As a doctor, I often get asked how long a condition will take to heal. As a human being that will get conditions myself, I understand. When I’m in pain, I want definitive answers. How long? How many treatments? What is the fastest treatment to get out of this. The problem is, we aren’t all built the same way, and even if we were, our condition, or symptom, could be caused by a myriad of problems.
Imagine you have a tail light out on your car. This could be as simple as a burned out bulb that you can replace yourself for a few dollars. You can pay a mechanic a few more dollars to take care of it for you. Easy fix. However, it also could be a short in the wiring that leads to this tail light. This is complicated and time consuming to repair. Now we are talking about something a lot more costly and involved. This is not something you can take care of yourself. Our body is infinitely more complex than a car.
I sometimes have patients come to me in despair (because their uncle suffered from sciatica for many months and it took such a long time to heal) or discouragement (because their neighbour’s sciatica cleared up with just 2 magic visits, and why is theirs taking so long??!?)
The sciatic nerve has many more things that can influence it than a burnt out bulb or faulty wiring. Our health and healing capabilities are influenced by factors of our environment- the nutrition in our diet, our stress levels, our ability to rest, our past traumas, our future worries. Because of this, there are many different treatments and responses that will be seen. Yet, like the tail light, on the surface it all seems like the same problem requiring the same solution.
That is not to say it is not helpful to ask other car owners what they do about their tail lights. It is good to know where tail light bulbs may be on sale or if there are interesting You Tube videos that help change the tail light. You just have to remember that all tail lights aren’t the same.
For quite some time I (Dr. Dave) was challenged, on and off, with plantar fasciitis. I know all the treatments for it, as a condition, yet nothing was really helping in a lasting way. Then I tried a new weight lifting program that made me work my leg muscles much harder than I had in years. In the following days, while I could barely walk with my sore leg muscles, I was impressed that my feet felt completely fine! Was it just because everything else was so sore? I didn’t think so After more investigating, it turned out that there was nothing wrong with my plantar fascia, it was the weakness in some of my leg muscles that caused me to put undue strain on my plantar fascia and this led to the pain. Since then, I have added a series of exercises to tone my little used tibialis anterior muscle and my plantar fasciitis has not been a problem.
By the way, I won’t list my “plantar fasciitis exercises” for you, because if you’re suffering from this, yours may stem from a different cause. However, if you’ve tried different things, reach out and I’ll share what helped me.
This may seem like good news or bad news: we have to become experts on ourselves. I’ve worked with a lot of patients over the past 34 years, and will have a pretty good “educated guess” at what will help their condition, based on what has helped other people with similar conditions in the past. But each person will respond differently to care so no doctor should ever give a definitive absolute answer as to “How long?”. With Network Care, as you come to know yourself better, you will develop the ability to listen to your body’s needs and learn to recognize and avoid stressors that created the underlying condition in the first place. We will do regular progress checks in care to see that we are on track. Your tail light is unique to you.