The month of October is National Physical Therapy Month and this month will make ten years that a Pearl River County native has been providing that service to his community.

For the past decade, Ryan Woods, PT, DPT has been providing physical therapy care to the Poplarville area.

Woods is a graduate of Picayune Memorial High School and longtime Pearl River County resident. He graduated from the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson and has been providing physical therapy care since 2005.

He took a job at a Picayune location two months prior to Hurricane Katrina, but that location closed as a result of storm damage.

In November of that year, he took a job with Hattiesburg Clinic and worked out of a clinic in Purvis. Then, just less than three years later in October of 2008, it was decided that he would provide those same services in Poplarville.

As a former basketball player, he is familiar with sports related injuries. However, he said he got more knowledge of how physical therapy can help people by bringing a classmate to his physical therapy sessions after he suffered an ACL injury while playing football.

That experience, combined with observation hours, led him to pursue his current career as a physical therapist.

In his years providing that care, he has helped newborns with torticolis and 90-year-old citizens with balance issues.

At times his treatment for patients with trouble balancing may include a game on a Nintendo Wii.

His office can also provide orthopedic treatment, and rehabilitation services. All patients must have a doctor’s order in order to receive physical therapy.

Woods said his goal is to assist his patients so they can move away from a life of pain.

“It’s really gratifying to see someone get back to what they want to do,” Woods said.

A unique aspect of the care Woods offers includes dry needling, which can help rehabilitate nerve endings.

Woods said dry needling involves two aspects, creating a small lesion to prompt an immune response from the body and stimulating the nerve endings so they get back to a baseline.

Dry needling is combined with other forms of physical therapy to help patients dealing with headaches, whiplash, carpel tunnel and sciatica pain to name a few ailments.

He said about 30 to 40 percent of his patients will opt to include dry needling in their therapy.

Poplarville Physical Therapy is open Monday through Thursday from 7 a.m. to 5 pm. and Friday from 7 a.m. to noon. The office can be reached at 601-795-6618 and is located at 1403 S Main Street, Suite E, Poplarville.