Painful Lessons!

For those of you under the age of 18, read no further because this probably doesn't concern you yet, but it will eventually. 

I think it’s safe to say that the rest of us "older" types would love to hang onto our youth for as long as possible.  Look at me, I have this crazy goal of breaking world cycling records for the "over 100" age catagory set by Frenchman, Robert Marchand.  While the young want to be older, the older will do just about anything to remain young.  Just observe how much money people spend to maintain their youthful appearance, or simply remember how you felt the last time the bar tender asked you for ID to confirm you were of legal drinking age.  I can tell you, this hasn't happened to me in decades, but while riding a bike with my smooth shaved legs, behind cool-lookin glasses, under a helmet, it's always a boost to my ego to see the reaction of a cyclist that can't keep up when he realizes that I'm a couple decades older than him.

As a result of our quest to remain young, or at least act younger than the numbers on the calendar indicate, we attempt some pretty crazy activities that should only be considered in our more agile and flexible youth. 

This week, Dr Les describes how he found himself pushing the age and ego envelop by attempting to relive his youth while being towed behind a boat at high speed with very predictable consequences.  He's offered some learned lessons from this experience that we should all consider so we don’t suffer his fate (well maybe everyone, except me).  But because he knows there’s people out there like me that will completely ignore his sound advice, he’s provided an excellent summary of how to recover from unnecessary injuries so we can get back to our active lifestyles, and enjoy some of that lost youth we once took for granted. 

Enjoy the Ride…..Rob  

 

Painful Lessons!

By Dr Les Davidson

Learning is a lifelong process. It is often deliberate, but can also occur by chance. There are three basic ways that we learn:

1. Direct instruction: A passive process where the “sage is on the stage” used in schools and universities (teaching) and at church (preaching).
2. Inquiry based: An active process where we ask questions and learn through the answers, often recognized as the Socratic Method.
3. Experience based: This is learning by trial and error. It is an active process of making mistakes and often failing. It is usually the most difficult and painful way to learn.

Other than seven years of post-secondary education, most of my learning is experience based: making mistakes and experiencing failure. Interestingly, this is thought to be one of the best methods for learning and retention. So why then do I seem to need repeated lessons?

My most recent lesson began on the last warm, sunny afternoon of the season with a poorly executed jump on the wakeboard. I should have known better than to tempt fate. After wakeboarding the day before, I said to my wife Kerry, “That was an awesome last ride of the season- I feel sixteen!” I have a long history, whether when skiing, playing rugby, mountain biking or wakeboarding, of feeling invincible then pushing my limits. I justify the pain by telling myself (and everyone around me) about how great I feel and how well I performed.

I wasn’t planning on riding the wakeboard again that late-summer day. I was a bit fatigued and satisfied with my efforts from the day before. But the joy I get from skimming over the waves along with some friendly competition with my 16-year-old son trumped any sound judgment. I landed a bit forward and as I caught myself, I felt my left hamstring give a sharp tug. I needed help removing the board and getting into the boat! I had torn a portion of my lateral hamstring. The next couple of weeks doing chiropractic adjustments on my clients were tough!

Enough with the self-flagellation! I would like to share the lessons I learned from being on the opposite side of the treatment table.

Life Lessons:

1. Listen to your inner voice. I knew I shouldn’t have attempted the big wake as I wasn't riding well but I ignored that voice inside my head!
2. Live with humility. I admit to being a show-off.
3. Live with gratitude. Be thankful to be blessed with good health and be pain free. It can change in an instant. I’m sure many of you can relate. Unfortunately, we don’t get a rewind button in life.

Lessons of Healing:

Intellectually, most of us understand the principles of healing, but following through on the principles can be a challenge. Here is what I tell my patients.

1. Your body does the healing. Drugs, surgery, acupuncture, massage, chiropractic adjustments or therapeutic modalities still rely on your body’s inner wisdom for healing. Most of us would like to download this to our health care provider.
2. It takes time to heal. We are busy and injuries are inconvenient but healing takes time. Give yourself time to rest and recover.
3. Healing is an adaptive response of your body. For example: a chiropractic adjustment corrects joint dysfunction and stimulates the nervous system. After an adjustment, we want to feel instantly better but the healing occurs from the adaptation to the adjustment and not at the exact moment of adjustment (although there might be immediate relief).
4. Healing is a holistic process. Being injured will drain your energy, challenge your emotions and leave you feeling disconnected. The more supportive and nurturing your environment, the more resources your body can marshal for healing. Even though injury may involve a specific tissue or region, having a high level of overall health and a supportive group of family and friends will promote faster healing.

Strategies:

As a health care professional, I recognize that there are many things that patients can do to promote recovery from an injury. In other words: What you do for yourself between visits does matter!

1. Rest: Complete rest may be necessary in the initial hours or days after an injury.
2. Reduce inflammation and manage the pain: Initially you may need pharmaceuticals. During the first four days after the wakeboarding incident, I used 6 doses of Naproxen, an over-the-counter non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication. I also recommend that you introduce more natural methods such as icing the injured area, using the naturopathic lotion Traumeel, and supplementing with Omega3 oils and Vitamin C.
3. Compression or support: The use of tensor bandages, casts, kinesio-tape or prefabbed supports can aid the injured tissue. For me, wearing a neoprene compression short and using a tensor bandage helped.
4. Pro-inflammatories: Decrease or eliminate your consumption of pro-inflammatory foods such as alcohol and sugar.
5. Choose a consistent and comprehensive treatment plan: It is important to have a thorough examination and diagnosis. Communication between your health care providers is important. I informally discussed my injury with a friend who specializes in sports medicine and then increased my chiropractic adjustment frequency. Acupuncture, massage and interferential current also helped my soft tissue injury.
6. Active rest: Active rest is the initial return to activity when you move the body to promote circulation. Circulation brings nutrients to the injured tissue, reduces the swelling and removes the waste associated with repair. This can be accomplished with aided walking - using a cane or crutch or walking in the pool, as I chose to do.
7. Replace your activity: When I treat a patient who finds their preferred activity painful, they usually do one of two things - persist with the preferred activity or do nothing. Movement is such an important component of healing that you have to find an alternate way to be active until you can return to pain-free participation. I started with pool running, then added swimming and now am back to riding my indoor bike.

And finally,

I learned that my questions, challenges and fears about injuries are just the same as the people that I treat in my clinic each week. Dealing with symptoms similar to what many of my patients experience has increased my empathy for them. In the final analysis, however, it is evident that I have more patients than I have patience!

Adding life to your years.... Dr. Les