Hi my (pen!)name is Ishka and I'm a 30 years old Orthopaedic surgeon
I'm going to make a series of blog post regarding simplifing complex surgical and medical terms.my ultimate goal is helping regular people to understand what's all these surgical and medical mumbo jumbo is all about!
This is the first part so we will start with basic
Part 1
In this part you will learn
What is Orthopaedic
What is trauma and it's different types
What is a bone fracture and it's deadly result: compartment syndrom
First what is Orthopaedic surgery?it includes of 2 things : Orthopaedic and Trauma
Trauma is self explanatory.it's when a patient having an accident like falling down (FD) , pedestrian car accidents (PCA) , pedestrian motor accidents (PMA) , Car turn over(CTO) , etc...
Limbs and Spine problems that does not occur because of trauma fall in orthopaedic category like congenital diseases and such
Now trauma itself have 2 category of high energy and low energy trauma.why it is important?because low energy trauma usually doesn't mean bone fractures.so if a patient having fracture from low energy trauma that means their bones are not "normal".they could have tumors,cancers,weak bones and such
Now we reach fun parts!bone fractures!
Fractures often happen in response to trauma but they can happen spontaneously too.we call the latter pathologic fractures.imagin walking around your home and suddenly your leg snaps in half! that's what a pathologic fracture is and they are often with pathologic condition s.like cancers and congenital diseases and such
Fractures usually follow by pain, swelling,tenderness and sensitivity to touch
Now the first and most obvious sign of fracture is pain.usually an immense pain that stop patient from using that limb completely.this is actually a great defense mechanism by body because it stops further damaging the limb.the reason is, when a bone fracture happen,usually other tissues are damaged as well and one of the most important one is vascular system.vascular system transfer blood inside your body so when the vessels are damaged,blood keeps pouring in tissue.the more you use your fractured limb,the more blood will gather in tissue and compress the surrounding muscles.if these muscle keep getting compressed vessels become completely blocked by pressure from outside blood and muscles.when that happens no more blood reach to muscles and other cells no blood means no food and no food means death!and just like that you can easily lose your whole limb if you don't stabilize it.this is called compartment syndrome and it's a really really serious condition that should be treated urgently
This is end of part 1.in part 2 I will talk about types of splint and cast for each limb and the ways to make a makeshift splint to stabilize a fractured bone
If you got any question wether it's related to this topic or medicine in general let me know in comments below
Thanks
