Sports Related Muscle Injuries: Achieve Pain Relief and Recovery Naturally
Strenuous physical activity and sports-related muscle injuries put our bodies under significant strain. The more aggressive the activity, the faster our parts wear out. Many people who were professional athletes in their youth eventually pay a price. Despite this reality, exercise is one of the best therapies for almost everything. Even people with terminal cancer live longer and better if they exercise.
Fortunately, your body has a remarkable ability to regenerate its tissues, even after an injury. It has the remarkable capacity to repair skinned knees, knit broken bones back together, and even regrow joint cartilage. If you’re living with pain from a sports injury and can’t seem to reach full recovery, it’s time to learn how your functional medical providers in Cincinnati and New York can help.
What Causes the Pain of Chronic Injury?
Most of the pain from sports-related repetitive strain and microtrauma originates from damage in the muscle and fascia (myofascial pain), not inflammation or scar tissue. Muscles develop pain-generating myofascial trigger points, and the tendons that attach to them develop small tears. Then, when the muscle contracts against the injured tendon, the trigger points fire, and the pain serves as a deterrent to further movement and injury.
How the Body Heals Itself
Your body uses similar mechanisms to heal many different injuries. For example, when you sprain your ankle, some of the ligaments that hold the joint together get torn or overstretched. This injury triggers a reaction that lasts for several weeks.
After an injury, your body releases inflammatory chemicals that draw repair cells to the area. The swelling comes as the metabolic waste of cleansing dead or injured cells makes a toxic mess that needs to be diluted by bringing additional fluid to the area. This causes the ankle to swell, and white blood cells release enzymes that help clean up the injured tissue. After about three days, fibroblast cells migrate to the injury to rebuild and regenerate the damaged ligaments.
This healing process continues for 4-6 weeks, with some minor continued modification over the next several months. Broken bones and injured ligaments typically regain about 90% of their strength after about 6 weeks.
What Can Interfere with Natural Healing?
Certain factors can undermine the body’s natural healing and repair of damaged tissues. For example, icing as well as ibuprofen and other anti-inflammatory medications can slow or stop the healing process. Introducing nicotine into the blood through smoking or tobacco use can also inhibit recovery.
A common mistake is applying ice during the first 24-48 hours after the injury. Ice slows metabolism, slows blood flow, and delays healing. It is often much better to apply heat to a fresh injury.
Accelerate Healing With Integrative Medicine
For most sports-related injuries, the best thing you can do is get out of your body’s way to let it do its healing. This includes avoiding anti-inflammatory drugs and smoking. You can also facilitate the process by taking extra vitamin C and zinc. Studies on wounded soldiers showed the importance of nutrition in wound and injury recovery. Lastly, consider applying moist heat to increase blood and nutrient supply and speed up metabolism in the injured area.
Sometimes, at-home care can’t provide enough healing. What can result are loose joints after sprains or partially torn tendons. Functional medicine can provide pain relief and help restore healthy functioning. The fundamental principle is to get the body to “rerun” the same healing program by simply reinjuring the affected body part.
Dr. Blatman and his team of qualified providers see many people with sports and other injuries. Some of the most common include tennis elbow, plantar fasciitis, bursitis, and golfers’ elbow. Based on the nature of your injury and your medical history, your Cincinnati or New York City provider may recommend one or more regenerative treatments, such as dry needling or acupuncture, trigger point injections (prolotherapy), or myofascial release.
During a treatment session, a controlled, tiny injury can be made with an acupuncture needle, an injection of dextrose and novocaine (prolotherapy), or, most effectively, an injection of your own platelet-rich plasma. Once the body’s healing is restarted, fibroblast cells will begin rebuilding the injured area in about three days. If targeting the myofascial tissue alone isn’t enough, the tendons and associated ligaments may also need treatment.
Integrative Care for Faster Sports Injury Recovery
At the Blatman Health and Wellness Center in Cincinnati and Blatman Integrative Healing in New York City, we combine the best regenerative therapies to quickly relieve pain and restore motor functioning for adults and children with sports-related muscle injuries. Take the first step toward healing today by contacting us through our online form to schedule an appointment.
