Symptoms and treatment of joint sprains, diagnosis, prevention
A sprained joint is not a catastrophic injury, but it does cause significant inconvenience.
Due to frequent household and work-related injuries, the symptoms and treatment of joint sprains are one of those exciting questions that doctors are often asked. During such an injury, there is a violation of the integrity (partial or complete) of the connective tissue fibers, which, in fact, form ligaments - strips that strengthen the joint and prevent it from being in a loose state. In addition to ligaments, muscles can also be stretched in parallel during an injury. Most often, sprains occur in the ligaments and muscles of the leg. Traditionally, this happens in a hurry, when a person literally does not look at his feet or does not notice an obstacle in his way, stumbles, makes a sudden movement of a limb, falls, or places an excessive load on the limb. As a result, any of the joints can take an unnatural position due to the load. In this case, the ligaments prevent deformation of the joint, but they themselves suffer from trauma.
First aid for a sprained ligament is a simple procedure that can be provided even by a person without medical education. But full assistance is the task of a qualified doctor.
Types of sprains depending on their severity
There are different types of sprains depending on the severity of the injury. Below we will explain what types of sprains we can suffer from:
- First degree sprain : In this type, there is tension or twisting in the ligaments. A sprain usually causes mild pain and minimal swelling in the affected area.
- Second degree sprain: In this case, the ligaments may be partially damaged, causing immediate pain and swelling in the joints, much more intense than in the previous case.
- Third degree sprain: This is the most serious of all sprains, causing a complete tear of the ligaments of a specific joint.
Signs of a sprain
The ligaments themselves are small structures when compared with other organs (for example, massive muscles), but they are penetrated by a large number of small nerve endings. Therefore, the symptoms of a seemingly banal sprain can be very pronounced. The most common signs include:
- severe pain, which is felt not only at the time of injury, but also for a long time after it;
- tissue swelling;
- with a significant sprain of the ligaments, when not only many connective tissue fibers are injured, but also local blood vessels - hemorrhage into the tissue (hematoma);
- inability to “use” the joint – primarily due to pain (for example, after spraining the ligaments of the shoulder joint, the patient cannot, without grimacing in pain, simply raise his arm to get something from a shelf).
Depending on the severity of the symptoms, there are several degrees of severity of sprains:
- mild – damage to the ligament at the level of individual fibers, the pain is not expressed, can go away on its own without treatment, the joint works without changes;
- moderate – from a third to a half of the connective tissue fibers are damaged, the pain is of moderate intensity, if you do not provide help, it does not go away on its own, the function of the joint is reduced;
- severe - damage at the level of micro-tears along the entire length of the ligament; at the time of injury, the pain is unbearable; due to severe pain, the joint does not work. In case of severe sprain, you should immediately contact the clinic for help. In this case, it is not advisable to ask the doctor over the phone questions like “how to treat an ankle sprain.”
If the treatment of the first two degrees does not cause any particular difficulties, then a severe sprain requires a whole range of measures - up to immobilization of the joint (application of a plaster splint). Ointment for sprained knee ligaments with a noticeable injury obviously will not help.
How long does it take to heal a sprain?
If you've recently suffered an injury, it's normal to ask yourself how long it will take to heal a sprain. However, there is no specific number of days, since the recovery time of the ligaments depends on the following three factors:
Recovery based on severity
As explained above, a sprain can be one type or another depending on the severity of the injury. In case you have suffered a first or second degree , the period during which you will be treated for a sprain is between 3 and 6 weeks.
a grade three sprain , recovery may take more than 8 weeks and even longer if surgery is ultimately required.
Healing depends on treatment
Typically, when it is a mild sprain (that is, grade one or two), the treatment usually recommended by doctors is to rest at home for a few days, use ice packs to reduce the swelling, and prescribe some medications to relieve pain in the affected area.
However, if you do not follow the procedures recommended by the specialist, it is certain that your sprain will take much longer to heal.
Presence of other associated injuries
Another factor that can affect healing time is if you suffered other injuries during the time of your injury.
Among these injuries we find:
- Broken bones (such as the fibula or talus).
- Subluxation of abdominal tendons.
- Osteochondral injuries.
- Chronic ligament rupture.
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Diagnosis of sprains
When a ligament is sprained, the most indicative symptom is pain in the projection of the ligaments (in other words, in the area of a particular joint). Determining the fact of injury makes it easier to diagnose a sprain. But in the clinic there are curious cases when the patient does not remember the moment of trauma, which, amid the rush due to life problems, can simply go unnoticed.
Very often, sprains occur in sports club visitors who miscalculated their physical capabilities and rushed to do the exercises with all their might. For example, a visit to the emergency room with a sprained elbow ligament occurs after a sharp lifting of a barbell with an excessive weight.
The diagnosis is made based on:
- fact of injury;
- pain in the joint area;
- swelling;
- inability to perform normal functions in this joint;
- increased pain when palpated by a doctor (palpation).
Rupture (sprain)
Terminology
Torn, pulled, stretched, tore, tore - all these verbs are very often heard in relation to the so-called ligaments.
It seems that each of us intuitively understands what we are talking about: the aching pain persists for a long time, and we should take care of this place, not make sudden movements in the affected joint, and you can also bandage it tightly with an elastic bandage, and just in case, apply something “ from a sprain”... but it will still hurt for a while. A ligament, or ligament (the Latin word “ligamentum” comes from “ligare” - to bind) is an anatomical element that ensures the integrity of the joint. This means that the articular capsule and the head of the movable (rotating) bone are kept at a certain distance (or rather, in the optimal range of distances) and cannot move away from each other beyond a certain limit: they are mechanically “prevented” by the ligaments, protecting the joint according to the margin of safety from dislocation. Functionally, ligaments are divided into inhibitory, strengthening and guiding.
These connecting cords are formed by longitudinal fibrous connective tissue (which in this case lives up to its name like nowhere else) and contains two basic proteins for it - coarser, stronger, “scar” collagen and flexible elastic elastin. There is more collagen, but the presence of elastin still provides the ligaments with a certain extensibility, which in turn further increases the stress resistance of the joint, its ability to absorb and compensate for applied forces. The ligaments are attached to the mating bones through the periosteum (periosteum), growing with fibrous ends into this blood supply and innervating membrane of the bone. Blood arterioles and conductive nerves are located in the ligaments along the connective tissue fibers, which is responsible for the high pain reactivity of the ligaments in response to mechanical damage.
Since ligaments have some elasticity (albeit slight), stretching and contraction is a normal process for them. What we call a “sprain” in everyday speech, hissing and wincing in pain, is actually a microtear of the ligament fibers. Both macro-rupture and complete separation of the ligament along with a fragment of the periosteum are possible - in cases where the forces acting on the joint are so great that they exceed the by no means small margin of safety of the ligaments.
Micro- and macro-tears of the ligamentous apparatus are, if not the most common, then certainly one of the most common injuries received by a person. Obviously, the most active and loaded joints most often suffer: knee, ankle, wrist, shoulder, elbow, hip, etc.
First aid for sprains
A lot depends on the provision of competent first aid - the patient will suffer less before receiving assistance from a qualified physician, the consequences of the injury will not be as pronounced, and the recovery period will be shortened. First aid measures are the same for sprains of different joints. Knowing what to do when a hand sprains, it will be easy to deal with damage to the ligaments of the foot.
The first aid scheme for sprains is as follows:
- rest of the joint whose ligaments were damaged;
- cold on the site of injury in the first hours after injury - most often they use ordinary ice from the refrigerator, but for no longer than 2 hours, then you need to pause for 30-40 minutes so that the tissues are not injured due to hypothermia;
- pain relief - you shouldn’t endure pain because “you don’t want to swallow pills”; pain impulses once again irritate the central nervous system, and this is of no use.
Full qualified assistance should be provided exclusively by a doctor. Ligament damage may be more severe than symptoms indicate. Therefore, there is no single treatment regimen that could answer, for example, the question of what to do for an ankle sprain or how to treat a wrist sprain. Don't do this at home.
Consequences of a sprain
If the microtears of the connective tissue fibers were insignificant, first aid was provided on time, and rehabilitation measures were carried out competently, then some time after the injury the ligaments will again serve the person faithfully and truly to the fullest. Otherwise, prolonged pain syndrome and repeated spraining of the ligaments are possible even with the slightest injury.
The recovery period for this condition depends on the severity of the injury and on whether medical prescriptions were followed unquestioningly. It is impossible to say unambiguously, for example, how long it takes for injured knee ligaments to heal. After all, patients often regard a sprain as an insignificant injury and load the joint prematurely, and this lengthens the rehabilitation period.
Prevention of sprains
It is much easier to prevent a sprain than to get rid of its consequences later. You should avoid situations in which the risk of injury increases - simply watch your step while moving, and in everyday life, do not take part in dubious competitions involving joints without proper physical training (for example, gambling tug-of-war, arm wrestling, etc.). When working out on exercise machines in the gym, you need to dose the load correctly, without fanaticism.
Read more about what factors can trigger sprains on our website Dobrobut.com.
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