FLAOrthoPT
Posts: 1011
Joined: May 8, 2004
From: West Palm Beach
Status: offline
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I just saw a younger patient who was being treated at a chain outptient center down the road for a ocuple of months because he was "achey". His joints hurt, he had general body aches. His doctor told him it was growing pains, but he was 11, so not so sure about that. His PT couldn't reproduce any of his pains during the eval or 3 weeks of treatment, according to his mom. We are in south florida, these people had moved here about 2 months ago from the northeast, and are a bit disturbed with the lack of medical consern down here (which is nothing new or untrue), and had heard of me from a neighbor of theirs.
The poin being, if you cannot reproduce the symptoms and there is no real history to suggest why someone has the complaints they are having, DON'T treat them! Lead them to get more medical tests, take some basic vitals including temperature, look for red flags, look for yellow flags. The fact that all I had to do is ask the kid if he had been playing in the woods or meadows back home and if he ever had any rashes he didn't tell his mom about, and in 3 minutes of a decent history...viola..kid had what sounded like lyme's disease.
But I am just frustrated at clinicians treating pain that cannot be reproduced and has no real reason for being there. Why is an 11 year old boy in body aches, school is over, so not stress or faking, he should be excited to be out swimming and playing. No trauma, no evidence of abuse, well, just took some asking questions...
so end of my rant:
DON'T forget the simple fact of if you can't reproduce it and it doesn't make sense, DON'T treat it!
have a great one!
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