While staying active in sports on a daily basis is recommended to help ensure your body stays toned and healthy, you have to pay closer attention to how you work those muscles. That’s because some sports moves can actually be more dangerous than others. You may not realize it but you may just be compromising certain parts of your body when you are in the middle of a game. In fact, you can even be at great risk for certain ACL injuries.

ACL Injury Damage Can Range in Severity

It is your anterior cruciate ligament or ACL that keeps your knee stable. In the event of an ACL injury, it’s usually due to a tear in your knee ligaments which joins your upper leg bone with your lower leg bone. If the injury is severe, the ligament may be torn completely. Symptoms include feeling of instability, pain and swelling. In other cases, a person may also suddenly hear or feel like something has popped in their knee.

ACL Injuries Are Often Seen in Contact Sports

These types of injuries are often seen among individuals who actively engage in sports, most especially agility sports. In fact, ACL tears are a common risk in sports where players suddenly stop and change direction. This is often seen in athletic games like basketball, football, tennis and soccer.

Today, ACL injuries are quite a concern especially since there are as many as 150,000 to 200,000 ACL injuries reported across the US every single year. There are a number of ways to prevent this. One of those that come highly recommended by physiologists is the use of orthotics. These refer to devices that can be worn in order to correct any foot or ankle problem without the use of surgery. Such devices include foot pads, shoe inserts and ankle braces.

Orthotic Devices are Proven to Prevent ACL Injuries

Sometimes known “arch support,” these devices have been found to be effective in preventing ACL injuries. In fact, a study published in the Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association found that wearing foot orthotics helped lower the rate of ACL injuries significantly among female basketball players.

If you are active in sports and believe that you are at risk of developing an ACL injury, keep this from happening and make an appointment with a physio immediately. Phone the Institute of Sport Physiotherapy on 379 5767 and ask Graeme Hayhow about using orthotics for your feet. That way, you can stay active knowing that your leg will hold up just fine.

Sources:

Orthotics for Foot Problems – Topic Overview, webmd.com

Orthotics, aofas.org

Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) Injuries – Topic Overview, webmd.com

3 signs you need to see a physio, wehearthliving.com

The post If You Lead an Active Life and Want to Avoid ACL Injuries, Ask Your Physio About Orthotics appeared first on InstituteOfSport.co.nz.

The problem with fibromyalgia is that it’s a difficult disease to diagnose. It doesn’t appear on blood tests, scans, and X-rays. In its early stages, the symptoms can mimic those of other conditions. Your Grafton physio understands what symptoms to look for and will help you pinpoint the condition based on your physical exam results and medical history. Your physio  will also work with your physician to arrive at a proper diagnosis.

Chronic pain

Chronic widespread pain is the definitive symptom of fibromyalgia, even in its early stages. The pain can manifest itself in different ways and in different parts of the body. It can be a dull ache in some people, and it can be sharp and stabbing in others.

Disturbed sleep

An individual with fibromyalgia will not be able to enter a state of deep, restful sleep because his body won’t have the right balance of chemicals to do so. Since sleep is disrupted, the fibromyalgia sufferer will constantly feel groggy and unrefreshed when he or she wakes up.

Fatigue

Due to disrupted sleep, the individual may experience excessive fatigue throughout his or her working hours. With prolonged fatigue, you may soon see your personal, social, or educational activities negatively impacted. Eventually, fibromyalgia will take its toll on the immune system and make the body more susceptible to disease and illness.

Sensitivity to touch

A fibromyalgia sufferer may experience hyperesthesia (increased feeling) and/or hyperalgesia (increased pain). In extreme cases, both conditions can become so severe that the patient is no longer able to perform routine activities.

Environmental sensitivity

People with fibromyalgia can experience extreme sensitivity to even the most normal environmental influences. The oversensitivity typically affects the patient’s sense of sight, sound and smell. For example, normal lights can appear overly bright to them. Moderate noises can sound extremely loud, and faint scents can smell musky.

Muscle and joint stiffness

Stiffness in the muscles and joints is another common fibromyalgia symptom. While normal people will experience these symptoms after bouts of serious physical activity, fibromyalgia sufferers can develop stiffness for no apparent reason at all. Like the pain that usually accompanies the condition, muscle and joint stiffness can be localized to one area or appear at different locations of the body.

Muscle spasms

Fibromyalgia patients tend to experience pronounced muscle spasms. In most cases, one muscle or more can spasm repeatedly following a pattern, with the worst spasms often occurring at night. In others, the spasms can be completely unpredictable possibly happening anywhere at any time.

Brain fog

A very serious and problematic fibromyalgia symptom where the patient can encounter word-finding difficulty, short term memory loss, and episodic disorientation that lasts for 30 to 60 seconds. Brain fog from fibromyalgia is often caused by a combination of factors including fatigue, lack of sleep, and affected blood circulation.

Excessive sweating

People with fibromyalgia can sweat heavily and believe they have a fever. This is because fibromyalgia can cause an autonomic dysfunction wherein the body is no longer able to regulate sweating effectively. Likewise, bowel movement and other automatic body functions can also be affected.

Many of these common fibromyalgia symptoms can be treated with general approaches. If general treatment doesn’t help, your Grafton physio at Institute Of Sport Physiotherapy can provide you with targeted recommendations that may help.

Sources
Symptoms of Fibromyalgia, WebMD.com
Fibromyalgia Symptoms & Treatment, MedicineNet.com

The post Physio Grafton: Understanding Fibromyalgia Condition and Its Symptoms appeared first on InstituteOfSport.co.nz.