Sports can be a lot of fun. It is a great exercise and a great past time too. Friendships are often bonded through sports. Unfortunately, injuries are very likely to occur in sports.
Most sports injuries occur when there is unintended contact between two participants in a sport. For example, ankle sprains in basketball usually occur when one player inadvertently steps on another player’s foot. There are times however when the sports injury is caused by overuse or misuse of a certain body part. Examples of this kind of sports injury include runner’s knee and tennis elbow.
On the upside, there are now many different treatments that can be used to deal with sports injuries. Casual and professional athletes have the option of choosing from these treatments to help them get back to playing their sports as soon as possible. They have options such as TENS, ultrasound, corticosteroids, and interferential among many other treatments.
TENS stands for Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation. It is a method used to provide pain relief in case of sports injury. It involves the use and the application of controlled electrical current on the injured area. This is done by attaching the necessary electrodes to the skin of the injured body part. The pain is relieved by inciting the pain gate system of the body. TENS is a popular option as a pain palliative in sports injuries because it is relatively affordable and quite easy to use. It also has a lot less side effects than other pain palliatives.
Ultrasound on the other hand is a method that uses sound waves to treat sports injuries. It is a method that has been used for over half a century. This method uses an ultrasound machine to emit sound waves with very high frequency into the injured area. These sound waves cause vibrations in the skin that work as micro-massages to help repair the damaged soft tissue and relieve the pain. A special gel is usually applied to the skin before ultrasound treatment to increase the effectiveness of this method.
Corticosteroids are drugs that are introduced into the body to help manage pain and reduce inflammation in the affected areas. These can be taken orally or injected directly into the injured region. Injected corticosteroids are usually chosen for musculoskeletal conditions. Injection is much more effective in this case because the corticosteroid is concentrated at the specific site of the injury. This will also reduce the possibilities of side effects. Corticosteroid injections are known to be a very painful procedure, thus anesthetics are usually used along with it.
Interferential is very much like TENS treatment except that it uses two electric currents of medium frequency. These currents are employed concurrently to produce a zone of wave interference which in turn produces a modulated frequency that is helpful in treating the injury. It stimulates the muscles to increase blood flow and to remove or prevent the upsurge of any swelling. Interferential treatments are very complicated and therefore should be done only by a trained professional.
