As everyone recovers from the holidays and we start a new year, most folks will make resolutions or goals to accomplish in the new year.  Usually they revolve around, fitness and wellness goals.  Hopefully, amongst those goals is one to “fix” any body parts that aren’t moving too well so that you can successfully achieve the bigger fitness and wellness goals that you have set for yourself.  You only have one body and it’s best to take care of it.

So, before you run off to the gym to get back into shape and work off any holiday guilt, do you have any lingering injuries or nagging pains that are still bothering you that you should probably address FIRST?  It is time to RESOLVE those aches and pains and get to the heart of what is really going on.  If the pain hasn’t gone away past its initial stages, then you have entered the chronic stage (which can be defined as anything past 3 weeks or so).  This is the stage where you have probably begun to compensate your movement patterns, avoided the provoking activities, and gone into the “hoping it’ll get better” mentality.  The only problem…it hasn’t gone away and you’ve let it go for months!  Enter your PT and your doctor.  They are a wealth of knowledge when it comes to figuring out what is going on with your body.  The internet is not.  It can be, BUT self diagnosing can be dangerous.  It may lead you to thinking you have one pathology when you really have something else.  It can also prolong the process of healing and receiving the correct treatment for the condition.  Physical therapists and orthopedic doctors have YEARS of training and education to understand what is going on with your body, and how to treat it appropriately.  The last thing you want to do is overanalyze or become a hypochondriac thinking you have a catastrophic injury when it may simply be a tendonitis OR you think you have something minor like a tendonitis and it’s really a significant tear or something else.  We all have to face it sometimes, that the nagging pain that hasn’t gone away needs more than just what you may have self educated and treated based on what the internet said or someone “who once had a pain similar to that once.”  Save yourself the grief and get in to see your PT or ortho sooner rather than later.  The longer you wait, the longer it’ll take to correct.  Even PTs and doctors have to give in and get treated by colleagues sometimes. Happy 2015 and here’s to a renewed healthier and happier you!!