Wednesday, September 3, 2014

How to Get Rid of Heel Bruises

How to Get Rid of Heel Bruises
Our heel bone is scientifically known as the calcaneus. Like any other parts in our body, when this part gets into trauma or gets injured, it results to bruising. When talking particularly about how it easily happens to your heel, it is primarily when certain parts of the fat pad that protects the calcaneus gets pushed to the side of the heel bone. This can affect the heel by weakening its protective layer thus causing it to swell and leave you with painful sensation on that part.


Although dancers and athletes are mostly to be affected by this condition, anybody that gets injured on that part can experience this. For athletes that require a lot of direction changes such as badminton, soccer and basketball or for some who just love to dance can easily get heel bruises. Here are some of the easy and simple steps on how to get rid of those bruises.



The RICE method

  • Rest. This is needed immediately. Stop moving and let the affected heel to stay at one position. Crutches may be needed afterwards to keep the affected heel to carry wait temporarily. If there is additional help, a splint may be used for support

  • Ice. Cold compress the area immediately as this limits the swelling and stop blood clotting which causes the bruise. To avoid further injury such as frostbite, put a thin cloth over the part then put the ice bag. Apply the ice for 10 to 20 minutes and can be repeated every 2 to 4 hours. If you feel numbness, remove the ice and wait for it to go away.

  • Compression. The next thing that you have to consider is to compress it to completely halt the swelling process. Use an elastic bandage and wrap it over the ice pack. Make sure that you wrap it firmly and evenly but make sure that you are still comfortable and that it’s not too tight.

  • Elevate. By elevating the affected leg, blood circulation is encouraged thus clotting will stop. Continuous blood clotting can cause big bruises. Just elevate it by putting pillows under your ankle.


Warm compress
After doing the first aid method (48 hours after), heat is needed to relieve the muscles and dilate the veins. By doing this, the present blood clot formation (bruising) will start to break down. Also, this increases blood flow that helps the clots to break even faster.


Tape the heel
Find a medical tape that you can safely wrap around your heel.  What you’re going to want to do is tape the fat part of your heel.  Try not to wrap it too thick as you may find that it’s going to be harder to put your shoes on.  On top of wrapping, consider placing a cold compress inside of the wrap to keep the heel cool as well.  This wrap is going to help prevent the heel from rubbing as well as any type of pressure.


Exercises
If you’re finding that this heel pain keeps coming back, consider doing some sort of stretching exercises to prevent it from happening in the future again.




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