How will physiotherapy help you?

When you hear the word physiotherapy, what do you think of? A football match and the person running on with the bag to aid the stricken drama que... sorry, the injured player? The athletes at the Olympics and their fancy coloured tape? Or do you have personal experience of working with a physiotherapist, and know us more for working with people with disabilities, working with sports-men and -women to improve their fitness or helping injured people learn to walk again?

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Many of you lovely blog-readers will know, or know of, a physiotherapist, but not know much about what sorts of skills they have or how you could benefit from them. That's where this blog comes in!

Here are a few 'did you know' items about the physiotherapists at First Class Physiotherapy:

• We use movement, exercise, education and advice along with our own manual skills and banks of knowledge to help people manage their pain and other symptoms and prevent disease
• We can promote recovery from an injury to help you get back to full function (and back to work) as soon as possible
• We understand that injury or pain affects you as a person and we design a treatment program around what you expect, what is realistic and what is most beneficial for you
• We promote health not only through physical treatment but also advice on how to lose weight and give up smoking (amongst many other things!)
• We can help you stay relaxed as well as preventing injury by offering sports massage, Swedish massage and hot stones massage (all together now, aaaaaahh)
• We offer a mobile service to your workplace or home so that you don't have to take extra time out of your day to visit the clinic
• We can help you access physiotherapy through an insurer so that you don't have to pay up front

A typical patient we may see will have back pain (much like 60-80% of the population at some point in their lifetime) and will be wondering whether or not to see their GP. That's an excellent start, and will help you find the right pain medication if that is the route you'd like to take. The GP might then refer you on to a physiotherapist, and through the NHS in the Glasgow area, you could wait up to 6 months for an appointment. Hmm, that's quite a long time to be stuck with a sore back... Happily, your back pain will most likely have resolved by then.

Instead of waiting to find out if your pain does become chronic (in other words, if it lasts longer than 3 months), you could self-refer to see a physiotherapist.


That's where First Class Physiotherapy comes in! We're here to offer you an appointment - even before you see your GP - within 48 hours of you first contacting us. Even if it's just for advice or reassurance, if you are concerned about a pain, stiffness or weakness contact us today, and put yourself on the road to recovery. Then you'll have first hand experience of what a physiotherapist really does when she's not nursing the drama queens!