What causes tissue damage, actually? How serious can it be? How long does it take for tissue damage to heal?

Tissue damage is also known as STI, which stands for soft tissue injury. STI occurs when muscles, ligaments, and/or tendons throughout your body suffer from damage. Because of that, the rest of your body may not work as well as it normally does.

What causes tissue damage can vary, depending on each case. There are unexpected events that may cause it:

• A sprain. (For example: when you trip over the stairs and your foot land hard on the floor or your ankle twists the wrong way by accident.)
• A tear in your tendon. (This often happens if you are an athlete and on a rough training.)
• Arthritis. (It is a disorder in your joint(s) which causes inflammation.)
• Fibromyalgia. (It is a chronic widespread of pain, often heightened, in response to the pressure.)
• Infections.
• Traumatic events due to car accidents.
• A hard labour or physical activities that can risk an injury.
• A cut that bleeds.
• A broken bone.

What Happens When Your Tissues Are Damaged?

Tissue damage is where most physical pain comes from. It starts from the injured area of your body to the body’s tissues. The injury may affect your bone, soft tissue, or even organs.

In some more serious cases, the damage tissue can occur from a disease like cancer.

The cases regarding damage tissues are varied, whether the wound turns up externally or internally. Externally, the damage tissues form in lesions, defects, scars, or tears. A biological process begins naturally to fix the damage. In the meantime, one can speed up the healing process by covering the open wound(s), for example with grafts. It is to avoid adhesions and further scarring.

Internal tissue damage needs more medical attention. For example: a cartilage gap or an arthritic bone. Not only it is much more painful, it can also be more debilitating. In some cases, people with much older age and surviving winter suffer more in this kind of condition.

The damage of the cartilage can cause the bone underneath to be exposed. It results in a lesion, which causes pain and a sense of discomfort.

How Does Tissue Damage Cause Pain?

There is a direct, contact hit between your body to something concrete. An injury occurs. Because of the injury, pain turns up and stems from it all the way to the body’s tissues.

The pain here also varies, depending on the trauma your body suffers after a hit or an accident. It can be an ache, a sharp stabbing, or a throbbing sensation. You could either feel it come and go or have it longer than you could stand. If the pain is really bad, it hurts you when you move, laugh, or even breathe.

In some cases, pain from tissue damage can be seriously dangerous to your overall health. For example: some athletes have to give up their career in the field after a torn ligament or other series of injuries that can cause permanent tissue damage. Arthritis and chronic headaches can also lead to tissue damage. Radiation for cancer can also cause it.

If you think that ignoring the pain is a sign of toughness, you might want to reconsider that. Either way, tissue damage is a serious matter. There are ways to heal them, but it takes another process and an amount of patience.

Does Tissue Damage Heal?

So, how long does it take for tissue damage to heal? Does it even do so?

There are three healing phases to tissue damage:

Phase 1: Inflammatory Response Phase.

This phase only takes four days, starting from the first time the injury occurs.

Phase 2: Fibroblastic Repair Phase.

After the first four days in Phase 1, this phase takes another few days up to six weeks.

Phase 3: Maturation Remodeling Phase.

Some may see this as a regeneration process to the body tissue. After the six weeks of Phase 2, this phase can last up to three years – as long as one watches out in order to avoid getting injured again, even in the same spot.

Pain Management for Tissue Damage Injuries:

There is this pain management called PRICE – and it stands for:

PROTECTION – Where one should avoid further and more injury by not moving so much and keeping away hazardous objects.

REST – Where one should take it easy and not do any activity that might harm them.

ICE – Which one should apply on their injured body part(s) for the first three days, to reduce swelling or stop the bleeding.

COMPRESSION – Where one wrap a bandage, elastic wrap, or a compression tape around their injured body part(s)

ELEVATION – When one must rise the injured body part as high as their heart level for the first three days.

It is good to know what causes tissue damage, but even better when you know how to avoid it.