Category: Football Injuries

This just isn’t the month for Oakland Raiders and injuries. The latest person to fall into the grips of medical oddities is Langston Walker, an offensive tackle. Langston was rushed to emergency surgery to repair a stomach hemorrhage. Now those are two words you don’t want to hear together.

We have to start be defining a hemorrhage. A hemorrhage is any sort of internal bleeding. The word is scary enough, and it should be because you cannot see the bleeding. Medical staff have to look for other symptoms of a hemorrhage.

Stomach hemorrhage symptoms would be:

• Pain
• Blood colored stool
• Cramps
• Diarrhea

What are the chances that two NFL players would have surgery for the same injury? Pretty good if it’s a dislocated wrist. That’s exactly what happened with Dre Bly of the Detroit Lions and Derrick Gibson of the Oakland Raiders. Both had surgery this week for dislocated wrists. Who would have thought you could dislocate your wrist?

Actually, it’s a pretty common injury for defenders in the NFL. Look at the bones (check out the picture on the left. Click for a larger look.) in your wrist, they look pretty sturdy, right? They are, but they are also flexible. This wrist flexibility is what allows the dislocations. The purpose of your wrist is to allow movement of your hand and fingers. Without a wrist you’d be unable to turn your hand or move your fingers. When you dislocate your wrist you’re actually knocking on the wrist bones out of position.

Charles Woodson of the Oakland Raiders suffered a broken fibula in a game against the Buffalo Bills. The broken fibula occurred when his teammate, defensive end Bobby Hamilton, landed on Woodson’s leg. Woodson had just finished tackling Buffalo Bills running back Willis McGahee.

How does the fibula break? It’s always direct or indirect trauma that causes a fibula break. In the case of Charles Woodson it was direct trauma from the teammate. You can also break a fibula by twisting the calf, which occurs in some industrial accidents.

Ahman Green was the starting running back for the Green Bay Packers until he ruptured his thigh tendon or quadriceps in a game against the Minnesota Vikings on October 23, 2005.

Although it’s been reported as a ruptured thigh tendon there isn’t enough information to determine which tendon is affected. There are multiple tendons in the thigh, but it’s more than likely the quadriceps that is at fault here.

What is the quadriceps tendon? The quadriceps is the largest muscle in the thigh and it’s responsible for moving your leg. When you want to extend your leg it contracts and pulls in. When you relax your leg it lengthens and allows full mobility. It allows your knee to move from straight to bent.

Marc Bulger has soft shoulders and it shows. In a game against the Indianapolis Colts, Marc took a hit improperly and ended up with a sprained AC joint. Marc is no stranger to shoulder injuries or the treatment of shoulder injuries, so he should heal well. But what about you? What do you know about shoulder injuries, in particular, sprained AC joints?

What is an AC joint? The AC joint is the highest joint on your shoulder. It is at the junction of the scapula and the clavicle.

Why is it called an AC joint? Another word for the scapula is the acromion, so when you put acromion and clavicle together, you get AC.

Seattle Seahawks safety Ken Hamlin is in the hospital in critical condition. He is suffering from a skull fracture and a subdural hematoma. Ken Hamlin received this injury in a fight outside a night club. Not much is known about the fight itself, except that Ken may have brain damage.

What is a subdural hematoma? A subdural hematoma is a pooling of the blood between the outer protection of the brain called the dura and the middle layer of protection called the arachnoid. Basically it’s a blood pool that is exerting pressure on the brain.

How bad is a subdural hematoma? It depends on the severity of the injury. Subdural hematomas are broken into three classifications, chronic, subacute and acute.

Kevin Mawae is out with a torn triceps. It sounds very painful and it is as it’s a tear of a very fibrous part of your body that is involved in a whole range of movement by your arms.Kevin Mawae’s triceps tear is a major tear.

The triceps are the main muscle in your arms. It runs up the back of your arms and allows movement of the forearm and hand. The triceps is so large it accounts for almost all of the mass of an arm.

A torn triceps occurs when the muscle experiences more tension and torque than it can handle. Most tears are minor and can dealt with by allowing the body to heal itself naturally. Sometimes the tear is sever and surgery is called for.

Baltimore Ravens head coach Brian Billick announced during his Monday press conference that strong safety Ed Reed suffered a high-ankle sprain during Sunday’s win over the Cleveland Browns.

Team doctors are still diagnosing the extent of the injury.

“The high-ankle sprain is always a concern,” said Billick. Different players respond to it differently — by position, by person. It would be ill-advised to project at this time, until the doctors are done with all the imaging, and see where they are with it.”

Ankle sprains occur when ligaments that connect the bones in the foot, ankle, and lower leg stretch or tear.

Braylon Edwards was drafted third overall in the 2005 NFL draft to help the Cleveland Browns with the receiver corps. Braylon played college at the University of Michigan.

Recently it was discovered that Braylon Edwards wasn’t healthy and that his illness was a very aggressive infection in his arm. His arm became so swollen by the infection that surgery was performed last week by Cleveland Browns doctors at the Cleveland Clinic.

What is an infection? An infection is a colonization and attack on a host by a foreign organism by typically bacteria. If you have a cut and bacteria makes it to the source point you may become infected.

Ben Roethlisberger suffered an injury in the October 10, 2005 game against the San Diego Chargers. He writhed around in pain on the ground before trainers came out to look at him. He couldn’t walk under his own power and appeared to be laboring. Later, the diagnosis was in and it was a hyperextended knee. Sounds gruesome, right? Well, it really isn’t that bad.

Causing a lot of pain, a hyperextended knee is easy to define. It’s a knee that has been bent in the wrong direction more degrees than it should be. For instance, your knee joint is usually straight and can bend 90 degrees. In a hyperextended knee it has bent more than that in the opposite direction. When you sit down in a chair your knee bends towards the floor. With a hyperextended knee it would bend the other direction. Ouch.