One of Many Problems with Healthcare in America

About 2 years ago I had to go to the Emergency Room to get my right knee loooked at after hearing a loud pop while training Jiu Jitsu.  Being a former military medic, I had been trained to perform basic assessments for situations like this because injuries to the knee are fairly common in the military.  I think it’s fair to say that knee injuries are common in active people.  I expected that the attending provider would perform some of those same basic tests on my knee that I learned in the military.  Instead, there was a brief visual examination while I was asked a few questions, I was x-rayed, and I was prescribed some pain medication before being discharged.  There was no manipulation or physical testing to speak of.  The X-ray showed no signs of damage and I guess that was good enough for the provider.

Fortunately, I know enough about the musculoskeletal system that I was able to initiate my own rehabilitation plan.  (See this article for my tips on injury rehab.  See this page for all my health tips.)  Barring a bone break or some sort of ligament tear, I knew when I heard the ‘pop’ sound at the gym that I would be able to rehab the injury.  My concern was that loud pops from the knee are sometimes associated with ligament rupture.  Ligaments connect bone to bone and help create joint stability.  In my training as an army medic, I worked with physical therapists who showed me how to test the knee joint to assess for instability that could be related to ligament damage.  I expected the provider in the ER would at least ask me to pull my knee to my chest or perform one of those simple stability assessments.  Again, none of that happened.

I left the hospital thinking, “If I didn’t have the knowledge of the musculoskeletal system that I have, this situation would be scary… but it’s not because I know what to do and I’ve done it a million times before.”  This is the power of educating yourself and having a consistent well thought out fitness regimen.  I talk to so many friends and family members who encounter musculoskeletal issues and they just want the doctor to make the pain stop.  Drugs can certainly do that for a period of time and physical/chiropractic therapy can do this for a period of time.  However, if the patient never addresses their own movement habits they’ll end up with the same problem or worse.     

Part of the benefit of pursuing a well thought out fitness regimen is the fact that it brings you in tune with your body.  Pursuing exercise offers you the opportunity to ask some important questions to yourself:

• What types of movement do I enjoy?
• What factors cause me to struggle in those movements and what factors improve those movements?
• How well do I recover from workouts?
• What time duration and time of day work best for me?
• How does my body respond to food choices and sleep quality?
• What’s my injury rehab protocol?
• Etc.

I want you to think of the task of maintaining physical fitness as an invitation to learning about how your body works.  If you leave it in the hands of a medical professional, with all their education and experience, they still may not be able to help you.  For the most part these are well meaning people who want to help their patients.  The problem is that there is little time or incentive to educate patients.  Until this changes, it is our job to educate ourselves about our bodies.

Also, I understand that this isn’t easy.  You have a million things to do.  You have friends, family, and other responsibilities.  You have work.  Fair enough.  But what if you took 15 minutes a day to learn about your body.  15 minutes a day to google and read articles about spinal anatomy so you can begin visualizing the structures that surround the area in your back where you may be having low back pain.  15 minutes to watch youtube videos on various exercise routines that can be done at home.  15 minutes to look up low cost, healthy meals for people on tighter budgets.  15 minutes to go from having zero knowledge about the problem to having some knowledge about the problem.  And of course, if you are consistent, that time adds up.  If you did 15 minutes a day for 300 days out of a year, that would be 75 hours of learning in a year.  You won’t be mad that you made that investment in yourself.    

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