I see it time and again, people who only exercise on the weekends, play basketball once a week or are in middle school or high school, etc. and they get an injury. 75% of the time this is due to the fact they don’t take the time to warm up or cool down properly. It seems like a waste of time until you develop an injury, so believe me it is much better to try and prevent an injury than to have to be treated for weeks or months to have an injury heal.
Did you know there are about 300,000 ankle sprains seen just in the emergency rooms every year? About 90% of those go under treated. I see sprains that may have happened an hour ago or I see one that happened a year ago, all sprains have one thing in common-you have to maintain range of motion, you have to ice and elevate and you need to be assessed as to how serious it is. Once assessed we can determine what activities you can do and how soon you’re going to be able to get back to your daily activities versus your heavy activities and your sports/exercising. The sooner you are treated the quicker you can resume the activities you enjoy.
Stress fractures are another thing I see a lot of. Just the other day I saw a 14 year old that had stubbed his toe and had what was called an open fracture. He was a 14 year old running varsity cross country and now he may be done for the season because he has a serious fracture. Luckily, his parents brought him in within a few days of the injury and hopefully he’ll heal quickly and will get back to running soon.
If you have any type of injury of the foot or ankle don’t put off getting treatment, call 701-255-3338 today to make an appointment with Dr. Brian Gale at Dakota Foot & Ankle Clinic.