Your body is smart. It has the innate capability to heal itself. So, why are you still in pain?
Here are five reasons the natural healing process in your body may be halted:
- Repetitive motion–or lack of motion. This will continue to aggravate and restrict joints, muscles, and fascia.
- Weakness. For example, weak abdominal muscles can inhibit back pain from improving.
- Systemic inflammation. Things like auto-immune disease or eating foods that spike inflammation in the body (e.g. sugar, bleached flour, processed foods) can cause pain to be amplified and linger.
- Unmanaged emotional pain or stress.
This is because emotional and physical pain activate similar pain regions of the brain, and continued emotional distress can provoke and maintain pain in any region of the body. - Anatomical structure failure. This means actual damage of the musculoskeletal system such as arthritis, a broken bone, or a muscle tear.
Fortunately, there’s physical therapy. If you have pain that is not going away, a physical therapist will guide you through the best next steps to help your body do what it naturally does so well.