When you’ve fallen and sprained your wrist or sustained a soft tissue injury to your wrist in another way, you’re likely in pain and feeling restricted because of the limited movement. Even if you want to use your wrist like normal, it could hurt too badly to move.
Soft tissue damage, unfortunately, can take some time to heal. Without letting yourself recover, you could sustain permanent damage in your wrist. Here’s what you need to know about how soft tissue injury wrist recovery time and how long you may need to give yourself before you can comfortably use your wrist as you normally would.
Soft Tissue Injuries and their Symptoms
Soft tissue injuries, also known as sprains, strains, and bruises, can take a long time to heal because they occur in a person’s tendons and ligaments. While you might think breaking a bone would take longer to heal, that’s typically not the case. Since tissues like tendons and ligaments are soft, the injury causes small tears in the tissue, or these can be complete tears if the damage was bad enough.
It can be hard to diagnose damage to tissues because other than bruising, they don’t appear on the surface. Sometimes they don’t even show up on X-rays, which makes them hard to diagnose and can take even longer to heal.
These tears need time and immobility to heal, so in a soft tissue injury to your wrist, you likely will have to immobilize it to keep it from moving.
There are many ways you could have endured a deep tissue injury to your wrist. It could have happened from overuse, a fall, or direct impact to your wrist. Situations like car accidents, slip and falls, and pedestrian accidents could all lead to this type of injury.
Another sign you sustained a soft tissue injury to your hand and wrist are these symptoms in the area:
- Pain
- Swelling
- Redness
- Bruising
- Heat from the area
- Stiffness
- Loss of mobility
These all point to the fact that you need to recover. But what is the deep tissue injury healing time, and how long will it take? Let’s take a look at the healing process and what the recovery time might look like for a soft tissue injury to the wrist.
How to Heal a Wrist Soft Tissue Injury
Getting a diagnosis is one of the most important first steps of a soft tissue injury, especially to your wrist. If you think you’re hurt but you’re still using your hand and wrist like normal, you could be causing yourself even more damage and just extending your recovery time further and further.
At the end of the day, how long it takes for your soft tissue injury to recover depends on you and your diligence. According to UPMC, the most effective way to heal damage to your soft tissues is the RICE method within 72 hours of your injury. RICE stands for rest, ice, compression, and elevation. You can also take anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen to help with the pain and swelling. When you do this regularly, you can heal most efficiently. However, it’s still going to take time.
In the best-case scenario, soft tissue damage recovery time is around 6 weeks. That might seem like it’s a long time, but comparatively, six weeks is a lot shorter than having pain for the rest of your life. You could start feeling normal again in as little as two weeks, but you need to be careful still—it likely isn’t fully healed until at least six weeks.
If you still have symptoms, that could mean you’re not fully healed. Depending on the severity, it might take up to three months to fully recover. If there was a complete tear of the tissue and you needed surgery, then this recovery time could extend even further.
It’s best to talk to your doctor to get the most accurate estimation of how long your recovery should take.
Activities to Avoid Doing with a Soft Tissue Injury to Your Wrist
If you’re experiencing pain, delayed swelling after injury, or any other symptoms of a deep tissue injury to your wrist, then you should avoid actions that could potentially cause your wrist more harm and prolong healing.
Here are some things you should avoid doing when you have soft tissue damage to your wrist and hand:
- Using your hand and wrist
- Ignoring the pain
- Delaying seeing a doctor
- Drinking alcohol
- Massaging your damaged tissues
- Applying heat
- Smoking
Taking care of your injury from the moment you suspect you’re hurt can help ensure that you have the fastest recovery time possible. Seeking medical attention as soon as you think you’re hurt is the best way to heal your deep tissue injury.
McMath Woods P.A. Can Help You Recover
If you’ve sustained a wrist soft tissue injury from an accident caused by someone else’s negligence, then you may be able to take legal action to recover financially from the damages they’ve caused. At McMath Woods P.A., we’re dedicated to getting you the justice you deserve after someone else wrongfully hurts you.
Our personal injury lawyers will meet with you to discuss your legal options and get started on your claim right away if you are eligible to file one. Reach out to our office to schedule a free consultation.
