Scar Tissue A Case Study: 17 Year Old Athlete
This week I want to talk about the dangers of scar tissue and what it can do to the body. I’ll share a story about a local Maricopa teenager who saw me for physical therapy about a year ago. This individual, we’ll call her Kayla, had severely injured her knee playing sports and required surgery.
She got the surgery quickly following the injury as instructed, but in the subsequent months she continued to experience increasing knee pain. She was advised to get another surgery because the first must’ve missed something. She got another knee surgery to fix the problem and eliminate pain, but the 2nd surgery was no more successful at fixing the problem than the first because when she got out of surgery the 2nd time her knee was bending less than before and she continued to have pain. This continued until she had 5 knee surgeries to “correct” the problem, but each surgery only brought more pain and less motion. Eventually she and her family gave up and she said she just wouldn’t play sports anymore and would live with the knee pain.
Fast forward to her encounter with me. When I met Kayla she had already been through this surgery process for over 2 years and her knee only bent about 50 degrees (it should be 135-145 degrees). She had been to PT before, but wasn’t able to do most of the exercises due to pain and limited knee motion. After evaluating her and considering her past, I concluded that her knee wasn’t moving due to all the scar tissue built up over the years from the constant abuse and surgery. She was skeptical at first, but by the end of the first visit she became a believer in my theory. I worked directly on the scar tissue, which no one before me even attempted. By breaking up the scar tissue in the knee and giving intentional exercises (not just mindless exercises) she was able to bend her knee to 140 degrees and was able to return to sports. She saw me for about 9 weeks to fix the problem, but was dealing with it for over 2 years.
So why did I just brag about my skills at a Physical Therapist by telling this story of a 17 year old athlete? She is the perfect example of how limited our bodies can get due to soft tissue restrictions like scar tissue. Imaging can not see scar tissue clearly and looks fuzzy, which is similar to arthritis on some images. If we address the scar tissue that builds up in our bodies from old injuries, we can allow the body to recover from the inside out. Scar tissue can spell disaster for our future with surgery after surgery trying to “correct” the problem, when all you really needed was to break up the “rust” around the joint.
It’s possible to age without pain if we remember to “change the oil” every now and then in our bodies with a “tune-up” from your local Doctor of Physical Therapy.
Stay healthy movers!
