Our bodies have a self – healing capacity if given the opportunity to do so. For example, if you cut yourself, most often you don’t use any medication. Your body takes care of it, unless there is an obstruction, i.e. you keep stretching the ends, expose it to dirt, etc. That’s pretty clear.
In case or an injury, most often, your body needs some assistance in order to heal properly. Your job is to help your body self heal. And, our job is to guide you through that process.
Can’t I just rest?
Once injured, your tissue needs time to heal. Some people think that resting the injured part would be sufficient to restore the function of the injured part. Most frequently, the pain instead of subsiding, starts increasing, the we our movements starts diminishing.
Why?
Because, our bodies are designed for movement. Even if you were not injured and you immobilize part of your body eg. place your non injured arm in the cast, you would most likely develop a problem and have difficulty moving it once the cast gets removed. That’s pretty clear to everyone, right? Everyone realizes right away that the part of the body would get stiff and weak and would need to get a lot of exercises to get back in shape, even though there was no injury whatsoever. But, when it comes to the injured part, some people get confused, and think that it is somehow different. What actually happens is that the injured part, even more than non-injured needs movement. Why? Because, it is in trouble and needs assistance in order to heal. Due to the injury, the circulation gets impaired, and removal of waste products gets diminished. As a consequence, the swelling develops which puts the pressure on a pain receptors and soon even minimal movement gets painful so we naturally want to move even less. Meanwhile, the stiffness as a normal progression of no movement develops and our problem gets bigger. So, now we have not only weakness, but we get increased stiffness and pain. The longer the body part is not moved, the bigger the problem.
So, what’s the solution?
The injured part needs motion. But, how do we move it without jeopardizing the healing process? That is where the role of physiotherapist comes in. We have a training to recognize the signs and symptoms of an injury. We are trained to read the silent language a.k.a. pain, swelling, change of color etc. which your body produces in order to tell you that is not happy with the current situation. And, then we teach you how to move to assist your body to do its job, self-heal without being compromised by no movement, poor circulation and swelling.
Call us to teach you how you can best support your body to heal the fastest way. 416 – 949 – 3657