Muscle healing therapies

Physical therapy options that can help with muscle irritation

by Lynn McIntosh, DC

As an athlete, getting injured can make you feel pretty helpless.

You are used to being up and very active and oftentimes, injuries can force you to take a long break from your normal routine. No one wants to watch their favorite sport from the sidelines if they typically are on the field playing.

Perhaps you didn’t notice a significant incident that caused an injury, but you notice an area that has become bothersome and irritated. This irritation is commonly caused by small tears in the muscle. Surgery is not necessary for small muscle tears, and there are physical therapy options that can help.

One alternative to surgery is utilizing ultrasound therapy. This therapy is used to stimulate cell growth, which aids healing. Ultra-sound makes use of sound waves to stimulate the muscle as deeply as possible. This allows heat to penetrate deeper than most other effective heat therapies.

Ultrasound therapy can be used on most types of strains or sprains such as rotator cuff strains, hamstring strains, and nearly all sprains including the lower back. Treatments can help with stiffness of the muscles and is completely painless. After a treatment is also a great time to work on your range of motion as well, because with the muscles heated up from the ultrasound, you can work the muscles further. Athletes can utilize ultrasound therapy before and after intense workouts to relieve aching muscles. This practice is particularly popular with professional athletes.

Another alternative is laser therapy. While the ultrasound therapy encourages the blood supply to heal the tear, laser therapy passes the blood supply to direct energy straight to the muscle to stimulate the mitochondria to heal the tear. Laser therapy doesn’t use temperature to heal, just the light from the laser alone. Many times, the first session of laser therapy provides relief for the athlete, but most tears only need 10 -12 sessions of laser therapy to be completely healed. Laser therapy can help with inflammatory conditions, fibromyalgia pains, joint injuries and some neurological disorders.
Both of these therapies speed the process of healing and minimize your absence from your favorite activities. There are no ill side effects from the treatments and they offer a pain free alternative from invasive procedures.So, before you consider “the knife,” check out these options. They may be the answer.

Kansas City Chiropractic offers both of these therapies under the experience of Dr. Lynn McIntosh who is a Board Certified Chiropractic Sports Physician and a Certified Acupuncturist.. She can be found on the internet at KansasCityChiropractic.com. If you are interested in speeding up the process of healing your sore muscles call her office at 816-753-4600.