Over the years, we’ve treated many athletes for sports injuries. Acupuncture can help increase circulation to the affected area, which can help reduce healing time, and even prevent further injuries.
There are four basic types of tissue in the human body: nervous system tissue, muscular tissue, epithelial tissue (thin tissue that includes skin and lining of the digestive tract) and connective tissue.
Generally speaking, various types of connective tissue bind organs together, hold organs in place, fill spaces in the body, cushion the organs and connect tissues (such as bones to muscle, as in the case of tendons……or ligaments, which are designed to join bone to bone)**.
One of the complex issues that can increase the healing time of tendon and ligament injuries is the relatively low volume of blood flow that they receive.
We have found that certain athletes experience repeated injury to tendons and ligaments; for example, a soccer player who injures their knee repeatedly or is constantly spraining an ankle. You can argue it is the physical stress of any particular sport (which may be the case in certain situations), but we have found it is more common that there exists a susceptibility in the body, namely a liver imbalance, which has been discovered in Chinese medicine to govern the tendons and ligaments, generally speaking.
If you know someone that is an athlete often experiencing sports injuries, it is likely acupuncture would be able to help them with the acute injury. More importantly by restoring liver function, it is likely acupuncture could help to prevent future injury despite the physical stress of any given sport on the tendons and ligaments.
This article was written as an ode to Stephen Curry, we hope he heals quickly!
**Source: www.biologyreference.com
