Skiing is a fun way to stay active in the winter months, but it's important to be prepared and observant. Common skiing injuries include knee strains, broken legs and wrists, head injuries, spinal injuries and shoulder dislocations.

Wrist and hand injuries are very common in downhill skiing and usually it’s again falling on an outstretched arm to sort of catch your weight and you end up with what we call in skiing, a “skiers thumb”, which is a tear of the ulna collateral ligament in the thumb.

                           

And it usually happens from a hyperextension, usually skiers get their poles caught and that’s why sometimes we recommend people not wear their pole strap while skiing, and also you can get a fracture in the wrist and sometimes these go unnoticed on an x-ray and that is why we do repeat x-rays, to try to catch these.

You have to make sure you get to a qualified physiotherapist as soon as you can so we can determine the severity of this and to get you the right equipment perhaps if you need a splint or a wrist guard so that, first of all you can function in your day-to-day activities and not re-aggravate the injury and also to make sure if we have to immobilize the part in case of a fracture or a severe sprain that is taken care of as well.

From there the rehab process starts right away. And we'll start moving the parts that we can and we protect the parts that we should and make sure that you are on your way to an optimal rehab program.  Often seeing a local family physician or a physiotherapist in conjunction with a registered dietitian and athletic therapist is a great option to take control of this condition. Smart Food Now and exercise is also optominal for overall health.The local Registered Massage Therapists are in good standing with the Canadian Massage Therapist Association of Canada

With any injury your body kind of goes through three stages.
Initially, your body is trying to deal with the alarm, so in the first 72 hours it's trying to figure out what's happened and what it can do for it. After about the 72 hours, sort of two days to six weeks your body is going through remodeling and laying down the scar tissue. And after that, from about four weeks up to a year you're doing the repair and maturation phase. In treating this condition, often seeing a local massage therapist for muscle tension, a local personal trainer for muscle strength and a physiotherapist for release and conditioning is a good option.  

Now it's really important to understand that yes, we have these guidelines or stages, but every individual is different, so it's really important to go and see a qualified physiotherapist to determine what level and stage you as an individual end up in so that you're on the right treatment plan for what you need for what you need for that injury at that point in time. Often seeing a local family physician or a physiotherapist in conjunction with a registered dietitian and athletic therapist is a great option to take control of this condition. Smart Food Now and exercise is also optominal for overall health.  If you have questions about the injury recovery process, contact a local physiotherapist.