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Showing posts from January, 2018

What to do and not to do after the AC joint injury?

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What to do and not to do after the AC joint injury? Time Heals All Wounds, or Does It? www.PTcares.com OK. Let's face it. It is going to be painful and inconvenient after the AC joint injury. Based on the degree of the separation, you might be told to stay put and take it easy for a while by ED/family doctors. You might refuse to accept the surgery because you don't like to be cut open or you just want to try conservative approaches first. You are having the difficulty of putting on and taking off your shirts and pants and shoes, even socks. In other words, you are limited temporarily. Here is the tricky question: Time Heals All Wounds, or Does It? I am here to provide you more information and help you make the decision. Time heals NOTHING. It's what you do with that time. Why? All the joints in our body are balanced by muscles, ligaments, cartilage, bones shape, and your habit of doing. There is a chance that you might feel less irritation with time.

What is AC joint separation? Do I need surgery for this?

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www.PTcares.com Recently a friend of mine had a falling accident in a playground and was Diagnosed as " AC joint separation". She reached out to me and asked the above questions. I spent time chatting online and I realized she had not clue what was going on and what to do about it. I decided to share some information here in case you need some help. What is AC joint? The  acromioclavicular joint , or  AC joint  is a  joint  connecting the acromion and the clavicle as showed in the following picture.  What is AC joint's function? Along with other ligaments, It stabilizes the shoulder girdle and maintain appropriate muscle tone of the neck, shoulder and para-scapular muscles.  What happened during the injury? When you fell, you landed on the shoulder and directly hit the acromion of the scapula and increased the shear force to separate the AC joint. Sometimes the violence might be strong enough to separate the coracoclavicular ligament, which is also ve