Why is Sports Therapy Important?

When an injury occurs, it’s tempting for a lot of people to think “I’ll leave it for a week and then see how I feel” or “I’ve had this problem before, I’ll be fine in a few weeks” or “I’ll go and see my GP”. For starters, everyone knows that nowadays waiting to get an appointment to see your GP can take a couple of weeks anyway! I am going to explain in this blog just why it is so important to get any injury, ache or pain assessed and treated instead of leaving it.

When you first come to see me for an initial consultation, I will go through a very detailed assessment of your injury. I will ask questions ranging from your previous medical history to how often you participate in exercise. From this assessment you could be showing signs of a serious condition such as a cancer, kidney disease or a fracture. If you do have any of those listed then I will refer you on to a relevant healthcare professional immediately. That’s one of the main reasons for having an injury assessed as soon as possible, you could be suffering from a serious health condition that will only get worse if untreated.
Another main reason to get treatment as soon as possible is so you can get a good diagnosis and be given advice to be doing straight away. People often think that you cannot start treating an injury until a week or two after it occurs, this is wrong as treatment can begin on the day or the following day of the injury occurring. Some people also do the wrong things immediately following injury which means that they will spend a much longer time being out injured.

One of the reasons people will ignore a problem is because they have had that injury in the past and they believe that the injury will just go away by itself or will think that a problem is untreatable. This is also a big mistake that people make. One of the main objectives for a Sports Therapist is to prevent an injury returning in the future. If you do leave an injury untreated then it is highly likely that there will be a weakness in the affected muscle, tendon, ligament or joint. If left untreated then you will also have reduced weakness and function in the affected area of the injury. Meaning that your sporting performance will be affected and won’t be right again until treated properly. Not getting an injury treated also leads to an increased chance of suffering re-injury.

So to sum up, don’t leave a problem for a while before deciding to do anything about it. It is also much easier for me treat an injury that has recently occurred rather than an injury that happened over a month ago, this will also lead to you spending more time out being injured!