We use our muscles every time we move, or even blink. It is well known fact that there are more than six hundred muscles in our muscular system. Combined, they weight about 40 % of complete body weight. Muscles work by the principles of contracting and relaxing.
Joints allow muscles to be lengthened or shortened. For example, if you want to bend your knee it would be unimaginable without employing joints which help tighten your muscles. When muscles become pulled, so called “pulled muscle”, they have the ability of curing themselves with time and rest. But, some other injuries can be far more painful. Such is the sprain, a ligament injury. A ligament is a tough, fibrous tissue which relates the bones, such as ankle, wrist or knee. Also, these are one of the most commonly wounded ligaments.
When you stretch a ligament too far from its’ normal position, you are highly possible to have it injured. Some best known symptoms of a sprain are bruising, pain or swelling of the joint, but they can differ accordingly to the amount of the sprain. All ligaments together, hold your body in a normal position, which keeps us aware of our body’s movement possibilities. In some extraordinary situations when a ligament is over- tensed (i.e. when you fall…), it can get torn or stretched. This kind of injury is the sprain itself. One of the most common sprain injuries is a ‘twisted ankle’, or sprain ankle. That is mainly athletic injury, but if not treated in proper time, they can easily turn into a chronic problem, since ankle is a complicated joint which consist of four major ligaments and four bones. When exceeded, movement possibilities of ligaments can lead to relative unsteadiness in the ankle. The types of sprain ankle injury are inward twist and outward twist.
Sometimes it can be mild, so you barely feel the joint pain, but in some other cases you may be unable to carry any weight on the injury. Both cases require an adequate medical treatment, in order to prevent the injury from becoming a chronic disease. So called medial ligament sprain, does not occur quite often, but when it does, it is usually followed by a fracture. It is a type of twisted ankle where the sole of the foot is placed outwards, thus endangering the inside ligaments. The most severe injuries end up with displacement of the ankle joint, commonly followed by a fracture. Unlike sprains, strains are injuries that influence tendons, or muscles.
Tendons are thick group that connects bones to muscles. They can be affected mechanically as a response to a fast shred, pull of the muscle or twist. Most common strain symptoms are weakness, inflammability, muscle spasms and other kinds of pain. These usually get encountered after the strain occurs. Strains are caused by overstretching, which places it amongst the acute types of injuries. In general, any painful movement can imply some sort of the problem with muscular system and/or joints, and should be medically treated as soon as possible.
