When I hurt my back, I tried everything. I went

When I hurt my back, I tried everything. I went to the doctor and he gave me muscle relaxants, painkillers, anti-inflammatory medicine, and even steroidal shots. He gave me stretches, exercises, and tips on keeping my back from getting injured again. No matter what he gave me, however, the pain would keep going. I could not make it stop. Finally, he sent me to a physical therapy center. It took them months to make my back feel better.

If you've never been to physical therapy centers, you might not know what to expect. Typically, your average physical therapy center is a combination of high-tech and low-tech hands-on activities. For me, they mixed it up quite a bit. Typically, my physical therapy sessions would start with about ten to fifteen minutes of traction. The machine would stretch out my back, taking tension of of my vertebrae. It was a real godsend.

But the best part about the physical therapy center was the hands-on activities. Since getting my back injury, I had lost a lot of mobility. I was stiff and sore all over, in fact, and my legs felt weak. They would help me relearn to gently move my legs, help me do stretches to loosen up my back, and teach me tricks to stop myself from getting hurt again. It was definitely a help. Doing stretches on my own had not done much for me, but working with the physical therapists at the center did wonders for my health. Within weeks, I started to feel better. Nonetheless, it took me months to make a full recovery.

If you ever do go to a physical therapy Center, you have to make sure that it is the right one. The wrong physical therapists can make problems worse rather than better. I have a friend who went to a physical therapy center where they were careless and reckless. It actually strained his back worse than before. You see, they would jump into some very difficult stretches before he was ready. Their philosophy was the more the better, but that philosophy does not work for the seriously injured. On the contrary, if your back is already weakened and strained, you must start very gently with the stretches. Only that approach will make sure that you don't get hurt even worse. Remember, if you do not properly treat a back problem, it can be with you for the rest of your life.