How to treat a muscle tear

The muscle tear is a partial or total rupture of the muscle fibers, which are caused by a strong impact or traumatic injury. Not only the muscle fibers are affected but everything that surrounds them as the connective tissue that surrounds the blood vessels.

There are several causes that can cause a muscle tear, the most common are:

 

  • Intense muscular fatigue, is caused when in the practice of sports the use of the muscle is exceeded.
  • Sedentary, in people who have this rhythm of life, weaken the muscle fibers and are more exposed to suffer a tear.
  • One of the main causes is trauma, mainly in contact sports.
  • Malnutrition weakens the contractile capacity of muscle fibers.
  • The bad circulation, causes that the muscle does not receive, during the exercise, the sufficient contribution of sanguineous flow therefore that the waste substances are not eliminated properly; this implies a probable intoxication of the muscle.
  • Certain diseases, such as diabetes.
  • Mal conditioning of the muscle before doing physical activity, a bad heating of the muscle, stretching or even massage before physical activity.

 

Treatment

The most common treatment and the most applied to muscle tears, is the therapy that is known as RICE, (of English rest, ice, compression, elevation), consists of resting, applying ice immediately after the injury occurs, compressing with a bandage the affected area and, finally, elevate the injured limb.

In this type of treatment the duration of each stage varies according to the severity of the tear.

There are 3 types of degrees of tears

 

  • grade 1 or mild,
  • grade 2 or moderate,
  • grade 3 or serious.

The approximate recovery time is: Grade 1 or mild from 8 to ten days, Grade 2 or moderate from two to three weeks, and Grade 3 or severe from three weeks to a month.