Injured bicep, need help quick!
Hey everyone – during baseball yesterday I slid head first back to first base and jammed my arm against it. Now, my bicep hurts and I can barley throw. Should I apply a muscle relaxer such as Rub A535 or something similar to that and still play? Or take it easy and apply heat to prevent any further injury? Any help would be greatly appreciated. If I need to go on a rehab programme for my arm, let me know what I can do…I need my arm healed VERY quickly(but I think thats not going to happen because I think I really hurt myself this time) Thanks again.
– Steve –
1 Comment found
runnerchick
Does your arm look bruised? When I first read your post, a contusion was the first thing that came to my mind. However, if you can’t see any discoloration then you may have a bicep strain. You should probably have this checked out by your athletic trainer to make sure that you didn’t fracture your arm, especially if you are in a lot of pain.
As for now, the best thing to do would be to ice. Your body can only begin the healing process after all the fluid and junk from the initial inflammation is gone. Idealy, you would have put ice on your arm right away, which would have stopped the injured tissue from bleeding and lead to less inflammation. However, since your injury only occured recently, I’d say that ice would most certainly benefit you. DO NOT use heat. Heat will bring additional blood to the injury site and cause excess bleeding, clearly doing more harm than good early on. I’d wait 4-5 days or until your arm seems to be on the way to being heal until using heat. You might also want to consider using a compression wrap–ACE bandage—for compressiong and a sling to help support your arm. As far as when to go back to playing, it is always best to wait until you have no pain. Even then, make sure to pay attention that you don’t alter your throwing form! one of my frineds who plays softball experienced chronic bicep tendonitis after returning from a bicep injury too soon, which caused her to thro differently than before her injury.
I hope that this helps!
runnerchick