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- Sports Injuries Can Be Forever
Sports Injuries Can Be Forever
- By Gabe Mirkin, M.D.
- Published 12/29/2005
- Exercise
- Unrated
Gabe Mirkin, M.D.
Dr. Gabe Mirkin has been a radio talk show host for 25 years and practicing physician for more than 40 years; he is board certified in four specialties. Dr. Mirkin's latest book is The Healthy Heart Miracle, published by HarperCollins. He wrote the chapter on sports injuries for the Merck Manual (both lay and physicians' editions), the largest selling book worldwide with over one million copies in print. His daily short features on fitness have been heard on CBS Radio News stations since the 1970's. He has written 16 books including The Sportsmedicine Book, the best-selling book on the subject that has been translated into many languages. Dr. Mirkin is a graduate of Harvard University and Baylor University College of Medicine. A Boston native, Dr. Mirkin did his residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital and over the years he has served as a Teaching Fellow at Johns Hopkins Medical School, Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, and Associate Clinical Professor in Pediatrics at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. He has run more than forty marathons and is now a serious tandem bicycle rider with his wife, nutritionist Diana Mirkin.
View all articles by Gabe Mirkin, M.D.Many sports injuries cause a progressive permanent osteoarthritis that will prevent a person from exercising to cause the very diseases that a regular exercise program is supposed to prevent. Sports medicine surgeon James Garrick, writing in the medical journal Lancet (December 2005), explains why. You are supposed to exercise. It makes you stronger, faster, healthier and may even prolong your life. However, every time you exercise, you risk injury and many sports injuries last forever. Depression, heart attacks, strokes, obesity and diabetes are all associated with a sedentary lifestyle. A twisted ankle can change an active person into a sedentary one. A torn anterior cruciate ligament or meniscus of the knee has a greater than 50 percent chance of causing permanent pain within five years, regardless of the treatment.
If you tear your anterior cruciate ligament of you knee, you must have it repaired as soon as possible. After it is repaired at surgery, you have an almost certain chance of tearing it again if you try to return to a competitive sport. When your heel hits the ground during running, your foot stops moving suddenly, forcing the upper femur
On the other hand, strengthening the muscles of your upper leg stabilizes the knee and helps to delay and prevent a knee replacement. Anyone with broken cartilage or a torn anterior cruciate ligament in the knee should try to pedal a bicycle every day. Pedaling is done in a smooth rotary motion without sudden stopping, so it does not cause sudden forward movement of the femur on the tibia and does not shear off additional cartilage from the knee joint. If you pedal against increasing resistance you will strengthen the muscles around the knees and increase their stability so there is less wear on the cartilage.