I went to the doctor and they said to let it rest.

I titled this post as such, because I get a lot of patients that have been in serious pain, gone to see a doctor, and the doctor tells them to rest.  Now there are a lot of different things you can do that is called resting, and it means different things to different people.  But read these words carefully...Letting something "rest", doesn't FIX the problem.  It does help the inflammation go down, it does decrease the pain, but it DOES NOT FIX the problem. 

Sometimes when people hear, let it rest, they do just that. They lay around, they don't do anything and they feel somewhat better, but they are setting themselves up for more problems later. 

Lets say for instance you have knee surgery, mild, moderate, or even a full replacement of the knee.. Patients are now up and moving hours after the surgery.  HOURS!  They aren't "resting" they are actively moving their knee to keep swelling down and help perpetuated the healing process.

How does this apply to other injuries and what is resting involve.  I'd say that resting is a bad word to use, more like doing less activities that provoke the injury, would be better.  If you have injuries, staying mobile is a good rule to follow.  Low back pain, knee pain, arm pain etc., if you keep it moving in the sense that you still do activities but don't over work the area of complaint, then you are doing well. 

Now some will say that they stay moving, they walk around, they do chores, they exercise some. They just can't  to do much or they have pain while doing certain activities.  Once you've had pain of a certain level, you stop doing things, a lot of things the provoke that pain.  Even so much as to avoid moving in that instance.  Having said that, getting to a musculoskeletal doctor that can diagnose the problem is the first step. Working out the original issue  that caused the problem in the first place is where you will find the "fix" to the problem.

Now some of you will say, well I've had this problem before.  If I rest it enough, the pain goes away.  I just have to avoid certain activities/movements etc and I'm fine.  Well to those people I say, don't read on any further.  Stop right here!  When the pain comes back in 1 year or 6 months, or becomes so frequent that you start to avoid many more activities....then you can continue to read on.  Problems don't go way because you rest, any more than a car fixes itself when broken if you just don't  drive it.  If you turn the broken car back on, dammit if it doesn't still make that noise or it still doesn't start! 

My point is, find the real problem that started this issue in the first place.  The muscle or tendon or breaking point that is in your leg, knee, back etc that gave out, stopped working and created all this pain.