A lot of times in physical therapy and in medicine we use pain to dictate and drive a lot of decision making.

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We know that this may not be always the case because what happens if pain stops? Do we still have healthy tissues? Are they normal? If a sprained my ankle doesn't hurt - is it ready to go?

 

This is why we have to be thinking about pain differently. Pain is information. Pain doesn't necessarily drive the show. It can be really important and if your pain is so bad you can't go to work obviously it's a medical problem.

 

How are we assessing ourselves? Are we just going to wait around until it hurts? How do we assess we use lagging indicators force production wattage range of motion swelling central nervous system readiness heart rate variability resting heart rate.