The popularity of skateboarding, snowboarding, and rollerblading is increasing every year. Unfortunately, as the participation in these sports grows, so does the number of injuries.
One of the more common areas to be injured is the wrist. Our wrist is made up of eight small individual bones called carpal bones. When we participate in the above-mentioned activities, falling forwards or backwards can be a common occurrence.
When we fall forward, our first reaction is to put our hands out with our wrists bent backward in order to catch ourselves. When the wrist and hand hit the ground, they must absorb the entire weight of the upper body.
When the force put through the wrist bones is excessive, one or more of them can fracture. Unfortunately, one of these carpal bones, the scaphoid, is the most common one to break. This scaphoid bone has a unique characteristic that the other carpal bones do not.
Most bones in the body have a small artery entering them from each end. For example, the large bone in your thigh (femur) has blood supply entering it from both ends of the bone — near the hip and down by the knee. So, when you break that bone in half, each end of the bone has its own separate blood supply to keep it alive and healthy.
The scaphoid bone is designed differently. Its primary blood supply enters the bone in middle instead of the ends. Therefore, if you break off one end of the bone, the fragment may not get an adequate blood supply. This fragment of bone will then die and degenerate, causing severe arthritis in the wrist.
I have had numerous patients come to the office who have broken their wrists before and have not had them treated properly. Their wrists are no longer able to bend backward or forward as they should, and these patients often suffer from moderate to severe arthritic pain.
To make matters even more difficult, a crack or break of this bone is very difficult to see on X-ray and can be easily missed by even the most trained medical or chiropractic doctors.
With some patients, the swelling is minimal and no significant bruising is revealed. To be sure there is no fracture, the wrist should be X-rayed again 10 days later. After this period of time, a crack is easier to see as it is attempting to heal. If a fracture has occurred, the wrist must be immobilized with a cast.
If a fracture has been definitely ruled out and just a bad sprain has occurred, the wrist should still be immobilized for a short period of time.
Once the pain and swelling have decreased, the wrist should receive conservative treatment. This includes mobilization of the eight bones in the wrist by a chiropractor.
Stretching and strengthening exercises should also be prescribed to accelerate the recovery and prevent significant muscle wasting.
To prevent serious wrist injuries, purchase wrist guards that are often sold with rollerblades. They protect the wrist from impact when falling forward and prevent the excessive backward bending of the wrist joint. These simple and inexpensive pieces of equipment can prevent wrist fractures from occurring.
