When we fall, it’s instinctive to put our hands out to catch ourselves. Unfortunately, this means that we often injure our hands and wrist.
The most common injury that occurs in the upper extremity with a fall is a wrist sprain.
Let’s dive in to better understand exactly what you need to know about wrist sprains.
What is a wrist sprain?
A wrist sprain occurs when a ligament in your wrist is stretched beyond its normal capacity. This results in either a bad sprain or tear to the ligament itself.
Wrist sprains are often accompanied by swelling and bruising surrounding your wrist.
What are the symptoms of a wrist sprain?
When you first sprain your wrist, you will feel a sharp pain at the wrist joint itself. As time passes, your pain will subside to more of a dull and potentially throbbing ache.
And when your wrist joint becomes swollen, you will experience limitations in mobility at your wrist and it will feel stiff.
What causes a wrist sprain to happen?
The most common cause of a wrist sprain is a fall on outstretched hands.
However, wrist sprains can also occur with activities where the wrist is quickly bent one direction or the other. This tends to happen in sports like tennis, hockey, and boxing.
Potential Diagnoses
In most cases you will receive a general diagnosis of a wrist sprain to all the ligaments. But if it is easy to identify exactly which ligaments you sprained, you may hear your wrist sprain get called one of the following names:
- Radial wrist sprain (thumb side ligaments)
- Ulnar wrist sprain (pinky side ligaments)
Based on the severity of the sprain, you will also receive a diagnosis indicating the grade of the sprain on a scale of 1-3, where 1 is the least severe and 3 is the most severe type of sprain.
Did you know?
Did you know it is important to get an x-ray if you sprain your wrist from a fall?
There is a bone called the scaphoid that is located in your hand and can get fractured with a sprained wrist from a fall.
If a scaphoid fracture is not addressed, there is potential for that bone to lose all of its blood flow and degrade.
So if your wrist sprain is from a blunt trauma where you landed on your hand, make sure to get an image to avoid potential long term damage from the injury.
