Sports Injuries
Sports injuries In many cases are due to overuse or acute trauma of a part of the body when participating in activities. These injuries range from bruises and muscle strains, to fractures. A bruise or contusion is damage to small blood vessels which causes bleeding within the tissues. A muscle strain is a small tear of muscle fibers and a ligament sprain is a small tear of ligament tissue. The body’s response to these sports injuries is the same in the initial 3-5 day period immediately following the traumatic incident – inflammation. Inflammation is characterized by pain, localized swelling, heat, redness and a loss of function.
All of these traumatic injuries cause damage to the cells that make up the soft tissues. The dead and damaged cells release chemicals, which initiate an inflammatory response. Small blood vessels are damaged and opened up, producing bleeding within the tissue. In the body’s normal reaction, a small blood clot is formed in order to stop this bleeding and from this clot special cells (called fibroblasts) begin the healing process by laying down scar tissue.
The inflammatory stage is therefore the first phase of healing. However, too much of an inflammatory response in the early stage can mean that the healing process takes longer and a return to activity is delayed. The sports injury treatments are intended minimise the inflammatory phase of an injury, so that the overall healing process is accelerated.
Approved by all major health providers including Vhi, Laya, Hibernian Aviva and Hospital Saturday Fund