Physical Therapy For Patients with ME/CFS

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First, to clear up any confusion right away, these are NOT guidelines for using physical therapy as a treatment for ME/CFS. For more information on that topic, see my earlier post New ME/CFS Treatment: Manual Physical Therapy which includes details of a specialized form of manual therapy that uses nerve gliding for ME/CFS patients, to reduce pain and improve stamina.

Instead, this post is about guidelines for when someone who has ME/CFS needs physical therapy for another reason - an injury, post-surgery, specific chronic pain, etc. I recently developed some tendinitis in my right shoulder and, when resting it for several months didn't work, my doctor and I decided I needed physical therapy. I was very worried about getting a physical therapist who wouldn't understand about Orthostatic Intolerance (OI) or exercise intolerance, that I might end up working with someone who would push me too hard, resulting in post-exertional crashes.

To prevent that, I wrote up a simple 2-page set of guidelines for physical therapy when the patient has ME/CFS. The owner of our local PT clinic was thrilled with my summary, and each of the several physical therapists I worked with was very grateful and interested in learning about ME/CFS. I was thrilled by their open, welcoming responsiveness! I was just discharged from PT yesterday, and the whole experience was overwhelmingly positive. The owner of the PT office told me he would add my guidelines to their permanent files, where they keep information on various medical conditions that patients might have.

Here is a link to the pdf file of my document: Guidelines for PT for Patients with ME/CFS (I just learned how to link to a pdf file, so please let me know if there is any problem with this link!). Since it is a pdf file, you should be able to print right from this document and have a nicely formatted 2-page document to share with your physical therapist and/or doctor.