How To Recover From An Injury Faster
What type of injury do you have?
The first thing you need to know to recover from an injury faster, is what type of injury you have. There are two main types.
Acute Injuries
Acute injuries are a result of trauma (such as a fall or a collision). There is an acute inflammatory response which causes swelling and pain. Examples of common acute injuries are sprained ankles, torn ligaments, dislocated shoulders, slipped discs and whiplash. What you do in the first three days following an acute injury will significantly effect how fast your injury heals. The following information is most applicable to speed up recovery from an acute injury so if this is you, keep reading.
Muscle spasm induced Pain
Pain caused by muscle spasm can be just as painful as an acute traumatic injury, so how much pain you’re in does not indicate the type of injury you have. The key difference is that there was really no single traumatic incident or specific activity that caused it.
Often these injuries are injuries you wake up with, or they appear slowly over time. There might be tight, bulging muscles but there won’t be any real swelling like in an acute injury .
If this is your injury, you don’t need to follow the principles of acute injury management (below) to speed up your recovery. Instead, to recover from your injury faster, you should do some stretching and gentle movement, use a heat pack to help ease the muscles spasm and make a physiotherapy appointment as soon as possible to understand where this pain came from.
For exercises specific to your painful area, take a look at our tips to treat your pain at home.
How To Treat An Injury At Home:
Do RICE/ POLICE
Rest/ Protect, Optimally Load
Protecting your body from further injury is important but some gentle movement and walking as tolerated can speed up recovery.
Ice
Ice decreases pain and inflammation. We recommend 20 minutes every 2-3 hours . Frozen peas mould well around bony joints but always wrap them in a damp towel to avoid ice burns.
Compress
Do not miss this one! Swelling is important for healing but too much swelling creates scar tissue and delays long-term recovery. Wear compression clothing or wrap it in a bandage but be careful not to cut off the circulation.
Elevate
Minimise the swelling and pain by keeping it up.
What To Avoid After An Injury:
Do No HARM
Heat
Heat increases blood flow to the area which means more swelling and pain and a prolonged recovery.
Alcohol
Alcohol also increases blood flow. We’re also more likely to make silly decisions after a few, which could lead to further injury.
Running or Re-injury
The worse your injury, the longer the rehabilitation. Be kind to your body and don’t undertake any activities that increase the pain and may make the situation worse.
Massage
Massage generally increases blood flow and isn’t recommend. Specific massage can be useful to reduce muscle spasm and decrease pain however we recommend this is done by a professional.
Can i Take painkillers after An injury?
Pain medications can help you rest more effectively, but they must be used smartly and safely. Some things to consider are:
Do not take any medication if you are presenting to the hospital. Let the doctors decide the plan when you get there.
Anti-inflammatories such as ibuprofen are not recommended in the first three days following injury. Inflammation is normal and an important part of healing. Anti-inflammatories interfere with the healing process they are not recommended during the acute phase (first 72 hours) of injury healing.
Paracetamol based medications are a better choice of painkiller in the acute phase of injury healing as they dull the pain signals without interfering with the healing process. Paracetamol does not slow injury healing like anti-inflammatories can.
Taking medication to enable you to participate in an activity that could cause further injury is never advisable.
As with all medications, the risk of side effects increases with the strength of the medication and even paracetamol is not safe for everyone. For advice specific to your situation please see your GP or pharmacist.
What are the best foods for injury recovery?
Our body can only use what we put into it to heal, so good nutrition will help you recover from an injury faster. Immediately following an acute injury, our body needs protein to heal the injured tissue and foods high in vitamin A, C and zinc to support the immune system.
All foods have an inflammatory effect of our body, they can either increase the inflammation in our system or decrease it. When we suffer an acute injury, there is already a lot of inflammation in the body so it is a good idea to increase our intake of anti-inflammatory foods such as berries, fatty fish, olive oil, avocado and dark chocolate, and avoid inflammatory foods such as refined carbohydrates, processed meats and any foods high in sugar.
How long does it take an injury to heal?
How long does it take an acute injury to heal?
How long it takes for an acute injury to heal depends on a number of things:
how severe the initial injury was,
how much swelling there was and for how long after the injury it persisted, and
if you were able to get rid of the post-trauma spasm and wake up the stabilising muscles surrounding the injured area.
Depending on the severity of the initial injury a new acute injury can take anywhere from 2 to 12 weeks to heal. Managing the amount of initial swelling using the RICE principles will allow your injury to recover faster and it will minimise scar tissue. Restoring normal muscle activity with appropriate exercises will also speed up your injury recovery as it reduces abnormal loading on the injured tissues and allows them to heal more quickly.
How long does it take Spasm induced Pain to Heal?
With the right treatment, you should be able to get rid of spasm induced pain in a matter of days to weeks. The key to recovering from these injuries faster is understanding where they came from. They may feel like they appeared out of nowhere but there is always a cause. It might be a new desk set-up, car seat or shoes, it might be that you have poor lifting technique in the gym or it might be that your body has been compensating for an old injury and is finally tired of it. If you’re not sure why this pain has suddenly appeared we strongly recommend making a physiotherapy appointment. You need to make some kind of change to your daily movements and postures otherwise this pain will be hard to get rid of or will keep coming back.
How Do I know If I need To See A Physio?
To be honest, we recommend doing rehabilitation following every injury, but we promise, this is not just because we want more business!
At Move Mountains Physio, one of our specialities is chronic and persistent pain, which means we treat lots of injuries that are healing too slowly or aren’t responding to standard treatment. The majority of these chronic and persistent injuries don’t get better because the root cause of the injury is not at the site of pain but somewhere else in the body (such as an old injury) which is why treatment directed at the painful site isn’t solving the problem. Most of these patients no longer have pain at the old injury site so they may not have even thought to mention it to their therapist. When we assess the movement of this old injury however, we see that the old injury isn’t moving like it should and that the new area of chronic pain is continually compensating for it.
At the moment, most standard physiotherapy treatments still focus on the site of pain, which means not all therapists will identify that the pain is caused by a problem elsewhere in the body. We definitely recommend a few sessions of physiotherapy to treat your acute injury when it is obvious to see what the problem is, instead of waiting for it to cause pain elsewhere in the body a few years later as the further evolved the situation gets the more treatment you will need in the long run.
If you’re still uncertain if you need to see a physio, at the very least you should seek treatment if:
pain and swelling persist for more than a couple of weeks,
you are having difficulty returning to walking, work or sport,
you are starting to feel pain elsewhere in your body.
When should I start rehabilitation?
If you have an acute injury but don’t think you have done any serious damage and are happy to follow these tips to help you recover from your injury faster at home, make an appointment with your physiotherapist for three days after your injury. This is the perfect time to start rehabilitation.
If you have an acute injury and are concerned you’ve done serious damage or can’t weight bear on the injured area, make an appointment with your physiotherapist as soon as possible.
If you have an injury that has appeared out of nowhere, make an appointment with your physiotherapist as soon as you can, there is a reason it is there. You need to understand why it occurred and what kind of changes you need to make to your daily habits to change it. If you want to feel a change, you need to make a change.
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Or, if you’re looking for an expert physio to help you recover from your injury faster, book an appointment. Our unique treatment approach means we can treat 100% online so even if you’re not nearby in the Snowy Mountains of NSW, you can still access great physiotherapy treatment and get back to doing what you love without delay.