How Chiropractic Care Helps with Sprains and Strains
Your chiropractor offers treatments that relieve the pain of many type of injuries, including sprains and strains. Chiropractic care could help your sprain or strain heal faster, in addition to relieving stiffness and improving flexibility.
Sprains and Strains: What's the Difference?
A strain happens when you overstretch or tear a muscle or tendon. Tendons are the strong bands of tissue that connect muscles to bones. Sprains tear or stretch ligaments. Ligaments are tough fibers that connect the bones in a joint together.
Although sprains and strains may be different, both injuries cause pain and swelling. Mild sprains or strains may only cause minor symptoms, while torn ligaments, muscles, or tendons can trigger severe pain.
Swelling is often accompanied by stiffness that makes it harder to move the affected joint or muscle. Muscle weakness, cramping, or spasms are common with strains. If you have a sprain, you may notice a bruise around the injured area.
Although sprains often happen as a result of a trip or fall, the cause of a strain may not be quite so obvious. While strains can occur while playing sports or happen during a fall, you might also strain a muscle by sleeping in an awkward position or using a worn-out pillow. Poor posture, repetitive movements, lifting heavy objects, or spending too many hours in front a screen are common causes of strains.
Benefits of Chiropractic Treatment
Ignoring your pain or attempting to power through it is never a good idea. For example, if you continue your regular activities and exercise routine with a sprained ankle, stretched ligaments could soon become torn ligaments, increasing the severity of your injury. Overworking a strained muscle or tendon could also make your injury worse and slow healing. In some cases, delaying treatment could even cause chronic pain.
Fortunately, visiting your chiropractor as soon as possible will ease your symptoms and help you avoid lingering pain. Chiropractic treatment offers several benefits, including:
- Reduced Inflammation. Although inflammation is part of your body's healing response, lingering inflammation can cause pain and stiffness. Treatments like ultrasound therapy and cold laser therapy decrease inflammation and pain. Massage and other soft tissue therapies improve blood flow to your tissues, providing the nutrients injured areas need to heal.
- Less Pain. Spinal manipulation, massage, soft tissue mobilization, ultrasound therapy, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), and other treatments offered by chiropractors decrease pain. Massage and soft tissue mobilization relax tight tissues and ease muscle spasms. The deep heating effect of ultrasound therapy improves blood flow while tackling pain. TENS treatment prevents signals that trigger pain from reaching the brain. Spinal manipulation eases pain by adjusting misaligned vertebrae in the spine and also helps tight tissues relax. Joint adjustments can be helpful if the bones in a joint became misaligned due to a sprain.
- Improved Flexibility. Treatments like massage and soft tissue mobilization improve flexibility and range of motion by relaxing tight tissues and breaking up scar tissue. Scar tissue forms as your body repairs injured tissue. Although scar tissue is helpful initially, it can limit range of motion and decrease flexibility. Massage and other treatments also break up trigger points, knots in muscles that cause pain, weakness, and reduced range of motion.
A case report published in the Journal of Chiropractic Medicine in March 2023 explored the benefits of chiropractic treatment for chronic ankle pain and limited mobility. After spraining an ankle during a soccer game, a 15-year-old boy experienced pain and limited mobility for more than eight months. After four weekly ankle manipulation treatments and home stretching exercises, pain and range of motion improved, allowing the boy to return to the playing field.
Your chiropractic treatment plan may also involve strengthening and stretching exercises. The exercises aren't just part of your recovery but will also help you avoid new injuries in the future.
Don't suffer unnecessarily with a painful sprain or strain. Our chiropractic treatments can help jumpstart the healing process and end your pain. Contact our office to schedule your appointment.
Sources:
Journal of Chiropractic Medicine: Chiropractic Management of Chronic Ankle Pain and Limited Mobility in a Pediatric Athlete: A Case Report, 3/2023
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36844988/
WebMD: Sprain vs. Strain: What’s the Difference?, 2/26/2024
https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/understanding-sprains-strains
NCBI: Internal Medicine Review: Low Intensity Ultrasound for Promoting Soft Tissue Healing: A Systematic Review of the Literature and Medical Technology, 12/2016
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30198009/
The Harvard Gazette: Massage Helps Injured Muscles Heal Faster and Stronger, 10/6/2021