If the pain is gone, am I fully healed?

Key points in 30 seconds

1. Pain stopping and being fully healed are different things.
2. Pain goes first, and weakened muscles and ligaments come back later.
3. When it no longer hurts, that's the time to start exercising.
4. The longer you were in pain, the longer recovery takes.
5. The further along you are, the bigger your own part becomes.

What we often hear

• "I stopped treatment because it didn't hurt anymore, but it came back before long."
• "I can't tell whether I'm fully better or not."
• "When I go back to my normal routine, it starts hurting again."

If the pain is gone, am I fully healed?

Pain stopping and being fully healed are different things. Pain is the first to go, and weakened muscles and ligaments come back later.

In the clinic we say, "When the pain is gone, you're about halfway there." If you stop here, you often end up coming back a while later with pain in the same spot.

"About halfway" is an expression we use in the clinic, not a precisely measured value. Please take it to mean there's still work left.

Why does the pain go away first?

Pain mostly comes from inflammation. When the inflammation settles, the pain drops quickly, but the muscles that weakened from not being used stay weak.

You lose muscle for as long as you didn't move because of pain, especially the muscles around the injured area. If you start using it like before just because the pain stopped, it takes load while still weak and gets injured again.

Ligaments and tendons are even slower. They get less blood flow than muscle, so they recover slowly.

Then what else is there to do?

Exercises to get the weakened muscles working again, and treatment to firm up stretched ligaments and tendons.

Exercise starts when it no longer hurts. At first you start by holding positions without moving, and once you can manage that, you move on to exercises with movement. The detailed order is in the next article.

For ligaments and tendons, we use pharmacopuncture. If needed, we add herbal medicine.

How much longer do I need to come?

The longer you were in pain, the longer it takes. Something that has been there for years can't be turned around in a few weeks.

But in the later stages, you don't need to come every day. We space out visits while increasing the share of exercise you do on your own. From a certain point on, your part is bigger than ours.

What are the limits of this assessment?

We don't have data comparing people who completed strengthening treatment with people who stopped once the pain was under control.

One more note. What's written here is a pattern we've seen in the clinic over many years. That's why we don't say, "If you see it through to the end, it won't come back."

We take one more look after the pain is gone. Not hurting and moving the way you used to are two different things.

If it doesn't hurt anymore but something still feels off, come see us. We'll measure whether anything is left and tell you.

Results differ from person to person depending on how badly they were injured and how long they were in pain.