“When should I get treatment?”

I get asked this question a lot, most often by people who are nursing an injury, hoping that I’ll tell them to just wait it out.  And the truth is, for most injuries, waiting it out will ease your symptoms.  Nature will take its course, your body will know what to do, and your pain will subside.  But is that really the best option?

You see, our bodies are very, very smart.  They know what to do to fix things, far better than I claim to know.  But the thing is, our bodies don’t take compensation injuries into account.  A rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul situation often develops.  And let’s not forget the time factor; manual therapy can speed up healing rates.

Take the common example of knee pain.  Your knee hurts.  So you take some time off from the gym, modify your daily activities, and utilize home remedies like stretching and Voltarin and hot tubs and ice.  You feel better, so you return to the gym and the physical rigors of daily life.  But your knee pain starts to creep back in, although milder than before, and now it’s accompanied by lower back pain.  Why?  Well, the cause of your knee pain was never really addressed with all of your stretching and Voltarin-ing and hot tubbing and icing, so when you resume activity, it comes back.  And your body has done such a excellent job of compensating (gait changes, postural changes, biomechanical changes) that your lower back worked extra hard and is now paying the price via a secondary injury.  And you forgot to maintain your core strength while you did all that laying around nursing your knee pain.  Sigh.

“When should I get treatment?”

You should get treatment if home remedies aren’t working effectively.

You should get treatment if you want to get back in the game faster.

You should get treatment if you want to be proactive and preventative with your health.

“When should I get treatment?”

Now.