For most people who need to see me, you'll fit into one of 2 different scenarios. I'll call them the "green path" or the "orange path", and how I can help depends on which path you're on.
Can you tell, just by looking at this graphic which path you are on? Here's how it works:
GREEN: In a health sense, everything is going well for you . You are healthy overall and your systems are all in the green zone; good strength, good flexibility, not hurting. Overall, you are not declining in the health of your organs and tissues. You just had an unfortunate sudden injury and now you're in the "pain zone". If that's you, our work is pretty easy, though depending on the severity of the injury, it may take weeks or months to resolve.
All we have to do is create the conditions for your immune system to do it's work, and choose rehab options that speed that up. It's basic physiotherapy, at it's best. That may seem overwhelming to you but I've been doing this for decades, and I'll coach you along as we build the right rehab plan.
ORANGE: Can you see what this path looks like? Your overall fitness has been declining for some time. Not just your "cardio" fitness - I mean the fitness of your muscles, ligaments, bone, reflexes, balance, joints and cartilage - all the moving parts that we rely on but sometimes let get out of shape.
Maybe you're 30 and really not doing anything to keep yourself healthy. Or maybe you're doing a half-decent job, but you're 60 and time is catching up. And for some of you, you're any age, and doing a great job of exercise and diet but you have some condition or disease process that is becoming a problem (an arthritic condition, spinal stenosis, cartilage injury, cervical myelopathy; any number of other acquired conditions)
In any event, somtheing has happened to bring you down in to the pain zone. Maybe you were hovering above it just fine and then you joined that pickleball team or yoga class, or you did that ski weekend you shouldn't have and that drove you into the pain zone, even though 10 years ago it wouldn't have.
Or maybe you've done nothing specific to get there, it's just a slow decline over time. In this case, your rehab is a little bit different than the green path folks.
In phase 1 of your rehab, we bring you up out of the pain zone with treatment. Sometimes that's tricky because the treatment may include rehab exercises that you will have trouble with as a non-exerciser. But we'll get you there eventually with a mixture of all the types of treatment that physio is great at.
Phase 2 is the real key though. If you are mentally ready for phase 2, here's what that looks like: You're now out of pain, but you're back to hovering somewhere just above the line. If you quit your rehab now, you'll stay where you are: prone to a return of symptoms, or prone to a new injury.
If you'd like to get more fit and move yourself farther away from the pain zone to prevent future flareups, then I'll put together a program for that. I call that Phase 2. First we'll run some tests to see where your key deficits are (strength, balance, flexibility, stability, cardiovascular fitness). Then I'll show you the corrective exercises to bring you back to health, and maybe you'll move over to be a green path person: robust, physically healthy, not declining much at all with age, and not prone to injury when you go out and play and do life.
In Phase 2, you'll do most of that work on your own. I'll just be your consultant for that.
If you're not sure if you're on the green or orange path at all, just ask me. I'll be sure to let you know.
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