Osteopathic treatment can certainly help to clear the residual pain or restriction from an old injury. Our joints are quite complex. Our wrist, for example, is located where the eight small carpal bones of the hand meet the distal ends of the two forearm bones. The injury force that comes into the wrist, which causes the initial fracture, also impacts other structures in the area at the time.
Your injury is healed, but you still have pain… Why?
Left untreated, it is quite common to have residual pain or tension long after the boney fracture heals in 6 weeks. The force that fractured the bone may also have compacted the joint interfaces between the bones. There are at least 20 boney joint interfaces to consider in the wrist so a lot of tiny joints can be affected resulting in decreased mobility. The same force that caused the original fracture also had an affect on the soft tissues in the area; ligaments tendons and fascia. Residual tension in the connective tissue is the most common cause of long term problems, especially in the large intraosseous membrane located between the two forearm bones. Left untreated these tensions may decrease blood flow to the area or pinch nerves resulting in long term pain.
