Big Toe Fusion Surgery Form of Treatment Big Toe Joint

Surgical joint fusion is a form of treatment that is used to treat big toe arthritis. Arthritis of the big toe joint, also known as Hallux Rigidus, involves bony growth and/or debris restricting joint movement, which can be quite painful. In addition, the bony growths can become quite large, causing visible lumps that rub in footwear and some people consider to be unsightly. A Big Toe Fusion is an effective way for resolving this pain and removing deformity.

What are the main risks of a Big Toe Fusion?

As with all other types of surgery, there are certain risks, which include the below:

nerve injury or numbness
infection
thrombosis
tendon injury
mal union
non union
painful hardware

What happens on the day of surgery?

These surgeries are normally performed during the early hours of the day. This also means that you can return home on the same day. However, if the surgery is done in the afternoon or during the evening it may be better that you spend the night at the hospital. These surgeries are normally performed using a conventional anaesthetist. Before the surgery, you would have to meet with the anaesthetist to discuss any concerns and needs that you have in this regard.

What happens after the surgery is done?

Normally after the surgery you would be transferred to the ward, where you were before the surgery. Here a physiotherapist would check in with you. You would be shown the correct way to use crutches. You would also be provided a special shoe that allows you to bear the full weight of the leg on which the operation has been done. You would also be asked to avoid doing a few things till the time you heal completely. Once you are able to move around with safety and do not have issues controlling the pain you would be allowed to go home.

When can I return to work after a Big Toe Fusion?

Patients often need to know when the would be able to return to normal activities. In regards to work, this depends on the kind of work that you do. But as a general rule of thumb, you can start working within a couple of weeks of the operation if you have a sedentary desk job. Long commutes and time on your feet can be detrimental, so if you are able to work from home you will be able to return to work quicker.

Rotator Cuff Surgery – Recommended as a Final Treatment Option

Rotator Cuff injuries or conditions are often treatable with simple conservative measures, such as rest, or stretching and strengthening exercises. However, should these fails, surgery may be recommended as a final treatment option.

The causes of rotator cuff injuries?

A rotator cuff is a group of muscles and tendons that are located in your shoulder. Its main purpose is to help you lift your arm and rotate it as well. It is also supposed to help you maintain the shoulder joint in the right place. However, these tendons and muscles may be injured and their function can be disrupted.

The tendons and muscles that comprise the Rotator Cuff may become impinged by neighboring bones, for instance as a result of a fall. Wear and tear from excessive use can also cause similar injuries and loss of function. These kinds of conditions can be very painful and impact on the quality and impact of daily living.

How can it be treated?

It is not impossible to treat such a problem at home, although it advisable to seek a specialist opinion before starting home treatments. Simple measures that can be taken in the first instance include:

Rest the area
Apply ice periodically, to help with swelling, inflammation, and pain
Over-the-counter pain medications may be recommended to help control the pain and improve swelling

Physiotherapy is often recommended to help with the return to activity and to improve movement habits if these are the cause of the condition.

When do you need surgery?

If simple measures like the above do not sufficiently resolve the condition, then surgery may be advised.

There are certain cases where you would definitely need surgery. If your injury has not improved even after 6 months or a full year you would need surgery. The same is also applicable when you have lost significant strength in the area and are finding it painful to move the joint in question. If you have torn the tendon you would likely require surgery. If you are in a profession where you need your shoulder to be strong, surgery will likely be recommended.

What is kind of surgery that you need?

There is a range of procedure types that can be used to treat Rotator Cuff issues. The most appropriate form of surgery will be determined by the kind of condition that you have, how severe it is, as well as a number of other factors. Depending on the type of procedure it may be possible to perform in an outpatient setting, or it may require an overnight stay at the hospital. Your Doctor will be able to advise on what is best, taking the whole picture into account.

How to Treat An Ingrown Toenail

An ingrown toenail arises when the nail begins to grow into the soft tissues that surround it. This can cause pain, redness, swelling and infection.

There are some lifestyle and home remedies that you can try in order to resolve your ingrown toenail. These include:

Soaking your feet in warm salty water – this will help flush the area and prevent infection
Choosing footwear that reduces impingement from the other toes – this will avoid pressure on the toes
Placing cotton or dental floss under the toenail – this will help separate the nail from the damaged area of skin
Taking pain relievers – this will help control pain while the issue resolved
Applying antibiotic cream – this will help prevent infection

Most ingrown toenails can be treated at home, with the above-listed home remedies.

Specialist Treatment For Ingrown Toenail

If these lifestyle and home remedies do not do the job for you, you can always seek specialist treatment. There are three main things that they can do for you in situations such as these – they can lift the nail, they can remove it along with surrounding tissues, and they can remove parts of the nail.

Lifting the Nail – If your problem is not a major one, this means there is no pus or signs of infection, lifting the nail could prove to be sufficient and will allow the nail to grow away from the inflamed area.
Partial Nail Removal – the problematic section of a nail can be removed and a chemical applied to prevent the ingrown nail from returning.
Total Nail Avulsion – this involves completely removing the nail. This is normally required when the nail is damaged or stuck in place. Chemical can be applied to prevent the ingrown section of the nail from returning.

Conclusion A podiatrist or doctor will be able to advise you on treatment options and what is most appropriate in your case. They can also provide details preventing the issues from returning or affecting other toes.

Diagnosing Hip Pain

Diagnosing Hip Pain typically involves an examination and a careful review of the history of the complaint.

Typical questions would include:

What are the symptoms that you are experiencing?
Do the symptoms get worse after rest or activity?
Do certain activities make them worse or better?
How long have you been experiencing such pain?
Did you suffer from any accident or illness at the time when the symptoms manifested themselves?
Are you facing any problem in any other joint?
Does anyone else in your family have a history of hip problems such as arthritis?
Do you have any other medical issues?

Examination

Your doctor will examine the joints around the hip and potentially other related joints, this may involve some physical contact. Your doctor will normally look at areas that are tender, swollen, or painful.

Diagnosing Hip Pain with Medical Imaging

Hip diagnosis will typically make use of one or all of three kinds of medical imaging:

x-ray (radiography)
MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan
CAT (computerized axial tomography) scan.

These tools allow your doctor to non-invasively see within your hip joint without causing any pain. This can help identify issues with bodily tissues, bones or joints in the area. This can help diagnose:

joint alignment issues
bone spurs
joint space issues
bone structure issues

Diagnosing Hip Pain with Blood Tests

Your blood makeup can be a helpful indicator of what is happening in your body. For this reason, diagnosing hip pain may involve your doctor requesting a blood test with a laboratory. Blood tests can help diagnose issues, such as arthritis and infection.

What Is Causing My Neck Pain?

The neck is both extremely flexible and capable of supporting your head. These qualities are an important part of how the neck functions, but it does make it vulnerable to painful symptoms. Below are some prominent causes of these symptoms:

Muscle strain

Muscle strain is a common cause of neck pain, often as a result of overuse.

A classic and rather common example of such overuse is when you spend a lot of hours hunched in front of your smartphone or computer. However, your neck muscles could also be sprained by small things such as gritting your teeth or reading when you are in bed.

Wear and tear in your joints

Your neck is a joint as well and much like other joints tends to become worn out with age. The cartilage cushion between your bones can decay over time and this could be because of conditions like osteoarthritis.

In these cases, the body forms bone spurs and they have a bad effect on the motion of your joints. This causes pain as well.

Compression of nerves

The bones in your neck, also known as vertebrae, can develop spurs and the disks can become herniated. These can put pressure on the nerves of your neck. They can branch out from your spinal cord and thus lead to pain in the neck.

Whiplash Injuries

There are several injuries that can lead to neck pain. For example, car accidents that result in whiplash. In this case, your head gets jerked backward followed by a forward motion. This strains the soft tissues that are there in the neck.

Diseases

There are a few diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, and meningitis that can cause pain in your neck.

How to prevent neck pain?

In most cases, neck pain happens because of a combination of wear and tear due to age and bad posture. You should also try and keep your head centered on your spine. This would prevent the occurrence of neck pain. You can also make some simple changes to your daily routine, such as:

using a good posture
taking breaks on a frequent basis
adjusting your desk, computer, and chair in such a way that you are at ease while working
not tucking the phone between your ear and shoulder when you walk
quitting smoking
not carrying heavy bags that have straps over the shoulder
sleeping in a good position

Common Causes of Knee Pain

Injury

The most common cause of knee pain is an injury, often taking the form of one of the below:

ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injury
knee bursitis
fractures
patellar tendinitis
torn meniscus

A knee injury typically affects the ligaments, bursae, bones, muscles or tendons found in this area of the body. An injury is often caused by a twisting or bending force applied to the knee joint, for instance caused by a fall, accident or during sports. Pain is your body’s way of telling you that it has been injured.

Mechanical problems

Biomechanical issues are another common cause of knee pain. Some of the most prominent examples are:

Loose body – if part of the knee or surrounding tissue degenerates and floats below the kneecap, it can interfere with movement in the joint and cause painful symptoms.
Dislocated kneecaps – the kneecap can be dislocated by a sudden blow or change in direction. This can cause severe knee pain and restrict movement of the knee.
Iliotibial band syndrome – this condition affects important stabilising tissues around the thigh and knee. A potential cause might be poor training habits, poor flexibility of muscle, and other mechanical imbalances in the body, especially involving the lower back, pelvis, hips, and knees
Foot or Hip Pain – pain or injury in another part of the body, can cause you to walk and move differently. This is known as an antalgic gait. The redistribution of weight can cause pain or other health issues in further areas of the body, such as the knees.

Arthritis

Arthritis is a major cause of knee pain. There are more than 100 various kinds of arthritis, but the types with the highest chance of affecting the knee include:

osteoarthritis
rheumatoid arthritis
gout
pseudo gout
septic arthritis

Risk factors

There are a number of other factors that can cause knee pain. The most prominent among them include:

Excess weight
Certain occupations and sports
Age
Lack of strength and flexibility in the muscle
Previous injuries in the area.

Conclusion: There are many causes of knee pain, the most common of which are outlined above. If you experience knee pain as described, it is important to seek specialist advice to prevent the issue from getting worse and to resolve symptoms.

The Right Way to Exercise

The first step that you need to take if you want to exercise the right way would be to get advice from your doctor. There are several health conditions out there that can be benefited immensely by exercise but it would still be good to talk to your doctor first. A doctor has a great deal of expertise in this regard and as such they are well placed to advise you. It is fairly well known that exercise can be helpful if you are suffering from chronic conditions such as asthma, heart disease, or diabetes. However, exercise is essential to maintaining a healthy and well functioning musculoskeletal system.

Looking and feeling the part

If you are not comfortable with what you are wearing when you are working out you may not be able to exercise properly, which is far from desirable. You can be sure that when you look and feel the part you would also be a lot more confident in this regard as well. This is why you need to wear clothes that would not restrict your blood flow and movements.

Following rules of hydration at the time of workout

Staying hydrated is good for your health. This is especially true for your workout regimen. When you are working out you will sweat. This could lead to the risk of muscle cramps. However, if you are hydrated this need not be a concern. If you are properly hydrated it will also help the metabolic system of your body function the way it is supposed to. At the very least, you should be consuming 64 ounces of water each day. There are also rules to be followed for workout related hydration.

Using the right kind of warm up exercises

Before you take part in any workout, it is important that you take part in some warm up exercise. You need to do this for a period of at least 5 minutes. This would help your muscles feel warmer and your heart rate would go up as well. There are a number of options that you have in this regard and they may be enumerated as below:

brisk walking
light jogging
jumping jacks
stationary jumping jacks

The basic idea here is that you have to increase your heart rate.

After Exercise

When you complete a workout there is always a chance that your muscles could be stiff and in pain. However, if you have a proper cool down regimen you can be sure that you can be sure to address this problem a lot better than what would have happened otherwise. When your muscles are warm you can also perform standing stretches, where you breathe deeply and hold your muscles in a certain position for around 30 seconds. This helps make your muscles longer and they are a lot more flexible as well.

Conclusion

When you exercise it important you follow all the previous stages:

Wear appropriate clothing that will support your workout
Stay hydrated
Warm Up
Cool down

Treating Painful Shoulder Conditions

Treating painful shoulder conditions often involves the following steps:

Change your daily activities, allowing sufficient rest to let the area heal
Appropriate exercise and stretching to return strength and flexibility
Ensure that you neither overexert or underexert in your habitual activities to promote optimum healing. This requires a degree of balanced common sense.

Depending on the severity of the shoulder injury you may need advice or treatment from a specialist, as outlined below.

Taking medicines

Your doctor would usually prescribe medicines in order to bring down the pain and inflammation. These may be in the form of over-the-counter medicines or, for serious inflammation, might involve a steroid injection. The frequency and dosage that you will rely on to treat painful symptoms will be advised by your doctor.

Physiotherapy

Physiotherapists are trained specialists and are able to help:

Reduce painful symptoms
Heal the area quicker
Reduce long term problems resulting from the injury

They often do this through targeted stretching and strengthening exercises, although therapeutic techniques such as acupuncture or massage are often also helpful.

Occupational Therapy

An occupational therapy can help with habits that might be difficult in the healing period. These might include things such as, dressing, certain work tasks or other household chores. An occupational therapist can provide helpful advice and techniques to create optimal healing environments.

Shoulder Surgery

If the injury is too severe to heal on its own or with other conservative measures, then surgery may be recommended as a final treatment option.

Some shoulder issues such as some kinds of rotator cuff tears and repeated dislocations are not effectively treated with simple measures, such as exercise. In these circumstances either your Doctor or another specialist may recommend surgery. There are a range of surgical techniques and procedures used to correct a wide range of painful shoulder injuries. Your shoulder surgeon will be able to advise on the most appropriate technique in your particular case.

How to Lose Weight Healthily

If you are serious about losing weight in a healthy manner there are a few things that you must keep in mind. The first thing would be to set goals that are realistic. Even the best athletes in the world know that they would not win the title on the first try. This is why you need to be smart about the goals that you set. You may be aiming to lose 50 pounds in a year but you need to have some defined checkpoints in the previous period as well.

Never count the calories

This may sound to be an absurd suggestion but it is true! Health experts would instead want you to pay attention to the quality of the food that you are eating. It is very important that you spend more time on educating yourself about the kind of food that you can eat so that you lose weight. You need to know how to be smarter when you are shopping for and cooking your food. This would help you be more strategic with your eating and you would be able to reduce your regular calorie intake too.

Eating everything in moderation

You can be sure that the moment you decide you are going to ban a certain food or food group from your diet you are going to end up wanting it even more. This is the reason why you need to eat everything but in moderation. You may have set some rigid rules regarding cutting out a certain food group from your daily diet but if you cannot follow it up you would feel that you lack self-control or willpower. This would de-motivate you significantly. You need to include as many foods as you can from various food groups.

Being patient with your sugar intake

If you have decided to cut sugar off completely from your list of foods that you eat on a regular basis you need to understand the basic fact that after a point in time your body is going to crave it for sure. There is not a lot of research that can tell you how long this would continue. This is because it tends to vary from one person to another. However, you can be sure that when you finally accomplish this you would feel like you are not missing anything at all.

Conclusion

If you are someone who works a desk job – at home or at office – you need to be active. This means that you need to make it a habit of getting up and walking for around 10 minutes at a time after every couple of hours. This will make sure that you feel less stressful and, thus, have less of an inclination to head to the kitchen. Since you are consistently moving your mindset would be shifted and you would be able to disrupt your regular routine.

The Common Causes of Foot Pain

There are a range of conditions, injuries and diseases that can lead to foot pain. Feet bear the brunt of our weight and activity every day and as a result they are particularly prone to painful pathologies.

Below are some of the most common and some key information about each.

Achilles Tendonitis: This is essentially an injury of the Achilles tendon when it is used more than it should be. The Achilles is a band of tissues that act as a connection between the calf muscles and the heel bone. The calf muscle is located at the back of your lower leg. This injury is common among runners who have rapidly increased the duration and intensity of their runs. It is also pretty common in middle-aged people who regularly take part in sports, such as basketball and tennis.

Achilles tendon rupture: This is an injury that affects the hind or posterior part of your lower leg. It occurs mainly in people who take part in sports on a recreational basis. The Achilles tendon is a fibrous cord that is really strong. If you stretch this tendon excessively it may be torn or ruptured. This may be a partial or complete tear or rupture and patients often hear a pop at the time. It would be followed by an immediate sharp pain in the affected area.

Bone spurs: Bone spurs are basically bony projections that develop along the edges of your bones. In medical parlance they are also referred to as osteophytes. They often form at places where the bones meet each other, also known as the joints. The main cause is damage resulting from osteoarthritis. In most cases these do not cause immediate pain and thus go without detection for years.

Broken foot: This is one of the most intuitive causes of foot pain. As the name would suggest, this is an injury to the bone and there could be a wide range of causes. It could be a simple misstep, fall, or a car crash. The cause also determines how serious your injury is. It could be a tiny crack in your bones. It could also be a break that pierces through your skin. The treatment depends on how severe the injury is and the precise location in the foot.

Broken toe: Broken toes are common and normally are due to dropping something heavy on the foot or stubbing the toe. Such injuries are normally treated by taping the broken toe to an adjacent toe. However, if the fracture is severe, taping may not work. This is especially true for breaks of the big toe.

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