Articles

Athletic Injuries

Should You Play Through the Pain?

By John S. Taras, MD
Reprinted here from the Fall 1998 "First Hand News"

Simply stated, no. Despite the desire to compete, be there for your teammates, and finish the game, medical advice is that you should not play through the pain. The good news, however, is that new techniques and new methods of casting are making it possible to return to your sport faster than ever before.

The very nature of athletic activity comes with the risk of injury. Catching, sliding, tackling, slashing are vigorous acts. And when an injury occurs, external pressures from coaches and fans, compounded with the athlete’s competitive spirit, sometimes emphasizes victory over prudence. Yet it is this initial management of a hand, wrist or shoulder injury that often determines the quality and length of the recovery period. Professional and collegiate teams usually give hand injuries the priority they deserve. It is the weekend warrior, or the little league coach who may decide to ‘play through the pain.

 

 

As a hand consultant to the Flyers, Phantoms, Eagles, St. Joseph’s University Hawks, and Rowan College Profs, I have found that when players, trainers and physicians work together, it is possible to minimize the player’s downtime without jeopardizing their recovery.
Certainly the treatment and timing for return to competitive play must be individualized to each player. A center forward can continue to play soccer wearing a low profile protective wrist cast. But a goalie, whose cast would interfere with ball handling, would have to sit out. Likewise, a football defensive lineman can make the tackle while sporting a cast. But the wide receiver, unable to catch, would have to sit on the bench.

For athletes on the disabled list, proactive management of hand and upper extremity injuries can include conditioning and strengthening uninjured muscle groups. Recently developed splinting materials can often replace conventional materials. These new materials allow protection but they can be removed easily for washing. A specialized foam sleeve that tolerates moisture can also be used under a fiberglass cast. This product is used successfully to allow competitive swimmers to continue training while recovering from hand and wrist fractures. Needless to say, this ‘swimming cast’ is extremely popular with kids in the summertime.

For some injuries, surgery is required to repair ligaments and stabilize broken bones.

New bone-ligament anchors which cinch torn ligaments back to the bone are being used to speed recovery from a variety of injuries. This device is particularly useful in repairing often-injured thumb ligaments. In one case, it enabled a professional hockey player to return to competition in two weeks instead of six weeks. New applications for fracture fixation techniques are now being used by the physicians at The Philadelphia Hand Center to speed recovery of broken bones. In a recent presentation to the Pennsylvania Orthopedic Society I showed how a minimally invasive technique shortens the cast time for scaphoid fractures from the usual 12 to 16 week period to as little as 4 weeks.

At The Hand Center we lead the field in applying cutting-edge technology to our sports-injured patients. But it’s up to the player and to the coaching staff on the field to make sure that, if a player feels pain, the injury is attended to quickly and professionally.