Dallas Physical Therapist

Mesquite Physical Therapist, Stefani Wylie owner of TexStar Physical Therapy on how to treat thoracic pain

I have had several patients come into the clinic how have had thoracic pain for several years. They have had previous treatments and were getting good treatments and identifying what the problem was, but they were continuing to have the pain after therapy stopped. Their symptoms were either localized in the thoracic spine or sometimes the pain would rap around the ribs on one side. It would hurt to stand and do most activities and they would sometimes have problems  with deep breaths, coughing and laughing.

What did I do  differently to get rid of the pain?

Thoracic pain can be easy to get rid of if the symptoms are truely coming from the joints. This area usually needs force to get rid of the pain. The therapist needs to rule out the cervical spine if in the upper thoracic spine or the lumbar spine if in the lower thoracic spine. This problem usually has reduced thoracic extension or rotation, or both. To fix the problem, the patients either need thoracic extension mobs or rotation mobs. You need to screen the patient with red flags, such as malagnancies, infections, severe inflammatory disease, fractures, bone weakening disease, CNS involvment to name a few since you need a lot of force to help these patients get better. The difference with my treatment is that you have to teach self mobs that patient can do on their own every 2 hours. They need to be able to fix their problem. Coming into therapy 2-3 times per week is not going to fix the problem. So depending on if  they need  rotation or extension mobs, they need to be taught how to do this on their own. That is what I do.

Mesquite physical therapist, Stefani Wylie is a believer that the body can heal itself with the right treatments. If you are having problems with your treatments and they are not working, feel free to contact me at 214-324-5851. We are located at 9219 Garland Road, Ste 1105, 75218