Can you effectively use self-treatment?

Self-treatment is a solution to issues, injuries or pain which you may be able to solve without external help!

Self treatment can be extremely effective if you it properly, fully. Self treatment and recovery overlap. Exercises can help prevent injury, issues while simultaneously improve your current state. 

It is important to remember that everyone is different, self-treatment works for some people better than it does for others. This can be because of the injury you have, the location of the pain or you just happen to need external help. 

It can be extremely effective provided you follow instructions given/ you do everything properly and fully. 

Some areas of the body can be reached easily such as your quadriceps - the muscles on front of your legs. Some muscles, on your back for example, you will not be able to work on by your self as easily. 

You should be told when  you have been to a therapist. If you have an issue which can be solved by yourself/ can be partially solved by yourself, they should give you exercises or activities which should benefit you long term/ improve recovery. 

It is very common to see pain caused by imbalance, weakness in surrounding muscles. Your exercises may include foam rolling, stretching, strength and conditioning. 

For example: 

If you have knee pain, one common cause is glute weakness. Your therapist should run through what exercise to do and how many to do. 

(There are many different causes for knee pain. If you have knee consistent pain, see a professional).

You can contact Hughes SMT if you would like to try self-treatment before coming in for an appointment. Ask questions about what you need to do by following the button below. 

The following sections should help!

Throughout medical practices you will have heard different questions to determine what kid of pain you have, but how to you know when a pain could be serious or normal? 

Here are some options to think about which you may have heard. Is the pain:

• Sharp or dull. 

Dull pain can also be considered achy. 

• Acute  or general or referral.  

Acute is where a pain is in a specific location. 

General pain can be a general area- lower back. 

Referral can be if the ain travels down the leg for example. 

• Chronic or Acute 

Chronic is pain that has lasted over 12 weeks. Chronic pain can also be on and off for multiple months. 

Acute pain could also be recent injuries/ pain that is not lasting that long. 

• During movement or constant.

If pain happens during certain movements/ at certain times in certain areas of the body, the amount of issues it may be are reduced greatly. 

Constant pain can be annoying and more difficult to diagnose. 

• How sore - level 1 to 10 

1 being achy, not very sore. 

10 being crippling, sharp pain. 

If your pain is constant, sharp, chronic, specific to a point, you may want to speak to a professional. This does not mean you will have a severe problem. As the pain is so great, you do not want to try self treatment and risk making it worse. 

Self treatment can be affective. Do not attempt massage within 24 hours of an incident. You need to let the body have its natural responses to injury. 

If there is inflammation, redness, pain after 24 hours. Do not use the following techniques. Ice, heat. Rest are your best options until the area improves. 

 Try these techniques: 

If you have achy muscular pain you can use the following techniques/ get someone else to help. 

We are going to think about the quadriceps so it is easy to think about. 

Firstly, think about the direction of the muscle. 

Our quadriceps point from the hip towards the toes. 

• Cross-fibre- Rub across the muscle, in this case left to right, not towards the toes or hips. 

• Longitudinal - This is where we follow the muscle - up and down from toes to hip. 

• Neuromuscular - Find a lump / sore spot. Press and hold as hard as you choose before it is too painful. Hold for 7 seconds minimum/ until the fibre relaxes. 

• Stretch - After trying these stretch the muscle!

• Foam rolling is very good to do before stretching. For information on foam rolling also found on the stretching page. 

Not sure how to stretch. Click the button below to find out more: