Reviewed By: Tyler Wheeler, MD | Article Featured on Medicinenet.com
Are you glad you can stand or sit upright? Thank your spine, a stack of little bones called vertebrae along the center of your back, from your seat to your neck. It supports your head, shoulders, and upper body. Your spine plays another key role: The vertebrae make a tunnel for your spinal cord. That’s the set of nerves that connect your brain to most of your body.
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Find out about knee bursitis, inflammation of one of the three fluid-filled sacs (bursae) due to injury or strain. Symptoms include pain, swelling, warmth, tenderness, and redness. Read about treatment, causes, and home remedies.
Jennifer Whitlock, RN, MSN, FN | Article Featured on Verywellfit
If you are having surgery, you may be interested in how you can heal faster, return to work faster, maybe even get back to the gym faster. Overall, recovering from surgery is a straightforward process of following the discharge instructions, which can be challenging for some individuals. For most surgery patients it is truly that simple. For others, healing quickly requires diligence and effort in caring for their incision, and their body as a whole, after surgery.
Here are some helpful hints for how to be the patient who heals quickly, easily and faster than the surgeon predicted.
Before you go to the hospital for surgery, set up your home to make your recovery and life easier when you come back. Do this well in advance of your surgery. Ask your health care provider or physical therapist about getting your home ready.
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If you need total knee or total hip replacement surgery—and your weight is significantly higher than it should be—your doctor may advise you to lose weight before your procedure. Even though you may feel fit and healthy at your current weight, studies show that a patient with a BMI greater than 40 is more likely to experience serious complications both during and after surgery than a patient of normal weight. Your doctor wants you to be aware of these risks so that you can take steps to minimize them before your procedure.
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Compartment syndrome is a painful condition that occurs when pressure within the muscles builds to dangerous levels. This pressure can decrease blood flow, which prevents nourishment and oxygen from reaching nerve and muscle cells.
Compartment syndrome can be either acute or chronic. Acute compartment syndrome is a medical emergency. It is usually caused by a severe injury. Without treatment, it can lead to permanent muscle damage.
Chronic compartment syndrome, also known as exertional compartment syndrome, is usually not a medical emergency. It is most often caused by athletic exertion.
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Every year, millions of teenagers participate in high school sports. An injury to a high school athlete can be a significant disappointment for the teen, the family, and the coaches. The pressure to play can lead to decisions that may lead to additional injury with long-term effects. High school sports injuries can cause problems that require surgery as an adult, and may lead to arthritis later in life.
When a sports injury occurs, it is important to quickly seek proper treatment. To ensure the best possible recovery, athletes, coaches, and parents must follow safe guidelines for returning to the game.
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A periprosthetic hip fracture is a broken bone that occurs around the implants of a total hip replacement. It is a serious complication that most often requires surgery.
Although a fracture may occur during a hip replacement procedure, the majority of periprosthetic fractures occur after a patient has spent years functioning well with a hip replacement. Fortunately, these fractures are rare.
The treatment of these fractures is often challenging because patients are older and may have thinning bone or other medical conditions.
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The biceps muscle is located in the front of your upper arm. It is attached to the bones of the shoulder and elbow by tendons — strong cords of fibrous tissue that attach muscles to bones.
Tears of the biceps tendon at the elbow are uncommon. They are most often caused by a sudden injury and tend to result in greater arm weakness than injuries to the biceps tendon at the shoulder.
Once torn, the biceps tendon at the elbow will not grow back to the bone and heal. Other arm muscles make it possible to bend the elbow fairly well without the biceps tendon. However, they cannot fulfill all the functions of the elbow, especially the motion of rotating the forearm from palm down to palm up. This motion is called supination.
To return arm strength to near normal levels, surgery to repair the torn tendon is usually recommended. However, nonsurgical treatment is a reasonable option for patients who may not require full arm function.