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Slipping On wet grass, mud, ice - all more likely at this time of year and all likely to cause similar injuries and problems. You may hurt your ankle and depending on which way you slip and where in your stride you slip, you may injure hamstrings if your foot slips forward when your leg is in front of you, groin if your leg slips sideways or knee if your foot twists. The affect on the damaged area is to jerk the tissue suddenly, which injures the muscle fibres that were working at the time producing the running action and balancing you, it also pulls the ends of the muscle hard where they join the bone damaging the tendons at these points. Tendons are tough fibrous tissue that joins muscle to bone. Some or all of the fibres may be broken. Ligaments that hold the bones together may also be damaged, the ones forming and supporting the ankle joint are the most likely, but the knee may be affected if the foot twists. In the case of the ankle: during the fall, the foot usually bends inwards and the damage is mainly to the outside of the ankle, to the supporting ligaments and muscles that prevent this action in normal gait. These muscles are not as strong as the calf muscles that propel us along and they may be seriously damaged by such a fall. The structure of the leg and foot is defined by long muscles and tendons designed to create the leverage necessary to move the body weight via the foot. Many tendons cross at the ankle and create a lattice of moving fibres that have special narrow channels across the bones. Once the tissues are swollen these paths are constricted and movement difficult, so the priority is to reduce swelling so that movement is again made possible. Keeping the blood and lymph flowing is imperative for full recovery. The body’s cleaning system, the lymphatic system, works very well as long as the body is kept moving; it has problems where an injury has prevented movement; the lymph then slows down and thickens eventually hardening too much to flow at all and remains stuck at the injury site. | ||
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CATHERINE HOLLAND Tel: 0701 7415310 Email: catherine@catherineholland.co.uk | |
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