Bone fractures: Types, Symptoms, Prevention and Treatments

What is Bone Health?
Bones are hard but they are not lifeless. They are growing tissue. Bones are comprised of three major components such as collagen, calcium phosphate mineral complexes as well as bone cells. These components help to keep them strong and flexible. Bone loss occurs as you age and it is necessary to take steps to protect it from getting damaged.

Why bone health is important?
Bones are an important part of the body and it complements our health. The important function of the bones is to provide structure to the body, protect various organs and also to store calcium in the body. At the young age the bones are formed rapidly after that as the age advances you lose more bone mass than you form. The higher your peak bone mass the more bone you have and this reduces your chance to develop osteoporosis as your age increases.

What causes bone fracture?
A partial or a complete breakage of bones is known as bone fracture. It isa medical condition that can be the result of higher impact due to force or may be stress on the bones that cause it to break. Sometimes a minor injury because of some disease such as osteoporosis that makes the bones weak and other medical conditions like bone cancer in which the fracture is termed as a pathologic fracture.

Bone Fractures: Types, Symptoms, Prevention and Treatments

Many types of fractures occur of which the main categories are listed below:

i. Comminuted Fracture – It refers toa bone injury in which there is more than 2 separate bone components, that is resulting in multiple fragments which is termed as comminuted fracture. The fracture also has specific names known as butterfly fragment and segmental fracture.

ii. Delayed Union Fracture – Delayed union fracture occurs in which bone healing does not take place at an expected time period. The bone union that has elapsed does not mean that it is permanent and the bone repair is not possible because it has become a nonunion. Delayed union mainly occurs because of problems such as inadequate immobilization, inadequate reduction, distraction, infection and loss of blood supply.

iii. Greenstick Fracture – Ina greenstick fracture a bone bends and cracks but does not break completely into separate pieces. It is common in children because they have soft and flexible bones. In some cases it becomes difficult to diagnose as a child may not be in severe pain and swelling and also the child is in full motion.
iv. Malunion Fracture – Ina Malunion fracture a breakage in the bone heals in an unacceptable position that lead to significant impairment. In this the bone is bent at a certain angle.

v. Metal Plate for Fracture - Metal plates has been used for a very long time for internal fixation of fractures. By the passing time an initial shortcoming that includes corrosion and insufficient strength have been overcome but the recent designs have not solved all the problems.

vi. Nonunion Fracture - Every fracture has the fear that it may not heal on time and becoming a nonunion. It can occur in any bone, but most commonly in the tibia, talus, humerus and fifth metatarsal bone.

vii. Oblique Fracture - An oblique fracture is a type of a break that has a fracture line that runs diagonal towards the bone shaft. It is similar to spiral fractures.

viii. Pins for Fracture - Pins are used to hold the pieces of bone together. It is used on small bones that cannot be fixed with the help of the screws. The pins are removed after a certain period but in some fractures may be left inside permanently.

ix. Screw for Fracture - The screws are used for internal fixation of a bone. It can be used to hold a fracture and also with rods, plates or nails. It may be designed for a specific type of fracture.

x. Spiral Fracture - A spiral fracture is caused by a twisting force, also known as torsion fractures that refer to the forces responsible to create a spiral fracture. It is difficult to treat a spiral fracture as the break is helical.

xi. Transverse Fracture - A transverse fracture is that in which the bone is completely broken in a way that is perpendicular to the way a bone runs. To understand this, forearm can be used to indicate a bone break essentially the break crosses the bone completely as a result the bone is separated into two pieces.

Bone Fractures Symptoms

When a fracture takes place a person experiences various symptoms and report to a doctor. In this, pain is a common symptom, whereas a rash is a sign. The signs and symptoms of a fracture differ according to the bone that is affected.
The symptoms of a bone fracture include swelling, discoloration of the skin around the affected area, pain, bruising, angulation of the affected area, the affected area cannot move, feel pain on putting weight on the area that is injured, bleeding if it is open fracture and grating sensation in the affected joint.

Bone Fracture Prevention
Bone fractures can be prevented. You have to take steps and follow these safety precautions given below:

• Don’t ride a vehicle without wearing a seat belt.
• Wear helmet and other safety equipment for doing the activities like contact sport, riding bikes or snowboarding.
• Walk properly while climbing stairs that can cause you to fall.
• Osteoporosis patients should perform regular exercise to improve the strength of the bones and also take calcium supplements suggested by a doctor.
• Don’t climb on a ladder unless someone holds it for you and avoid going on a top step.

Bone Fracture Treatments
For healing the bone fracture following treatments are used, which are as follows:

a. Splints – The process of splinting is used when the fracture of a bone occurs. It helps to fill the gaps between the limb as well as the splint material. It is done using sticks or other objects to make padding between the injured limb and splint by using a jacket or a shirt filled with grass or anything that can help to make the patient comfortable.

b. Braces – The braces such as knee braces are used to support the bone which is injured that helps to reduce pain. Some persons wear it to prevent knee injuries while playing sports. It is made up of a metal, straps, foam, plastic and elastic material.

c. Plaster cast – A plaster cast is applied to support the fractured bones of the arm or leg to place them properly and to heal the bones. You have to visit the doctor for regular check up to make sure that it is properly fitted or not.

d. Traction – For a complicated fracture a person needs a surgery or a surgical traction or sometimes both. But it is rare and is used to handle severe damage of the bones.

e. Surgically inserted metal rods and plates – When the bone is broken into pieces, metal rods and plates are inserted with the help of a surgery to bring the pieces of bone together.

Conclusion
Bone fracture can be treated with the help of the above effective treatment. But you should take care to prevent severe injuries to prevent it.

Bone Health - More Than Exercise And Consuming Calcium

We are seeing a huge rise in osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is said to affect at least half the population of women and two thirds the population of men. That's a huge number. The common advice we see when it comes to osteoporosis is consume more calcium and get more exercise. This is really quite poor advice because it doesn't take into account at all how the body works and individual needs. 

If you have osteoporosis or you are moving towards osteoporosis your body is breaking down bone for a reason. It's breaking down bone because it's trying to get calcium into your body. We tell people that they need to exercise more and this creates strong bones but the problem with this is that if you exercise you increase lactic acid. Lactic acid is a toxic to the body and this causes you to increase estrogen levels. Estrogen activates prolactin and prolactin breaks down bone. This means that if you doing the wrong type of exercise or over exercising your actually making your problem worse.

I know many people who exercise every day and have osteoporosis. I'm not saying exercise is bad you need to do the right of exercise for your needs at that particular time frame. You may just need to walk for a period of time and then slowly work your way up to light resistance training. The way you can tell if exercise is benefiting you or harming you is by taking your temperature 10 to 20 minutes after you exercise. We have all seen infomercials for calcium supplements and many people take these supplements yet people a lot of times can't even disgust and properly assimilate the calcium in the supplements. This is due not only to the poor quality of the calcium supplements but also due to people having a broken metabolism. When people have a broken metabolic rate they don't secrete adequate amounts of stomach acid to even digestive the calcium their taking. they're also much better sources of calcium that are a lot cheaper. Eggshells are a much easier source of calcium for the body to digest and are extremely inexpensive.

What you do is you take a eggshell and you cook it for 10 to 20 minutes. Then you take a coffee grinder and you grind it and you put in your coffee or tea. This is a excellent calcium supplement and costs you very little. The best source of calcium is milk. Things you can do to stimulate your metabolism and get your production of hydrochloric acid going light therapy, CO2 therapy through the use of bag breathing. You want to make sure to use a paper bag and you also want to make sure to not breath into the paper bag for more than a minute at a time. You want to be eating the right frequencies, ratios and timing of meals. All of these things are going to help you increase your metabolism which is going to help you digest the calcium your taking in and lower estrogen levels. Getting your metabolism going is going to help treat and reverse osteoporosis. You can see how there's more to osteoporosis then taking more calcium and exercising more.

I don't think the advice that were being given is working because were seeing the numbers of osteoporosis increase not decrease. The scary thing is that people younger and younger are getting osteoporosis. Some other things you can do to increase metabolism is meditation. Meditation can help increase CO2 levels which will lower prolactin. You can also take time to yourself throughout the day to do the things you love. You want to be going to bed early because you physical repair starts at around 10 PM. If you want to improve your symptoms of osteoporosis or prevent it from happening then you really have to live a healthy lifestyle. You need to give your body what it needs and understand how it works.

You don't want to be doing what everyone else is doing when it comes osteoporosis because what they're doing isn't working. Another point I'd like to make is that you lose a lot of minerals when you have a slow metabolism. These minerals actually help you to simulate calcium properly. Vitamin D is necessary for you to be able to utilize calcium. That means that if you're eating foods that are low in vitamin D and many foods are nowadays because the cows and other animals are not getting sunlight then your going to have trouble getting the full benefit from the calcium supplements or from your calcium rich foods. Your best source of vitamin D is sunlight and many people live in places where they don't have access to sunlight or they work in jobs that don't allow them to be outside. I know that may seem overwhelming to some people because there's so many things you can do to help improve bone health but my biggest suggestion for people is to start slow.

Take baby steps. You may just want to improve the quality of food you're eating You may want to seek out organic foods or better quality sugars like raw honey These foods will help increase your metabolism and get your digestion working properly. From there you can start bringing in more eggshells and milk into your diet. This will then help you digest and assimilate calcium. If you just drink a lot of milk and eggshells but eat a terrible diet of non-organic foods then you're really not going to get the full benefit from the calcium your eating or supplementing. It's pretty simple inflammation of any kind is going to inhibit your body's ability to absorb calcium. You need to live a healthy lifestyle in order to have good bone health. We like to take many shortcuts when it comes to our health.

We want to take supplements instead of eating healthy foods. The thing is though a lot times in life the shortcuts are not foolproof solutions. We need to stop being lazy and start doing the work now. You want to start eating healthy foods like grass fed meats, raw honey, organic fruits and vegetables. You also want to eat things like grass fed organic milk. These are the foods that are good for you and will help you improve bone health. You’re not going to get good bone health just by exercising or by taking crappy calcium supplement's. In conclusion, there's a lot more to bone health then what most people realize.

You want to change your diet for the better in order to have the best bone health possible and prevent yourself from dealing with osteoporosis.