Healthy people push themselves to new limits.
You can never do more by doing less. Of course this makes sense, but why then does everyone end up doing less following injuries and ailments? Have we given up? Yes, there are times directly following an injury where we might need to take it easy. But for the most part we end up babying ourselves way too much and prohibit our return to health. Just because something hurts doesn’t mean that this area doesn’t need to be worked out or upon. We are always told that we need to take it easy to prevent further injury. Well of course if your Achilles tendon is hanging on by only a muscle thread it would be unwise to “push” it. Hopefully, if this is the case, you had this checked out anyway and you are awaiting an operation. This is a rare case however, most of the time we baby and coddle our injuries way too much and do not push through our therapy. This prevents us from ever getting back to pre accident status.
Do you know why some patients never get well?
Doctors and therapists look for things to show up abnormal on a particular test or study. After they refer you out for an x-ray or MRI, or CAT scan, they wait for the results. When the results come back – they either show 1. normal findings or 2. abnormal findings. If the tests come back normal often times they don’t recommend any kind of treatment other then pain pills, muscle relaxers or anti-inflammatories. Hopsital x-rays and MRI’s tend to rule out the nasty’s. Just because you get a clean bill of health of “it’s not serious” doesn’t mean you don’t want something done about your pain or symptoms.
We look for pathologies or disease or injuries and when it’s not found, nobody seems to know how to treat the person symptoms. Too often people come in with normal test findings but tons of symptoms. There are many times when we see people come in with horrible test results but yet they have no symptoms at all.
Some people are rehabbed quicker than others. Some people, because of them being in such good physical shape will rehab much quicker because their body already remembers how it is to be in shape. Other people may think they are finished rehabbing because they simply only rehabbed themselves back to an inactive lifestyle. they can walk around the room delicately while not exerting themselves and say “look at me – I have no pain.” Well -duh- You’re not doing anything.
It’s the things that other people aren’t willing to do that will make them healthy. It’s these very things that they aren’t willing to do that seem insignificant or too hard to do. You hear of many miracle cases, with people that have horrific illnesses and injuries. Well if you pay close enough attention, you will notice that they were willing to do extraordinary things. You can’t do the impossible by doing things half heartedly. We need to be held accountable. Most people aren’t willing to do what’s needed to be done to help their cause. Either because they don’t believe it’ll work or they think that it is too hard. People also come with excuses. These excuses are real. But in order to achieve the results we need, these excuses need to be addressed. Examples of someone’s excuses:
- My pain is too great for me to walk and start working out. (This pain needs to be taken care of by using some sort of treatment. acupuncture, chiropractic, laser, ultrasound, electric stim, or even pain pills temporarily to alleviate the pain)
- I have no energy after a long day at work to go home and cook or to do any physical activity. (Addressing this energy issue is now the key to initiating a plan towards health. Having a blood test drawn to see if you might have an adrenal issue, infection, blood sugar abnormality, or even a thyroid problem might help come up with a solution to correct this energy deficiency).
- Not having any motivation to do anything.
As we get older, we settle. It’s hard to walk that mile when you are 70 years old and unhealthy. But here’s the funny thing about making the decision to finally get healthy, it never gets easier if we wait until we are unhealthier, lack the energy and motivation, and become more over weight. If you never do anything new, then in a year or 2 are you going to better or worse off? It might not be easy to start now, but it will be much harder to start later. And once we regain our lost health, it is much easier to maintain then to let it all fall apart again. I love our fussy patients. They are the one’s living life. Sure they get bruised up along the way, but they heal so much quicker because they are always addressing their health, their ailments and are willing to do what others aren’t. They don’t live in time. They live in moments. They realize that health is not linear. It has its ups and downs. If you want to get back to doing the things you want to then you have to get back to doing these things. Sounds terribly simple doesn’t it?
I can show you all the incredible heart wrenching stories of people that have overcome incredible obstacles. These people that made such incredible strides and have saved their lives. You can have the exact diseases, injuries or ailments that they have and still never achieve what they accomplished. Why? Not because you don’t have the ability, but because you will second guess everything and not push past your setbacks. If you have a certain amount of pain that’s preventing you from walking and we help make that feel better, then you are able to walk again. Maybe not a mile or two. Maybe for only 5 minutes. Then after you are able to do this, you might try 7 minutes. But this flares your pain up. This is where people who fail get discouraged and quit. Yes your pain will increase. You are doing more. If you continue to stay at this activity level and get treated your pain will once again decrease. Then this is where you should start to increase your activity intensity to another level. You do this until you’ve accomplished your goal. Whether it be weight loss. Increase in energy. Making your cardiovascular health better.
If we never evolve then we stay in the same mindset we’ve always had. We can’t do things alone especially when things are tough.
