Top 5 Things Keeping You From Getting Better!

[Guest]

by Mike Napierala, PT, SCS, CSCS, FAFS

You've heard the wise advice before to go find someone who's succeeding in what you're interested in and find out how they did it, right? The concept  is, "Don't reinvent the wheel."

So when it comes to recovering from injuries we should figure out what people who got their troubles figured out and handled as quickly as possible do (and remember that very often goes along with less expensive, less time consuming, less time away from the things you love or need to do, etc.).     

Your first step has to be avoiding some really common beliefs that can totally derail your sensible decision making and taking action. People who recover well do it in short order definitely aren't getting stuck in the quicksand of these sorts of mistaken perspectives. 

These self-limiting beliefs below can sabotage your recovery. Don't let these little "demons" take control of your common sense. 

From pain vs discomfort debates in your head to thoughts of needing to avoid getting sucked into pre-determined batteries of expensive visits and tests, to the fear of someone recommending surgery, there are tons of beliefs that can put your getting back to normal on a serious case of PAUSE. 

Nobody wants to stay injured.

Nobody expects or wants their body to heal slowly.

Nobody intends to absolutely prevent their own recovery.

BUT. 

There are plenty of beliefs you can fall victim to that STOP you from making the decisions and taking the actions that those "successful" people did. 

1.      Waiting to feel better tomorrow. Stop telling yourself it's okay to be hurting today and hoping that maybe by luck you're going to suddenly have a complete 180⁰ turnaround when you wake up tomorrow!

2.      Repeating the same movements or stresses that got you hurt in the first place. If you got hurt bending over to pick something up, you've got to stop repeating that bending motion over and over, or motions that look like it, like sitting slouched in that chair all day long. Injured tissues can't heal if you're constantly yanking and mashing on them over and over again. Let that poor little sucker get at least a bit of relief from being messed with. 

Think about it. When you get a "brush burn" (an abrasion in medical terms), how does it feel when you rub up against that skin two days later? Figuring out how you injured yourself to begin with and trying to avoid those movements is often a starting point.

3.      Chasing symptoms around like trying to catch a mouse. Unfortunately, oftentimes "health care" can become just that, can't it? "What hurts?" is soon followed by some medication to make the hurt stop, or take the swelling down or the fever away. We're so quick to treat the symptoms that we bounce around looking for things to make us "feel better" as soon as possible. This is often what happens when we rely on self-treating ourselves. Symptoms might lessen for hours or a day or two, only to disappoint us and come back, causing you to try the next quick fix: heating pads to NSAIDs to pain patches to foam rolling or "rubbing it out." If your symptoms keep returning, then what you're doing isn't working well enough.

4.      Missing the real underlying causes. These last three are really tightly related to each other. So the big, big point here is that any symptom you have does have an underlying cause. If there's a pain in your foot and you take a Tylenol and you ice it and you rest it and forget to check your shoe to remove the pebble inside then your foot will keep on hurting. Treating symptoms is necessary and feeling better is a totally appropriate goal! But you CAN'T stop there.  

Casting a fractured arm with the bones still not aligned will NOT fix the pain. You MUST reset the bones first, right? Well, do you know the CAUSE of YOUR Symptoms? Trauma is one thing. Fell down the stairs, get ran into by someone, get hit by a ball...those are traumas. They happen to you.

But so often the symptoms we see are non-contact or they developed over time. Something inside YOU wasn't working properly. For some reason your painful, distressed tissue, whether it's a tendon or a nerve or a muscle or whatever, got overloaded. There's usually a reason these things happen. Whoever is helping you should be going beyond doing things to merely get you to "feel better," and figuring out what led to the overload. 

SO IT DOESN'T HAPPEN AGAIN!

5.      Going back too early because you feel better. This is a huge one, and one that I've mentioned before. It's natural to get stuck on the excitement and hopefulness and accomplishment of the fact we're finally feeling better. And we should be happy the symptoms are less, or even nearly gone. BUT you've got to ask yourself, "What makes me think my very same problem won't recur again?" Has time merely passed? Have medications and heat or ice or massage made things feel better but without enough time (or even so often any attention to change) for the underlying causes to be fixed? 

Has enough time passed that you're literally stronger than before? That you're literally looser? Or do you just feel better? If you're going back to your risky activity and you're a new person with better flexibility, better movement patterns, better strength, better sharing and teaming among your body parts...then your risk sounds less than before. But if that hasn't happened, then you're likely right back where you started before. Get ready to experience those same symptoms all over again!

So remember, if you're walking around with any of these self-limiting beliefs in your head, STOP right now and get a new perspective. Seek out some help getting through this. 

Peak Performance's expert Physical Therapists are ready to work through this with you. Once a thorough evaluation is done, we can educate you more about how or why this may have happened and share with you a plan to not only help you to feel better but the changes we'd like to help you make so you can actually BE better. 

A literally better person than you were before!

1.   More UNDERSTANDING of how to succeed and how to avoid failure (i.e. re-injury)

2.   More CONFIDENT and encouraged that you have some control finally and that you can  positively impact your own outcome. Relieved and excited and hopeful once again!

3.   More PHYSICALLY CAPABLE of living the life you want to because you know you've increased your movement abilities and capacity to tackle the things you need and love to do!

CALL US at 585-218-0240 if you're still hurting or not feeling able to comfortably and confidently do the things you love.