The best way to recover from any injury is to return to your normal activities as soon as possible and strengthen your body with exercise. In the process of doing this, pain is inevitable. Understanding how much pain to work through is crucial because doing too little due to a fear of doing more damage leads to poor outcomes and even chronic pain. Conversely, doing too much can cause continual aggravation of your injury and prolong the recovery process.
Pain Anatomy
It is essential to understand the two main types of pain – Mechanical Pain and Inflammatory Pain.
Mechanical pain is the pain you feel when a body part is being stressed but not broken. It is a warning signal – your body is just saying “hey – give me a break!”. This pain is typically 4 out of 10 or less, (if 10 is the worse pain you can imagine), is not sharp, and is felt during the activity or sustained posture that is stressing your body. It has not felt at night in bed, and it does not cause you to feel sorer or stiffer the next morning.
Examples of Mechanical Pain are:
- A stiff, sore back when sitting for too long
- Neck or shoulder stiffness when you are feeling stressed
- Back pain when felt when stretching a stiff back after injury
- Hamstring pain when strengthening your leg after an injury.
Mechanical pain is not to be feared. If ignored for long enough, it can lead to actual tissue damage, but it's a good thing when caused when recovering from an injury. If you'd like to understand the physiological process that leads to Mechanical Pain, click HERE.
Inflammatory pain IS a sign that you HAVE suffered tissue damage. It is triggered when a body part breaks down with an injury, and in this instance is a GOOD THING because it stops you from overusing a body part that's trying to heal. Inflammatory Pain peaks 2-3 days after you injure yourself, then subsides and is generally gone by the two-week mark. You will feel Inflammatory Pain more at night when your body does most of its healing and first thing in the morning when you get out of bed and start moving. Once you're up and about, you'll feel less Inflammatory pain.
Examples of inflammatory Pain are:
- Pain from a lumbar disc bulge straight after hurting your back
- Pain when walking on a swollen ankle straight after a sprain
- Sharp muscle pain in the first few days after a tear
It is good to protect a body part when you are getting Inflammatory Pain, however, once it's peaked at the 2-3 day mark, it settles, and you want to start pushing yourself. If you would like to read more about the physiological processes that cause Inflammatory Pain, click HERE.
Coming back to our original question – HOW DO I KNOW I'M NOT CAUSING MORE DAMAGE?
Using your injured body part in ordinary life or strengthening it with exercise is NOT CAUSING DAMAGE when:
- Your pain is 4/10 or less
- Your pain is not sharp
- You don't feel more pain and stiffness the next morning
Using your injured body part in everyday life or strengthening it with exercise IS CAUSING DAMAGE when:
- You feel pain that is 5/10 or greater
- The pain you feel is sharp
- You feel more pain and stiffness at night time or when you first get out of bed the next morning.
If you follow these guidelines and push your body to get over your injury, you may occasionally push too hard and trigger some Inflammatory Pain. Never fear if you do this – it's just a sign that you're getting the most out of your Rehab and finding your limits.
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