S.M was a 29 year old female with years of chronic headaches and jaw pain. She remembered her pain starting in high school, persisted in college and got even worse in graduate school. She had already had lots of different types of therapy over the years. She was working with a specialized dentist to manage the jaw pain, and got regular injections by her pain management doctor to reduce the pain as much as possible. She was referred to PT by her pain management doctor had referred as the pain was steadily getting worse. She was getting more pain down her spine and lower back, and she was taking more and more pain medication to try and manage her symptoms. It was particularly challenging because of her increasing work stressors and the nature of her work which required 9-10 hours in front of her computer.
At her examination, we found lots of muscle tightness and weakness around her neck and postural muscles. Her spinal flexibility was also very limited. After discussing these and other findings with her and her physicians (pain management doctor, chiropractor and dentist), a tailored plan of care for focused manual therapy and appropriate strength training in conjunction with her medical treatments was designed.
She had PT 1x/wk for 8 visits of hands on treatment to relieve tension around her jaw, and her spine. We also worked on modifications to her work station so it wasn’t causing any additional postural problems.
By communicating effectively with her providers with appropriate timing of her sessions between providers, the outcome was a self reported 90% reduction in her neck and jaw pain. At this point she also reported not having anymore low back pain. She felt more excited about her work and was able to take on some work assignments that required travel – something she had also been avoiding.
