[blister]

Anecdote of one: I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Hodgkins Lymphoma two years ago. My _only_ symptom at the time was pretty severe back pain, which is unusual for lymphoma.

After treatment and remission a year later, I still had the severe back pain. The cancer pain management doctor I was seeing was perfectly happy to keep prescribing godlike levels of opiods. (50+ mg of oxycodone on top of 30+ mg of slow-release morphine pills).

After a few months, I lamented that I was tired of taking pills and dealing with all the side effects. He offered to send me to Physical Therapy, but explained that most of his patients preferred to stay on the pills and that PT rarely worked.

After 3 weeks of twice-weekly 30 minute PT sessions, my back felt amazing. No more pain and I was able to quickly wean off the drugs.

At some point, my cancer had caused back pain, which I'd continued to worsen by avoiding exercise and sitting at weird angles to alleviate the pressure.

As a humorous aside, I had to pay for several weeks of PT out of pocket because my insurance did not consider it important. They would prefer to shell out $500+ dollars every month to see a pain management doctor and continue taking pills.

[gumby]

> I had to pay for several weeks of PT out of pocket because my insurance did not consider it important. They would prefer to shell out $500+ dollars every month to see a pain management doctor and continue taking pills.

Of course you could easily have sold those pills to pay for the PT :-)

[flyGuyOnTheSly]

That's nothing to smile or joke about... selling prescription pain killers is wrong. You're perpetuating the problem.

[Cthulhu_]

> As a humorous aside, I had to pay for several weeks of PT out of pocket because my insurance did not consider it important. They would prefer to shell out $500+ dollars every month to see a pain management doctor and continue taking pills.

The insurance provider (or management / shareholders) probably get a kickback from the pharmaceutical industry.

[_acme]

Do you have any evidence that this ever happens?

[pmarreck]

That's because PT is evidence-based: http://www.apta.org/EvidenceResearch/