Injuries Take Time To Heal - Be Patient And Avoid Re-injury

The 14 bicycle pile up caused lots of injuries to the riders. Some were hurt more than others but the initial injuries were a lot of scrapes, tears, cuts, bruises and one broken arm. There were also a lot of moaning and groaning and holding their backs and rubbing their necks as we got up to untangle the mess.

Three years earlier I had had another bike calamity and hurt both my neck and upper back which needed six weeks to heal. And as I extracted my bike from another I felt the familiar pain. Uh oh! All I thought about was another six weeks of doing nothing but going back and forth to physical therapy sessions and grunting through the exercises I would need to do to strengthen my neck and back muscles - again!

Recovery from any tendon, muscle or ligament injury is a slow going process that requires determination and the patience of a saint. A saint I am not!

Fortunately for me, I gave the original injury the amount of healing time the doctor said it would take. With his authoritative voice he said I needed to take a full six weeks for recovery and once we got there, we would re-evaluate. Six weeks? Are you kidding me? No he was not kidding. I was not happy. And if I didn't take that full amount of time I was at high risk for re-injury which in some cases is a worse injury which could take even longer to heal.

It's hard to believe a re-injury can be worse than an original one, but it's true. And it makes sense. Your first injury needs time to heal, get strong again and return to a healthy working order. But if you go out and play before it's ready you run the high risk of re-injury and the reason is simple; your body is doing everything in its power to heal and if it gets reinjured it uses more energy to start all over. Plus you take the risk of injuring other parts of the body because the body does compensate and use other mechanisms to keep going while it heals the first injury; it's exhausting for you and your body.

Recovery takes time, so if you're injured you need to be patient. Muscle tears and sprains can be a little deceiving in that they feel good one day and then with the slightest activity, the pain returns. This just means you need to let it heal a bit longer. Even though my injuries were not considered major they still needed tender loving care. I don't live in fear of reinjuring myself, because I'm more careful now before going out there again. I took the time it needed to heal and it's stronger than ever. I am too.