Pain often results following injury in sport, work or at home, and may be present for other reasons. Physical pain can take place in any part of the body while walking, as locomotion starts at the feet. Pain can be develop following injury, inflammation, neuralgia or neuropathies (Neurological related pain), but may also be present without these factors being present. As pain diminishes your activity level and mobility, it is therefore important to have it properly assessed, so a management plan can be provided. If the pain lasts for more than 3 months, there is a risk that it will become chronic. Very often it can affect your mood, and lead to anxiety, sadness and depression. For this reason it is important to reduce the levels of pain as quickly as possible, to return to more positive and happier feelings, and a management plan that helps to prevent the pain returning in the future. At Hip2Toe Plus we can assess musculoskeletal pain throughout your body, and advise you on treatments available. These include the following examples.
• Correction and gentle mobilizations. How do you do these? Very often pain in the ankles, shins, knees, hips, back, shoulders, neck, head, arms, elbows, hands and head may relate to our locomotion, or our ability to move or move from one place to another. At Hip2Toe Plus, these regions of your body are carefully assessed and can be treated by us.
• Medical acupuncture or Dry needling: Is this painful? I don’t like needles. At Hip2Toe Plus, we have over 24 years of experience and training in Advanced musculoskeletal medicine. Acupuncture needles are not the same as injection needles, they have no cutting edge on them, and range normally from hardly feeling them up to mildly uncomfortable, with very few exceptions. These techniques can be used in all the areas listed above.
• Low level laser therapy: What is low level laser therapy: This is an electrotherapy treatment allowing a very natural method for better treatment outcomes, as LLLT is not like normal light, but a columnated beam of photons that travel into your painful and damaged cells, entering through a primitive pathway of photosynthesis into the powerhouse of your cell, the Mitochondria. Metabolic exchanges cause an increased level of Adenosine triphosphate to influence energy levels in the Krebs cycle. What does this mean to your pain or injury? It means that pain reduction, cell repair and protein synthesis can be better assisted for many of the areas of the body that we treat.
• Exercise portfolio, strengthening and stretching programs: What type of program would be suitable for me? It depends. We are all individuals with different thresholds of pain. Exercises and stretching must be carefully prescribed by expert assessment. We can carry out full assessment of these requirements, to ensure you understand what the expectations of your program are. Exercise portfolios mean that we design an activity directly related to your needs, capabilities, and potential limitations, to allow you to feel happy about and look forward to exercising.
• 3D laser prescription orthotics: Here is a way of applying some physical therapy to your feet, every time you take a step. Think about this, if we are asked to walk 10,000 steps per day for our health, that’s on average well over 3 million steps per year. Orthotics are like an insole in your shoe, but the surface of the orthotic applies a physical force designed to change the way you walk. As you take so many steps throughout your lifetime, any change to your walking style must only be carried out by a highly trained medical professional. Dr. Jeremy Hawke (Podiatrist) has advanced training in Anatomy, Physiology, Biomechanics and Patho mechanics, and general/podiatric medicine, to ensure that you are prescribed the right type of orthotic. As they have an influence on your bone, muscle, cartilage, tendon, nerve and blood vessel function, 3D laser scanning and Digital computer manufacturing equipment allow the highest technological precision production of this very important influence on your walking quality. It also allows the highest levels of comfort, which allows you to be happy with your choice of orthotic, step after step throughout the year.
Contact us today to make your appointment for assessing any walking and locomotion issues you are experiencing. If it is out of office hours, visit our website at www.hip2toe.com.au and leave your preferred appointment time. We are open on Saturdays. We are the preferred provider for Medibank Private and provide rebates for all the major health funds.