There is a saying called the butterfly effect. One small wing of a butterfly can make a variable, and the variable becomes larger and larger, causing a sensation in other areas. The same goes for our bodies. On a young day, he once sprained his ankle by stepping on the wrong foot while walking on the street, and the injury he suffered at this time may cause ankle arthritis in his old age.
(Picture from Unsplash)
Of course, it can be pointed out that many things are omitted between cause and effect. However, it is not difficult to find a case where the ankle sprain is left untreated and then developed into chronic instability, resulting in cartilage damage as the weakened ligaments cause sprains again, resulting in ankle arthritis in the future.
The ankle is a silent joint. You should not think that you have healed your walking after an ankle sprain, and you should recover your ankle ligament function well through rehabilitation treatment so that it does not develop into other diseases.
The problem is that it's already. It is hard to think that a person who left an ankle sprain unattended will be treated in time just because he or she has an ankle arthritis. However, ankle arthritis is a different level of problem. The cartilage has a non-recoverable property. Arthritis is a disease caused by worn out cartilage.
The thickness of the ankle cartilage is about 1 mm, which is very thin. So once it's damaged, it goes on quickly. You should suspect ankle cartilage damage when there is discomfort such as continuous pain and edema in the ankle, tenderness when pressed with your finger, and the degree of movement of the ankle joint decreases.
Artificial joint surgery should be performed when cartilage is irreversibly damaged. Of course, artificial joint replacement has recently developed and can be treated, but it is undesirable to use artificial joints through major surgery with completely disappearing self-carticles.
You can save your joints from the first to third stages of arthritis. If the degree of cartilage damage is weak, rehabilitation is performed. However, if the degree of cartilage damage is severe, cartilage regeneration is performed. Micro-perforation, which stimulates the bone marrow under the cartilage torn by endoscopy and secretes bone marrow stem cells to regenerate cartilage, is a typical treatment. It is simple, but the limitation is that the success rate of surgery is 70-80% and the regenerative cartilage is weaker than the original cartilage, he explained.
Recently, stem cell cartilage regeneration was introduced, which collects bone marrow from the pelvis, separates bone marrow stem cells, and covers cartilage damage by mixing bone marrow stem cells with collagen, and the success rate is 90%, higher than that of Micro-perforation.
If you are in a slightly worse condition, you may need to perform an osteotomy at the same time. In about the third stage, we need to correct the alignment of the twisted joints, move the weight load position, prevent cartilage from wearing out, and fix it by making cracks in the bones. The later the treatment period, the more difficult and burdensome the surgery will be, so it is a wise choice to discuss the treatment with an expert.
Writer: Stella Lim