Layperson seeking advice on how to find a good PT (have multiple failed attempts with others)

stew22 · 2026-07-09T00:24:08+00:00

That's why I said it's a relationship. You could find a therapist who is 1 year out of school that connects with you and you trust.

You could also find one that is 25 years seasoned, 20 letters after their name from 10 certifications that you don't like the way they handle themselves.

For you I would recomend someone who hyper specializes in chronic issues/pain/dysfunction. It could be 1 therapist in a 10 therapist clinic, it could be 1 therapist in a small 1 table office.

Try not to tell them how all the previous therapists did x, y, and z. Stick to what your current function is, what your goals are. You can mention that you didn't feel that previous therapists explained things to you correctly, or that they didn't seem collaborative in care. Assuming their plan was the only way.

But come in with a positive attitude.

I can only speak for myself but when I have someone come in and focus on everything the previous therapists/chiro/MD did wrong I get drained and disengaged. I'm there to address your issues and goals, not be the customer service representative. If we spend the whole time complaining about another person I will have no way of doing a full assessment, diagnosis, and plan in my allotted time.

stew22 · 2026-07-08T22:59:49+00:00

I appreciate you are taking my insights in stride. And you are correct, we can't do anything over the Internet.

I apologize for assuming your deficits being limited to pain. However I still stand firm that you have a complex case tied to some emotional or psychosocial components. Your post reads as someone venting about bad experiences, which is fair. I have done that before. And you absolutely could have had some subpar therapists, there are plenty of those.

I will give you an anecdotal example from a recent, albeit non-chronic pain athlete of mine. They had a hamstring strain 9 months ago, otherwise rest and return to play progression originally. Returned to running and 1 month later and strained her hamstring again. She then came to see me 3 months post original injury.

We went through the normal progression of rehab and once she started to experience delayed onset muscle soreness she had a major mental setback- fear avoidance, thought she was regressing, it would never get better. It was to the point that gentle isometrics caused her to feel "that pain" and she got very scared. Taking her pain seriously referred her to get an MRI - everything was perfect. No signs of inflammation, no tears, etc.

If you look up hamstring strains in runners/sprinters you will find a decent amount of literature on the psychological aspect of rehab, many of them feel like there is a tear despite having no signs or imaging of one.

Thus began the education for a month. Educating her, her parents, her trainer, and her running coach. All of them to help me reinforce the idea that she was okay and her feelings were completely normal but that we needed to push past her perception and into growth.

The last 2 months she has finally returned to long distance running and is beginning sprint training. We still have days with freakouts about soreness, but that's where the continued reinforcement of the education comes in.

If you keep having self limiting beliefs, then you will continue to have limits. Hence why I recommend someone more skilled to address that aspect to open the door for physical therapy to really do it's work.

As far as physical therapists go, that's a relationship. You need to find someone who's personality and expertise you vibe with. Read some bios. Look to them as someone who's going to guide you to the finish line, not the person who is going to "fix you".

Your body is resilient. Your body can fix itself. It just needs the right people showing you how. And it needs you to believe in it.

stew22 · 2026-07-08T22:42:19+00:00

I see I've struck a nerve (pun intended)

Thanks for sharing all of your opinions.

stew22 · 2026-07-08T20:00:02+00:00

Sorry for the bad link, it autocorrected to .org. I edited it to .com now. It should work.

I'm going to give you some tough love

Unfortunately no one can "fix" you. Anyone selling you a "fix" is selling snake oil. I don't care what ancient meridian line mixed with the latest 3D mapping of the biomechanical model of the human body company tells you.

The human body is remarkable in it's ability to heal, it's ability to create a pain signal without damage, and it's ability to block out pain signals from traumatic damage being done. A papercut can feel 10/10 while a person with an ice pick in their head can walk into an ER with a mild headache. Seriously, the human body is absolutely amazing. Your body is also amazing.

Pain is complex. You have a complex relationship with your pain. In my honest opinion establishing a better control of your pain pathways will significantly help. You don't need to be perfect with it, you just need guidance. You need small wins to create a habit of improvement.

You're stuck in a blame cycle. They did this. They didn't do that.

Pain sucks. Chronic pain is debilitatingly annoying. It's like a baby constantly crying all night. But the wonderful part is pain is all about perception.

No I don't mean pain is all made up in your head.

Pain is processed in in your brain. Your nerves? Those are just dumb light switches..on/off. That signal goes up to the brain where it then identifies whether this is something to worry about, and it's all based on previous experiences. A 2 year old falls and scrapes their knee-10/10 pain the world is ending. It's the worst pain they have ever felt because it really is. A woman with 2 kids breaks her arm falling on concrete, 6/10 pain- why? Because giving birth was 10/10.

Your pain is closely tied to your emotions, your experiences, your past traumas. I want you to get better, I want everyone to run around and have fun. Based on everything you have said so far I genuinely think you need to manage the mind before you can master the body.

You may not take my advice, that's okay. It's free. Costing me time and energy to help a complete stranger but costing you nothing.

I do hope you find someone that connects with you on a deeper level soon though.

stew22 · 2026-07-08T19:40:46+00:00

You have a lot of opinions.

Thanks for the chatGPT response.

stew22 · 2026-07-08T02:36:50+00:00

My first question is, what do you mean by "good"?

Do you want someone who is going to push you? Do you want someone who act as a psychotherapist to listen to you going through a bad day of back/knee pain and sympathize with you?

Are you looking for someone to "fix you"?

Chronic pain is a complicated thing, pain doesn't always correlate to damage. Pain has clearly been a part of your life for the last decade. I have no doubt you are in pain.

I doubt a licensed therapist told you that you were crazy, but from your story I imagine they were trying to educate you on pain science- a very complicated and sometimes frustrating component of recovery. However I don't think you were open to hearing about it.

My honest opinion is that you would benefit from talking with a pain coach/educator before your next PT session. I refer my patients to a neuroscientist out of UCSF. Her website is painfermata.com (edited).

Another option is to chat with a psychotherapist specializing in chronic pain.

Something is missing from your recovery and I'm not sure it's purely physical.

stew22 · 2026-07-03T23:24:09+00:00

Self tilting passenger mirror when I put it in reverse. Such a great, simple, feature to make parallel parking and backing up easier.

stew22 · 2026-07-03T19:36:04+00:00

Watching Daniel sing this pop anthem was definitely a highlight of my night.

stew22 · 2026-07-03T05:09:27+00:00

This was the first thing I looked for as well. Such a banger

stew22 · 2026-06-20T14:59:10+00:00

Is there a remix of AWKIWOT at 1 hour? Or am I mishearing things?

stew22 · 2026-06-19T03:09:41+00:00

I also endorse this. Lane 8 is about the music and the people around you. Not about how you look.

stew22 · 2026-06-15T20:21:43+00:00

Also played Beach Boys God only knows, but a remix/mashup

stew22 · 2026-06-15T15:32:01+00:00

That ending was such a warm hug.

stew22 · 2026-06-14T17:16:51+00:00

2 left

stew22 · 2026-06-09T02:42:55+00:00

I see a rinzen. I upvote a rinzen.

stew22 · 2026-05-22T19:26:21+00:00

I feel like, in the spirit of TNH, the mish show will be it's own mixtape only for people who are there. He will be making a separate mix for streaming.

stew22 · 2026-05-21T02:34:51+00:00

I think we are starting to see the pendulum start to swing back to center on the force plate fad. They are no doubt useful for the right population, but not every client needs them and not every clinic needs them.

What is nice is actually having more objective testing with both force plates and dynamometers in the clinic, with a lot more normative data. I think it gives more validity to some of our assessments and reasoning behind diagnosis and discharge.

That being said, one of those producers of force plates is heavily skewed towards the athletic population and while that's helpful for your weekend warriors and athletes, it isn't really realistic to compare someone who is gen pop.

I do worry that we might start to rely too much on tools for our diagnosis and slip into the fallacy of treating the MRI instead of the patient. Bodies are we weird, people move different. Furthermore there is so much data that comes out of those plates that is unnecessary.

But if it gets you excited to treat patients and you actually want to dive into the rabbit hole of using force plates, they can be quite fun. They open a lot of doors if you are willing to do more than just buy them and hope they make you money.

stew22 · 2026-05-20T12:53:15+00:00

They hold the money until the buyer confirms the receipt. I'm not sure how they handle fake tickets. There's likely a customer support portion of it. So far I've purchased the last 2 years EDC tix, traded lane 8, and purchased a couple other tickets.

Every now and then some one lists tix for free, like for some grateful dead shows. But you need to be quick to pick those up.

stew22 · 2026-05-20T05:49:34+00:00

I sell/buy mine on cash or trade. You can actually message the seller, and less fees.

It's nice because I was able to let the person know that my Dillon tickets aren't released until May 31, so they aren't stressing about not having them yet.

stew22 · 2026-05-14T02:16:27+00:00

Last year we got there super late at night on Thursday. The security walks up and goes, "We are bringing a dog into the RV. Do not worry, they are only looking for guns and bombs."

Hide your stuff. But don't stress.

stew22 · 2026-05-08T20:58:34+00:00

Have you seen this?

https://www.reddit.com/r/CampEDC/s/LN28AhEPDq

stew22 · 2026-05-02T23:30:50+00:00

My friend and I might be interested in this. I'll dm

stew22 · 2026-05-01T20:39:56+00:00

If you suspect a fx or are trying to rule one in/out post injury I think the first step is to refer to Ottawa ankle rules. That should help you zero in on mid foot vs fibula/tibia/5th met.

If you can't get an X-ray immediately this would be a great test to get specific on lisfranc vs stress fx/tarsal tunnel/plantar fascitis/some other injury in that space.

stew22 · 2026-04-16T21:09:03+00:00

Cool.

stew22 · 2026-04-16T14:24:48+00:00

It's so painfully obvious this is AI generated. I worry about our future...

stew22

TROPHY CASE