Whenever you incur a sports-related injury, you need to assess how quickly it needs to be seen by a doctor, or if it even needs to. Getting the proper treatment in a timely fashion is crucial to good healing. Some injuries need immediate attention and can’t wait for your sports doctor’s next available appointment. Others can wait a few days, but no longer. Yet other can tolerate a watch and see approach, where you treat the injury yourself with first aid, then observe whether it’s healing normally or developing complications.
Triage
Here are some pointers to help you decide how urgently your wound needs tending. Remember, if at all in doubt, see a doctor sooner rather than later.
- If you can actually see any bone, muscle or anything deeper than skin, immediately get to the emergency room.
- If it’s very swollen and first aid (more on this later) is not helping, see a doctor very soon.
- If the injury is at a joint and you can’t move the joint at all, go to emergency.
- If you can’t feel the injured area, or if it feels very fragile or tingly, go to emergency.
- If first aid hasn’t fully recovered the injury within three weeks, see a doctor.
- If you see a rash or pus or the injury feels hot to the touch (indicating fever), or if you have a fever yourself, get to a doctor quickly.
- If the pain seems to be spreading to other parts of the body, get to a doctor quickly.
When injuries don’t receive appropriate care, they can eventually need surgery to correct. It’s much better to seek treatment early than to suffer that outcome.
R.I.C.E
Most injuries can be treated at home. R.I.C.E. is an acronym for “Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation” designed to help you remember the basic first aid steps for treating an injury. The most common types of sports injuries can be treated this way at home.
- Rest the injured area to prevent further damage.
- Apply ice to it to stop swelling and promote healing. This makes accurate diagnosis easier. Ice should be applied for about fifteen minutes every three hours for about twenty-four hours after the injury.
- Compression refers to bandaging the area. This supports the healing tissue and helps reduce swelling.
- Elevate the injured area to reduce blood flow to it, which reduces bruising, pain and swelling.
