A Naturopathic Approach To Recovering From Sports Injuries

A good many pro athletes have a naturopath on call for athletic nutrition IV injections as well as sports injuries.

As a naturopath, my goal is to help you to live your best life, whether you’re an athlete, or an aspiring athlete.

Last week, we talked about preventing sports injuries. And prevention is great, but what if you’ve already injured yourself?

No matter how good of an athlete you are, no matter how careful, you might get an injury. Things happen beyond our control, which is why I put together a video about recovering from sports injuries and blog below.

Ice Vs. Heat – Which Is Best?

Surprisingly, this question confuses people a LOT.

The general rule of thumb is to use ice immediately after an injury (or a bag of frozen peas, if that’s all you’ve got on hand).

For the first few days after injury, applying ice for 15 minutes at a time will help take down inflammation. You can alternate on and off, with more repetitions depending on severity.

After a few days, you’ll want to start alternating hot and cold, to get more optimal results.

But if you have a lot of muscle tension – for instance, from work – then moist heat seems to be most helpful.

For this, get yourself a gel pack, wrap a damp tea towel around it, and then leave it on the injury for up to 15 minutes.

Active Release Therapy

Active release therapy has been around a while, but is only now becoming widely available.

It was originally developed to help break up scar tissue for high-level or pro athletes. And it’s great for that, but it’s so effective that more and more therapists have gone to get their certifications. As a result, now anyone can access it.

When you’re injured, your body tries to help heal it by laying down a criss-cross mesh of scar tissue, binding the injury.

However, this scar tissue can pull muscle fibres out of alignment. It can also be significantly weaker than normal tissue, which we don’t want.

It’s for this reason active release therapy aims to break up that scar tissue. From there, strengthening exercises can encourage healthy muscle growth and realignment of the muscle fibres.

This works for tennis elbow, ankle sprains, IT band injuries, and even over-use of your mouse arm at the office.

It can be uncomfortable and sometimes painful, but it works. Relatively quickly as well – sometimes after the first treatment.

Who Is Certified To Do Active Release Therapy?

To practice active release therapy, you need an ART certification.

However, there are many different practitioners certified to do active release therapy.

You may find a physiotherapist, chiropractor, massage therapist, personal trainer, or sports injury specialist with the ART designation.

These are people who have added to their skills by taking a recognized active release therapy course. The goal is to be able to help their clients better.

To find out if you’re seeing someone who’s actually certified, check out activerelease.com. They keep a register of all certified ART practitioners.

Epsom Salt Baths

Epsom salt baths are a well-known remedy that we’ve been using for generations. They work extremely well – as long as you have that bath as soon as possible after the activity.

Epsom salts work by taking away the lactic acid in your body, which is what makes you sore and tired.

By drawing it out of your body soon after it’s produced and released, it allows you to heal faster.

It’s simple enough – pick up a bag of Epsom at your local pharmacy and pour a cup of salts into the tub as it’s filling.

Soak for twenty to thirty minutes, then be sure to take a shower to rinse the salts off your skin and hair afterward.

One important note: be sure to drink lots of water after your bath. The salts can dehydrate you, even if you just sit in them.

Cold Laser Therapy

Cold laser therapy is a newbie among the roster of therapies.

This is appropriate for someone who has an acute injury. It can work wonders in stimulating the healing process.

For a recent injury, you may only need six to seven treatments. For chronic issues though, it can take a lot longer to get back to rights.

The treatments themselves are only a few minutes at a time, but chronic injuries need to be seen four to five days a week for several weeks.

As much as a time commitment that it is, we’ve seen such amazing results that it’s worth the inconvenience.

Other Solutions For Sports Injuries

Here are some other treatments that you can ask your naturopath about:

• Ultrasound treatments
• Acupuncture
• Chiropractic
• Supplements
• intravenous infusion therapy

Seek proper medical advice if you injure yourself. If you leave it, that injury can become permanent damage.

Questions? Ask Dr. JJ

Your goal when you’re injured should be to get accurately diagnosed. From there, it’s important to treat your injury as quickly as possible. That way, there’s less of a chance for tag-along issues to crop up.

Traditional medicine can only do so much. That’s when complementary and alternative therapies need to step in to help you back into fighting form.

If you’ve just injured yourself or you’ve been suffering chronic pain from an old injury, it’s time to pick up the phone and get help.

Call now to book a consultation, and let’s get you back into the game.