Peggy Houglum, Ph.D., of Duquesne University says you should ask yourself the following questions to determine if you should consult a physician about your athletic injury:

• If you have a leg injury, can you walk on it without limping?


• If it’s an injury to an upper extremity, can you work the body part and lift items without making unnatural adjustments?


• Is there significant swelling?


• Is the area black and blue? (This indicates that something has torn.)


• On a 1-10 point scale, how much pain do you have? (Anything above 6 is serious.)


• Does the injury make it difficult to get a good night’s sleep?


• Does it interfere with your daily activities?

 She adds that in such situations, “X-rays are overrated—they only tell if a bone is broken or a joint is out of place.  Most sport injuries are not bone injuries, but soft tissue injuries, and these do not show up on an X-ray.  MRIs are used to diagnose soft tissue injuries, but these can be expensive.”

Knowledge of one’s body and how it reacts to injury is very important, Houglum adds.  For example, do you swell easily when you get injured? Do you have high or low pain tolerance? “As you get older, it takes your body longer to heal, and so an ankle sprain you suffered as a teenager may be more problematic when you’re 55.  You need to consider this when evaluating how your body is reacting to an injury.”  She notes that conditions such as asthma and diabetes also affect healing.

(Source: ACE FitnessMatters, March/April 2007. A New Way to Rehab Injuries—It’s Called Exercise. Vol. 13, Issue 2, pgs.12-16. Author Credit: Jim Gerard.)

Other warning signs of injury are numbness and tingling.  Never ignore these symptoms, these feelings may indicate nerve compression or damage.  This means your injury may be serious and your doctor should see the injured area.