Nowadays, people are so concerned with how quickly medication can get rid of their pain that they are not concerned on how it affects them in other ways. Most times, people only think about the benefits of pain relief that come with taking a medication, but they do not consider the side effects that come with it. Medications are pain relievers and anti-inflammatories, such as Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Aleve, etc., which can be a quick way to relieve pain, but it does not treat the pain at the source, so you have to continue to take them. “Medications only treat symptoms, so if you stop taking them, your symptoms can return” (“Medication”). Traditional medicine’s solution to treating pain is to prescribe medication, but this does not treat the pain at the source and address a long-term solution to the problem, whereas physical therapy can do both of those things.

Medications are not necessarily the worst thing that a person can use to help treat their pain. There are some benefits that medications can provide when treating pain. “Every medicine has its benefits and its risks” (“Medications”). Taking a medication is about keeping a balance between the possible benefits and possible side effects. If the side effects of the medication outweigh the benefits, then more than likely you should not take that medication and you should consider another option. The biggest benefit of using medication to treat pain is that drug companies have made the medications fast acting, which means that they can relieve pain quicker, sometimes within minutes of taking the medication. People have such busy lives and are always on the go with different activities, that they do not have much spare time that they can use to go the physical therapy office to get treatment for an hour. Medications can help to reduce a patient’s pain, but it works best with other treatment. “Medications often help the most when they're part of an overall treatment program” (“Medication”). Your program can include treatments and rehabilitation that help to treat the problems that medications cannot do. What this means is that medications by themselves will not be enough to cure you from your pain, but you must have something, such as physical therapy, to assist it.

Medications are so publicized now by the drug companies through commercials and advertisements and are so easily accessible that it is no wonder why people just started using them as their treatment. People can just walk into a store and find shelves full of different varieties of anti-inflammatories and pain relievers. It seems like the better deal to buy a bottle and take the medication when you experience the pain. The commercials that the drug companies make for their medications promise all these wonderful things that a medication will do for you. They say that this medication will give you relief from your symptoms in just minutes. The Aleve commercial, for example, says that it can give you all day relief from your pain in minutes. What it does not tell you though is that it only lasts that day, so you have to continue taking the medication every day for your pain. Usually, the drug company does not want you to think about the side effects, so they speed through them really fast. The company only wants you thinking about the positives. Physical therapy, on the other hand, really has no harmful side effects and can give you relief from your pain for good if the patient does the work correctly through the program.

Physical therapy started becoming really popular around the later part of the 19th century. There was a high demand for physical therapists during World War II to help treat the soldiers that were injured in combat. People really started to realize what physical therapy was and the benefits that came along with it to help treat the injured soldiers and try to help give them a normal life. “The basis of a career in physical therapy is working with patients on their physical impairments, conditions, pain or other problems. You can be in the role of prevention, maintenance, acute or long-term treatment, and more” (Physical Therapy School Guide). This means that they are not just in charge of the rehabilitation and treatment process, but they also teach the patients different techniques and exercises to help with their progress. Through the years, new therapies and treatment techniques have been developed through research to help better treat a patient. These treatments are used when a physical therapist is creating a plan of action specifically suited for the patient. “A physical therapist works with each patient to understand his or her particular pain — what causes it and what can be done to manage it” (Rodriguez). Each session is specifically designed to deal with a certain aspect that the physical therapist is trying to fix. The goal for every session is to continually see the patient improve, whether it is reducing pain, increasing strength, improving the range of motion of a body part, endurance, flexibility, and much more. They do this by using different therapy treatments such as, cold/heat therapy, massage, taping, ultrasound/TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation), and therapeutic exercises. The ultrasound and TENS units are machines that reduce muscle and soft tissue pain and promote healing through stimulating the nerves. Therapeutic exercises can be any exercise that gets the body moving to strengthen and increase flexibility, which will reduce pain. The goal of a physical therapist is to get the patient back to where they need to be without any problems and in the quickest and healthiest way possible. “Yours will look for areas of weakness or stiffness that may be adding stress to the places that hurt.  And they will treat those areas with certain exercises to reduce pain and help you move better” (Ratini). Physical therapists are able to use exercises to treat only the certain areas that cause pain or problems to help you function normally.

Physical therapy is more cost-effective than using medications because it actually treats pain at the source, so it is a more long-term solution for pain relief. By saying physical therapy is a long-term solution; I mean that once you go through all the sessions and do the treatments, you should be able to just go about your normal life pain free. By the end of your treatments, your physical therapist has used different therapies and treatments to help reduce and eliminate your pain for good. Physical therapists use something called the long-term preventative model, which means they examine and treat the pain at the time, but they also educate the patients on what caused the pain, so it does not return later in time. “They show people how to build up strength and improve range of motion, and how to make sensible decisions on how to avoid pain flare-ups. They teach the skills necessary to eliminate the pain and its triggers all together, rather than providing a mask for the pain (such as pain medication)” (Lemaster). The physical therapists help you to get your body moving so that it can do its job and fix the problem that is causing the pain. Something as simple as stretching your muscles and moving them will cause less tightness, which will cause less pressure on the rest of the body, which will reduce a patient’s pain. Once they relieve the pain, the physical therapist can begin to work on strengthening the body part and getting it to move in its full range of motion, which is the full movement potential of a joint. Bodies are meant to move and when we do not, our muscles and joints become stiff and sore. “The primary purpose of physical therapy is to help people use their own bodies to function as best they can and to lead more active lives” (Institute for Career Research 3). This can be for either an athlete trying to get back into a sport or the elderly and people with debilitating diseases who want to move and function properly. The goal of the physical therapist is to try and relieve the pain as much as possible without using medications. “When individuals suffer from medical problems, it is common for prescriptions and procedures to be prescribed to address the issue; however, in most instances, these treatments must be continued. Those that receive physical therapy, though, are typically able to overcome the worst of their symptoms” (Coloradophysical). That is the great thing about physical therapy. Most of the time, it is able to reduce and possibly eliminate your worst symptoms without using any medications. This goes back to the whole point about wanting to treat the pain at the source. Whereas medications only cover up the pain, physical therapy can really get deep into the body and work out the problem that is causing the pain and get rid of it for good.

Also, physical therapy is a much healthier and safer option for people to use rather than medications to help treat pain. Medications now are so full of different chemicals that are not good for you, that you could be doing more harm than good when you take them and it could cost you your life. When people take medications, they do not always think about the possible side effects that can come with it. They only think about the benefit of getting rid of the pain faster. Side-effects of taking a medication can be anything from drowsiness to nausea to constipation and the list goes on and on. But with physical therapy there are really no harmful side-effects that come with it. There is not really a problem with doing to many exercises. By using physical therapy instead of medications, a patient can live a healthier life. “It’s important that patients understand that there are ways a physical therapist can help with their immediate pain, but also long-term work that can be used to help them lead a healthy life in the future” (Zuboff). Physical therapy is a safer alternative for treating pain with no chemicals or harmful side-effects. The physical therapist teaches the patient how to have a healthier lifestyle by using the exercises and equipment. Another health benefit that comes with using physical therapy instead of medications is that there is no risk of addiction. “With physical therapy, the risk of addiction or abuse is non-existent. Pain easement through physical therapy is done in a healthy, holistic environment, as opposed to the constant fear of the dark side of chemical consumption” (Gallucci Jr.). Some pain medications have chemicals that have addictive qualities, which can make the patient more likely to be at risk for abusing the medication. You cannot really get addicted to or abuse physical therapy because they use healthy therapies and treatments with no chemicals.  By using physical therapy, you are able to avoid the possibility of addiction and abuse of the medications. Abusing medications can be very fatal to a person and can even lead to death in some cases. In the past couple of years, the amount of pain medications sold in the United States has increased significantly. Due to this increase, “…The amount of fatal poisonings due to prescription painkillers has gone up. Nearly double the amount of people abuse prescription drugs as the amount who abuse cocaine, heroin, inhalants, and hallucinogens combined, according to the DEA” (Isaac). The people get these medications at first to just help treat their pain. But, then they realize the good feeling they get after taking them, so they use the medication even when they do not have pain. Unfortunately, they do not realize the harm they are doing to their body because they got addicted to the medication. Physical therapy is definitely the safer and healthier lifestyle choice that could save your life from medications. 

Finally, the actual money cost of using physical therapy to treat pain is less than using medications. “When evaluating the costs associated with loss of work or the inability to perform standard job duties, medications, trips to the doctor, and similar expenses, you will discover that those that receive total care physical therapy actually have fewer overall costs than those that do not receive physical therapy” (Coloradophysical).  Like discussed earlier in this paper, medication does not treat pain at the source, so it is not able to completely eliminate the pain for good. This means that it will take longer for the body to heal itself and fix the problem. The patient will be injured for a longer time, which could lead to being out of work longer and cause a loss of money. The patients will visit the doctor’s office more often and refill their medications which increase your cost. A patient could be taking medications for a while which can really rack up a bill. “When individuals suffer from medical problems, it is common for prescriptions and procedures to be prescribed to address the issue; however, in most instances, these treatments must be continued” (Coloradophysical). Medications must be continually taken because they do not completely treat the pain source. Physical therapy on the other hand focuses more on long term and overall body health. People want to be able to have healthy and functioning bodies when they get older and physical therapy gives you that ability. Physical therapists try to rehabilitate your problem as quickly as they can so there is less cost for you. In their treatment plan, they set goals for where they want you to be at certain times and when they plan to have you completely treated. Their treatment plan, if the patient does the work, can help reduce the amount of sessions and reduce their cost. This way you save time and money. Another way physical therapists help you save time and money is they give the patient exercises to do at home to help speed up the rehabilitation process. But again, the patient must do the work to get better. 

Physical therapy is the obvious choice for treating pain because it is a more long-term solution, it is a healthier and safer option, and the total cost for treatment is less. But most people in today’s society do not know that information. We need to get the information out there so that people can make a more informed decision on how to deal with their pain. I think a good way to get the information out there would be to make things like brochures and posters to put in doctor’s offices and other medical sites to better inform the patients. Another solution to this problem is getting the information to the doctors so that they can educate and refer the patients properly. The best way to do this would be teaching them in medical school to refer patients more to a physical therapist instead of using medications to treat musculoskeletal injuries. These are the injuries of the muscles and bones of the body. A good way to show them this would be to create a PowerPoint, with graphs and videos, which could be presented to medical students and teach them the benefits of using physical therapy. This way they can relay the information to the patients and educate them on the benefits. The next time a person is injured, they should definitely consider all of the benefits that physical therapy can offer for injuries and pain relief that medications cannot. 
