Healing times?
How long does it take to get better?
Another common question is often along the lines of
“how long will my backpain take to go away”?
“ how can I speed up my recovery for my back pains”?
“you’ll be able to get it fixed by next week right”?
It is important to note that healing times and improvement out of pain often relies on 3 factors which are……
Age
2. Chronicity
3. Personal health and lifestyle.
1. Age: When we are younger, are body’s are more adaptable and can often heal faster compared to when we age.
Younger people often heal quicker as the body usually learns the correct movement patterns and new habits that the Chiropractor is instilling into the system through the Chiropractic adjustment quicker.
Consequently older people might find that the pain will take slightly longer to fix and can sometimes need to more sessions in the initial phase of care to help the body learn the new muscle memory faster.
2. Chronicity: Someone that has had back pain for 2 years is likely going to take longer to recover than someone who has had it for 2 weeks.
I Chronic back pain, the patient often finds themselves in a negative cycle resulting in poor postures, movement patterns and habits being learnt by the body. As a result, it will usually take longer to re-train and unwind the body of its stress and tension compared to an acute injury that can be helped a lot quicker to achieve a state of feeling “pain-free”.
3. Personal health and lifestyle.
Finally the patient’s own physical and emotional wellbeing will contribute to their recovery.
Take 2 people with identical acute onset of lower back pain.
One person is fit, healthy, trains 3 times a week, keeps mobile, happily married, eats a balanced diet and has the occasional drink on the weekends
The other person can be defined as unfit, rarely seen in the gym, complicated relationship status, lives of frozen food and has a couple of pints every day.
Based on that criteria it appears obvious who’s body will improve quicker as person A increased level of health with will help their body heal quicker whereas person B will struggle to improve as fast due to the poor health leading to an inability for the changes to be made in the body as fast.
These three factors amongst others all contribute to healing times. The next time you’re in the Chiropractors office, think of these 3 factors and evaluate realistically how long it will take my body to heal?