Throughout life, especially in a sports setting, we commonly hear โshake it offโ or โsuck it up and keep going.โ This is bad advice! You’ll surely pay for it later. We might not have given this much thought but โshaking an injury offโ or ignoring it can (and will) lead to further complications down the road โ what we see at Lifespring as the long-term effects of untreated injuries. We see it so often, weโve named it: the domino effect.
As an Austin chiropractor who regularly sees active individuals, along with many high level athletes, we see long term consequences of an injury firsthand if they are not dealt with. The good news is that the body is very intelligent, and we can create new movement patterns to get by. The bad news is that, it usually leads to more injuries and further complications down the line. Below we will highlight this in more detail, along with what the optimal thing to do after an injury ins. We also discuss why seeking nervous system focused chiropractic care is crucial, and distinctly different than seeking medical intervention after an injury.
The Long Term Effects of Untreated Injuries
We typically address an injury based on how we feel, ignoring how it may have altered the function of our body. Altered function is a new concept for many of us. It simply means there is dysfunction in an area and the body stops working in an ideal way. This could mean we stop moving correctly, or we might have tight muscles, or poor posture. This could even mean that our internal organs stop functioning in an ideal way. This is like getting into a fender bender, but the car looks fine on the outside. It may be altered underneath the hood, affecting the cars performance, mileage, or even safety.
A common example of this we see is when somebody has a โsmall tweak.โ It could be a slip and fall during a pickleball game, hitting our head on something, rolling an ankle, etc. We may not even call these things โinjuries.โ In fact most people we see don’t claim an “injury” unless they have been severely injured and require something like hospitalization or surgery. Spoiler alert- these basic examples alter function! Whether we feel something in the moment or not is another story.
If symptoms are in fact present-usually pain, swelling, and muscle tightness, we tend to become hyper focused on pain relief. Pain is simply the alarm system going off, altering us to the fire in the room. The fire is the real problem. we often completely miss the mark on the real problem at hand- restoring proper function to the affected area because the annoying alarm takes all of our attention.
Signs of Dysfunction to Look for After an Injury:
- Abnormal or limited motion
- Muscle tightness
- Pain
- Swelling
- Heat/ Redness
- Poor posture
- Low energy
- Poor sleep
- Feeling restless/anxious
These are signs of a hidden fire! The big takeaway here is that altered function/ dysfunction can lead to future symptoms down the road like increased risk of wear and tear in the joint, along with high risk of injury. Beyond physical pain, a physical injury creates an imbalance to our nervous system which will interrupt much more in our life. More on this below.
Feeling vs Function: The Shift We Should Make in Care
This is shifting out focus from the smoke alarm (pain) to the fire in the room (function). Don’t worry, we are both people. We see the importance in tackling both! It’s just waving a towel at the alarm that gets us in trouble.
What is pain and where does it even come from?
Pain is a sensation that enters the brain through our nerves and signals that there is a problem. Itโs the alarm system! The nerves in our body also control how we function, not just how we feel. There are three primary branches in which this information is transmitted from the brain to the body and vice versa. We can think of them as lanes or highways that go back and forth between brain and body. The first branch is the sensory branch which controls how we feel (pain, temperature, sensation). The other two branches control how we function. They are the motor branch ( movement, posture, muscle spasm, weakness, tightness, fatigue), and Autonomic (organ and glands, immunity, digestion, inflammation, detox, sleep).
Why Pain Offers Only a Limited View After an Injury
What is interesting is that the branch that controls pain, or how we feel, only makes up a very small portion of the information highway that goes to and from the brain. This is why oftentimes pain is the last thing to show up when there is a problem going on in the body. Altered function tends to show up immediately though. This is important because we should be aware of the signs of altered function and what the long term effects are.
Real Life Stories: Long Term Effects of an Injury
As Austin chiropractors, we see it all! After thousands of patient visits, we have noticed trends. One of the trends we see when we shake the small things off are major problems down the road. At Lifespring Chiropractic we call this the โdomino effect.โ To better illustrate this, Iโm going to use a real life case study from a patient who has seen us through the years. We have changed the name and certain demographic factors.
John Wayneโs Story
Relevant History Findings
We gotta have a little fun with the name right? When โJohnโ came to visit us, he came in with neck pain, poor posture, and low back tightness. He wanted help with getting back to the gym, and injury prevention also. When we dug deeper. Through our nervous system evaluation, we discovered that John happened to be in a recent fender bender that he shook off. He said that he was fine and it wasnโt an issue. It happened a few months prior. He also mentioned being rear ended when he was in a car as a kid and did not receive any kind of treatment. Spoiler alert, both of these instances create an imbalcne in our nervous system, altering our performance “under the hood” regardless of how we may feel immediately after.
Summary of Findings
After further testing and our INSiGHT nervous system scans that give us a view into what’s under the hood, we uncovered the โdomino effectโ or the downstream effects of these injuries going untreated. This is another way of saying we discovered the long term consequences of an injury that went untreated. Through listening to his story, and our holistic testing, we discovered that dysfunction from two past injuries was the real issue! This showed up as altered motion (especially in the neck). It was too mobile in certain directions, and not mobile enough in others. This is a problem! Regardless of symptoms, altered function is a problem!
We also found a relative weakness in certain muscles that were not firing correctly, which showed up in his body as poor posture, trouble sleeping, anxiety, and trouble with certain movements while working out. John mentioned that he scheduled the appointment due to a recent flare up in the neck he experienced while sleeping. This led him to believe that his pillow or mattress was the problem. He was also convinced that age might simply be the problem, as he had just turned 30. The real issue? Two past car accidents.
Discovering the Root Cause
What we really discovered is that the problem was coming from a combination of past injuries that were not addressed along with lifestyle factors that created stress and imbalance of his bodyโs nervous system (brain and spinal cord). The things that contributed to this included:
- A recent fender bender (that left him pain free at the time)
- A fender bender years ago( also left him pain free)
- Sitting 6 hours a day at a desk
- High stress levels from work
- Poor sleep habits for a prolonged period of time
Fatigue, altered sleep (waking up in the middle of the night at 2am), poor posture, low testosterone production, and digestive issues were all present. One might wonder how digestive issues or sleep could be related to a couple car accidents that were ignored. The nervous system! Remember the three branches? Stress on the nervous system affects the function of all three branches! Sometimes this occurs at seemingly random times leading us to believe that the problems are all isolated issues rather than a holistic problem connected by the nervous system.
What to Do After an Injury to Promote Optimal Healing
Hopefully, by now you know not to shake it off! You might still be wondering what to do after an injury to promote optimal healing. Most medical doctors would advise on ways to feel fewer symptoms and completely ignore how the body is functioning- the real root of the issue. I googled “what to do after a minor injury” and it led me to a The University of Rochester Medical Center where indeed nothing about function was mentioned.
As holistic Austin chiropractors we know the importance optimal function plays in longevity and future injury prevention. The absolute best thing to do beyond searching for quick pain relief is to see a healthcare professional who focuses on optimizing function. An important concept to keep in mind here is that most providers who do this, do not accept health insurance. This is because the insurance model is built around symptom management rather than optimal function.
We should be focused on altered function and health optimization rather than just treating symptoms with a band aid.
Health Starts Here: Why the Nervous System is Everything
We recommend seeing a chiropractor who takes a nervous system focused approach, due to the importance the nervous system has on the whole body, beyond symptoms. It is impacted when we have injuries (among other lifestyle habits) and thus a cascade of symptoms can appear. Classical intervention is to treat the symptoms of altered movement with exercises, or tight muscles with massage tools, or drugs to minimize pain. While these things are not necessarily wrong, they miss the real cause of the issue- nervous system imbalance. Below is a diagram showing how the nervous system controls the things mentioned.
Through thousands of cases and personal stories with patients, we often hear โI wish I would have done something about this years ago.โ Years of symptom management and quick fixes eventually catches up with us. This typically leaves us with less ability to do the things we love with the people we love.
Again, the body is not fragile. We are actually quite resilient and can usually shake off many things and live a relativity normal life. The problem is that we still want to go on a run after work, or do the same workout routine we’ve always done, or play golf every weekend like we used to do. This is all fine until we experience something, even minor like a fall during a sports game that alters our motion. These compensatory movement patterns no longer allow for the same things we could once do. We see people usually push through it though, until something goes wrong and more injuries come about.
Lifespring’s TriChord Methodโข: A Comprehensive Approach
To check for nervous system imbalance, we use our comprehensive assessment which includes our state of the art INSiGHT scans to see what’s going on under the surface. Our unique approach, The TriChord Methodโข, dives deep into the health of the nervous system, the extremities, and the ligament systems of the body.
Our three layered approach using the TriChord Methodโข dives deep into all the potential areas that problems could be hiding. It’s actually why many people from around the country travel to come see us. We understand there’s a lot of information out there but few people are giving answers! Optimizing our nervous system not only feels good, it also saves us time and money in the long run.
Schedule an appointment with one of our amazing Austin chiropractors to get started and prevent long term consequences of an injury at Lifespring Chiropractic. We look forward to helping you optimize your health!
