Sports injuries can occur while playing a sport or while training, and they can occur at whatever age and fitness level. Anyone who has had a sports injury in the past will understand just how annoying it is – one minute you’re doing the activity you love, the next you have to go to the doctors for treatment. Often, sports injuries are a result of causing damage to ligaments, stretching them or even tearing them. While it can be a frustrating time, there are a lot of things you can do to help heal your injury and increase your chances of getting active again.
Quick Response
No matter what the injury – sprains, strains, muscle swelling – a rapid response can make all the difference. Use the common treatment of RICE, which stands for:
- Rest
- Ice
- Compress
- Elevate
This treatment is most useful for those with mild injuries and is most effective in the first 24-48 hours of an injury. If you see no improvement in the injury after 36 hours of RICE, contact a medical professional.
Rest Up
Perhaps the most annoying part of a sports injury is that rest is often crucial. For a sporty person, this can be really, really difficult. So, keeping your mind active and positive can be as much a treatment than the rest prescribed by a doctor. Consider taking up some helpful daily practices, like meditation or yoga. There are a number of apps and programs that can help guide you.
Cutting-Edge Therapies
If you have a chronic injury that you’re struggling with, it may be time to consider some cutting-edge therapy to help the healing. There are several options, such as regenerative medicine, which repairs damaged tissues with healthy tissue. By doing so, it stimulates tissue repair naturally, without surgery. Practitioners of regenerative medicine can offer platelet-rich therapy – which increases blood flow – and amniotic cell to promote tissue repair.
Complementary Treatments
If you’ve suffered from a sports injury recently, or you’re struggling with one that’s recurrent, finding yourself a physiotherapist may be one of the best things you can do. They will be able to guide you through treatment and help you recover. Additionally, alternative therapies such as osteopathy and acupuncture can effectively treat many sports injuries, in non-invasive ways.
Prevention is Better Than a Cure
Some sports injuries are beyond control and will happen no matter how many precautions you take. However, some injuries can be prevented by taking specific steps, like always warming up your muscles before strenuous activity. By warming up, you increase blood flow to the muscles, and they become more flexible. This is particularly important after you’re recovering from an injury – light activity will help you get ready for the sport, and it will also allow you to test the muscle or joint for pain before you start.
While sports injuries can be painful and downright annoying, there are a number of ways to treat sports injuries that can speed up your recovery.
Thank you for reading!
