Weeks 1–2
Pain
Calm the injury down.
Hands-on work on the irritated tissue takes the edge off, starting your first visit. We also name the one or two tasks that keep re-injuring it, so healing stops resetting every shift.
What We Treat
Work injury treatment in Slidell.
You got hurt doing your job, and now every shift is a negotiation with your own body. Start with an evaluation that looks for the cause, one-on-one with a licensed physical therapist, and a plan that ends with your job demands tested, not guessed.
Sound Familiar?
Does this sound like you?
- You felt it pop on the lift, finished the shift anyway, and told nobody
- Ibuprofen before the shift now, not after it
- Your grip quits on you in the last hour, so you set the tool down and shake it out
- You look at the schedule and hope the overhead work lands on somebody else
- Light duty was supposed to be two weeks, and it is still your job description
- You are quietly worried you cannot do this job for another twenty years
Two or more? Keep reading.
Why It Happens
The tissue healed. Your capacity never did.
Work injuries come in two shapes. One is the single event: a lumbar disc irritated on an awkward lift, a rotator cuff tendon strained reaching into a rack. The other builds quietly. Thousands of repetitions load the same tendon, the same wrist, the same shoulder, until it finally protests. Both leave the same thing behind. Pain and swelling make the muscles around the injury fire less. A few weeks later, the strength and endurance your job demands is gone.
That is why it did not resolve on its own. Rest let the tissue settle. Then you went back to the same load, at a fraction of your old capacity, doing the task the same way. So it flares. You back off. The gap between what your body can do and what the job asks never closes. An evaluation that looks for the cause sorts out three things: which tissue is irritated, which link in the chain is weak, and which movement keeps reloading it.
The Honest Truth
The job is not going to get lighter while you wait.
If you keep waiting
- You work around it so well that the good shoulder, or the good knee, starts hurting too
- Light duty stops being temporary, and so does the smaller paycheck that comes with it
- You go back on hope instead of proof, get hurt again, and start the whole thing over
If you start this week
- You know the actual cause by the end of visit one
- Hands-on relief starts before you leave the building
- Your job demands get trained on purpose, then tested, so going back is a decision and not a gamble
Nobody regrets starting too early.
How We Fix It
The same four phases. Built for the job you go back to.
Every plan has an endpoint. Here’s what the four phases look like after a work injury.
Weeks 2–6
Prime
Get the motion back.
Joint mobilization and targeted mobility work free the segments that stiffened up while you guarded the injury. Motion first, because you cannot load a joint that will not move.
Weeks 6–10
Perform
Rebuild to what the job asks.
Your plan starts looking like your shift. Lifting from the floor, carrying, overhead reaching, ladders, repetitive gripping, loaded and progressed until your capacity clears the demand.
Weeks 10+
Prevent
Go back with proof, not hope.
Dr. Ryan Spano, PT, DPT is a WorkSteps testing administrator, so your readiness gets measured against real job demands instead of guessed at. You leave with the mechanics that keep it from happening twice.
Questions, Answered
What people ask before booking for a work injury.
We accept workers’ compensation claims, and we run a benefits check before your first visit. Bring your claim number and your adjuster or employer contact, and we will tell you what we find. If you decide to pay on your own instead, ask us for a Good Faith Estimate. Either way, you should never start care guessing about the bill.
You can absolutely ask, and it is worth asking. Plenty of people assume the choice was made for them somewhere in the paperwork. What your claim allows comes down to your employer and your carrier, so give us the details and we will check it before you owe anything. Then the decision is yours, made with real information instead of an assumption.
Not in Louisiana. You can be evaluated here by a licensed physical therapist without a physician referral. Comp claims have their own rules, though: some carriers want a referral or an authorization on file before they will pay. That is exactly what the benefits check sorts out, before your first visit rather than after it.
With testing, not with a note that says you feel better. Dr. Ryan Spano, PT, DPT is a WorkSteps testing administrator, so lifting, carrying and endurance get measured against the demands of your actual job. That testing is the endpoint of the Prevent phase. You go back knowing what you can handle, and it is documented, not guessed.
No. An older injury takes a different route, not a closed one. The tissue has settled by now, so the work shifts to the motion, strength and mechanics nobody ever rebuilt. You still get an evaluation that looks for the cause and a plan with an endpoint, through all four phases: Pain, Prime, Perform, Prevent.
Book Your Visit
Ready when you are.
Request a time and a real person calls you back. No phone tree. No ‘someone will reach out.’ Just a plan.
- Hours Mon & Wed 8:00am to 6:00pm · Tue, Thu, Fri 8:00am to 5:00pm · Sat & Sun Closed
- (985) 326-7260 Prefer to talk now? Call us.
- No referral needed to start
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A real person calls you back
Step 1 of 5
Request sent.
That’s the hard part done. We’ll call during business hours to lock in your time.
Visit Us
Care this good, this close.
Alpha Physical Therapy
- 1290 Front St STE 1B, Slidell, LA 70458
- (985) 326-7260
- Fax: (985) 326-7261
- scheduling@alphaptgroup.com
- Mon & Wed 8:00am to 6:00pm · Tue, Thu, Fri 8:00am to 5:00pm · Sat & Sun Closed