If You Don’t Treat It Properly, You Lose It

 

“Thats it!  I’ve had enough!" declared the mom in the grocery store. 

 

          “I’m taking it away.

 

          If you don’t treat it properly, you don’t get to play with it at all!” 

 

Much to the obvious dismay of her 6 year old, the mother snatched the toy car and hid it inside her bag. 

 

Hearing the after-effects of what I had witnessed upon entering the produce section earlier, I wasn't surprised. 

 

Judging by the mother’s tone, it didn’t seem like this was the 6 year old's first offence of the day.  Things must have been at full count before the grocery store and there was one strike left. 

 

When it comes to disciplining children in public, no one wants an audience. So, I minded my own business and finished grabbing the last of my list before heading to the till.

 

Now, what does this have to do with your body? 

 

Well, just as you can lose something by not using it, you can lose something if you use it improperly. Just like the 6 year old in the grocery store.

 

Sure, it makes sense, but will your mom be showing up to discipline you?

 

You certainly hope not!

 

No, actually in this scenario, the mom in the grocery store is your body and you are the 6 year old.

 

Restore, Rebuild and Refortify… 

 

Let’s remember that the body is always adapting and shifting to keep up with what you are throwing at it. Rolling with the punches, ducking, diving and dodging, it tries to the best of its ability to restore, rebuild and refortify itself for the next day’s toll. 

 

One example can be found in our skeleton. The cross sections of the lower leg bones (Tibia and Fibula) in long -distance runners are shaped differently than they are in non-runners. 

 

Why? 

 

As they gradually increase their distance, the bone cells rebuild the internal structures of the Tibia and Fibula to resist the specific strains of the long term running. If the non -runner decides to become a long -distance runner ‘overnight,’ stress fractures and shin splints are in their future. Instead, they need to ease into it and take things slow.

 

Every system in the body is doing this in different ways, but what is important to note, is that the body is trying to do this all the time. Everything from your immune system, to your cardiovascular and digestive systems. Even your mental/emotional self knows this as not wanting to do anything social in the evening if you’ve already had your fill of social interactions during the day. The system simply needs time to replenish its stores.

 

A trip down memory lane…

 

For now, we will use a simple musculoskeletal example. 

 

I’ll give you a personal one. Several years ago, I ruptured my left Achilles Tendon. Take my word, you don’t want to do it. It is a trip you can skip.

 

Now imagine if you will, the scene of me crutching into the clinic to see myself for help. 

I would ask what happened and I would answer, 

 

          “It happened while doing plyometrics at the gym.” 

 

Watching this scene play out, you might already be thinking to yourself…those nasty plyometrics. Of course it happened, they’re the worst!

 

And yes, they’re not everyone's cup of tea but that’s for other reasons. 

 

Then I would follow up with this question:

 

“Could you explain what was going on prior to the plyometrics in  the previous weeks or months?”

 

I’d pause and respond: 

 

“Well…I had been trail running for the previous 10 months. Gradually 'upped' my distance, but nothing too wild. 

 

About 4 months prior, I had experienced what I thought was a stress fracture in my left foot. I saw a Podiatrist, had an X-ray and it wasn’t broken, only bruised. 

 

I took about a month off until I couldn’t feel the bruise anymore and hit the trails like a ‘bat out of hell.”

 

“Now, did you decrease your time and distance from when you left off?”

 

“No, why would I do that? I had already reached that level in my progression. Why would I backtrack?”

 

There is a saying out there that says something like the following: 

 

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of irrationality. 

 

Let's consider this saying in light of my experience…If the training load is already indicating that it was too much, it is not a sign of good things to come if continued in the present manner. My foot was giving me a very painful shout for about a month and I returned to the activity. 

 

But, rather than decreasing the load and travelling a different path, I continued down the same road. The proverbial path of injury and toil.

 

This time, my body needed to say something louder. Something I couldn’t brush off. 

 

THUD!!!

 

I knew as soon as it happened. Luckily I did not attempt to stand on it since that would have done more damage than I had already done. The Achilles Tendon is the attachment of both your Gastrocnemius (responsible for heel raising) and your Soleus (engaged in standing).

 

This was my body taking away my toy car. 

 

“If you’re not going to treat it properly, I’m going to take it away.”

 

Now, this is not an isolated incident that happened only to me. This is something we see in the clinic day in and day out. Bodies and body parts are being taken away because they’re not being treated properly. For today, we’ll stick with the ITIS, OSIS, and Freezing of joints, while leaving things like adrenal fatigue and burnout for another time.

 

You’ve probably heard them before but there is a spectrum of diagnoses and terms that are floating around in the health-sphere and internet that point to roughly the same thing - the varying level of damage in our musculoskeletal system. 

 

ITIS, OSIS, and Freezing

 

Generally, ITIS refers to something like Tendonitis, meaning inflammation of the tendon. This is code for the tendon not appreciating how it’s being treated. It begins to shorten, and may become a bit fibrotic depending on how long the irritation has been going on. It begins to shout at us. If we don’t listen, we start to see the ITIS turn into an OSIS or Tendonosis. 

 

Tendonosis occurs when parts of the tendon are literally beginning to separate from themselves and their attachment in varying degrees. 

 

From here, we can see two paths: ‘ Full OSIS’ or ‘Freezing.’

 

Full OSIS is my slang term for the situation where the tendon fully separates from its attachment such as my fully separated Achilles Tendon. ‘Freezing’ is another slang term that refers to differing levels of tissues tightening so intensely, that it stops moving and possibly calcifying. Calcification is literally the introduction of bone-like tissue into the area. Freezing can be thought of as the body throwing a ‘Hail Mary’ to put the tissue and the area into ‘lockdown.’

 

This is the body taking away your toy.

 

With any activity that we put our muscles, tendons and to some degree, our ligaments through, there is a certain limit. A limit to what they can withstand and how much they can rebuild. 

 

Rebuilding is something that takes place during restful periods. 

 

So, in my example, remember how I had been gradually increasing my distance and time for the previous 10 months? Guess what I was not doing - taking adequate rest intervals between days that I was running. And, lo and behold - my left mid foot bruised badly enough I needed an x-ray. 

 

Inflammation as a Caution Sign

 

Now, what tends to happen with any sort of injury and illness, to an extent, is inflammation. It is part of the healing response to trauma and you can think of it like a car accident. Emergency services like Police, Fire, and Paramedics rush in to contain the area and help the people get to safety. It even gets hot and red like some flashing emergency lights signalling CAUTION - SLOW DOWN. 

 

Once people get to safety, the clean-up crew arrives and the vehicles are towed to the shop or a salvage yard. Consider this the rebuild phase. If proper time is allowed, the scene is cleaned up and the road is opened back up again. 

 

Let’s say you are a passenger in a car pulling up to the accident. Lights are flashing and you are concerned for everyone involved. Luckily, someone in the car ahead of you says everyone is okay. It looks worse than it was. Thank goodness for airbags.

 

One of the crew members onsite waves to the lineup of vehicles and begins directing traffic to a detour. The side streets are single lane rather than a double lane, so it takes everyone even longer to reach their destination. 

 

During the rebuild phase certain things help like proper nutrition, rest, rehab procedure, age and overall health levels before the injury taking place. These all play a factor in how fast you get back to normal levels. Putting these practices in place or increasing them is like taking a detour. 

 

It feels out of the way, but you would prefer to arrive safely than not at all. 

 

While you are taking the detour, you see in your rearview mirror that the person behind you is in a hurry and they are making it very very obvious. You’ve seen this person before…checking their speedometer, silently yelling obscenities at you while smacking their dashboard and steering wheel like they’re an angry rock and roll drummer. Whatever they do, they can’t move faster than you since you’re only following the new driver in front of you going 5 km/h below the limit.

 

Rushing the detour runs the risk of creating another accident only 1 block over from the original. But, in this case, your body’s immediate resources are already tied up cleaning up accident number one.

 

So, what happens in this scenario? If another accident takes place, the whole neighbourhood becomes gridlocked and no one is moving anywhere. This is what was happening in my left mid foot. Following the bruise, it became less mobile than it was prior.

 

Now, because I did not take adequate time to allow my foot to heal, my body had to figure something out. Complex detours had to be put in place. To keep people moving, the city’s transit system figures it can reroute some buses to pick everyone up on the outskirts of the gridlocked neighbourhood. 

 

Great! 

 

The people can get to where they need as long as the buses continue day in and day out. This was my Achilles tendon increasing its workload to keep me bounding through the woods on my trail runs. It worked, but there were signs and signals of irritation.

 

This works for a while until the bus drivers become less pleased with the increased overtime. They decide to go on strike and this is when the tendon snapped.

 

The equivalent of my body taking the toy away. My trail runnin’ self was relegated to crutches and a walking cast for three months and no driving for roughly twice that time. 

 

When did the injury actually begin?

 

When going over the progression of a complaint, Osteopathic Manual Therapists have to start way back. Sometimes years. Because, like the analogy above, the neighbourhood did not start in lockdown.

 

And, our bodies will give us way more than three strikes. Traffic will be diverted numerous times until the increase in scar tissue, connective tissue and calcification hit a level high enough to get our attention in the form of discomfort, pain and our hobbies are taken from us. 

 

For some people, this occurs in cases of plantar fasciitis, tennis elbow, golf elbow, sciatica or frozen shoulder. Or, some experience this as a level of muscle spasming so high that neighbouring bones feel like they have fused. Meanwhile, others (like myself) experienced a full separation that started out as a long-term irritation due to overuse. 

 

So, rather than having our toys taken away by our bodies, maybe it’s time to listen. 

 

Maybe there is some irritation or inflammation somewhere in the neighbourhood that could use some more time and attention from you or your friendly neighbourhood Osteopathic Manual Therapist. 

 

We are trained to assess and address those gridlocked areas ,as well as any other small accidents, to help ensure your body does not take away your toy.