Certain Types of Pain May Take Time To Develop | The Medical Risks of Initially Ignoring Your Injuries
Often, when you’ve been hurt in an accident, you’re happy to be alive and feeling okay. Maybe adrenaline has kicked in and you think you’ve escaped significant injury or discomfort. Maybe it doesn’t hurt too badly and you don’t want to complain. Maybe you simply don’t want your injuries to keep you from doing the things you love to do. For all those reasons, you may choose not to get the medical attention you need after a personal injury. That’s almost always a mistake.
Some Injuries Take Time To Have an Impact on Your Life
Some injuries are obvious—lacerations and broken bones tend to be immediately apparent. Others, though, such soft tissue injuries—sprains, strains, tears, bruises, and bumps—may not initially cause discomfort but can ultimately be more debilitating than the obvious injuries. There are a number of reasons for that:
- Your body typically responds to trauma with swelling and inflammation, which both take some time to fully develop. As swelling increases, your movement can become restricted, nerves can become impinged, and body parts may become tender to the touch.
- Your body may need time for nerve damage to be fully processed by your brain. Part of this may stem from inflammation, but part may also be related to the way your brain processes nerve pain.
- Some injuries may lead to other pain, as your body compensates for certain types of injury. For example, you may twist your knee and change the way you walk in order to accommodate the initial injury. This may lead to aggravation of other body parts, which are now carrying a heavier load than normal.
What Are the Medical Risks of Ignoring Injuries When There Is No Initial Pain?
The sooner you seek treatment for an injury, the more options you’ll typically have and the better outcome you can usually expect. Seeking treatment even when there’s no initial pain can potentially minimize the risk of pain and discomfort from inflammation or swelling. Your doctor may prescribe anti-inflammatory drugs as a response to the type of trauma you’ve suffered, even when there are no physical symptoms, due to the expectation that your body will eventually respond by producing fluids and swelling.
Furthermore, the earlier you treat an injury, the less risk you’ll have of re-injury, and the less likely that your injury will become chronic.
