.com/conditions/fibromyalgia/physical-therapy-fibromyalgia