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Muscular Injuries, Muscular
Pain, And How Muscles Heal
Your muscles heal very differently
than your bones. If you fracture a bone, as
long as it is set and fixed in place properly, it will tend to heal so
thoroughly that it will become stronger than it was before the fracture!
Bone tissue heals with calcium and other minerals, components of bone,
in a process that creates a bond that is as strong or stronger than the
original bone structure.
Lloyd, for example,
breaks his leg and strains (pulls) several muscles in a skiing
accident. The fractured bone is set, his leg is placed in a
cast, and after the requisite amount of time, the cast is removed.
It’s as good as new or even better—the bone anyway...
Your muscles however, do not
actually heal with muscle tissue, but with "foreign"
substances including collagen. The resulting scar tissue is weaker, less
elastic, and highly prone to re-injury. Once a muscle is damaged, it can
become the source of a great deal of pain.
Muscular Injuries Can
Cause Severe Pain And Impairment, But Are Often Poorly Diagnosed And
Inadequately Managed.
The American Academy of Orthopedic
Surgeons held a symposium in 1987, in which the attending experts
examined the limitations of orthopedic medicine in treating soft tissue
injuries. Their conclusion was that not only do sprains and strains of
the musculoskeletal (muscular) tissues cause considerable impairment and
pain, but that these injuries are often poorly diagnosed and
inadequately managed.¹
The standard medical response to
muscular injuries is still mostly pain killers, anti-inflammatory drugs,
and rest. The medication does little more than numb the pain and
suppress the inflammation. The symptoms are effectively reduced, but
these are the symptoms of the injury—not
the injury itself.
Drugs can actually slow the
healing process, and too much rest can be counterproductive as well,
since muscle tissue needs a certain amount of movement as it heals, and
will begin to atrophy (shrink) if not used.
Unfortunately for
Lloyd, the casting and immobilization of his leg, which was crucial
for the proper healing of the bone, was not exactly what his injured
muscles needed. Now over a year has past, including several months
of vigorous physical therapy sessions, and x-rays show that the bone
has completely healed and there are no other complications. Lloyd
however, notices that although his injured leg seems to be just as
strong as it was before the accident, it is nowhere near as
flexible, and he finds himself in pain whenever he runs or cycles,
two activities he was able to perform painlessly before the skiing
accident.
What Muscles Need In
Order To Heal As Fully As Possible
In order for a car to go forward
properly, all of its tires need to be aligned in the same direction
(unless it's turning). In a similar manner, for your muscles to function
properly, all of their fibers need to be aligned in the same direction.
When you have a muscle that has
been injured however, the initial repair process creates a
"patch" of random scar tissue fibers. Like a weak link in a
chain, the random alignment of these new fibers becomes a "weak
link" in your muscle, leaving it highly susceptible to re-injury.
For an injured muscle to regain
maximum strength and flexibility, the scar tissue needs to become
aligned and integrated with the muscle fibers. Oddly, our bodies do not
have an efficient internal mechanism for accomplishing this. It's
somewhat haphazard, gradually improving over time but often not
resolving completely, which can become quite a problem.
The problem is that the nervous
system essentially "over reacts" to even microscopic areas of
scar tissue, by keeping the muscle in a shortened, inflamed, and usually
painful state. The inflammation process is the first stage of healing
and by keeping the muscle short, the nervous system is trying to protect
it from further harm, these reactions however, can continue well past
the point of being productive—in
fact they can continue indefinitely.
Even a small muscular injury can
lead to a chronic pain pattern which persists for months or even years,
because the nervous "system stays on alert," waiting for the
scar tissue to heal completely and become aligned with the surrounding
muscle tissue.
Carpal
Tunnel Syndrome is a good example. This potentially career-ending
injury begins with the tiniest of muscular injuries from performing a
simple repetitive task like using a computer keyboard and mouse.
Soft Tissue Release
Breaks The Pain Cycle By Quickly Correcting The Scar Tissue "Weak
Link"
By correcting (aligning and
smoothing out) areas of scar tissue and other muscular irregularities, Soft
Tissue Release breaks the muscular pain cycle at its root,
accelerates the healing process, and restores muscular balance in a
lasting way.
What happens to
Lloyd? Eventually his wife, tired of listening to his complaining,
hears about a new therapy from a friend and encourages him to try
it. Lloyd goes in for several sessions of Soft Tissue Release and
shortly begins to regain the flexibility he had lost and is soon
able to run, cycle, and even ski again without pain.
¹Symposium entitled "The
Mechanisms of Injury and Repair of Musculoskeletal Soft Tissue."
(This material is for informational
purposes and does not constitute
medical advice.)
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