Do I Need Crutches ?

Have you recently hurt yourself? Are you suffering from a painful or somewhat debilitating injury or illness? Is it affecting your mobility? If the answer is a solid yes to these questions, consider asking yourself a question. “Do I need crutches?” This helpful article will explain when you should think about using crutches.

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When Exactly Do You Need Crutches?

The biggest question those with injuries or illnesses ask is if they should use crutches. It can be hard to determine if a medical mobility device like crutches will help you recover. Usually, using this medical device will depend on the injury you have.

Essentially crutches are used by people who need to keep weight off of an injured leg or foot. There are many different kinds of crutches. Yet, people with foot or leg injuries usually use non-weight-bearing crutches.

What Injuries Need You To Use Crutches?

Below we have shown a few of the injuries that often need non-weight-bearing crutches. By using crutches in the short or long term, you will heal faster and ease the mobility issues you are facing.

However, before deciding, you should consider speaking to your doctor. Some people with lower-body injuries shouldn’t use crutches.

Broken Ankles

One of the most frequently used crutches situation is broken ankles. In most instances, if you have a broken ankle, you will need to use more than one medical mobility aid.

This means you could need to use aids. Aids such as moon boots, crutches, splints, and casts simultaneously. For a broken ankle injury, you can expect to use crutches for around six to ten weeks.

Forefoot Fractures

Forefoot fractures are also called metatarsal fractures. They are injuries that don’t often need surgery but do need mobility aids to heal. If you have a forefoot fracture, you need to keep your weight off of it if you want it to heal.

This type of injury will have a varied healing time as it will depend on its seriousness. On average, a forefoot fracture can heal in a few weeks if you use crutches.

Stress Fractures

If you are suffering from a painful stress fracture, you are likely in pain. Most stress fracture injuries happen when a leg bone incurs repeated force. It takes time to diagnose a stress fracture because these injuries can be complex. Yet, they are not too hard to treat.

Using crutches will let you keep your weight off your stress fracture. This will enable you to heal faster. Most stress fracture injuries take six to eight weeks to heal.

Tibia Fractures

Tibia fractures are one of the most complicated leg injuries a person can sustain. You can fracture your tibia in many different ways. If you have an oblique, comminuted, spiral, or stable fracture, you are going to need crutches to heal fast.

Unfortunately, tibia fractures take a while to heal. So you may need to use crutches for four to six months, if not longer, if you want a speedier recovery.

Pulled Muscles

Another common injury that requires you to use crutches is pulled muscles. Pulled muscles are comparable to muscle strain injuries. They can vary in severity from minor to severe.

Fortunately, these types of injuries heal fairly quick if diagnosed early. You can recover from minor pulled muscles in three to six weeks.

Sprained Ankles

We spoke of broken ankles before. Yet another injury associated with your ankle also requires you to use crutches. Using crutches will help sprained ankles heal faster. Sprained ankles usually occur when the ligaments in your ankle are strained.

Luckily sprained ankles don’t have a long recovery time and usually heal within one to three weeks.

ACL Injuries

Your anterior cruciate ligament is a specific band of tissue. This ligament connects your thigh bone (femur) to your shinbone (tibia). Do you have an ACL tear, either partial or complete? If so, it’s likely to be one of the most painful injuries you will experience.

With this injury, your knee will swell up and cause you to be unable to move. How long your ACL injury takes to heal will depend on how severe you tore it.

In most instances, if surgery is required, you will need to use crutches for six to nine months. Crutches will help the ACL injury heal completely.

Hip Dislocations

For most people, it will take a significant force for a hip to dislocate. Often a hip dislocation occurs in severe falls and car accidents. When a hip is dislocated, your femoral head is pushed either forward or backward out of the socket.

After you have suffered a hip dislocation injury, there are different treatment options. They could include surgery and the use of mobility aid like crutches.You will need to use these aids for two to three months while you recover.

Achilles Tendon Ruptures

An Achilles tendon injury occurs at the back of your heel and will cause you to walk flat-footed. This injury occurs if you have placed a sudden force on your foot or ankle. Depending on how badly you have ruptured the Achilles tendon in your foot, you may have to have surgery.

To promote healing, most doctors will advise you to use crutches. Achilles tendon ruptures can take between four months and a year to totally heal.

Do Crutches Help With Pain?

Crutches are one of the best mobility aids you can use if you are experiencing pain. In particular, crutches are handy for lower-body injuries and illnesses that reduce mobility.

When you use crutches, you reduce the amount of pressure felt on your body’s nerves and the lower parts of your body. Additionally, properly adjusted crutches will also reduce pain in other areas. Areas such as your upper arms, underarms, and wrists.

Crutches will also help prevent you from feeling pain from standing for long periods. Below we have listed the types of pain that crutches help alleviate.

Can Doctors Prescribe Crutches?

Before you buy crutches for your injury or illness, you should consult a doctor. A doctor can prescribe you crutches. However, they will first look at the criteria surrounding your injury or illness. One of the factors they will consider is if crutches will reduce your mobility issues or worsen them.

Sometimes a doctor may decide that a different type of mobility aid would better suit you. Have you experienced one of the injuries we have discussed? If so, you will likely find that your doctor will prescribe crutches. By using crutches, you will heal faster and manage any pain you could be experiencing better.

Final Words

Whether to use crutches or not will depend on your needs, injury, and illness. It will also depend on your preference and doctor’s advice.

Ultimately, first, speak with your doctor about your injury or illness. If they have suggested you use a mobility aid, crutches could be ideal. Crutches will aid the healing of your injury faster and help manage the pain you experience.