The Stages Of Tissue Healing

A common question that I get almost daily “how long will this take to heal.” And truth is, it depends. There are several factors that play into tissue healing but the basic stages are the same whether it was from some sort of injury or if it was surgery. They are the one and the same to your body. .

After injury/surgery you body is going to go through three stages to heal and repair the damaged tissue. These stages each have distinct features. .
This is the recovery process and each stage’s features:

1. Inflammation: Pain, swelling, redness, and heat draws healing chemicals to the injured area.
2. Proliferation: Damaged tissues are removed; new blood supply and temporary tissue is built.
3. Remodeling: Stronger, more permanent tissue replaces temporary tissue.

As I said before there are several factors that play into this process such as age, comorbidities (other injuries/disease processes), alcohol/tobacco use, nutrition, and exercise history.

Things that you can easily control to help aid this process along are:
1. Get sleep! See my previous post on the benefits of sleep
2. Eat proper nutrition: More whole foods, less processed
3. Exercise at least 60 minutes per day. While injured this doesn’t mean the exercise has to be strenuous, Just move!
4. Limit alcohol intake
5. Don’t smoke!

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