How bad is a sprained wrist? How to heal a sprained wrist faster? Before diving into that straight away, first, let’s get to understand the basis of the wrist itself. The human body is anatomically comprised of bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints, and many other components.
Each of these body components has functions that are intertwined. The bones in the human body, for example, serve as the skeletal framework of the body. Bones support the body muscles and put them in their rightful places.
As you might have probably known from the past, the bones in your body are held together by tendons and ligaments. These tendons and ligaments serve as the materials that bind your bones together at the right spots. And more interestingly, most of the human joints are mobile enough to allow for free movement of the bones which are joined together.
However, there are different types of joint in the human body. These include the elbow, hip, knee, and some other joints. All these joints are susceptible to injury. When talking about some of the most sensitive and vital joints in the human body, the wrist comes to mind.
Why is wrist joint important?
Like, I explained in the first few paragraphs, the main essence of a join is to hold bones together. And this is made possible by the presence and function of what is called ‘ligaments.’ A wrist joint, hence, is that joint that connects the human wrist with the hand bones.
Now here is the truth: the wrist joint counts among the most utilized part of the body on a regular basis. Ask a factory worker, a student in the class, a secretary in an office and even the executive legislator of a state, about the functionality of their hands on a daily basis, the chance is that they are all going to tell you that their hands work almost every single time.
For a secretary, she has to sit down in the office; arrange files, attend to emails and write letters – all with the action of the wrist joint. The same goes for a factory worker. They have to lift heavy loads and handle machinery with the help of the wrist joint. These instances have rightly shown that the wrist joint is always in demand by the activities of each person.
Thankfully, the ligaments holding the wrist to the bones of the hand are very strong. They ensure that the several activities carried out by the utilization of the wrist joint does not impair the function of the worst joint in the short and long run. This sort of injury is widely referred to as Wrist Sprain.
So, what is wrist sprain in essence?
A wrist sprain is referred to a condition where the there’s a possible tear to the ligaments at the wrist joint and sometimes a total break of the ligament of the hand.
Most of the time, falling off your hand from a high position can result in a wrist sprain. For example, while playing basketball or handball, there is every tendency that at some point a player gets knocked down by an opposition player; in the process, the hand gets to hit the ground.
This would mean that at the point of falling, the hand is bent in such a way that the force causes the position of the ligament holding the bones of the hand and the ligaments to shift from its original position.
How do you tell if it’s a wrist sprain you are having?
For the fact that the wrist is one of the most sensitive joints in the human body, whenever there is a sprain, it can be sharply felt in the hand region.
There are a good number of symptoms of a wrist sprain, these include:
Pain
A wrist sprain isn’t funny when it occurs. There is this sharp pain you feel deep down the wrist joint and it gets worse if an appropriate measure isn’t taking.
Swelling
The region around the wrist experiences swelling when wrist sprain occurs. There is this unusual disproportionate appearance between the sizes of the hand affected by wrist sprain and the one the other hand that is not affected by wrist sprain.
Bruising
Wrist sprain could get so bad that it becomes even extremely difficult to have a feel of the affected area due to the bruising effect of the hand.
Healing a sprained wrist faster
There are grades for a wrist sprain. The grade I wrist sprain occurs when you only feel pain in your wrist joint due to a hard pressure on the ligament holding the wrist to the bone of the hand. Whereas, Grade II and Grade III occur due to a break of the ligament of the wrist joint or severity to the wrist joint itself. With a Grade II and Grade III wrist sprain, surgery is expected to be done. Although, you need to contact a credible physician if you have been checked for a Grade II or Grade III wrist sprain.
With surgery done on your wrist, the healing of the wrist joint should occur within one to three months. Having a wrist cast should make the healing process a lot easier and better. Getting to recover with abstinence from lifting weighty materials during the healing phase greatly helps.
With a Grade I sprained a wrist, many approaches to its treatment have been devised over time. Many of these healing methods do not work. As a matter of fact, approaching a sprained wrist with any of the trial-and-error methods most times end up leading to exacerbation of the site affected by the sprained wrist.
If you have kept on reading this post up to this moment, there are every chance that you want to know how a sprained wrist can be healed faster than the legion of other impotent methods being put out by people over time? Luckily, without visiting a physician – having gotten sure that is a wrist sprain – you will get to know subsequently the steps to take in order to heal a sprained wrist faster than you have imagined.
The effective method is known as RICEAA. With this method, your wrist should be totally healed within a few days.
But don’t bother about trying too much to figure out the meaning of RICEAA. The acronym simply stands for Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate, Anti-inflammatory usage, Activity Limitation. Now let’s go through how each of these procedures is helpful in helping to heal a sprained wrist faster than ever before.
Rest the affected wrist
Once you have noticed the occurrence of a sprai3ned wrist, there is every need for you to rest the affected hand for a period of time. This could be up to 48 hours after the occurrence. The essence of resting your hand is to avoid further exacerbation of the site of the sprain due to pressure from not resting the affected area.
Ice the affected wrist
Why you need to place an ice on the sight of the injury is because you need to avoid further inflammation. Icing has to be done as soon as possible – meaning that once the sprain injury occurs to the wrist, get someone to place sizeable ice on the region if you are not comfortable doing it. At least, the icing should be done four times a day and should take around 30 mins to 40 mins. Even though this will not take away the pain and swelling you’ll feel due to the sprain, it’ll highly help to reduce is to the barest minimum at the start.
Compress the site of injury
It is not enough to ice the sight of the injury, it is also very important that you get the sight of the injury is compressed enough. Using the best wrist brace for sprain. Without getting this done as soon as the icing is done, there is every chance that edema will be formed. With edema, the intensity of pain and swelling around the region affected is certain to increase beyond normal. This would mean that the period expected for total healing of the sprained wrist will become elongated. But when you get the affected site compressed via a bandage or cast – most preferably done by someone with some Physiotherapy or physical education skills, you are surely going to get more relief.
Elevate the affected wrist
One of the most important things to avoid, when a sprained wrist occur, is swollenness. By elevating the affected wrist above your heart level, blood flow to the site is pumped effectively. In turn, this reduces the likeliness of you experiencing serious edema along the way. To experience the perfect response to the earlier steps taken, you should try to elevate the affected site for several days after the sprain. While sitting down, you can place the affected hand on a table. Also, while you sleep, avoid placing the affected hand beside you; instead, place it on a pillow in order to keep it elevated.
Anti-inflammatory drug usage
After you might have carried out the above procedures, getting the anti-inflammatory drug to combat inflammation of the sight of sprain is advisable. However, this should be done only with a prescription from a qualified pharmacist or physician.
Activities Limitation
At this stage, you are expected to feel a lot better. But then, the wrist sprain may get worse if you keep on using the affected site for your daily activities. The best way to get your sprained wrist healed faster is to limit the activities which are liable to put pressure on the ligaments of the affected site.
See Also: Best Brace for sprained ankle
Final Words
You can be much more assured of a swiftly healed sprained wrist when the above procedures are diligently followed. Apart from regularly visiting your physician for medical assessment, continue to employ the icing and compression procedures on the affected wrist until it’s fully healed.