How Do I Know If My Ankle Is Sprained or Broken?
You’re hobbling around on a painful ankle, and you’re trying to get to the bottom of the damage. Did you sprain your ankle or break it? And is there a way to tell the difference? Let’s discuss.
Why You Shouldn't Ignore Tendon Pain
Pain is your body’s way of indicating a problem, and there’s a good case to be made for never ignoring the signal. As an example of this, we’re going to explore pain that develops in your tendons — what might be causing it and why investigating and treating the issue can help you avoid much larger problems down the road.
As a board-certified orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist, William Schell, MD, has extensive experience with tendon problems. Our team’s goal is to intervene quickly when you have tendon damage so you can regain full use of the tissue, safely and sustainably.
Common causes of tendon pain
Your tendons are tough, fibrous bands of tissue that connect muscles to bones. In the course of their duties, they can become damaged when they’re pushed too far, or too often, which is what leads to many tendinopathies.
More specifically, the most common tendon issues include:
Tendonitis
Whether overstressed over time or as a result of an acute injury, tendonitis occurs when the tissue develops microtears and becomes inflamed.
Tendinosis
If you overwork a tendon or don’t let it heal properly, tendonosis can develop. This condition describes noninflammatory, degenerative changes in your tendon that can lead to considerable discomfort.
Tendon tears or ruptures
Often a result of an acute injury, a tendon tear occurs when you push the tissue too far, causing it to tear. While acute injuries are largely responsible for this type of tendon damage, it can also occur on the heels of untreated tendonitis or tendinosis.
These tears, which we also call ruptures, can be partial or complete, which means the tendon is severed in half.
Why seeking treatment for your tendon is important
If you develop pain in a tendon, we can’t underscore enough how important it is to seek expert diagnosis and treatment with us.
To give you an idea of the risks that come with not heeding the pain, let’s look at some of the complications that can develop if your tendon isn’t treated properly.
First, simple tendonitis can become tendinosis, which means that compositional or structural changes develop in your tendon as a result of not allowing your tendonitis to heal sufficiently. As opposed to tendonitis, tendinosis takes much longer to remedy.
Another example is when you have a tendon that’s weakened by tendonitis or tendinosis, you’re more at risk for a partial or complete rupture. By the same token, a partial tear can quickly become a full rupture if you don’t have us treat the more minor tear promptly.
Our point here is that a minor tendon problem can quite easily become a major one, which makes seeking treatment when your tendon first becomes painful a very good idea.
For expert diagnosis and treatment of your tendon problem, contact our New York City office on the Upper West Side to schedule an appointment.
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