Avoid Back Surgery Workshop with Dr. Steve Politis

After sustaining a traumatic shoulder injury (not chronic) earlier this year that resulted in a labral tear, I saw a number of surgeons with differing opinions. The first Dr. said surgery, and subsequent opinions included trying PT before surgery or instead of surgery. By recommendation of fellow climbing friends, I met with Steve. He worked with me for 10 sessions over the last 3 months, tailoring very specifically to my needs as a climber, with every session building on the previous. Steve always prepared exercises for each meeting, and I was very grateful for how motivated he was to help me get back to and beyond my former shoulder stability and strength. I am back to climbing at my personal best level and continuing with the exercises he taught me.”

“Steve is always polite, encouraging, and clearly very talented at what he does. I would recommend him highly to anyone.

As a competitive CrossFit coach and athlete, I get exposed to a lot of different variants and fads when it comes to sports medicine. Everybody seems to have a seemingly unique way of approaching injury and prevention. The problem is most of them don’t work…especially in the long term.”

“After a few sessions with Steve, he identified the ROOT cause of my shoulder issue and helped with both immediate pain relief and the longterm solution. I recommend him for his services and refer quite a bit of clients to him.

I have been to countless physical therapists for a chronic shoulder injury and FINALLY found Dr. Steve post-surgery. He is by far the best physical therapist I have ever worked with and I would recommend him to anyone seeking physical therapy. I have been seeing Dr. Steve for several months now and can confidently say that my shoulders feel the strongest and most stable they have ever felt. Dr. Steve always comes up with clever exercises that are challenging and incorporate full body/dynamic movements. Dr. Steve is an all-around great guy and incredible physical therapist – go see him if you are in need of PT!

Steve is an incredibly talented physical therapist. I can’t recommend him enough. I saw Steve in the latter part of 2014 for a back injury I suffered from working out a few months prior. I had been seeing some other physical therapists for the injury, but it kept recurring. I was pretty sure it was a strained muscle in my thoracic spine, and I had dull pain most of the time in my mid back that would turn into shooting pain on a regular basis. After almost four months of on-and-off pain wasn’t seeing much progress at all. I had difficulty sleeping, too.

Steve took a very different approach than the previous therapists. Instead of just rushing into familiar movements immediately, he spent a considerable amount of time asking me questions about the injury and other injuries I had sustained in years past, and watching my entire body when I’d walk and twist my back. This gave him a much bigger picture into my physical state than my past therapists cared to see.

After a session or two of observing and doing some basic mobility, he explained in very simple terms how he thought my injury was actually related to my lumbar spine and related to a skiing injury I had sustained a few years ago. The goal became to increase the mobility of the lumbar spine to decrease the strains on my thoracic spine, and to also increase hip mobility. His insight to connect these effects was remarkable to me.

For the remainder of my treatment, Steve worked with me to develop very specific exercises to target mobility and increasing movement. And this was also remarkable since previously I had been focusing on restricting movement.

Steve’s exercise treatments seemed, at first, elaborate and unfamiliar, as they moved in multiple planes of motion. While complex, I stuck with these exercises as best I could, and every week he had new, fresh ideas on how to improve and expand on them. Many of them focus on getting the body to move in completely new ways to energize the areas of concern and develop mental awareness of the body.

After about 2 months of weekly treatment, the pain I had experienced had all but gone, and I was able to return to my regular exercise programs.

Steve is very thorough, easy to understand, and cheerful. I’ve never quite met anybody like him, and can’t thank him enough for his help.

Steve is literally as good as it gets. If I could give Steve a single golden star, to represent the highest possible recommendation that I could give to a person on Earth — I would have given it to him in a heartbeat.

My story of how I came to work with Steve is long, and you don’t want to hear it. I was in a gnarly motorcycle accident, and had been in and out of hospitals/Orthos/PTs offices for 6 months. I was getting NOWHERE, and not for lack of trying. The worst part was, I was in constant, excruciating pain.

Cue Steve.

First of all — Steve gave me the most thorough evaluation I had had, out of AT LEAST 30 medical professionals. That kind of thing puts you at ease, when your neck and spine and hip are all in constant spasm, you know? You want the people touching you to BE CAREFUL.

The staff with whom he works are professional, the facility is nice and they take extra steps to make communication/scheduling/payments easy and accessible (email reminders/Square pay/etc.).

Then there’s the part where the work that we did together, and the work he assigned for me to do at home….well….it worked.

I saw him once a week, and within 2 months, the constant throbbing headache that I had — went away. Within 4 months, I was jogging. I know you cannot possibly know HOW BIG A DEAL THIS IS — but I had had doctors telling me that I *might* be able to *consider* getting back to working out — at the 1.5 YEAR mark (of working with them).

If I believed in miracles, I’d tell you he was a miracle worker. But I don’t. I believe there are people who are exceptionally talented at what they do — and sometimes you are lucky enough to cross paths with them, when you need them the most. Throughout the course of our working together, Steve not only demonstrated himself to be a careful, thorough evaluator — but an innovative and tireless partner in my road to healing. His professionalism and genius are only underscored by his trustworthiness and empathy.

You would be hard pressed to find a more valuable asset on your road to recovery.

Thank you for being so tremendously instrumental in ending my years of debilitating back and leg pain. After having about a dozen sessions with you last year, I have been pain free. The Physical Therapy you provided included adding specific new exercises and makingchanges in my existing weight training and aerobic exercise programs.

As I mentioned when we met last September, I began suffering back pain at age 21, and by the time I met you at age 63, I had not enjoyed more than a few days of relief since that time. At 21, I began to search out the best practitioners of yoga, exercise, mind control and eating programs. For over 30 years I have paid for and endured extensive Rolfing, chiropractic and every type of massage. I have stretched, cracked, cleansed, medicated, herbed, balanced, relaxed, punctured, floated, vibrated and hung upside down. Many well-trained and kind healers from all perspectives, including Western Medicine, gave me their time and effort, but to no avail.

About 2 years ago, the pain, along with alarming numbness, began taking over my hips, legs and feet. I had to stop teaching art after 33 years, I also stopped traveling by plane, gardening, throwing parties, biking, sight-seeing, and even was busy trying to figure out how to cook in 10 minute spurts. There was no position I could take to relieve pain so I could read or enjoy a meal, take a nap or sleep comfortably. I own a variety of orthopedic shoes, chairs, pillows, and even a leaning stool by Mojo. I took a combination of Tylenol and ibuprofen an hour before I had dinner guests, business meetings, or to sleep for a few hours.

Astonishingly, I have been without pain for over three months. In early March, I spent 6 hours touring the Getty Museum. Last weekend I spent four hours gardening and yesterday I got down and vacuumed like hell under my antique beds. Then I vacuumed drapes and chandeliers. Next week is grout cleaning!

While I tend to have a positive attitude, it took me a several weeks to accept that I am actually well. I am very thankful to you and I am completely filled with joy. (A thanks also to my MD, Dr. Dennis K. Baker, who talked me out of seeing a neurologist and suggested trying a third Physical Therapist.)

I will be posting this letter on my Facebook Page. Consider having such a page for your business…and post some rugby photos, too!

Please post this letter. And please live long, and prosper.