Physiotherapy and Myotherapy. What’s the difference in a little more detail. 

Physiotherapy and acute pain.

So in Part I I talk about how Physiotherapy is great with acute pain (like tears and sprains). While Myotherapy’s strength is in solving those invisible, ongoing or reoccurring pains like headaches.

The bulk of research done in relation to musculoskeletal pain has studied inflammation. Now inflammation is the body’s response to acute injuries – you know when you roll your ankle and it blows up like a balloon!

There has been stacks of scientific study on inflammation as a cause of pain. And this is fair enough. Our body’s first response to injury is inflammation. Inflammation causes pain. And so if you reduce the inflammation you reduce the pain. Makes sense. Therefore Physiotherapists (I’m generalising here) tend to think of pain in terms of inflammation and treat it with anti-inflammatory techniques like ice, rest, ultrasound, corrective exercises and so on.

Most chronic pain is not actually inflammation.

Pain that is persistent or reoccurring is called chronic pain. Chronic pain that reoccurs over months or years is usually not inflammation and needs to be treated differently. A lot of the recent science is showing us that myofascial pain, which isn’t actually inflammation, is responsible for most chronic complaints. Like those headaches and reoccurring back pain. So treating this pain as though it is inflammation is not likely to solve it.

Your Myotherapist thinks in terms of myofascial pain patterns and your Physiotherapist tends to think in terms of inflammatory pain patterns. As a result we approach healing from a slightly difference perspective.

But guess what! Myotherapists do treat acute injuries and Physiotherapists do treat chronic injuries.

I know many Myotherapy colleagues working alongside Physiotherapists in the sporting industry and with professional sports teams. They are excellent at treating acute injuries. I also know Physiotherapists who are great with chronic pain. So of course what I am describing is a generalisation.

My biggest buzz . . .

I have personally done placement at the AIS and worked with professional sports teams as well as with everyday people. What I discovered is that as a Myotherapist, solving chronic reoccurring pain for people is the thing I can do best.

For me, I found the novelty of working with professional athletes simply wore off. On the other hand, the process of figuring out the seven-year established pattern causing the chronic reoccurring back pain and correcting the puzzle was more intellectually stimulating.

I choose not to compete with Physiotherapists on the heavily flooded market servicing acute injuries. Instead I focus on the people that no one else has been able to give lasting relief to. And there is no better feeling than someone saying: ‘That is the first time I have had lasting relief from that pain in 10 years.’

It is also worth reading What is Myotherapy and How does Myotherapy really work? If you want to know how Myotherapy is different to Chiropractic then check out Myotherapy and Chiropractic: what’s the difference?

– Tim