How long will it take before I start to feel better?
I’m going to start with my favorite answer that no one likes to hear. It depends. There are a couple of factors that will impact how long it takes you to respond to your treatment though.
Age
The younger you are the more likely you will respond quicker to a treatment plan. The older you are the more likely it's going to take a bit longer. And that's not even counting in the fact that as you age you are more likely to have other injuries impeding your healing.
Fitness level
If you live an active lifestyle with regular exercise and moderate activity on a daily basis, you'll respond much quicker to treatment.
How long you've been in pain
If this is a chronic condition that you have had for years it may take longer to heal. This is just one reason why you should almost never wait it out and see if your pain is going to go away on its own.
The type of injury you have
As you may already know some injuries are more significant than others and take longer to heal. Some injuries may not feel significant but due to the anatomy and physiology of the injury it could take much longer for the body to heal. A great example of this is with disc herniations. Certain areas of the disc are avascular(meaning without blood flow) and can take much longer to heal than a disc tear that has great blood flow.
It's never possible to know exactly when you will respond to treatments, or how many treatments you may need. But here at Oak Ridge Spine and Sport we will try to give our best estimate of when you will heal.
However, if you're the type of person that needs to see numbers, there are a few we can give you.
It depends on the type of injury you have
Bone injuries heal the quickest at 5-6 weeks.
Ligament and tendon injuries take a little longer than that, needing 6-8 weeks.
Discs and cartilage will take the longest and need at least three months to heal.
Again, these are all averages, and individual healing times will vary.
The severity of the injuries will also play a roll in how long it takes for you to respond to treatment.
