When you suffer from a musculoskeletal injury, you stand a better chance for satisfactory healing if you understand how the body responds to injury, chiropractic doctors say. That’s because informed patients tend to follow the doctor’s instructions and treatment plan more closely than patients who know nothing of how injuries heal.

An uninformed patient usually thinks of injury in simplistic terms such as bruise, dislocation, sprain, strain, laceration, wound or some other label. But doctors work from a much broader definition of injury and the more a patient thinks like a doctor, the better the outcome.
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HOW DOCTORS THINK OF INJURY
For instance, doctors know the body’s usual healing response to injury — regardless of the site, type, or degree of injury — is essentially the same, because all injuries involve the disruption of the normal continuity of bodily tissue structure as in these examples:

 

• BRUISE — disruption of the capillary blood vessels.
• DISLOCATION —disruption of the joint capsule and other supporting structures of the joint.
• SPRAIN — disruption of the ligament structure.
• STRAIN — disruption of the muscle structure.
• LACERATION — disruption of the skin.

 

But beyond the disruption of structure, in determining the proper treatment doctors must also consider the way the human body usually responds to injury, as well as possible future complications and residual problems attributable to the injury. Thus, to a chiropractic doctor, the term “injury” takes in much more than disruption of structure.

 

Fortunately, injuries tend to respond in the following three-part healing sequence, and injured patients should have a basic understanding of this healing process so they’ll know what to expect and the reasons for following the doctor’s advice.

 

THE 3-PART HEALING SEQUENCE:

#1 — Damage Control
 — Immobilization is the key to preventing additional damage. Nature’s method of limiting the activity and movement of the injured part includes pain, muscle spasm, and swelling.

 

#2 — Inflammatory Healing Response — Inflammation is a natural and vital healing response to injury, rather than just a symptom, and is characterized by a combination of pain, heat, redness and swelling. Without this inflammatory response, proper healing of injuries simply cannot occur.

 

It is an incredibly complex process not yet fully understood by even the most knowledgeable experts, and involves chemotaxis (migration of certain blood cells to the injury site), vasodilation, enzyme reactions, hormonal responses, immunological reactions and a myriad of other bodily substances, functions and factors.

 

Ideally, the inflammatory healing response is proportional to the degree of injury. But if nature responds with too little inflammation, proper healing cannot occur. If nature provides too much inflammation or it lasts too long, that leads to impaired function, chronicity of the injury, and eventually, degeneration of the affected tissues.

 

#3 — Final Healing —Normally, as healing takes place, the pain, spasms, and other inflammatory symptoms gradually subside, allowing the injured victim to gradually resume movements and activities previously restricted.

 

In 70 to 80 percent of injuries, these complex healing processes occur in their natural and proper sequence and timing in achieving full and complete healing. But in the remaining 20 to 30 percent, the doctor’s knowledge and skill, along with the patient’s understanding and cooperation, are essential if an unsatisfactory result is to be avoided.

 

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