Your hand, shoulder, elbow, and wrist are essential joints in your body that help you with your daily tasks. Injuries, conditions, or deformities of these parts can make even the most straightforward task hard to complete and can lower the quality of your life. Fortunately, there are ways you can care for your upper extremities and hands to ensure they function appropriately.
Dr. Kristopher I. Downing, MD, together with Daniel Brereton, DO, is the lead specialist at Upper Extremity Specialists in La Jolla and Chula Vista, California, and provides advanced surgical and non-surgical treatments for the hands, elbows, wrist, and shoulders. Over the years, the Upper Extremity Specialists team has proven their expertise and ability to handle upper extremity injuries.
Table of Contents
Managing Shoulder Injuries
The shoulders are one of the most mobile joints in your body and are connected by a complex network of bones, muscles, and tendons. Due to a wide range of motion, they are vulnerable to injuries causing health complications. Some of the shoulder injury-related conditions include impingement, instability, rotator cuff tears, arthritis, bursitis, tendonitis, and fractures.
With the team at Upper Extremity Specialists, you can receive all-encompassing shoulder services that address all shoulder issues no matter how acute or degenerative they are. The options available to handle shoulder related complications include:
· Medications
· Compressions and immobilization
· Anti-inflammatory injections
· Shoulder instability procedures
· Reparative orthopedics
· Arthroscopic rotator cuff repair
· Bone-preserving shoulder arthroplasty
· Full and partial shoulder replacement
Physical therapy is applied to complement any treatment option in protecting your flexibility and strength throughout the procedures.
Elbow Injuries Management
Painful injuries on your elbow can result from activities that involve repetitive movements about your elbow, such as sporting activities. Such damages include golfer’s elbow, tennis elbow, and bursitis. Other painful conditions include fractures, osteoarthritis, dislocations, and cubital tunnel syndrome.
After an accurate diagnosis, there are several treatments available for every type of condition diagnosed. Non-operative treatments include inflammatory injections, brace immobilization, and rest. Reparative therapies include platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections and stromal cell therapy. Medications can also be recommended, and your provider can also suggest surgical procedures where need arise.
Wrist Injuries Management
If you fall and try to catch yourself, you can injure your wrist due to the sudden impact. You may experience sprains, fractures, or inflammation. Repetitive movements can also cause these complications, and you should never ignore the pain and see your doctor if it persists.
From a comprehensive diagnostic exam, a customized treatment is designed to address your needs. It may include bracing, physical therapy, immobilization, compression, or anti-inflammatory injections. Surgery can also be performed when necessary.
Hand Injuries Management
You do most of your activities using your hand. The hand has delicate structures affected by fractures, thumb sprains, arthritis, baseball finger, jersey finger, and proximal interphalangeal joint dislocation.
Just like with wrist injuries, hand injuries can require physical therapy, bracing, compressions, and anti-inflammatory injections that can be used to treat hand injuries and complications.
For surgery, it is only applied when other procedures fail to correct any hand issue. The Upper Extremity Specialists team comprises meticulous and precise surgeons who can handle your hand injury.
Whether you have an acute or severe injury or complications on your upper extremity, please contact the Upper Extremity Specialists team for a consultation and learn more about how you can manage these conditions.