Injury Management- Heal Faster!

The number one worst thing we all do wrong when we are hurt is USE IT! Whatever it is. We use it. We go for a walk when we have back pain or knee pain. We work at a computer all day when we have neck pain. We go to PT and do 20 exercises for our shoulder when we can't even lift our arms to brush our teeth. It's silly!

Taking anti-inflammatories, pain relievers and muscle relaxers actually do the opposite you think they do. They really SLOW DOWN the healing process and keep us in a pain cycle which requires us to use more of these toxic drugs.

Injuries need rest and support until the pain is mostly gone. This phase may take 2-4 weeks. The joints need to be realigned so the ligaments can re-knit faster. Bracing, taping and adjusting the injury helps.

The spine needs to be adjusted to allow proper nerve and blood flow to the effected areas. The chiropractic adjustment is the only therapy that restores normal structure and function to the entire body so it can heal on multiple levels. This significantly speeds healing time.

And the body needs to rest to reduce inflammation, irritation, and more tissue damage, too. Ice can be a great analgesic and anti-inflammatory, but may slow the healing process so we only use ice in the very beginning of the injury. I like to use K-Laser to speed the healing process. K-Laser is a Class IV warm laser that decreases pain, inflammation and speeds up cellular repair.

When the pain is improved and the inflammation is mostly subsided it's time to start gentle rehab of the injured area with a heavy emphasis on everything near the injury. For example, if we sprain an ankle, we want to do a gentle range of motion on the ankle and more intense rehab on the low back, hips, pelvis and knees bilaterally. If we injury a shoulder we emphasize neck, upper back, rib cage, hip and pelvis rehab until the shoulder can tolerate more direct exercises.

The exercises on our website are a great starting place.