Recovery

Many of you who are a part of the practice have heard about or have been directly impacted by my recent traumatic injury. If you haven’t, it’s been 6 weeks now since I fell and fractured the neck of my femur bone. In other words, I broke my hip. I had to have surgery to insert 3 pins/screws in order to stabilize the bone. It’ been quite a process getting to where I am now. It was ten days of using a walker and putting no pressure on the leg. Then it was two more weeks of using the walker and steadily increasing the amount of pressure I put on the leg. Once I reached the 50% mark, I switched to crutches. I started physical therapy three weeks ago. I’ve been going twice per week, and doing home exercises twice a day, 7 days per week. Sitting here at six weeks, I have reached the benchmark where I can start working toward walking on my own.

I bring all this up because I feel this is a good time to talk about the amount of time it takes our bodies to heal. Even if your injury or condition doesn’t seem as traumatic as what I’ve been through, there is still a timeline of healing that your body will follow. So what I’d like to do in this post is to briefly discuss those recovery timeframes. It’s very important to discuss because the frequency of visits and length of care we recommend to you are based on these standard timeframes. We would all love it if our bodies only required a couple adjustments and just a few added therapies, and then like magic we’re back to 100%. Unfortunately it just doesn’t work that way with human tissue, even if our pain levels are telling us we are “fixed”.

So let’s dive into the phases of injury recovery. There are different models out there, but I’m going to discuss the 4 phase version.

• Phase 1: Protection/Acute
  • This occurs right after injury and can last approximately 2-4 days after. Pain and swelling
    are typically at their worst, and your body is trying to prevent any further injury. Rest,
    ice, and gentle movement are often recommended.
• Phase 2: Repair/Sub-acute
  • This phase can last up to 6 weeks following the injury. Your body is working to repair tissue and also putting down new tissue. This is a very important time to receive care in our office, as we can help aid in these repair processes. Care may include adjustments, soft tissue therapies, class 4 laser therapy, and working to increase mobility.
• Phase 3: Remodeling/Late Stage
  • Your body has repaired and laid down new tissue, but that tissue is most likely not strong enough or prepared to deal with normal physical demands. This can be a tricky time period because many people are feeling better at this point, and that may give them the false idea that their body has fully healed. This phase usually lasts from 6 weeks post- injury to 3 months post-injury. Your care may still consist of those listed in phase 2, but strengthening exercises in the office or at home will most likely be added.
• Phase 4: Ongoing Repair and Remodeling/Final Stage
  • This phase can last from 3 months post-injury all the way up to 12 month. Two big goals during this time are to continue to improve the quality and alignment of the new tissue and also preventing re-injury. You are almost there!

To make things a little more complicated, the different types of tissue in your body also have different time ranges for reaching Phase 3. This can mean that different types of tissue may be in different phases of repair. Of course your body, the type of injury, and the care you will receive can impact these, but below I have some average time ranges for the different tissues:

• Muscle: 2-4 weeks
• Tendon: 4-6 weeks
• Bone: 6-8 weeks
• Ligaments: 10-12 weeks
• Cartilage: 12 weeks
• Nerve: 3-4 mm/day

I know this can be a lot to take in, but the big thing to take away is that the healing of your body is a process. At times this can make recovery somewhat frustrating. We want the pain to go away and the function to return as quickly as possible. We tend to get aggravated because one day we feel like we are making great progress and then the next day we feel like we’ve lost a lot of ground. Just know that it’s all a part of the healing process. If you have specific questions about your current condition and the timing to get to your goals, please let us know. We always want to make sure you understand what we are doing in terms of your care, and why we are doing it. I’m looking forward to seeing you in the office, and especially look forward to when I can start adjusting again.