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Osteoporosis is a global problem that affects tens of millions of people here in the USA. This disease is characterized by decreased bone mass and abnormal structure of the bone tissues. This causes increased fragility and risk of fracture. Some common injuries that can occur in people who have osteoporosis are fractures of the wrist, vertebrae, and hip.
TMJ: Temporomandibular joint is the hinge joint that connects the lower jaw to the temporal bone, which is immediately in front of the ear on each side of your head. The joints are flexible, allowing the jaw to move smoothly up and down and side to side. The joints helps you to talk, yawn and chew during eating. Muscles around the joint control the movement and positioning of the jaw.
TMD: Temporomandibular disorder refers to a condition that is often painful affecting the joint and muscles that assist in moving the jaw and neck. Most of the time the pain goes away with little or no treatment. Discomfort from TMD is usually temporary.
Cortisone shots are injections that may help relieve pain and inflammation in a specific area of your body. They are most commonly given into joints such as your ankle, knee, hip, elbow, wrist and hands. Cortisone shots usually include a corticosteroid medication and a local anesthetic.
Cortisone shots may be part of a treatment for a number of diseases, conditions and diagnosis including:
Cortisone may have associated risk of complications, such as:
Repeated use of cortisone shots may cause deterioration of the cartilage within a joint. This is the reason doctors typically limit the number of shots into a joint to no more often than every 6 weeks and usually not more than 3 or 4 times a year. One may need to stop taking blood thinners for several days before a shot to reduce the risk of bleeding or bruising.
The doctor may apply an anesthetic spray to numb the area where the needle is inserted. In some cases, ultrasound or fluoroscopy maybe used to watch the needle placed in exactly the right spot. The cortisone shot can be helpful to the physical therapy process when the pain is unbearable and exercise is not tolearable. The physical or occupational (hand) therapist can also be very helpful in keeping an eye out for cortisone injections side effects.
Persistent symptoms of pain along the thumb especially and including at the level of the wrist during texting can lead to a repetitive overuse injury. One such diagnosis is DeQuervain’s Tenosynovitis, also known as DeQuervain’s Syndrome.
Tenosynovitis is defined as the inflammation of the fluid-filled sheath that surrounds a tendon. DeQuervains’ Syndrome is a tenosynovitis of the sheath or tunnel that surrounds two tendons that control movement of the thumb.It is named after the Swiss surgeon Fritzde Quervain, who first identified it in 1895.
Cell phones, and particularly smart phones, have added to our connectedness through mobile data, cellular emails and especially the text message. Our thumbs are on overdrive as we communicate and interact through our phones. According to Pew Research, 9.8 trillion text messages were sent in 2012.
The tendons and muscles of the thumb are strong but not designed to do intense repetitive activity in cramped positions while on a handheld device or cell phone. The traveling of the thumb tip over the keypad causes undue stress over a period of time. The muscle fatigue, strain and prolonged muscle tension can lead to pain and inflammation that affects thumb flexibility and use. It can eventually cause tendinitis or tenosynovitis, inflammation of the tendon. If untreated, it can lead to a more serious problem of affecting everyday use of your thumb.
It may start as an ache at the base of your thumb, between your thumb and index finger, and include your wrist. It may notice it after you text or during the activity as it progresses.
If you start to feel pain, take a break. Use the other hand or digit. Make a phone call instead. Don’t text for more than a few minutes at a time. Don’t text long sentences. Use yes or no replies when you can. Spread out the activity throughout your day.
You can do gentle massage and thumb stretches to alleviate the muscle tension. It will improve flexibility and reduce discomfort. Reducing muscle tension will minimize stress on the tendons, thus hopefully avoiding tendinitis.
If symptoms persist, you may want to make an appointment to see your physician. Persistent pain and inflammation can lead to tendinitis or tenosynovitis. One common diagnosis with texting thumb is called DeQuervain’s Tenosynovitis. See next week’s article for addressing this diagnosis, and what you need to know, and can do to treat these symptoms unfortunately on the rise with thumb texting.
Finding a truly good physical therapy clinic/facility can often be challenging. If you are interested finding a good Physical Therapy facility for yourself, a family member or a friend we suggest the following steps:
If you follow these five steps you will set yourself up with a very pleasurable physical therapy experience. Good luck!
Here at ProActive Physical Therapy we take service and care very seriously. It is ALWAYS our intention to provide our patients with 100% satisfaction. Over the many years we have been in business we have been told, through countless thank you cards and patient comment cards, how amazing our product is. We feel we get these kinds of responses because we simply care.
In today’s health care environment we are told by patients it is hard to find facilities that do business like us. It will be ProActive’s mission to always provide our well known hand’s on service. If you are interested in learing more about ProActive, please feel free to call us and ask for Jack.
Having a goal of a great trip down the road, should help make your training easier to do consistently, and should make the trip much more enjoyable. But we can’t forget to stretch.
Strength and flexibility focusing on the legs and trunk are vital in injury prevention specific for skiing. And balance training has been shown to be the single most important exercise for preventing ACL tears in women. Flexibility or stretching exercises should be done daily. 2 sets of each exercise holding for 60 seconds each is a good guideline. Below are some major muscle groups that need to be focused on:
Have you made your ski lodge reservations yet?…..Well now it is time to prepare your heart and body for a full day of skiing with decreased risk of pain and injury. We can increase our safety and performance this winter by starting now with a pre-conditioning program that includes four components: endurance, strength, flexibility, and balance.
Even though it is still warm and sunny here in San Diego, we all are starting to think about when we are going skiing this year. The next question we should ask ourselves is… am I ready to go skiing this year? Skiing requires muscles and muscle groups that are used very little the rest of the year. If we don’t prepare, our risk for injury increases. As we all have heard before, most injuries occur toward the end of the day as people become fatigued and as daylight and conditions have deteriorated. But, we here at ProActive have seen our fair share of patients who were injured on the first run of the day as well.
