Melissa Dechiara

If this is the first episode of knee pain then you could at this point just monitor for any other symptoms such as pain, swelling, or instability. If you have no further issue then you do not need to seek evaluation and care but if you continue to notice intermittent symptoms then I would highly recommend you seek care.

Must go is pretty strong verbiage, but I definitely agree that seeing a physical therapist occasionally can improve your running and decrease your risk of injury. Assessing mobility and strength to find and address imbalances and looking at mechanics/running analysis can improve running efficiency and decrease undo stress on tissues can help runners running without pain or injury.

You should seek care for back pain during pregnancy because the pain can be decreased or eliminated with treatment and because back pain can persist after delivery. A physical therapist will perform an evaluation and then provide treatment to help address the symptoms from manual work to soft tissues and joints, stretching, strengthening exercises and postural/mechanics training. I would strongly advise you should not wait, but seek care soon to help make you more comfortable.

The neck pain and headache could be due to musculoskeletal pain generators (soft tissues or joints) but the other symptoms sound like that of a cold/viral infection. I would try heat and gentle stretching to your neck, meditation or breath for relaxation and gentle massage. When we are sick we often have increased soreness and stiffness especially in areas already experiencing limitations/symptoms. However, if symptoms get worse I recommend reaching out to your primary doctor especially in the presence of high fever and increasing neck pain/stiffness.

You could try working on the muscle with a tennis ball against the wall to help decrease the tightness and spasms as well as some gentle mobility: laying on your back doing some gentle hip internal and external rotation, hamstring stretching, if tolerated gentle hip flexor and piriformis stretching, and diaphragmatic breathing.

I would consult with your chiropractor but typically I recommend clients do workout the day of but often with specific exercises that help facilitate the desired outcome of treatments. If you are seeing the chiropractor due to stiffness you would want to do some mobility exercises as well as some stability exercise that focus on spinal and pelvic alignment.

Absolutely, by strengthening muscles that support upright posture and lengthening muscles that are pulling in your body into a poor posture, therapy can help fix you posture.

Pain and numbness/tingling in arm brought on by shoulder movement can be caused by rotator cuff pathology/impingement (injury to rotator cuff can cause pinching of the nerves passing through the shoulder), thoracic outlet syndrome (blood vessels or nerves in the space between your collarbone and your first rib are compressed), or nerve impingement in cervical region or locally in muscles of shoulder complex. I would recommend seeing a doctor and/or physical therapist for assessment of the cause of pain and numbness and to begin treatment to address symptoms and regain shoulder complex function.

You can build strength doing isometric exercises if this is more comfortable for you/your knee. Isometric exercises are effective for strength training and due to the increased time under tension with isometric exercises you often recruit more muscle fibers. I would recommend performing closed kinetic chain isometric strengthening exercises for your legs at varying knee angles to load the joint as well as the muscle/tendons (ie. weight bearing exercises holding position with knee slightly flexed and at increasing angles up to greater than 90 deg if tolerated-- examples: wall squat, spanish squat, chair to hover). While you work your quads isometrically don't leave out working the other muscles that support your knee (glutes, hamstring, and gastroc), many of these exercises do not require large knee movements but still will load the joint and improve stability and load distribution during activities. Two of my favorites are loaded standing heel raise and the deadlift (perform deadlift from hang position to knees for nice posterior chain work with minimal knee motion). Additionally, working your balance with your knee straight and flexed will improve your body's reaction and overall stability. Eventually you will want to incorporate some isotonic exercises (concentric and eccentric motion) as these are the functional movement patterns we go through everyday with stairs and getting up from chairs.