Facts About Cartilage Problems
Many injuries in sports are the result of cartilage problems. Cartilage is the fibrous tissue in between your bones that protects them when you fall, and for the basic protection of keeping your bones from grinding against each other. Adults tend to have less cartilage because it converts over mostly to bone. Cartilage is important and if it becomes torn or stretched it can produce further issues.
Cartilage problems can be caused by many different things. When bones are not aligned properly, that can cause cartilage problems. Excessive weight, activity and overuse are all reasons that you may experience cartilage problems, so you need to consider your range of movement and stability when taking part in various activities. In addition, overuse of your cartilage can wear down your cartilage, causing your bones to be closer together with the possibility of grinding together. A good example of this is the labrum, which is a disc of cartilage in your shoulder. The labrum keeps your rotator cuff and bone from grinding together, so if it’s torn that will allow grinding together of not only the bone, but the rotator cuff to the bone. When bone is on bone, this causes horrible pain, making a need for pain medication a necessity.
In addition, cartilage problems whether they are in the shoulder or the knee can cause problems with proper movement and range of motion. Getting back your range of motion is important in your knee and shoulder as well, especially if you have had some sort of surgery done. Usually, arthroscopic is the most popular surgery being is that it’s exploratory in nature. During this surgery, cartilage problems can be fixed. A torn labrum for example can be fixed through an arthroscopy. In order to allow proper range of motion and a reduction in pain, this cartilage can never be completely removed, but if torn they can remove the torn portion and leave it be.
With osteoarthritis, the cartilage can begin wearing away and leave your bone and joint without cushion. This type of cartilage problem can usually be detected taking an x-ray image of it. This usually brings about not only significant increases in pain, but this also will cause you to lose your functional ability. This loss of every day function is critical to your family, your job, and your every day ability to run errands to the grocery store and shopping. Cartilage problems will and can affect every part of your being if you don’t get treatment or physical therapy for them.
There are also a few ways to detect that there is a cartilage problem. While x-rays can certainly detect them, you can also opt for an MRI, or even a CT scan. In some cases, an orthopedic surgeon will encourage you to have an arthrogram if it’s an issue related to cartilage in your shoulder. This procedure is done through x-ray guidance, but involves a needle going into the joint an injecting a dye to see what shows up. This is very popular when there is suspicion that you have a torn rotator cuff, but the procedure is not strictly limited to the shoulder, but is also commonly used for the knee and sometimes the hip. A local anesthetic is given, but the procedure can still be somewhat painful and nerve wracking. There are a few injections to get enough dye into the joint and with the x-ray guidance that is the only way to know as to whether or not there is enough dye inside, or they give another injection. This is usually a great way to see what is going on, but the cartilage may not always show up. In a patient that has large bone structure, it can be very difficult for this to show up.