The above chart is an essential summary of Dr. Song’s over 25 years of experience in soft tissue injuries. Understanding this chart may not only help you deal with your soft-tissue injury, but also improve on other musculoskeletal disorders, such as osteoarthritis, disc problems, and so on.

To get a comprehensive understanding of the chart will take too much out of your time; thus, we can simplify it into three parts:

1. What caused the injury?

2. How does an injury recover?

3. What result should we expect?

For most people, they may think it is a specific trauma, like a car accident, or a spraining motion causes an injury. But if we think further, why when the “same” injury happened on different people, the severity and recoveries are so different? One of the essential reasons overlooked by most people is that the previous conditions of the injured persons are so different! Imagine an athletic person and a “couch potato,” when they twisted their lower back, will they feel same? And will they recover similarly? Dr. Song’s clinical experience also showed that for a more athletic person usually the recovery comes better and faster. For a therapist, this means that you must know your patient’s health background and consider it in your treatment plan. Of cause, to know that, it is not only about asking your patient questions such as “do you exercise?”, but also to feel your patient’s body such as the quality of muscles and myofascial.

Right after the injury happened, the recovery has begun. The painful feeling, the swelling tissues, the bruises are all parts of the body healing. Although these are natural ways of our body to heal itself, sometimes these kinds of body reactions are too exaggerated and become difficult for us to tolerate. Meanwhile an overreaction of the injured body may lead the healing far from the recovery and cause secondary troubles. It is why the proper treatments are required. In other words, usually, the treatments do not directly fix the injury but also create better conditions for the body to recover. As a therapist, their role is to find out what conditions the patient needs and how to establish them.

When an injury happened, it usually combines dysfunctions with damaged structures, for example, a broken ligament, a hernia of the disc, and even fracture of a bone. Some of these structural changes are restorable, but not all of them, and not all are necessary. Our bodies are alive, which means they can adjust themselves. Although everybody agrees that the proper structure is the foundation of the appropriate functions, the tricky part is what is the “good structure”? Everyone has a personal answer. So, we should pay more attention to those features that have not recovered yet. Because, if the functions are right, the structures cannot be too bad.

FAQs:

· How many sessions are needed to recover?

It is varied from case to case. Usually you can feel the difference after 3-5 sessions, but in more complicated cases, it may take several tries to locate the critical problem or location of your injury. Of course, in simple cases, you may find that you recovered after a couple of treatments.

· What kinds of therapeutic methods does Dr. Song use in a treatment session?

The most commonly used methods are acupuncture and manual therapy (AKA Tuina massage). There is also a long list of techniques used for your exploration when you first visit our clinic.

· What is the role of acupuncture in Dr. Song’s treatment?

Dr. Song does not use acupuncture in a traditional way, such as regulating your energy flow or stimulating certain meridians. He uses acupuncture in a more specific way, which means to reduce inflammation on a particular spot, or loosen up soft tissue adhesion, or boost up local blood circulation, or calm the mind. In short, every needle used in treatment has a clear purpose. These treatment methods require a more completed assessment and a more definite diagnosis.