Athletes push their bodies to the limit. It’s almost inevitable that the stress becomes too much. This can result in an injury that would be followed by weeks or months of painful recovery.
Understanding How Your Body Recovers from Injury
Before you start looking into options available for pain relief, it is best to first understand how your body undergoes the process of recovery.
Inflammatory phase
This phase arises immediately after trauma on the injured tissue. This can last for five days after a ligament, muscle, or tendon incurred damage. For bones, the inflammatory phase can last for up to three weeks.
In this phase, the body removes the damaged tissues. Blood vessels are remodeled to improve the blood flow to and from the area of injury.
Proliferative phase
This phase immediately follows the inflammatory phase. The body starts to rebuild the tissues damaged in the injury.
However, the tissues built in this phase do not have long-lasting strength. This phase focuses on creating a building block that the body can follow for the next phase.
Remodeling phase
This phase would have the body build upon the framework it has built in the proliferative phase. The body would focus on ensuring functionality of the recovering tissues.
This is the longest phase during your recovery. It can last for, at least, a year depending in more severe injuries.
It is best to avoid premature stress on the injured tissues. Doing so can prevent full recovery of the tissues or cause another injury in the future.
How to Naturally Improve Recovery and Relieve Pain
Increase IGF-1 Production
Your liver produces a hormone known as IGF-1 or Insulin-like growth factor 1. This hormone helps the regeneration of various cells including those found in your muscles, ligaments, and bones.
As evidence of its importance in the body, chronic inflammation usually coincides with low levels of IGF-1. This is believed to be due to the hormone constantly being used for its anti-inflammatory function.
You can boost your IGF-1 production by incorporating whey protein, red meat, zinc, and capsaicin in your diet. Soy isoflavones can also help but be careful as they can potentially increase your estrogen levels, which can result in hormonal imbalances.
Use Cissus Quadrangularis
Cissus quadrangularis is a vine native to Africa and some parts of Asia. In traditional Ayurvedic and African medicine, it is used for its analgesic, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory effects.
One prominent use of the vine in traditional culture is for assisting the recovery of bone fractures. Research attributes this benefit for its ability to increase the expression of osteopontin. Osteopontin is a protein that facilitates the recovery and remodeling of bones, and promotes the lessening of inflammation and pain.
Kratom
Kratom is a plant abundantly found in different parts of South-east Asia. It contains alkaloids that have been found to interact with the body’s opioid system that results to significant pain relief.
Mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine are the alkaloids responsible for its pain-relieving effect. These two compounds trigger your mu opioid receptors that cause the release of endorphins, decrease the sensation of pain, and stimulation of your mood.
There are different strains of Kratom available that also vary its pain relieving effects.
The Indo, Borneo, and Bali strains have very good pain relieving effects but they also have a sedating effect. On the other hand, the Maeng Da strain has a similar pain relief effect but causes stimulation.
The Malaysian strains provide pain relief but do not have any sedating or stimulating effect. This makes the Malaysian strain an ideal option for long-term use. Check EpicKratom.com for more detailed information on Kratom.
Apply Heat on Injured Area
Short periods of localized heat application can speed up the healing and recovery from an injury. This is due to the ability of heat to stimulate heat shock proteins or HSPs.
HSPs facilitate your body to regenerate the injured and damaged tissues of the body at an anatomically correct structure. Also, heat shock proteins support muscle protein synthesis after a long period of inactivity. With these two combined, you can likely get back to the mobility and functionality that you had before having the injury.
You can use heat packs to apply heat on your injured body part. This could be a water bottle with warm water, an electric heating pad, a heated gel pack, or a heat wrap.
The duration of heat application depends on the type or degree of injury. This could last around 15 to 20 minutes for minor injuries and 30 minutes to 2 hours for intense injuries.
If your injury caused damage on deeper tissues, a therapeutic ultrasound is the only way for heat to reach the damaged tissues.
Topical Analgesics
Topical analgesics provide a great option for supporting pain relief on a localized area. These can save you from requiring addictive medications that you may not actually need if there is only moderate pain.
When looking for a topical analgesic, it is important that it contain at least one of the following ingredients:
- Menthol – It activates the kappa opioid receptors found on your skin. The activation of these receptors causes relief from pain.
- Camphor – It acts as an analgesic in the same way as menthol. However, it also numbs the nerve endings that results in a mild anesthetic effect.
- Capsaicin – It is a chemical found in the extract of chili peppers. It depletes a compound called “substance P” that transmits pain signals to the brain. By depleting it, the body experiences a significantly reduced perception of pain.
Topical analgesics only have, at most, a moderate penetration in your body. This makes it unlikely to trigger adverse effects that may disrupt the body’s natural healing process.
Your Recovery Still Depends On How You Deal With It
You can use any of these pain-relieving and recovery aids to help your recovery. But, pain relieving drugs, herbs, and methods would not be of any help if you would not help your body.
Make sure that you are getting the proper rest and following the physical therapy prescribed to you.
Injury can be a discouraging event. But, if you’re patient and diligent on your recovery, you can get back in action and return to full fitness eventually.