Sports injuries
Sports injuries are quite complex as many tissues
are involved including skin, bone, muscles, ligaments, tendons
and cartilage.
Symptoms include pain, bruising and swelling,
difficulty in moving and, if the condition is serious to involve
a fracture, torn ligament or joint dislocation, special symptoms
can be seen.
After the initial injury, most of these symptoms
can become chronic lesions, which can last for long periods
because of the resulting inflammation and stiffness.
Inflammation is very common among people who
suffer from different chronic pains, not only in the case
of sports injuries, but also in other problems such as arthritic
degenerative diseases. In fact, inflammation is a kind of
natural reaction against tissue damaged by an injury. Everyone
can have inflammation during the healing process, after the
initial injury. The second main factor is the stiffness that
makes a joint lose a part of its function apart from the inflammation.
Controlling and reducing this stiffness is the other key point
that can affect the patient’s healing. Therefore, treating
the chronic lesion that happens after sports injury is actually
dealing with the inflammation and stiffness that takes up
most of the time of the healing process.
Methods of treatment differ according to the
individual situation and stage of the injury. When someone
is injured, first aid should be the initial treatment and
serious cases that may have severe damage such as a fracture,
joint dislocation, break in cartilage or ligament, they need
to be hospitalised for further treatment and an operation
may be required.
Mild cases related to slight muscle or ligament
injury can seek acupuncture and Chinese medical treatment
to help them recover quickly in the first stage of treatment.
In the second stage, acupuncture and Chinese
medicine work in most cases, both mild injuries and severe
cases that have had an operation or plaster treatment. In
Chinese medicine theory, all pains are related to the blockage
of a meridian channel.
Acupuncture can stimulate the damaged area to
improve the blood circulation, calm the sensitive nerve and
relax the cramped muscles there. Then the inflammation can
be reduced. The theory considers the meridian channels are
unblocked again after treatment. With an individual formula
of Chinese herbal medicine, the blood circulation can be further
improved so that the inflammation is reduced quickly. The
formula may need to be adjusted to suit the body’s condition
during different stages of the healing process.
In fact, there is no definite time to take
for recovery. It depends on how serious the injury was. However,
the healing process can be reduced with acupuncture and Chinese
herbal medicine treatment.
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