Factors That Can Affect Your Healing - Woodbridge, VA

You might be wondering why you aren’t healing as quickly as you would like or you might be reading up on ways to help yourself heal faster, either way this list is for you!

Nature and severity of the injury: A minor injury is going to heal faster than a major injury (slept wrong vs car accident). With a traumatic injury, there is more structural damage that needs to be addressed. The spine will take longer to learn to stay in the correct position and will need to corrected over a longer period of time. Someone who slept wrong and now has a pinch in their neck should heal significantly faster. If you have a chronic condition, this can also delay healing of the newly injured sight.

Age and Overall health: As we age our tissues become less elastic, the blood flow through our body decreases, and most people will develop osteoarthritis. All of these factors can affect your healing time so be patient with chiropractic care. When you are younger, your body has less aches/pains/injuries so the body can direct nutrients and healing cells to the new injury instead of them being pulled in different directions.  

Adherence to treatment plan: This is both coming into the office as prescribed by the doctor but also doing your exercises and stretches at home at least 2x/day. Dr. Bakalis often says, getting better is 80% what you do outside of the clinic. If you don’t do your exercises and stretches, it is much harder to make long term changes. Your doctor creates a specific plan for you based on your condition, make sure you follow this roadmap to recovery!

Nutritional Habits: The more fruits and vegetables you eat, the more nutrients you have to direct toward your injury and use in your healing. If you eat processed foods without nutritional value, not only will you feel gross and bloated (inflammation!) but you won’t have sufficient nutrients to heal.

Lifestyle factors: Smoking = Inflammation. Smoking 100% decreases your ability to heal especially in a timely manner. Your body is already fighting against constant inflammation. Regular sleep, stress management, regular exercise, eating right – these are all ways that can help you heal faster!

Emotional Well-Being: The mind body connection is almost frighteningly strong! If you keep telling yourself you will never get better, you’re right you won’t. You will always perceive pain even if you are improving physically. Emotional stress, anxiety, and depression can all affect your healing rate. Keeping a positive attitude and managing your stress can help your body focus on the injury and healing.

While we can’t make ourselves heal as fast as we want, we can absolutely support our body and provide it everything it needs to heal as fast as possible!