Call It a Sprain, Strain, Pull, Tweak, Tendonitis...I Call It a Tear.

There are lots of ways to say or to avoid saying that you tore something. People and professions use different words to describe basically the same thing (Damage or disruption to a tissue) . I like to go with tear. Now when I say tear most people have a vision of a piece of paper being torn in half and while this does happen it is very rare. What I see when I use that word is a large bristled paint brush with thousands of bristles being the fibers that make up one’s muscle, tendon, ligament what have you. So I see maybe 5% 10% of those fibers snapping leaving the rest intact. So the brush as a whole is likely still structurally sound. This could happen at one moment or spread out over time. The tearing of these fibers is where the pain comes from, but they are usually too small to be seen on MRI’s or X rays. Anyways, If you see someone about your pain and they give you these words or others like them, in you mind at least you can say to yourself “ok so I have a tear”.