Recovering From Your Sports-Related Knee Injury: What You Should Know
When you are an athlete and you suffer an injury to your knee, you may wonder whether or not you will be able to properly recover from the injury and get back on the field or court. Thankfully, sports medicine offers a wide variety of treatment options, both conventional and through alternative medicine, that can help you recover from your knee injury. Before you try to grit your teeth and continue on with your training and games without regard for the potential severity of your knee injury, get to know some of the ways that sports medicine can help you with your knee injury and your recovery. Then, you can be sure you heal properly before you get back out there.
A Thorough Medical Exam And Medical Interventions
If your knee injury is severe enough to affect your ability to play or train for your sport of choice, the first step that you need to take is to see a physician. You need to have a thorough examination of your knee including a set of either x-ray or CT scans to see if there is an ACL or cartilage tear or other severe injury.
Sometimes your knee injury may be just a strain or a sprain, but if it is a more severe tear or injury, you may need surgery to repair the damage and get your knee back in shape to exercise. The sooner you get any needed surgeries, the better your knee will heal and the faster you will get back to the sport you love.
Physical Therapy
Whether you decide to have surgery or not (or need it or not), physical therapy will be a great way to ensure that your knee injury does not cause you major problems in the future. Physical therapy involves sessions with a physical therapist to go through exercises and stretches to increase flexibility and strength in the knee joint. They will also give you exercises to do at home or on your own to further improve your condition. As physical therapy progresses, your therapist can help you to test out your knee to ensure that it can handle the level and type of activities necessary to resume your athletic career.
Genetically Personalized Treatment
One of the latest innovations in sports medicine is the use of genome mapping and genetic testing to customize and personalize treatments in sports medicine. This methodology would use your genetics through gene mapping, blood testing, and the like to create a program of exercises and therapies that are best suited to give you fast and effective results. While still quite new, the personalization of sports medicine treatments based on genetics will likely have a major impact on injury treatments in the future.
Now that you know more about how sports medicine can help you with your sports-related knee injury, you can better take care of yourself and recover from your injury.
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