We often find that our favourite activity results in pain or that its being blamed for causing the pain through repetitive strain or damage. It doesn’t matter if you have longstanding or progressive spinal pain, knee pain or even nerve referral into an arm or a leg – the instruction is usually the same: “Unless you want me to operate, stop [insert your activity here]”.
In an earlier article I mentioned that we’ve used “wear and tear” incorrectly when we look at the human body (for everything other than our teeth and perhaps our brain cells…) because we have the capacity to heal. Our bodies can independently regain function beyond that of your car or your kitchen cabinets and without surgical intervention. This means that if we create the correct environment for the body to recover (be that from injury or altered mobility patterns), the problems you’re faced with shouldn’t be ongoing.
Our favourite activity is usually blamed when there was no real trauma – nothing was black and blue and the pain started without a clear event where we can’t reasonably say there is tissue damage. These problems are very commonly mechanical problems – ones that I best explain through the analogy of a car:
Say one of your car’s tyres suddenly starts wearing badly and wobbling within a month of buying them (these being special tyres which can regenerate like our bodies)…
- Do you stop driving (your favourite activity) in fear of having to replace a tyre every month?
- Do you remove the affected tyre (key hole surgery) and drive with 3?
- Do you just replace the tyre (joint replacement) because that’s the ‘best’ treatment?
- Do you lock that wheel (spinal or joint fusion) to never move again?
- Do you wash you tyres (take pain killers) regularly?
- Do you condition the rubber? (have massages)
- Or do you check your tyre pressure, wheel balancing and alignment (get to the bottom of the issue?)
If you look to solve the problem by going to someone that only sells tyres or one that sells only soaps or oils, you’ll never have a wheel checked for balancing or alignment or the simplest of all, tyre pressure!
If we merely offered washes or rubber conditioning treatments or idly stood by our patients opting for removals, replacements or fusions in the absence of truly irreparable damage, we’re failing our patients and ignoring the body’s capacity to heal! But if we dig into the movement patterns impacting the area, ensuring that the wheel is balanced and aligned by helping you to regain your correct movement patterns and educating you on regularly checking your tyre pressure and avoiding potholes while driving… we find that the tyre no longer needs to be replaced, the wobbling and poor wearing is halted and in the case of these special tyres that have the capacity to heal, any “wear and tear” starts to REPAIR where you have endless kilometers ahead without the ongoing tyre problem!
Your health and physical wellbeing should be a priority deserving of quality care. Make sure to discuss any concerns you may have directly with your preferred physiotherapist, so that you can receive the appropriate guidance for your unique situation.