Are there long-term consequences from overuse injuries?
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Aug 1, 2017
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Dr. Jeffrey James discusses the long-term effects of overuse injuries.
Are there long-term consequences from overuse injuries?
Most of the time, overuse injuries don't pose any long-term consequences as long as they're diagnosed appropriately and caught early. The treatment generally with rest and adequate training programs can prevent the long-term consequences, but if you continue to do your activities and just push through the pain, you can certainly have some long-term consequences. A few examples of this would be youth baseball or softball players who continue to pitch or play with elbow pain and they can develop fractures to the growth plates in their arm or even tears to the ligaments in the elbow that may require surgery and have long-term consequences. A second example would be runners who just continue to run through the pain and they can develop stress injuries to the bone that eventually can lead to true fractures that can sometimes be pretty bad or require surgeries.