Blog Archive
As an athletic runner, you become more in tune with your body. You learn how to correctly listen to your body’s feedback to gauge your performance level and physical condition. Pain signals give you information that you can use to determine exactly how much to push, and when to call...
Your hip joints play a pivotal role in your movement and independence, but many people experience hip joint deterioration with age. Your hips may also sustain damage from an injury or underlying medical condition such as osteoarthritis. When your hip joints break down, you suffer from chronic pain and reduced...
You stumble or slip, and you feel yourself coming down awkwardly on your ankle. Maybe your foot turns sideways, straining the tendons and ligaments that hold your ankle joint together. You feel pain right away, and when you try to take another step, you can tell that something’s wrong. There’s...
When you’re done with work, you want to rest comfortably and enjoy your time off. But if your wrists hurt after work, relaxation becomes more of a challenge. Aches and pains limit your free-time options, and they can be frustrating when they return regularly after every workday. To find out...
You put a lot of stress on your bones, sometimes without even realizing it. Repetitive movements, physical strain, and daily wear-and-tear may cause small stress fractures to appear in key bones in your body. Stress fractures often affect athletes who regularly push their bodies to the limit. However, non-athletes may...
Whether you’re an athlete pushing your body for speed and precision, or a person who has a history of knee injuries and concerns about risks of knee instability and falls, you need to take an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear seriously. This ligament is one of the bands of tissue...
Sometimes a shoulder or knee joint needs surgical support to keep working smoothly and without pain. Following wear-and-tear, accidents, or sports injuries, you may opt for a joint replacement surgery such as a shoulder replacement or knee replacement. These procedures replace damaged parts of your joint with artificial components so...
Shoulder replacement surgery lets you regain pain-free motion in the upper part of your body. Along the way, however, you have to get through months of post-surgery recovery before you can enjoy the results of your procedure. When you’re still recovering from surgery during the holidays, you face a few...
Pain in your hands may arrive with weakness, numbness, or tingling. Or, your pain symptoms may center on the joints in your hands and wrists. Either way, you need to better understand the cause of your hand pain so you can find relief and maintain as much use of your...
When a sports injury knocks you down, you want to get right back in the game. However, putting too much pressure on an injured and still-healing part of your body often causes lasting physical damage. You can even end your career by returning too early or taking the wrong approach....
The standard treatment plan for many injuries, from anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears to fractured bones, includes rest. Keeping the injured area free of further stress or strain is often necessary for healing. Pushing yourself too hard after an injury may lengthen your post-injury recovery period, and may even lead...
Complaints of pain or stiffness in one or more of your joints, especially in older individuals, often relate to arthritis. There’s a good chance that some type of arthritis is to blame for your symptoms of pain, stiffness, and joint dysfunction. Arthritis is a common health condition, but did you...
School might be out for the summer, but summer sports for young athletes offer plenty to keep them busy — and there’s the looming prospect of next year’s team, as well. Your child or teen athlete may be training harder than ever right now. Training smart is as important as...
Sports injuries can happen when your body’s joints, muscles, and bones have to face extreme stress with regularity. For baseball pitchers, it’s all about the throwing arm. Preventive sports medicine for these athletes involves protective stretches and exercises to support the shoulder joint. Dr. Michael L. Blackwell and his team...
Your hip joints connect your legs to your torso, offering you access to support and mobility. What can you do to make your lifestyle more friendly for your hips? Hip joints often degenerate as you age. That’s why surgical hip replacement is a relatively common procedure. At the Center for...
The ball-and-socket structure of the shoulder joint works amazingly well to give your upper body access to a wide range of motions, from twisting and bending to lifting and throwing. It’s easy to take the smooth, pain-free functioning of your shoulder joints for granted. However, repetitive stress and other issues...
Whether they’re related to a sports injury or other type of accident, or a degenerative condition like osteoarthritis, broken or fractured bones take time to heal. Depending on the location and severity of your fracture, you may need to keep one or more joints immobilized in a cast or other...
Your knee joints take heavy wear-and-tear over the course of your lifetime. That goes double if you have a degenerative condition like knee arthritis that accelerates their breakdown. When the damage is too extensive, you can suffer from chronic knee pain and knee joint dysfunction. If this is where you’re...
You might not have heard of the condition known as sesamoiditis before being diagnosed with it. This inflammatory condition may be the source of foot pain, and it typically results from overuse. At the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, foot and ankle and sports medicine specialist Dr. Michael L....
Your hips allow you to bend, sit, and walk. That means you need your hip joints to fully function, without pain or limitation. However, hip pain is common among adults in the United States. Often, hip pain forms a challenging part of the aging process. Your hip pain may also...
Playing sports keeps you healthy, but the repetitive stress of your sport can also result in musculoskeletal damage. That’s the case with tennis elbow, a repetitive stress sports injury medically known as lateral epicondylitis. Tennis elbow affects the tendons in your forearm, and it can develop from any activity that...
Broken bones need careful healing. That’s extra true if you have a comminuted fracture, meaning that your bone is broken in more than one place. At the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, Dr. Michael Blackwell sees bone injuries and fractures of all types. Dr. Blackwell treats new and existing...
When your knee joints wear out, limiting your mobility and leaving you in pain, you need treatment no matter your age. If your knees don’t allow you a comfortable, full range of motion, your quality of life and overall health suffer. Arthritis is a common cause of knee joint issues....
Hamstring injuries are a common type of sports injury for runners, dancers, and competitors in any sport that involves a lot of sudden sprints and stops, like soccer, football, basketball, or tennis. Your three hamstring muscles form a group that runs down the back of your thigh. This group, made...
Surgical shoulder replacement sounds like an intense treatment choice, but it can actually be your best way to preserve full, pain-free shoulder function. That said, partial and total shoulder replacements are invasive surgical procedures, and you don’t want to go through surgery unnecessarily. At the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine of Tomball, Kingwood,...
Ankle sprains happen so quickly. One minute, you’re running, walking, or standing, not thinking about your ankles. The next moment, you put a foot down wrong and your ankle bends too far to the side, leaving you in pain with limited mobility and possible swelling. Ankle sprains damage the ligaments...
You need properly functioning wrist joints to handle activities essential to your daily life: on the job or during hobbies and leisure time. Maybe you work at a computer and need to be able to type and operate track pads as you send emails and create programs or files. Or,...
When you get injured playing sports, you obviously want to get better as soon as possible. It’s just as important that you heal fully, with the right musculoskeletal alignment and joint stability, so you don’t risk reinjury. Pain can complicate your recovery. That means your pain management plan after a...
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a common form of arthritis that can harm joints around your body, including your shoulder joints. At the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine in Tomball, Kingwood, and The Woodlands, Texas, Dr. Michael L. Blackwell provides full diagnosis and treatment services for arthritis. If RA impacts...
Nerves in your feet connect to your toes, sending information about sensation back to your brain. If a foot or ankle problem puts pressure on your nerves, you can experience symptoms like pain or numbness. Nerve inflammation can be stubborn, lasting even after the structural issue of the neuroma is dealt with....
Your hands and wrists can suffer from conditions resulting in pain and dysfunction. At the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, Dr. Michael L. Blackwell can diagnose and effectively treat your hand and wrist concerns. One of the most common issues Dr. Blackwell sees in his patients in Kingwood, Tomball,...
You depend on your feet and ankles every day, of course. Weak ankles make you more prone to falls, accidents, and injuries, so while you might not give your ankles much thought, it’s in your best interest to focus on strengthening them from time to time. At the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports...
When you experience a compound or open fracture, the broken bone breaks through your skin. You might be able to see exposed bone or muscle in the open wound. Compound fractures are serious, and need the right treatment in order to heal without lasting complications. You’re at increased risk of...
You’re in the heat of the moment, pushing your body to the max, and you land hard, pivoting at the same time. That’s when you hear a popping noise, feel your knee go out from under you, and start to suffer from severe pain. You’ve experienced an injury to your ACL...
Tears and injuries to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in your knees are among the most common sports injuries out there. Your knees need all four of their major ligaments to function reliably under the pressure of athletic activity. If you don’t recover fully from an ACL tear, you risk long-term...
Your heel has been aching, twinging, or otherwise hurting. Have you been recently injured? Does your heel pain indicate an underlying medical problem? When should you see a doctor about heel pain? At the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, Dr. Michael L. Blackwell and his team of foot and ankle experts can help you...
If you have rheumatoid arthritis (RA), you can suffer from distressing symptoms of pain, stiffness, and inflammation in locations around your body due to a harmful autoimmune response. With this condition, the immune system reacts to your joints and tissues as if they were harmful invaders, attacking your own body....
Your hands and wrists contain multiple tendons, bones, and ligaments that allow you to move in complex, flexible ways. It also means there are lots of ways for issues to arise with your hands and wrists. At the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, Dr. Michael L. Blackwell and his team of orthopedic and sports...
You rely on your wrists and hands for more daily tasks and motions than you can probably count. That makes it all the more important to understand the repetitive use conditions that can harm these areas of your body. At the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine in Tomball, Kingwood,...
You can break a bone anywhere in your body. Broken bones can be large or small, in your legs or in your arms, or even in your joints. Not all bone fractures are the same, however. In a stable fracture, the ends of the bone stay in place, and closed...
Your ankles have to handle the complete weight of your body when you’re on your feet and active, while still giving you the flexibility you need to maintain the full range of motion. That’s a big task! To protect your ankles from injury or degeneration, it’s an important part of...
Whenever you’re active in a sport, whether you’re playing competitively or just having fun and getting some exercise, you run the risk of sports injuries. However, you can do a lot to reduce your risk of getting hurt while getting active. At the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, with...
If you’re getting active for the first time in a while — or if your New Year’s resolutions included hitting new performance heights in your sport — it’s important to be aware of your risk of repetitive use sports injuries. For sports and activities that range from running to tennis...
Osteoarthritis (OA) was once thought to be an inevitable part of aging. Now we understand that proactive prevention often lessens the wear-and-tear that causes severe OA. At the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine of Tomball, Kingwood, and The Woodlands, Texas, we can help with your OA-related concerns. Our team,...
Your knees can suffer from a range of injuries and painful medical conditions, from torn tendons or ligaments to joint damage related to arthritis. Sometimes, it seems like your knees might just be the most vulnerable part of your entire body. For orthopedic expertise, you can turn to Dr. Michael...
It’s no surprise that playing sports increases your child’s physical health and reinforces teamwork, among many other benefits. On the other hand, being active in athletics significantly increases the chances of your child sustaining a sports injury. You want to protect your child’s health, present and future. With the right...
Sometimes, the best treatment for chronic joint pain is surgical. If your chronic shoulder pain and joint instability don’t improve with conservative treatment, Dr. Michael L. Blackwell and the experts at the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine may recommend shoulder replacement surgery. Dr. Blackwell provides comprehensive support for patients...
You have 206 bones of substantial size in your adult body. Any of those bones can sustain a break or fracture in certain circumstances. At the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, we’re familiar with breaks and fractures of all kinds, from long bone injuries to spinal problems. We can...
Your bones and muscles form the core of your body. Anything you accomplish in sports is built on the foundation of your musculoskeletal strength. You probably focus on muscle strength as part of your conditioning routine — but what about bone strength? At the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine,...
Athletes who jump, land, and pivot with high speed and intensity are especially at risk for knee injuries. The ligament in the front of your knee, your anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), is particularly vulnerable to strains, tears, and other athletic injuries. An ACL injury requires rest and treatment to heal...
Female athletes have some unique sports medicine needs. This includes their higher risk of knee injuries. The sports medicine experts at the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine of Tomball and Kingwood, Texas, provide care and support for female patients with athletic interests. Our team, led by Dr. Michael L....
Staying active provides many benefits to your physical and mental health, but participating in sports can also increase your risks of sprains and other injuries. If you’ve sprained an ankle or wrist, or suffered a back sprain, it’s important to rest and heal. How do you know when it’s safe...
Athletes live with the threat of injuring an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). If you tear this important part of your knee joint, you could be benched for the rest of the season. Due to structural aspects of leg musculature, women are more likely to deal with ACL tears than men....
Your hands and wrists contain multiple small joints, connected with ligaments, muscles, and bones. Your wrist might seem like a single joint, but it actually has more than one joint — and that means there are plenty of things that can cause wrist pain and other problems. At the Center...
The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of the four major ligaments that come together in your knee joint. Located in the front of your knee, the ACL is a common culprit for injuries, including tears. ACL tears are common and repairable in young athletes. However, ACL injuries can also...
You have to crook or bend your finger in order to pull a trigger. The condition known as trigger finger derives its name from that bent shape of your finger. When you have this disorder, also known as stenosing tenosynovitis, one of your fingers seems to get stuck in a...
An injured ankle can sharply limit your mobility, on top of the pain it causes. After you start to heal, what do you need to do to stay safe and stable on your healing ankle joint? Further, what steps should you take to ensure that this important joint heals properly,...
Across the United States, an estimated 32.5 million adults in the United States are dealing with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Furthermore, about half of people will develop knee osteoarthritis at some point in their lifetime. If you’re one of the many people living with knee osteoarthritis right now, you have treatment...
Whether you run marathons, go for leisurely walks with friends, or just putter around your house, the common denominator is how much you rely on your feet. No matter how you use your feet, one thing is certain: The constant use leaves them vulnerable to often-painful issues. Depending on the...
As an athlete, you know there’s nothing worse than being sidelined by an injury and forced to watch your teammates compete without you, or miss valuable days if you prefer individual sports. Recovering from an injury is difficult enough without later having to forfeit even more playing time because the...
Pain anywhere in your body can range from annoying to debilitating. Hip pain is no exception, sometimes making it difficult to walk, stand, or even rest comfortably. Millions of people who suffer with hip pain know the desperation of trying to find lasting relief from their agony. Armed with the...
Whether you’re a factory line worker or a chronic social media scroller, your wrist is essential to your daily life and ability to function normally. When your wrist and the bones and muscles within it become damaged and irritated, you experience the pain and immobility associated with conditions like carpal...
With sports injuries accounting for just over a third of all injuries in recent years, and just under one-third in children more currently, it’s no wonder that sports medicine doctors are in high demand. From tough-tackling football players to gracefully tiptoeing ballerinas, no athlete is immune to injuries. If you’re...
Given how much you rely on your shoulders, hearing a diagnosis that you need to have total shoulder replacement can be scary. Make sure you know the facts about what you’re facing. With that in mind, we’re here to be fully informed. At the Center for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine,...
ACL tear: Two of the most feared words to hear if you’re an athlete. This injury typically means surgery and several months of downtime. There is life after an ACL tear, however, and we’re here to support you, from your diagnosis to your return to the field. At the Center...
A hairline fracture might seem like a mild problem, but ignoring the issue and putting further pressure on the bone can lead to a more serious breakage. It's best to visit a doctor and take it easy, especially if you’re an athlete. If left untreated, a hairline fracture can quickly...