Friday, November 20, 2009
Dr. Graw discusses broken bones, sprains, dislocations, and severe bruises. How they are different, how they are caused, and how to get treatment.
At Righttime Medical Care, we see many patients with injuries. Many people wonder – what has happened to me? Frequently we will see a bruise, sprain, dislocation, or a fracture of a bone. Simply looking at a bruise or distortion does not indicate whether it is sprained or fractured. We often need to use our Mini C Arm x-ray machine to take an image of the limb. Thankfully, our mini c-arm is 1/100th of the radiation exposure of a traditional x-ray machine.
There are many causes for these types of injuries – as you get older, you can slip and fall, trip on a step, or twist your ankle on the dance floor. When you are young, children learning to walk will fall with outstretched hands or develop a nurse maid’s elbow by being dragged around by their wrist and dropping their weight, causing their elbow to be dislocated. Many times in sports, children will sustain injuries – football, lacrosse, soccer, etc. We see lots of broken legs, separated shoulders, fractured clavicles, injured elbows, and fractured wrists. These occur from rough housing around the house and/or sports injuries with unintended consequences.
So what is the difference between bruises, sprains, dislocations, and fractures?
A bruise is a big blue lump or swelling under the skin. A bruise comes when you hit somebody or you fall against a step or wall.
A sprain is when those fragile ligaments and muscles get teased past their normal point of function – like cables on a bridge – made up of millions tiny fibers that get stretched too far and break.
A dislocation is when your joint doesn’t work just right – it keeps popping out of the socket. Any joint in your body can pop out of its socket. It can happen in your elbow, as occurs frequently in children.
A fracture is a broken bone. A minimum broken bone is when it’s just cracked, often called a green stick fracture. Or you can have a dislocated fracture. Or you can have a fracture that goes out through the skin, which is clearly a much more severe type of fracture.
When do you need to see a doctor? If you have an injury that is associated with a severe amount of pain, or a loss of function, a finger that cant move, an elbow that cant flex, or a leg that cant bear weight, or a failure to improve with home remedies, you should come to an urgent care center for evaluation to ensure that there is no severe underlying injury.
When you come to a Righttime Medical Care Center, what can you expect if you have a bruise or broken bone? First of all, we can evaluate the type of injury – if you have a very severe injury – dislocated bone or fracture perforating the skin – that type of injury should be taken care of by an orthopedic specialist and we can refer you to one. Most injuries that come to a Righttime Medical Care Center are minor sprains and fractures. We will put you in a splint, give you pain medicine, recommend what you can do to rehabilitate the joint, and refer you to your physician for follow up. In short, if it’s a minor fracture we can splint it right at an urgent care center – for example the fingers and feet. If it’s a major fracture of your elbow, wrist, or leg, eventually you will have to see an orthopedist.
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