Have you ever been told you should power through pain rather than stop an activity? While it’s always good to try to push your limits to expand your capabilities and strength, pain does have a purpose, and ignoring pain beyond a certain point can mean that you’re doing yourself harm and ignoring signs that you’re significantly injured.
At the interventional pain management practice of Edward Carden, MD, Inc, located in Sherman Oaks, California, Dr. Carden and his team provide tailored pain management plans to help you recover from injury and manage lasting or chronic pain. However, the best way to avoid these situations is to avoid unnecessary injury to begin with and to seek medical help quickly when pain signals you’ve sustained damage.
There are many different types of pain, and depending on where your pain originates, you may be able to treat yourself at home or you may need to go straight to urgent care or the ER.
If exercise causes pain, chances are your body is unaccustomed to working out certain muscles and is trying to adjust. Shorten workouts to reduce the possibility of damage, and slowly lengthen the amount of time you exercise (duration) and how hard you exercise (intensity) to prevent damage and strengthen your body.
If you’re in pain when you’re not exercising, you may have arthritis, inflammation, or another problem causing your pain. If pain is intense, and located in your abdomen or head and neck, you need to seek help sooner rather than later.
Since pain often results from exertion, you may come to expect aches, discomfort, and pain that feels like a burn in your muscles or soreness in your joints after activity. However, if you have pain that doesn’t go away after you’ve rested, or is too severe for you to sleep at night, you need to get yourself checked out.
Pain shouldn’t be constant, nor should it limit your mobility. If you find yourself limping days after a hard run or find that back pain is getting worse and not better as days pass, you could have a serious injury, and there’s a higher chance you’ll need medical assistance.
There are some red flags you should watch for that can tell you if you need to get medical care because of pain. Sports injuries or other traumas that require immediate medical attention include those that:
If you feel pain, don’t ignore it or let your peers, coach, or even family members pressure you into “powering through.” Seek help and prevent an immediate problem from becoming a lifetime of chronic pain.
Call Dr. Carden at 310-842-8668 today for personalized pain management care, or book a consultation online.
