Wrist Injury

Athletes fall and when they fall it is easy to disrupt one of the many ligaments in the wrist. The wrist represents one of the most complicated regions of the musculoskeletal anatomy. It is comprised of 15 bones, 27 articular surfaces and an elaborate system of ligaments that maintain these bones and surfaces in proper relation to one another. The wrist is one of the most common areas where ligament injuries occurs, causing the athlete pain in the area.

All 27 articular surfaces in the wrist are covered in a sea of ligaments.

If the ligament injury doesn’t initially heal, the athlete will get an MRI to show the damage.

The diagnosis almost always comes back ligament injury and the athlete commonly ends up with surgery.

Commonly the athlete gets an open reduction and internal fixation type of surgery. This means that pins will be stuck into and around the wrist bones to stabilize the joint involved.

The open reduction and internal fixation commonly results in a loss of wrist motion of 35 percent in the flexion and extension plain.

Prolotherapy injections to where the ligament is damaged stimulates that area to repair. Athletes can be treated every one to two weeks to speed up healing. Training can still be done while the wrist is healing from Prolotherapy. The training should be done to the point of a little bit of pain that resolves within a couple of hours. Pain that lingers means the training session was too much. Typically athletes with wrist ligament injuries need three to six visits of Prolotherapy to resolve the pain. If there is degeneration in the joint more sessions may be needed.