90% of patients with degenerative meniscus tear benefit from exercise

If you had 90% chance of winning the lottery, would you go for it?

I am guessing you would.

What if you had 90% chance of getting better with exercise, would you give it a shot?

Exercise is not bad for you.

I have said this so many times that you probably sick of me telling you the same thing. Exercise is good for you.

Yes, exercise can sometimes hurt but pain science tells us that pain doesn’t equal damage. In fact, research tells us that recovery exercises that are painful has a small advantage over totally pain-free ones!

This is true regardless of age. 76-year old Pauline was advised to pick up strength training for her knee arthritis. She ended up being a national powerlifter!

Age is not an exercise for you to lift less.

Degeneration is not life sentence to a painful life!

A study that was just published a few weeks ago found that 90% of patients with degenerative meniscus will see improvements in their symptoms.

There is a misconception that degeneration equals permanent damage equals you have to live in pain for life. This is not true.

Degeneration is NOT wear and tear.

In fact, degeneration is a normal aging process and has little to do with pain.

You can think of degeneration in the sense of wrinkles or grey hair.  Just because you have wrinkles on your face doesn’t mean you get facial pain.

Most people see fast improvements with treatment.

In the same study, up to 70% of patients saw significant improvements within 12 weeks of exercise.

This sounds like good news, no?

Don’t avoid treatment because you think it’s going to take forever. Research says you have a pretty good chance of getting results. I think it’s definitely worth taking a shot.

Exercise works for knee arthritis as well!

You may think that these results do not apply to you because you have arthritis instead of a meniscal injury.

Well, the good news is exercise is just as awesome for osteoarthritic knees.

The latest clinical guideline for knee and hip osteoarthritis recommends exercise as firstline treatment. In fact, it works so well that that the guideline listed the recommendation as strong and recommended that every arthritic patient gives exercise a shot.

Does that mean all I have to do is exercise on my own?

Yes, and no.

Exercising on your own is definitely better than not exercising at all. However, for best results, you should exercise under professional supervision or advice.

We offer supervised training programmes as well as self-directed recovery programmes (i.e., home exercises) to our clients.

If you are confident of exercising on your own, and all  you need is a good programme and advice, we offer a mentorship programme.

If you are new to exercising and you’d want someone to walk you through your recovery, we have exercise trainers who can do that for you.

Don’t forget to consider your mental and social wellbeing.

Chronic pain often involves pain that doesn’t come from physical damage. It’s often to do with abnormal signalling in the brain as well as other psychosocial factors such as your beliefs and your expectations about your pain.

With that said, having a good social support will help with your recovery. It can even directly reduce your pain experience.

Similarly, other factors like sleep and stress levels can also change your symptom experience.

This is why we also utilise coaching principles in our practice to help our clients optimise their treatment outcomes.

Stop useless treatments to start feeling better.

If you are not getting results from your previous treatments, it is likely because the treatments you received are not evidence-based.

Government agencies and academic institutions spend billions of dollars to conduct research to find out what works. Through the rigor of scientific testing, clinical guidelines are developed to tell you what is most likely to help you get results.

When you are ready to start seeing results with your treatments, reach out to us via the contact form below. We will help you help yourself find true freedom from pain.