Sports Injuries And Treatments – Back Pain
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Do you want to know about sports injuries and back pain? If yes, this article is for you. Sports injuries commonly occur due to direct impact, overuse, or pressure on a body part, leading to injuries like bruises, sprains, strains, bleeding, wounds, and joint injuries.
When athletes do not warm up before playing a particular sport, they are more likely to experience strains, sprains, tears, or broken bones. Let us discuss some common sports injuries and back pain. Read on!
Achilles Tendon Injuries
Achilles tendon injuries occur due to overuse or direct impact, leading to severe stiffness, swelling, inflammation, and pain in the back of an athlete’s leg near the heel. Proper rest, OTC drugs, and prescription medication can help treat these injuries.
Jumper’s Knee
Jumper’s knee is another sports injury that occurs due to inflammation in the patellar tendon. Not only does this condition weakens your tendon, but it can also cause tears in your tendon if not treated on time.
Runner’s Knee
Runner’s knee is a painful condition characterized by discomfort, pain, grinding, or clicking sounds in your kneecap. Common causes of this condition are structural defects or overuse. The best treatment option for this condition is not running until you relieve the pain naturally. If you have severe pain, you can take medications.
Sports Injuries and Back Pain
Back pain, particularly lower back pain, is a common condition that affects millions of people in the United States. Common symptoms of lower back pain are the dull or achy lumbar spine, stinging, burning pain that moves from your lumbar spine through the buttocks to your thighs and legs.
Sometimes, athletes experience tingling or numbness in their lower back and legs, causing a condition called sciatica. Muscles spams, tightness, and inflammation in your lower back, hips, and pelvis are other back pain symptoms.
Common back pain treatment options include medications, such as OTC drugs, opioids, steroidal injections and physical therapy, acupuncture, heat and ice therapy, and back pain exercises.
Some of the celebrities who had suffered from back pain are John F. Jerry Lewis, George Clooney, Charlize Theron, Peyton Manning, Tony Romo, Usain Bolt, and the world-famous golf professional Tiger Woods.
Tiger Woods’ Back Pain
Tiger Woods first experience back pain in 2010, causing him to withdraw from a major golf tournament. Tiger Woods followed conservative back pain treatment to relieve his back pain. In 2014, Woods withdrew from the Honda Classic to undergo a microdiscectomy surgery to alleviate his back pain caused by a herniated disc.
Moreover, Woods underwent a second surgery in 2015 to relieve pain caused by a herniated disc. A few months later, Woods underwent follow-up surgery to improve his spinal stability and reduce back pain intensity.
Although microdiscectomy surgery and follow-up procedure relieved Woods’ back pain, he suffered from lumbar spine pain. As a result, Woods had withdrawn from several golf tournaments due to sports injuries and back pain.
Woods did not want to undergo another surgery because his spine had become severely narrowed. Likewise, it was impossible to perform another surgery from a posterior approach.
That’s why Woods’ back surgeon recommend him to undergo ALIF surgery. It is an advanced technique that requires an orthopedic or neurosurgeon to make a small incision in the abdominal area.
Instead of reaching the damaged area in the lower back through a posterior approach, Woods’ back surgeon followed an anterior approach. The surgeon removed the damaged disc between L5 and S1 vertebrae and placed a bone graft material enclosed in a cage to fuse the two bones together into a single bone (healing occurs over time).
Sports Injuries and Back Pain – Minimally Invasive Surgery
Minimally invasive spine surgery performed by MINT’s qualified and experienced neurosurgeons offers a wide range of benefits, such as smaller incisions, reduced pain, less scarring, trauma, and blood loss.
Bear in mind that this type of surgery reduces the risk of infections by sparing the surrounding tissues, muscles, and nerves in the lower back. Minimally invasive surgery has higher success rates than traditional open-back surgery.
ALIF surgery performed with a minimally invasive technique enables our neurosurgeon to reach the spine without cutting abdominal muscles. So, it is an effective way to approach the damaged disc by just retracting the muscles. That way, the nerves remain intact.
MINT is a neurosurgery clinic founded by Dr. Scott Kutz, a qualified, board-certified, well-trained, experienced, and skilled neurosurgeon. MINT has an advanced facility equipped with the latest tools and equipment for treating sports injuries and back pain. Contact us today!
