Lone Star Podiatry
Sports Medicine
Ankle Sprains:
This is one of the most common injuries seen in a sports medicine practice. The majority of these are benign, and the individual should recover with conservative care in a week or two. However there can be serious consequences resulting from these injuries such as joint cartilage damage, tendon tears, fractures, and chronic ligament tears that fail to heal properly.
Achilles Tendonitis:
This is a serious injury that is often under appreciated. Damage to this strong tendon is slow to heal due to its poor blood supply, and lack of elasticity. Partial tendon tears and inflammation of the tendon can sometimes be treated conservatively, but can also be surgically treated with good success. Complete tears are an emergency situation and requires immediate surgical correction. Patients often report feeling (and hearing) a sudden pop, and then are unable to walk. There can also be calcium buildup at the insertion of the tendon to the heel bone in the foot. Treatment depends on the site and level of injury.
Sport Specific Injuries:
There are many injuries such as stress fractures, tendon tears, nerve injury, etc that are specific to a particular sport. This is often due to improper shoe wear, biomechanical stresses, sport surface, and mechanism of injury. Treatment and rehab can be tailored to the specific athlete and their sport of choice. Dr Cassidy has a strong emphasis in sports medicine, and has treated many athletes from the professional level to weekend warriors, and adolescent athletes.
Knee/ Hip/ Back Injuries:
In some cases these injuries can be related to abnormal anatomical motion at foot and ankle level. In some cases these pathologies may be improved, or relieved with custom orthotics, combined with proper shoe wear.
Shoe Lists and other information may be found at the American Association of Podiatric Sports Medicine (AAPSM) website.