If you listen to your body when it whispers, you won't have to hear it scream.

This weeks blog takes a look at how we get to injury. Many people come into the clinic and say things like… “I haven’t done anything…” “ I don’t know why I’m in pain…” and seem to have little idea as to why they “suddenly” have pain.

Well, as you may have noticed pain can creep up on you. One day you have a little niggle in your neck, you think it’ll be fine, do a few stretches and chin tuck exercises or you totally ignore it. Then a few weeks later you end up with some pain in your neck. Then it becomes unbearable and then is most likely when you start reaching for the pain killer or ibuprofen. Or if you’re smart you book in an appointment with us and try to break the pain cycle. But some people choose to leave it hoping that it’ll just get better by itself or maybe they rub in some cream or put on a heat pack. But by this stage the tissue in your neck is so irritated that it becomes injured. Now if you choose to ignore it it may move to an injured state and become chronic. This is now when the pain has been there for a few months. Once we are in the chronic pain stage and the tissue is injured it is harder to recover from. Treatment is essential at this stage to allow the tissue to heal. Then you can get back to doing things that you love.

This is called the tissue injury process and moves from Discomfort to Pain to Injury.

If we can listen to our body when you feel these little niggles and seek treatment then you won’t have to listen to it scream at you when there’s an injury. This can happen anywhere in the body. It may be a twinge in your back or knee but the same rule applies to any ache or pain. Get it looked into before it starts screaming at you and it’s much harder to fix. And remember, prevention is better than cure and that is why we recommend regular treatment so we can address these little niggling discomforts in your soft tissues before they turn into something bigger.