What are soft tissue injuries? After any injury, big, small, or repetitive (think job related wear and tear), the body initiates the first phase of healing. This phase is called the primary healing phase, which signals cells to migrate to the area to lay down new fibers to help repair the injured area. These fibers act as a scaffolding to stabilize and protect the injured area as the healing happens. These fibers are called ‘Scar Tissue’. This process is incredibly helpful to allow the body to heal, but it can also lead to problems if the area doesn’t heal and rehab perfectly.

As time passes and healing is past the primary phase, scar tissue shrinks, limiting the muscle fibers ability to contract in a normal fashion. Scar tissue can also act as sandpaper when the muscle contracts, irritating the area more. If the area is continued to be irritated, it can lead to a snowballing effect of inflammation making an area hypersensitive, weak, and lose its range of motion. Simply put, scar tissue can cause common ailments such as frozen shoulder, carpel tunnel, impingement syndrome, nerve entrapment, and other painful syndromes that doctors and physical therapists do and don’t have names for.

The good news is normal function may be restored simply by removing this scar tissue, and it can be done NON-SURGICALLY! At Germantown Chiropractic we look to correct soft dysfunctions with Active Release Technique (ART), Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization (IASTM), Functional Movement Rock Tape (FMT), and Rehabilitative exercises.

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