Southwest Orthopaedic Physical Therapy Information Headquarters

• Now let’s talk about pain -The doctors use the common 1-10 pain scale to tell them where your pain is at any given time. My PT’s talk about 3 parts of pain:

1. 1) intensity of pain, is it a 1 or a 10 ----or somewhere in between
2.  2) Frequency of flare-ups, Sometimes , all the time or am I in remission?
3.  3) Duration of flare-ups.  How long do they last? Keep a journal to recite all of these to your Dr or PT.

We are hiring physical therapist immediately! We are the funnest most patient oriented physical therapy clinic in Albuquerque. We have been in business since 2003 and our owner, Kale Isaacson has over 20 years experience as an orthopedic physical therapist. Kale has the borrowed the word "positivity" from a Bob Marley song and included it in our motto- "Positivity in Motion"

SWOPT prides itself in the relationship that we form with our patients. Most of our relationship become more like a friendship and we offer that support that the patients need to help get to their goals and feel better. We are so lucky to have some amazing patients that inspire us everyday with their stories, struggles, and triumphs. Today we feature a story by our patient named Delores. We interviewed Delores about her time at SWOPT and here is her story. We want to thank her for her story.

In part 3 we studied how inflammation in tissue stimulates pain sensors, and also promotes healing. In Part 4, we will go inside the brain and spinal cord. Whenever I speak to a patient about pain and then mention the brain, the automatic response is, ”So, are you saying the pain is all in my head?” The answer is yes, all pain is produced by the brain: without the brain, there would be no pain. This does NOT mean that the pain is fabricated in your mind and is not real. The most recent research by Lorimer Moseley, PhD, and David Butler,PT from Australia shows that the pain sensors report the injury and inflammation to the spinal cord which feeds it to the brain. The brain then produces the actual physical sensation of pain, even though the pain is felt at the site of the injury.

Today we feature a patient success story. Barbara came to SWOPT recently and has allowed us to use her story as an example of what can be gained by attending physical therapy. It is thanks to her and all our patients that we can call ourselves a successful physical therapy clinic. Helping people heal is what we love to do and we are happy to share her story of healing.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow and all of the SWOPT employees are preparing for a long weekend to spend with our family and friends. Tomorrow starts the holiday season for most of us and gives us a chance to be thankful for all the blessings that we have. All of the employees realize that we are all so thankful for so much in our lives and want to take the time to give that thanks. We wanted to take the time to share a couple of the things we are thankful for this year.

At Southwest Orthopaedic Physical Therapy, we see a lot of patients who enjoy running and many come to see us just to get back to running again. Running is used for overall health and wellness, to help lose weight, and as a hobby and stress reliever. For many runners, competing in marathons is something to strive to do. For the extreme in runners and athletes, the Ironman triathlon is the ultimate test of their strength and endurance. The Ironman consists of 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike race, and marathon (26.2 mile) raced without a break. This seems very daunting and almost impossible even to many avid competitors. The amount of training for an event like that is almost as daunting as the race itself.

Here is the personal story of one of SWOPT’s employees Dan. Dan is one of our valuable employees that works with patients to get them back to where they want to be. He is also working on getting into physical therapy school. His story can be an inspiration to many that are affected by personal obstacles that with hard work and perseverance they can be overcome.