Review of Rawalpindi Islamabad Female Physiotherapists

Everyone, in their lifetime, experiences body pain; whether it be neck, shoulder, arms, back, low back, hips, joints or knee pain. This pain can occur at any age, not just when you get old. Even children and teenagers experience pain and seek treatment for it.

Similarly, I started experiencing pain and went seeking medical help. After consultation with a doctor, he recommended me to seek treatment from a physiotherapist for pain management. The medicines he would prescribe would only bring temporary relief thus, for a permanent solution I should visit a physiotherapist. Hence my journey began within the physiotherapist industry. The first app I opened was Oladoc, and to my amazement I discovered between 300 and 400 physiotherapists in Rawalpindi Islamabad area. Which one to select seemed easy, but I was soon proven wrong. My natural instinct was to select the nearest one, but after multiple sessions and no improvement in my pain I came to the conclusion that Not All Physiotherapists Are Created Equal which became the reason behind this article. For what its worth, here’s my review of the physiotherapists I visited and my experience with them.

The very first physiotherapist I visited was Dr Ayesha in Maryam Memorial Hospital. There are 2 branches of Maryam Hospital, one in Peshawar Road and the other in Civic Center Bahria Town. Peshawar Road branch is the main branch with good doctors and a good reputation. The Civic Center branch isn’t that great but, it is much better than the other hospitals in Bahria Town. Dr Ayesha started by asking me questions about my lifestyle and daily routine; trying to figure out the reason behind the pain. She taught me some exercises to do everyday and prescribed me a full page of medicines and lotions. When this didn’t reduce the pain, I went to a different physiotherapist. Another drawback of her is that while I was being treated, she told a male patient to go to a different hospital because she wasn’t comfortable treating him. I found that strange since I visit gynaecologists, male patients come there to get ultrasound and they get treated too; not turned away.

Next I searched for a higher rated physiotherapist, and came across Gold Medalist Dr Hareem in Reliance Hospital. She didn’t ask me questions about my lifestyle and went straight to the “treatment” (you will find out soon why treatment is in quotes!). Dr Hareem told me to stop doing any exercises that I am doing and should do the exercises she recommended. Since she’s a gold medalist, her exercises had more value and I started doing them.

When these exercises didn’t help either, a friend recommended Dr Saman in Baby Medics. Dr Saman didn’t have high ratings like Dr Hareem, but I decided to try her. Worst case scenario is that she’ll teach me some new exercises and tell me to do them. When I visited Dr Saman, she didn’t ask me about my lifestyle, but when straightaway to the treatment. After I told her about my pain, she told me to lie down and used some equipment on the pain area. At that time, I didn’t know what they were. At the end of the treatment, I asked her what she had used and told her about my previous “treatments”. She told me she had used electrotheraphy first and then ultrasound. She also said that exercises aren’t enough for the pain to go away. The combination of electrotheraphy, ultrasound, and exercises will help treat the pain. After that treatment I felt much better and wished that I had consulted my friend earlier. Atleast I wouldn’t have wasted my time and money with Dr Ayesha and Hareem.

After a long time, the pain started again. Dr Saman started working in multiple hospitals and her timings were not matching with mine. I knew which treatments worked for me and had to find the physiotherapist who did that treatment. Dr Maham of Physiotherapy and Pain Management fit that profile. Her profile page had her receiving an award of excellence from Motorway Police and that she was training physiotherapists. All seemed to be good, but when I reached there, her clinic was in an awkward plaza and the beds were very smelly. Half way through the session she said she had to leave in an emergency. First impression is the last impression. Needless to say, I never contacted her again and won’t recommend her to anyone. She could have cancelled the appointment before the session, and charging full price for a half session doesn’t reflect good on anybody’s character; no matter which industry they work in.

After the unsuccessful session with Dr Maham Jalani, and still experiencing pain, I booked a session with Dr Sara Zafar. Sara asked me questions about my lifestyle and examined the area I was experiencing pain. She started the same treatment like other physiotherapists and I had my session of electrotheraphy and ultrasound. After few more sessions my pain went away. The best thing about Dr Sara Zafar is that in every step she’s inquiring if it’s hurting or is the treatment too strong. This amount of dedication and commitment towards the patient was never experienced by me before and for this reason I rate her as one of the best physiotherapists in Islamabad Rawalpindi metroplex.

After a year or so, I started to experience the same pain again. This time I didn’t go to Dr Sara, although I should have. I went to Dr Anumta in Rehman Hospital. It’s not a well known hospital, and there was no patients in there. I had become used to seeing rush in clinics and waiting for my turn. Over here that wasn’t the case. Anyway , Anumta was like all the other physiotherapists and did the electrotheraphy and ultrasound treatment.

After few sessions with Anumta, I had a couple of sessions at Dr Z Physiotherapy. Having been to so many physiotherapists, I wasn’t expecting anything new. Dr Mehr Fatima Shah confidently told me that electrotheraphy and ultrasound weren’t the permanent solution. If I wanted to be pain free, I needed a session with her. Curiously I booked a session with her. After the usual questions about my lifestyle and work habits, the session started. As she had said, there was no electrotheraphy and ultrasound, but it was intense manual physiotherapy. So intense, that it would leave me dizzy for a while. Dr Mehr had said that it is better to get a massage before the session so that the muscles are relaxed and soft. My muscles were stiff and hard, thus I experienced more pain and she wasn’t able to complete the session as she would have. But, the positive outcome is that during the manual session she was able to pinpoint the root cause of the pain and work on it.

Finally, after having visited so many physiotherapists, the root cause of my pain had been identified. Dr Sara, Saman, Anumta were all good in the treatment, but none of them identified the root cause of the pain. All of them had blamed it on my posture and lifestyle, but Dr Mehr found the trigger point and worked on it. For this I rate Dr Mehr Fatima Shah and her team at Dr Z Physiotheraphy as the best physiotherapist in Islamabad Rawalpindi.

I would also like to recommend my physiotherapist friends at Temar Medical. I haven’t had a session with them, but they are a good batch of physiotherapists.