Good evening and thank you for joining us for these nightly podcasts. I am Dr. Harrison Campbell primary chiropractor at Restoration Health a premier sugar land chiropractors office. It is my hope that these podcasts are education and informative for not only my patients but anyone listening to them. For tonights podcast we will build off of what we discussed last time in regards to bursitis.
Now last night we discussed tendinitis and we made mention that tendinitis and bursitis are commonly occurring together. The reason for this is due to the function of bursa. Picture rubbing two rubber bands over each other. They would not glide smoothly would they? No they would stick together. To prevent the sticking you would have to lubricate the space where the bands meet to reduce the friction and allow them to glide smoothly. This is what a burse does for the body.
Ask any sugar land chiropractors what a bursa is for and they will all respond with an answer similar to this. A bursa is a fluid filled sack which allows a tendon to glide smoothly over either a body prominence such as the back of the elbow or it allows a tendon to glide smoothly over another tendon such as in the shoulder.
The reason this is needed is because much lie those rubber bands a tendon itself is not smooth. There is a texture to the tendon which would stick and create friction with whatever the tendon was moving over. Now picture a hundred rubber bands trying to all move to each in their own direction. This is what something like the shoulder would look like with the bursa the shoulder has.
Now the bursa are great as what they do as sugar land chiropractors can tell you. They provide the smooth glide our tendons require. However the bursa can be finicky and when they are irritate they will let you know it. Local pain is the initial symptom. This pain is only present when pressure is placed on the bursa or there is load placed on the tendon which runs over the bursa. Now while this sounds minor ask sugar land chiropractors about pain and injuries and they will tell you it is only the tip of the iceberg.
The reason for this is the body is just like you. It does not want to be in pain any longer than you do. Therefore pain is the last symptom to come on in an injury and the first symptom to go away in an injury. To provide an example I use a tooth ache. If you wake up in the morning with a tooth ache and go to your dentist and he finds a cavity, when did that cavity start? You did not magically get the cavity that morning. It had been developing for a while and finally the pain hit that morning.
Now back to the signs and symptoms of bursitis. Along with pain there is swelling and inflammation. For some bursa the swelling is not noticeable, but for others there is visible evidence of this swelling taking place. The elbow for instance has a bursa on the back side of the elbow. This can inflame and swell leading to a lump on the back part of the elbow which can grow pretty large in certain circumstances. Bursa in the hip can limit mobility and hinder your ability to walk, while bursa on the knees can prevent people from being able to kneel or put pressure on their knees.
The treatments for bursitis range of conservative which is where sugar land chiropractors come into play all the way to invasive. Let us start with conservative and then move towards the invasive option. Ultrasound is a great passive therapy in order to reduce inflammation. At home therapy can be done in conjunction with the conservative therapy and this would include icing the affected area. The proper way to use ice is place on the area for fifteen minutes then rest it for fifteen minutes. You can go through this cycle for as long as needed.
Both this home therapy and conservative therapy will help reduce the swelling but the patient will still need to limit the activities which have instigated this bursitis while the bursa is healing.
The invasive treatment option for this include draining the burse or steroid injections. Draining the bursa is where the doctor inserts a needle into the bursa and physically remove the excess fluid in the bursa reducing the swelling. The steroid injection uses a corticosteroid to reduce inflammation by using the natural effect of steroids to reduce inflammation in the body. We have discussed this in a previous podcast in more detail if you are interested. For most sugar land chiropractors these two options are last minute options due to potential complications from them.
One treatment option which we have not talked about is anti inflammatory medications. This include standard anti inflammatory pills but is more likely to be a steroids in pill forms as opposed to the injections we previously discussed. This is a good option do have in conjunction with the conservative treatment options of ultrasound and ice we discussed earlier.
We will end with a brief listing of which types of patients are more susceptible to bursitis. Blunt for trauma is a good way to have bursitis in general as sugar land chiropractors will tell you. Floor installers commonly suffer from bursitis in the knees. People who place constant pressure on the elbows such as desk workers are prone to bursitis on the elbows.
Thank you for joining me once again. I do hope you found the topic of bursitis interesting. As always should you or someone you know require the services of sugar land chiropractors please give Restoration Health a call today so we can schedule you an appointment. Do not let a busy schedule come between you and a healthy life. Thank you once again for joining us and I hope to see you tomorrow for out next podcast. Good night.