Based in the heart of NY, Advance Foot and Ankle Solutions offer the best treatment for fractures occurring due to stress. Look no further when you can have direct access to the globally acclaimed team of foot and ankle doctors, supervising & managing your stress fracture with compliance and compassion.
Advance Foot and Ankle Solutions support team is absolutely attentive to your stress fracture issues. Call & book an appointment right away for a professionally healed stress fracture to take a healthy stride forward.
Stress Fracture: Your Foot And Ankle Care Doctor’s Viewpoint
What Condition Symbolizes A Stress Fracture: Stress fracture is known to be the most commonly occurring phenomenon as a sports injury, requiring longer time period to heal than other conventional fractures. They are often quite painful, but heal up on their own if rested for a few months.
A stress fracture is basically an anomaly arising out of overuse. It usually occurs as a crack or fissure in a bone as a result of high impact diversions such as athletics or rugby. It usually pops up as a chronic condition when muscles become fatigued due to prolonged usage and lose their elasticity and ability to absorb additional pressure or load. Gradually, the wearied muscle transfers its most of the load to the attached bone that develops the stated chronic condition.
It should be taken a note of that stress fractures have an inauspicious tendency to recur at any point in life, with lesser or worse intensity. This fact points at another unwanted reality that majority of stress fractures never heal up completely, though this holds true for certain locations only.
Stress Fracture: Causes Leading To It
- High Impact Activities such as running and jumping often affect the lower leg bones and the feet. Out of the total tally, the metatarsal region is most susceptible to such stress anomaly.
- Continuous Repetitive Movements in sports such as cricket or baseball can often lead to stress fractures in the feet, legs or other overused body part.
- Beginning A New Exercise with unconditioned muscles causes rapid fatigue due to accumulation of lactic acid within their fibers which can only be neutralized by taking several short intervals in between the entire physical exertion.
- Suddenly Escalating The Intensity, Duration & Frequency Of Workout can lead to muscle fibers getting fatigued at a faster rate, rendering them unable to provide support and cushion to the attached bones. The bones suffer directly under extra pressure that may develop into the chronic condition.
- Uneven Load Distribution occurring in, say, fallen arches affecting the feet can be an elevating factor for the probability of stress fractures. Using worn-out or substandard footwear produces a similar situation.
- Treading On Unfamiliar Surface where the feet are not conditioned to an abrupt switch over to a strikingly different surface, can be a root cause of this category of fractures.
Stress Fractures: Their Major Locale
Stress fractures are always an outcome of excess load-bearing. So, they mostly occur in regions where the bones are subjected to such strenuous, unaccustomed conditions such as those of the lower leg and the foot. According to statistics, nearly 60% of all stress fractures hit the lower leg zone.
Stress Fractures: Symptoms For Your Sports Injuries Doctor’s Prognosis
- Dull Pain in the locus of fractured site that aggravates with physical activities such as standing, walking or exercising. The painful condition usually subsides temporarily upon rest.
- Visible Swelling might occur in cases where the fracture has been ignored and the affected bone put to routine usage.
Stress Fractures: Other Risk Factors
There happen to be multiple other risk agents that may augment your chances of sustaining stress fractures, some of which are listed below:
- Having History Of Stress Fracture(s) can duly increase your probability of gaining one or more yet again.
- Congenital Or Induced Foot Problems such as high, rigid foot-arches or flat feet exposes you to more likelihood of developing such a fracture. Wearing raddled shoes adds to the problem.
- Osteoporosis that causes thinned, weakened bones eases out the way for stress fractures to reign in.
- Nutritional Deficiency such as inadequate intake of Calcium and Vitamin D can turn bones brittle and inclined towards sustaining such fractures.
- Gender of the patient is an essential consideration since women are at increased risk of acquiring such fractures owing to their abnormal or irregular menstrual cycle patterns and hormonal imbalance.
Stress Fractures: Diagnosis By Your Foot And Ankle Care Specialist
Stress fractures being slight and flimsy may not be visible on a normal X-ray film and pass undetected. The next line of detection and evaluation through imaging is the CT-Scan or MRI techniques that turn the treatment quite efficient and targeted.
Stress Fractures: Treatment By Your Foot And Ankle Care Specialist
The Self-treatment Methodology: Stress fractures can be easily managed at home once your orthopedic specialist notifies you certain guidelines to be followed in strict accordance in order that speedy and complete recovery is enabled.
- Elevation of the injured part to a level higher than the resting body to minimize swelling and the ensuing pain is necessary.
- Ice Application via ice-pads is done for 2-3 days consecutively to appease the painful condition as well as reduce the swelling effect.
- Resting & Reducing the activity that might have been the root cause of the stress fracture is imperative for a rapid healing process.
- Medication such as local, non-steroidal painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs may be suggested by your foot and ankle care doctor.
- Casting Or Splinting of the stressed out bone in order to curb the movement of the affected area may be opted by your foot and ankle care specialist, depending upon the bone involved.
- Braces Or Shoe Inserts aid in faster healing by providing support to the injured region while restricted movement is performed.
Once the pain and swelling have subsided to the extent that the skin over the affected area is seen creased, you may begin using the injured area with partial pressure over it while treading on crutches or a walking stick. Since weight bearing in a controlled manner stimulates healing, you may continue with full weight-bearing activities around after 3 weeks the symptoms arose.
What Not To Be Done: As a primary precaution, the activity that caused the stress condition is to be suspended for at least 7-8 weeks or until you are completely relieved from pain. Resuming the activity sooner might hamper and delay the natural healing process or worst enough, you could give rise to permanent damage that would become a chronic problem never to heal properly or completely.
When you are all set to go, revert to your routine rather slowly and gradually without rushing back into it; otherwise, another injury might turn into a close prospect.
The More Severe Cases: The probability of occurrence of a severe stress fracture is minimal. Nevertheless, the more intense ones require special treatment and care from your foot and ankle care surgeon in a professional way. After surgery, complete healing and recovery might not be achieved before several months or even years.
Stress Fractures: The Preventive Measures
- Gradual Mileage Buildup ensures that no newly adopted sport or activity is pushed to the limits right from the word ‘go’. The increment in its frequency and intensity should be slow and measured to produce minimal stress over the utilized part of the body.
- Converse Activities play a major role in avoiding stress conditions. For instance, routine jogging sessions might be intervened with bicycling with each performed alternately. A blend of flexibility and strength exercises produces remarkable outcome.
- Usage Of Appropriate Sporting Gear such as new footwear instead of old, worn out one for brisk running or jumping activities carries a vital importance in keeping away stress fractures.
- Take Immediate Notice of any pain or swelling that occur soon after an activity. The activity would need to be terminated at once and rest sought. For persistent pain, an orthopedic surgeon is required to be consulted sooner enough so that normal sporting levels are attained within shortest possible span.
- Intake Of Healthy Diet in the form of Calcium- and Vitamin D-fortified foods in all major meals is essential. These nutrients act in strengthening the bone structure as well as reinforcing the joints and their functioning.