Treating Repetitive Stress Injuries At Home

When you are working in an environment that requires you to do the same motion over and over again, you might end up with pain in the area of motion. Repetitive stress injuries are things that can be work related or personally related. You can even get them from playing too much tennis, golf, or other repetitive sport. The diagnosis and treatment of your repetitive stress injury can vary from situation to situation. For instance, one person might have a severe repetitive stress injury, while another person might have a minor one. The two treatment plans for these people will be different from one another, because of the severity differences in their conditions.

If you have a major repetitive stress injury you will need to see a doctor. Many doctors will prescribe anti-inflammatory drugs to help relieve the pain and the "stress" of the injury. They may also want you to see a physical therapist. Some patients are reluctant to go into physical therapy because their insurance doesn't cover it completely in many cases. However, physical therapy can be very important if your stress injury is major. It often takes the place of surgery on the stressed area, which is always a good thing. After all, no one wants to go through surgery if they don't have to.

If your repetitive stress injury is minor, you can always choose to try a treatment at home. Even if your injury is major and you are recommended for physical therapy, you may have to do exercises at home to help. Exercising moderately is a great tactic to take against the stress injury. You can develop your own plan of treatment. The first thing you should do is avoid whatever activity is causing your repetitive stress injury. You must take some time to allow the stressed area of your body to rest.

It can be very difficult to do this if your stress injury is coming from your work. If you work on an assembly line or at a computer all day, it can be tricky to try to avoid that motion. Think about talking to your boss about being transferred to another part of the assembly plant. If you work at a computer, think about getting wrist braces that will lessen the stress load on your hands and wrists.

After you figure out a way to lessen the stress on the area, you need to get on to the plan of healing. Heat is a great way to lessen the pain from a stress injury. Get a home heating pad and place it on your stressed area twice a day for fifteen minutes at a time. Do this before starting any exercises as well. You can get the heating pads to warm in the microwave to avoid the wiring and other dangers of traditional heating pads.

Then research what exercises are best for your type of injury. The trick to doing these is to not overdo them. You must work slowly. If you are feeling pain, you may be going to far. So, be sure to only do what you can. You will find that your body will get stronger, the pain will fade, and you will eventually be able to do whatever exercise you want, without being in pain.