Wrist sprain healing time

Wrist sprain is a common injury that often happens. Some people do not think much of it and leave it unattended, which might complicate things a lot.

Causes

There are many situations that can cause wrist strain. Commonly, it might happen when a person falls, and instinctively tries to cushion the fall with palms. If a fall is fast and palms are not positioned properly, a wrist sprain might occur. Also, this injury is typical with sportsmen, especially, those that use their hands in certain activities, such as basketball, handball, some athletic disciplines, boxing, martial arts, etc. Martial arts are interesting because even though injuries are possible, training sessions do include some exercises that build up elements included in wrist: muscles, tendons and ligaments. Those exercises also include a lot of stretching of wrists and working on the elasticity of the mentioned elements. In boxing and some martial arts, the majority of the wrist sprains is induced by improper hitting. Explaining this requires some basic info on hitting. When hitting, before the impact, the hand and arm muscles are relaxed to enable the hit to be as fast as possible. Just before the impact, the fist should tighten as much as possible for the hit to have the maximum effect. If that does not happen, the fist hits but the hand bents in the wrist with great force and that can cause problems. This is very much obvious when watching boxers, for example. Before putting on the gloves, they all use wrist bandages for extra protection. The explained mechanism unfortunately happens often to people who do not exercise and do not have strengthened wrists.

Sprain

Wrist sprains are divided based on the level of ligament injury. Level one includes only sprained ligaments, level two includes partially torn ligaments and level three includes completely torn ligaments. When this injury happens, it hurts to a certain level and the motions of the hand are somewhat limited. Swelling might also occur, but actually, the intensity of the mentioned signs depends on the seriousness of the injury. As for the wrist sprain healing time, we can freely say that it takes weeks for wrist to recover completely, even more. If the ligaments are torn, they should recover and return to previous state in order for a hand to be 100% operative, which means that sometimes even immobilization is needed, just like with a broken bone. Wrist sprain injuries are not that dangerous, but they do require treatment and some time.