Sports Injuries
Sports injuries can happen to anyone — no matter how old you are or what level you’re playing at. Maybe you have elbow pain that just won’t go away whenever you play pickleball with your friends. Maybe you forgot to stretch before your pickup basketball game and now your quad muscle is aching or maybe your child sprained their ankle on the soccer field.
If you’re experiencing any sort of persistent pain after a sports accident, you shouldn’t wait to get help. It’s difficult to know exactly what’s causing your pain without an expert opinion. And many injuries that seem minor at first can have long-lasting, severe consequences if left untreated.
A Pembroke Pines chiropractor is a great place to start. We’re trained to understand injuries in all parts of the body (that’s right, we treat much more than just back pain), and usually without the use of pain medication or invasive surgeries.
Make an appointment today and we can help you diagnose the root cause of your pain. We’ll then build a treatment plan that makes sense for your unique needs, helping you heal faster, reduce your risk of re-injury, and get back on the field or court as soon as you safely can.
What are the Most Common Sport Injuries?
While certain injuries are more frequently associated with certain sports, the truth is you can injure almost any part of your body during athletic activities. Some of the most common injuries we see at Rush Chiropractic include:
Muscle or Tendon Strains: When a muscle or a tendon (the tissue that connects your muscles to your bones) is stretched beyond its limit, you’ll likely start to feel pain or stiffness in the affected tissue. Sometimes, the muscle or tendon can even start to tear. This can happen in any part of your body, from your arms and shoulders to your lower back to your legs and ankles.
Ligament Sprains: Similar to a strain, a sprain happens when a ligament (the tissue that connects two bones together) is stretched too far or begins to tear. One study found that 41.4% of all sports injuries are strains or sprains. While these injuries will often heal on their own with extended rest, a chiropractor can help you heal faster and rule out more serious injuries that have similar symptoms.
Muscle, Ligament, or Tendon Tears: In more serious cases, a muscle, ligament, or tendon can fully tear. This usually destabilizes the nearby joint, making it difficult or impossible to put weight on that part of the body or move it in a normal fashion. You might hear a popping sound when the injury occurs. These injuries will usually require medical care, whether that’s physical therapy and chiropractic treatment or surgery. Well-known examples of this include a torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) in the knee or a torn Achilles tendon in the calf and ankle.
Tendonitis: You’ve probably heard of tennis elbow, but this is just one type of tendonitis that can affect athletes (and not just tennis players, either!). Tendonitis usually happens because of wear and tear from repeating one motion over and over again — like swinging a golf club, serving in tennis, or even running. Tendonitis can also happen in the shoulders, wrists, knees, and ankles. It sometimes starts with soreness, stiffness, and swelling, but other times it begins all at once with a burning or grating pain. Remember that tendonitis will get worse over time if left untreated, so you should make an appointment with a chiropractor as soon as symptoms begin.
How to Prevent a Sports Injury
Accidents are a natural part of sports, and injuries are often out of your control. However, there are certain things you can do to decrease your risk of injury — and to decrease the severity of injuries once you start to notice symptoms. In particular, it’s important to:
- Always stretch before playing your sport
- Stay hydrated before, during, and after a game or practice
- Stop playing if you’re in pain
- Use hot or cold therapy (ice or a heating pad) if you’re feeling sore
- Visit a chiropractor as soon as concerning symptoms arise
- Wear the right protective gear for your sport (including proper, well-fitting shoes)
How a Chiropractor Can Treat Sports Injuries
One of the benefits of going to a chiropractor is that we have a varied set of tools we can use to help you heal faster and find relief from your pain.
When you think of chiropractic care, you’re probably thinking of joint manipulation (also called chiropractic adjustment). But did you know we can use this treatment on joints other than just your spine? We often use joint manipulation for sports injuries — like on knees, shoulders, and ankles.
By adjusting the joint and the tissues around it, we’re often able to give you back some of your mobility, and decrease the pressure and irritation on tissues around the joint, so they can heal faster.
Other services that we often use for sports injuries include:
- Electrical Muscle Stimulation
- Exercise and Nutritional Advice
- Hot and Cold Therapy
- Massage
Chiropractic treatments often pair well with physical therapy, as well. This is especially true for athletes, who are looking to not just find relief from their pain but also get back to their previous level of strength and mobility. If we think physical therapy would benefit you, we’ll include that as part of your treatment plan.
Protect Your Body with the Care it Deserves
If you or a loved one is experiencing pain after a sports accident, you shouldn’t wait to get care! Your pain is trying to tell you something, and an expert like a Pembroke Pines chiropractor can help you interpret the message so you can get the treatment your body needs. Give Dr. Rush a call today at 954-432-5006 to find out how he can help you heal.