Soft Tissue Injuries: Types of Treatments & Recovery Time

By Tens Machine UK Content Team . Last Updated Tuesday, 30th July 2024

What is a Soft Tissue Injury?

Soft Tissue Injuries typically occurs when your muscles, tendons or ligaments are overused or an injury/trauma occurs. Soft tissue injuries are the result of uncontrolled movement or sudden unexpected movement, such as rolling over on your ankle or your fingers being pushed back by a football suddenly.

Sprains, Contusions, Strains but also Bursitis and Tendonitis are all very common forms of soft tissue injuries. These types of injuries can occur during exercise activities, but there are moments where a soft tissue injury can occur during everyday activities, such as walking, running and lifting something a little heavy.

Normally these types of injuries take a little time to heal with the appropriate treatment, the process typically starts:

Pain in and around the area
Swelling around the painful area
Mild Heat / Warm
Redness or some form of bruising

How long does it take to heal?

The healing time of your injury will depend on the grade. Grade 1 soft tissue injuries can take between 1 to 2 weeks to fully heal, but a Grade 2 injury can take between two to three weeks. Then we have Grade 3 injuries that typically require more immediate assessments and treatments, and the Grade 3 normally comes with much longer recovery times.

Thing is, recovery times can depend on a number of factors, such as:

Age
General Health
Occupation
The extent of your injury

What is the best treatment for a soft tissue injury?

The treatment that is normally recommended is RICE: Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation.

Rest - You will need to avoid any activities or exercises for the time being, ideally don’t put any weight on the injury as it could make it far worse.
Ice - Grab some ice or something from the freezer that can be used for at least an hour. The aim would be to apply ice to the injured area to reduce swelling, reduce bleeding and reduce muscle pain and possible spasms.
Compress - Once you’ve reduced the swelling, you’ll need to grab yourself a brace or a bandage that can be wrapped around the injury and support it all day. Make sure it fits well and feels comfortable and supportive, but make sure it’s not too tight otherwise it may restrict the blood flow.
Elevation - Try and keep the injured area above your heart, typically those with these types of injuries rest their injured area on a pillow as much as possible.

During the early phases, it is quite important to take regular pain relief medication and not to wait, typically your local pharmacist or local GP will be able to advise accordingly.

Other forms of Treatment after RICE:

Therapeutic Ultrasound Machines have become a popular method of reducing the pain, improving blood flow and improving the recovery time of soft tissue injuries. One specific type of ultrasound machine to help with this is a 1 MHz Ultrasound machine, specifically designed for those with soft tissue injuries, bursitis, tendonitis, chronic spasms, strains and even muscle spasms.

Customers have a choice whether they’re wired or wireless, additionally each device comes with extension instructions on how to use, techniques of application, frequency of treatments and step by step guides to help you when using your ultrasound machine.

What are the advantages of using an Ultrasound Machine?

This isn't any usual Ultrasound machine – this machine is designed for several reasons: pain relief, tissue healing and very similar benefits, this of course depends on the device you decide to buy.

1 MHZ Ultrasound Machine = Pain Relief & Speed Healing
3 MHZ Ultrasound Machine = Perfect for Body Tissue, Muscles and Tendons.

Both of these machines above have different benefits. 1 MHZ Ultrasound penetrates up to 7.5cm into body tissues, muscles & tendons.

Our 3MHz Ultrasound device penetrates up to 2.5cm into the body - this is more widely used for Facial and Beauty treatment.

The technology focuses beams of Ultrasound energy precisely and accurately on specific areas of the body (treated area) and can focus on tendons, ligaments and other soft tissues to help promote the growth of new connective tissue. This process enables improvements without the need for any surgery, which many of our users prefer.

Primary options for treatment of soft tissue injuries usually include invasive surgery and heavy doses of medication, however this avoids both methods. For a lot of patients or users, focused ultrasound therapy could provide a non-invasive alternative to surgery with far less risk of complications. The devices can reach the desired area of treatment without damaging or injuring surrounding tissue and are repeatable.

So how does Ultrasound heal Soft Tissue?

When soft tissue is exposed to Ultrasound therapy, the sound waves from the device whilst using the Ultrasound gel cause micro vibrations within the tissue.

These micro vibrations create quite a bit of heat energy which as a result increases the blood flow to the specific area of focus. This increased blood flow due to the micro vibrations causes an increase in the level of oxygen and chemicals to the treated area.

This process is essentially helping heal and relieve pain in any damaged tissue within that area. Ultrasound Therapy is widely used by athletes, physios, sports therapists and many more – this is due to the effectiveness of the treatment and how it can be widely used for other things such as pain relief.

Can a Soft tissue injury get worse?

If left untreated and continued movement (activities and exercise on the injury), it’s very likely that your soft tissue injury will worsen and this can lead to possible complications. These types of complications can happen immediately, whilst others can happen over time.

These possible complications include:

Reduced Mobility - When left untreated, soft tissue injuries can lead to limited mobility which can result in difficulties performing everyday tasks.
Muscle Weakness - If soft tissue injuries are left untreated the muscle can become quite weak.
Arthritis - This could possibly change the way a person moves their joints, resulting in the body, joints and other tissue having to compensate for the new weakness, leading to arthritis.
Chronic Pains - One of the many complications is chronic pain.
Permanent damage to the area - If the injury is left untreated and with the correct treatment plan, the injured area will become weaker and may not repair correctly, leading to regular tendon tears, ruptures, and that could result in lack of / no connection between muscle and bones.

Should I go to the hospital with soft tissue injuries?

This would depend on the severity and the pain, as the area may not be just soft tissue injury, it could be worse like a break or even a fracture. It is advisable to head to A&E for a more thorough detailed assessment and diagnosis. This may help you gauge whether it’s necessary to go to A&E and a full assessment is required:

Unable to put any weight on the injured area
You may have heard a pop or crack at any time
Any unusual deformity or unusual shapes around the injured area
Any unusual feelings such as numbness or pins and needles.

By Paul Warburton . Last Updated Friday, 17th September 2021

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