INJURIES

The rotator cuff consists of four muscles that help raise and rotate the arm. The muscles are supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis. Most commonly the tear will involve the supraspinitus but it can involve all four muscles.

Rotator cuff tears can be caused by:

• Acute sudden trauma such as falls, at work injuries or traffic accidents.
• Degenerative causes such as wear and tear.
• The over use of the shoulder area by playing sports such as tennis, weight lifting or chronic 'over head use'.

Plantar Fasciitis is the inflammation of a thick band of tissue that connects your heel to your toes and supports the arch of your foot. Patients tend to feel the pain caused by the inflammation when they walk or stand. It is very common in middle-aged people and younger people who are on their feet a lot. It tends to occur in:

Or adhesive capsulitis, is a painful condition that affects the movement of the shoulder). It’s often affects people (more women than men) between 40-65 years old. In this condition the capsule, surrounding the shoulder joint becomes inflamed and thickened. The most common symptoms are pain and stiffness in the shoulder.

The condition could last between 18 months to 3 years; however for the majority of people with this condition the shoulder returns to normal levels of movement within 2 years.

Also known as lateral epicondylitis, is a condition that causes pain around the outside of your elbow. It is generally caused by the over use of the muscles attached to your elbow that are used to straighten your wrist. If these muscles and tendons are strained it can cause inflammation and tiny tears may develop near the bone on the outside of your elbow. It is often caused by activities that place repeated stress on the elbow joint, it is common in people between the ages of 35 – 55 in both men and women. The pain you may experience is ranges from mild discomfort to severe pain. The pain you experience will get increasingly worse when you lift or bend your arm, when you rotate the forearm, if use a keyboard or mouse and when your grip onto small objects. You will also find it extremely difficult to fully extend you forearm.

This condition is otherwise known as medial epicondylitis. It is characterised by pain on the inside of the elbow. Just like tennis elbow, it is caused by the over use of the muscles attached to the elbow that are used to flex the wrist. If these muscles and tendons are strained it can cause inflammation and tiny tears may develop near the bone on the inside of your elbow. It is generally exacerbated by activities that place repeated stress on the elbow joint, it is common in people between the ages of 35 – 55 in both men and women.

It is estimated that one in every fifty people have suffered with RSI in the UK. It usually causes pain in muscles, nerves and tendons associated with doing a particular activity repeatedly or for long periods of time. The upper body is mainly affected and may cause stiffness and swelling in the forearm, elbow, wrists, hands, beck and shoulders. The condition tends to be related to a job or occupation but it can also be caused by some leisure activities. It is usually a result of working with computers and typing or can be due to repetitive manual work. Symptoms usually include:

• sharp or dull pain
• Numbness
• Throbbing
• Tingling 
• Tightness/cramp in the involved muscles
• Tenderness in your muscles and joints

Sport injuries can affect almost any part of the human body. This includes muscles, bones, joints, tendons and ligaments.

Sprains and strains the most common type of sports injury. A sprain is when one or more of the ligaments are stretched, twisted or torn. A muscle strain (or a “pulled” muscle) is when muscle tissues or fibres are stretched or torn.

Symptoms usually include:

• pain
• swelling
• bruising and tenderness around a joint or in a muscle.
• Difficulty in moving the injured area.

Sciatica is when the sciatic nerve (the longest in the body) is irritated or compressed. The pain travels from the patients lower back down to their calf. The pain ranges from mild to very painful.

Sciatica is commonly caused by a slipped disc. Other causes are lumbar spinal stenosis, degenerative disc disease, back injuries and pregnancy.

 

Symptoms of sciatica include:

• Constant pain in one side of your buttocks or leg.
• Feeling of burning or tingling down the leg.
• Numbness and difficulty when mobbing your leg or foot.
• When the patient stands or walks they can experience sharp pain.
• Sitting can aggravate the pain.

Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition which causes pain all over the body, this pain can originate from the muscles tendons and ligaments.

As many as 1 person in every 25 may suffer from this condition. Fibromyalgia affects women more than men and patients are usually aged between 20 and 50 age.

The main symptom of fibromyalgia is pain in many areas of the body – above and below the waist and on both sides. The pain with this condition can vary a great deal from day to day, and the intensity and type of pain may differ from other people with fibromyalgia.

In pregnancy hormonal and physical changes can put a considerable strain on our musculo-skeletal system. A woman’s posture adapts through the 3 trimesters. Mums to be can put on as much as 10kg of baby, water and placenta weight. This along with the hormone relaxin, puts enormous stress on the joints, ligaments and other tissues of the body. Relaxin allows the ligaments around the pelvis to relax, however all ligaments throughout the body are affected during and for sometime after pregnancy, increasing general flexibility. It is important to remember that although being more flexible sounds promising, ligaments are responsible for stabilising our joints, therefore lax ligaments can mean lax joints. Osteopathy can help with some of the symptoms typically associated with pregnancy which include: Aches and pains (back pain, neck and shoulder pain, muscular tension) as a result of extra strain on the spine.