Phase 1-Physical Therapy: Patients with Lyme Disease, ME/CFS and/or POTS

Physical Therapy- Phase 1 

Check Vital Signs

10 Tips for Managing Chronic Pain at Home

10 Tips for Managing Chronic Pain at Home: 

(Advice from a Physical Therapist and Mother of Child with Lyme, ME/CFS & POTS)

Defining Pain
Most Chronic pain suffers hate rating their pain, but health care providers need to know. Sometimes we refer to the "Pain Assessment" as the 5th Vital Sign (after Temperature, Pulse, Respiratory rate, and Blood pressure). When we're treating you for pain, your rating is the only way we can gage whether a patient is making progress or not. It's more difficult when trying to quantify how much pain a child is in. I find the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) works better than telling someone to "rate your pain on a scale of 0-10."