When you feel a pain in your body, a pulled muscle or a funky joint or something, do you baby it...or do you work it?

Working it makes it worse. I put ice on it, and in a couple of days I’m as good as new, most of the time. I’ve learned the hard way that trying to stretch it out just tears the muscle fiber even more, thus giving me even more spasm to deal with. Often it will spread. So, despite my instinct to stretch it, I leave it alone. I wouldn’t call that babying it, though.

You stay off it for the first 3 or 4 days, then start moving it a bit to make sure you don’t loose mobility – but normal, everyday movement, not what you did. That’s just kicking it when it’s down.

You always go to a professional and get their opinion. Then you follow their rehab program to a tee or you’re setting yourself up for a worse injury or long term repercussions!

It depends upon your age & your physical condition. Younger people can usually get muscles unkinked without too much difficulty – however, when you get past 40, sometimes it takes a little ‘babying’.

Both within reason. Ice and then stretch….stretch then ice….then stretch and more stretch….ice and then rest. Repeat for next few days…then ditch the ice and get a golf cart and have someone drive you where ever you need to be! Milk it for all you can!!

Baby it. Still use it in moderation so it does not stiffen or lose strength in the muscle, but definitely baby it.

Pain means injury. Therefore if one plays with a pain to much you could injure it more. I try to keep aware of my body and pay attention to when it’s an injury and when it’s just stiffness or pain from under use. If it’s an injury I baby it until it’s healed.

@Schroedes13 You’re assuming everyone has health insurance so they can run to the “professional” for something silly like a pulled muscle. I didn’t. Fortunately we DID have insurance when my husband disintegrated his collar bone. He got him self back into shape his own way.

I didn’t take back to 100% action immediately, but I didn’t baby it. And I certainly didn’t “stay off of it for 3 or 4 days.” I had a daycare to run and small children to raise..alone! I did what I felt I could do plus a little more.

I’ve always pushed myself. When I was pregnant with one of the kids I went to the doctor and said, “Doctor doctor! When I play tennis my hips start to hurt! What’s up with that?”
Dr says, “Well, Val, you’re due to have a baby in two weeks. The ligaments in your hips are loosening up so when the time comes your hips can spread.” : )

I don’t really care whether you have health insurance, universal healthcare like in Canada, or have to pay for it out of your own pocket. But I believe that when you have an injury that you feel a substantial amount of pain in, you should always get it checked out. My body and well being is worth way more than any amount of money.

I didn’t have the money @Schroedes13. Period. I didn’t have the money to get a $20 Christmas tree for my kids at Christmas. Where am I going to get the money to go to the Dr. where I get two options: 1) He’ll tell me It’ll take care of itself, in which case I’m out $60 for a useless office visit, or 2) I need to get all kinds of other stuff done in which case I’m just SOL, period.
I got myself through all of my aches and pains and injuries (including some that probably should have been stitched) with the exception of one. Long story short, after three hours of serious pain in my abdomen that I couldn’t figure what it was or why it was happening, I took myself into the ER. Longer story short, if I would have waited much longer I would have died—it was an ectopic pregnancy that had burst.

OK….the reason I posted this…For the last week, off and on, when I go to sit on a particular couch on my back deck, which is a bit lower than regular couches, my right knee will start “going out.” I can tell that if I don’t get weight off of it right now something bad is going to happen! So I immediately shift all my weight to my left leg and basically sort of fall on the couch. It’s happened a handful of times, at random, over the last week, but with increasing regularity. Last night it happened again, and it pissed me off. So I started doing leg lifts to work the knee…not sure what to call them. So every damn time I sit on that couch, as I’m sitting there I straighten my leg out and then bend it back, 20 times in pretty quick succession. I’m sure I’ll be workin’ my way up to 40 and 60 before long, and I’ll bet my knee gets HEALED! And my legs won’t MATCH! All I can say is that it hasn’t happened today, which, by itself, really isn’t conclusive. Another week or a month, and it may be conclusive.

Is the the route you guys would take to fix the problem, or would you baby it, or done nothing and finally have gone to the doctor?

@Dutchess_III You know, you can call up the doctor’s office and ask if an issue is worth a visit. The office should have someone on staff to do triage.

@Dutchess_III well you also wrote pulled muscle or funky joint. Those are two very different injuries. Next time, please be more specific.

Ps. I would still go to a specialist about your knee.

The first instance was years ago. It was a major pulled muscle. All I have to do is think about it, and it’s like a memory tingles up and down my leg. I worked it. I was playing racket ball 3 weeks later.

My knee is the “funky joint” I am currently referring to.

Hell no I’m not going to a specialist! They’ll probably want to replace it or some crazy shit! If this doesn’t work and it gets really bad, then I’ll consider the doctor. Let’s see if this works, first. I’ll let you know. So far so good.

@Aethelflaed You know as well as I that, for liability reasons, all they can really suggest is that you come in. Any other advice leaves them open for a lawsuit from some asshat.

‘Sides. I talked to Rarebear. He said I should have my leg amputated. Like that.

I’m just saying that many people wait until it’s too late and have injured it with micro-trauma, that by the time they finally go and see a doctor, they a referred to a specialist and they need major surgery.

Ok. I’m just not one to run to the doctor for every cough and owie.

@Dutchess_III That’s not true in any of the doctor’s offices I worked in.

It’s been true for every single office I’ve ever called. They will never say “Oh, it’s probably nothing.” Never. Because if it turns out to be “something” they could be sued. If they’re really sure it’s probably nothing, they’ll hem and haw and say, “Well, you should probably come in…”

@Dutchess_III They never said it was “nothing”. They’d say to put it on ice, wrap it in an ace bandage, keep off it, and call them back if it got worse. Or to try some Pepto-Bismal first and call back in x number of hours if it hadn’t gotten better. Or that you can buy Monostat OTC and see if that clears it up first. There’s no point to spend the money training someone in triage if all you’re ever going to have them say is that you should come in.

I’m just saying, that’s the ONLY response I’ve ever gotten. So..what’s the liability if they say put it on ice, wrap it in an ace bandage, stay off of it, but it turns out it’s a far, far more serious injury than that, and requires immediate attention, and delaying said attention could result in irreparable harm? Yeah, the patient didn’t give them adequate information or a description, but the Dr’s office is still liable.

I’m just trying to say that it doesn’t hurt to ask. Maybe that’s all they will say, but maybe they won’t, and phone calls don’t cost a thing.

@Dutchess_III To me it sounds like you have a kind of prejudice about wusses who “run to the doctor for every cough and owie.” The Rand Corporation did a study some twenty or thirty years ago that looked at the effect of copays on the number of doctor visits. I.e., does cost prevent people from going to the doctor? Or does no cost get too many people to the doctor—people who just have a “cough” or “owie.”

They found that at that time (and the health financing system was much different then), cost made no difference. People went when they needed to, even if they couldn’t afford it, and people didn’t go when they didn’t need it, even if it was free. The “hypochondriac effect” was negligible.

You are in the very unfortunate and unconscionable situation where you don’t have health insurance. Pretty soon, you are either going to have to purchase insurance, or take a tax hit or perhaps be eligible for subsidized or free health insurance. I’m guessing that you’re not happy about that.

When that happens, this will not be an issue, but you know what? I bet you’ll have exactly the same attitude about visiting the doctor that you do now. We all have to make that decision, whether or not we have health insurance. Is this worth going or not? It isn’t that easy to decide to go because for most of us it means a trip and time out of our lives. And even if the office is right next door, it still means visiting the doctor and the waits and hanging around sick people and maybe getting a blood draw. It’s not fun.

It sounds to me like you are trying to make a virtue out of a bad situation, and I don’t blame you for that if it makes your justifiable bitterness about our health financing system more tolerable. But the decision you face when you can’t afford health care is the same as the decision faced by people who can afford health care. The research shows that cost does not prevent you from going to the doctor, although it does prevent you from getting the care you need. I.e., following the doctor’s orders.

The initial visit is affordable for most people, and if not, they can usually get charity care. It’s the subsequent visits that are the problem, as is clear from your story. You are afraid that if it is a problem requiring further care, you won’t be able to afford it. So why bother? If it’s a serious problem, you can’t do anything about it anyway. So let’s call it “toughing it out.”

You know, I hate that you are in this situation. I’ve spent half of my work career trying to make the economic argument for universal health coverage in the US finance by a single, publicly-managed health insurance company. It is simply wrong that you have to think about health care this way. But it is also wrong to turn it into an issue of machismo. It isn’t that issue. You are jousting with the wrong knight.

@Dutchess_III Sorry if I missed it, but how long has this been going on?

I have empathy for you, going to the dctor has been more of a waste of time than not for me too. @wundayatta mentioned looking down on people who run to the doctor, and I admit I am annoyed by people who run to the docor for things that obviously cannot be cured or even treated better by a doctor, like a cold or typical flu (unless the person actually wants tamiflu) and all they do is bring is bring their germs into the out of doors and doctor’s office.

However, a joint problem maybe can be helped by some sort of brace or exercise? I have no idea about such things. I have muscle trouble, it can be pretty bad sometimes. After 5 years I finally went to a neurologist and he told me I was normal, I am deifinitely not close to normal. I had an event two years ago that gives me discomfort inside of my head, near my ear. I went to a GP, then a specialist they recommended who was horrible, and then my natural inclination was to give up and live with it. Instead I did the opposite, questioning my own reluctance, hate of the medical profession, and my anxiety in dealing with doctors and their offices. I went to three more specialist in 6 months time. I still have the problem two years later, and no one has diagnosed it. Waste of time and money trying to get help. After all of this, I am thinking now of maybe trying again for some help with it, but I am not optomistic.

I have another chronic condition, for about 20 years now. Two doctors have told me maybe I should see a specialist at a university or something similar who specifically deals with the problem, and neither doctor has helped me get a name, and I have tried and tried to find someone who might be specialized and cannot figure it out on my own. I wonder when I am going to find a doctor who cares enough to really follow my case, and get me to where I need to go?

I have not figuredout why some people go to the doctor and get fixed up, and why others like me wind up with chronic conditions that cannot be diagnosed or treated. What I do know is people who go for every little owie seem to believe the doctor does work magic. I guess I would too, if I went a lot, and he made me feel better the majority of the time.

Ironically I think people think I am a hypochondriac of sorts, because I wind up at the doctor, and have some chronic issues, but I feel I am the opposite. I know I have something wrong and I don’t go to the doctors for months and years in between for the issue. If I thought I was dying I think I would be in there every week.

Sorry my answer was partly a vent session. Maybe you might get an xray or whatever they do, maybe they just observe the knee to diagnose it, so at least you know what is wrong, and you can read up about it. And, find out treatment options. That is if it has been a few weeks you have been dealing with this and it has not healed on its own.

@wundayatta I have health insurance now.

@JLeslie… I’m so sorry. If I had that problem I’d definitely be going to doctors to try and figure out what it is….

My knee will be fine.

@Dutchess_III just be careful! Knees are a very important and complex joint. If one part of your knee is already damaged, using other muscles to compensate for the injury is just going to strain and injure those muscles in time.

Baby it if it hurts. Then start working it.

@Dutchess_III But, I have. Many many doctors.

I know @JLeslie. That’s what I’m saying. I would have done exactly what you did…..

@Rarebear…...you….you – look. My cat seems to be having a hard time in labor again. Any better advice this time….? “Just see if it dies” was not good advice last time. Got anything else in your bag?

@Dutchess_III Why haven’t you fixed the cat?

Actually, the cat DIED before we got her fixed. I have no cat. Well, not one that can get pregnant anyway. I was just trying to change the direction of the discussion!

You got the cat fixed after she died?

OK! Poor sentence structure! But, no. Dying kind of took care of it. : ( She got hit by a car. In her head. : ( It was awful.