Urgent Care for Musculoskeletal Disorders Treatment Q&A

Musculoskeletal disorders are a range of conditions that affect your body’s movement and musculoskeletal system, including your muscles, nerves, tendons, ligaments, joints, cartilage, blood vessels, spinal discs, and other related structures. These disorders can result in pain, physical disability, and decreased mobility.

Musculoskeletal disorders can arise from a variety of causes, such as repetitive body movements, trauma, age-related degeneration, obesity, autoimmune disorders, or genetic predispositions.

The diagnosis of musculoskeletal disorders typically involves a physical examination and imaging studies such as X-rays or MRIs. Depending on the specific condition and its severity, our team may recommend various treatments, including medications, physical therapy, or, in severe cases, surgery. It is also important to highlight the significance of rest, along with lifestyle adjustments like maintaining a healthy weight and incorporating regular exercise.

Musculoskeletal disorders most commonly affect the upper limbs, neck, and lower back, and can significantly impact daily life and overall quality of life.

Pain, the primary symptom of these disorders, can range from mild discomfort to severe, incapacitating pain. Whether it’s localized pain in the back or neck or generalized pain. Stiffness, another common symptom of musculoskeletal disorders, can restrict your joint’s full range of motion, making it difficult to move. Inflammation often accompanies stiffness, visible through swelling.

Muscle weakness can make everyday tasks challenging, leading to muscle fatigue and difficulty in walking, grasping objects, or lifting. Numbness or tingling due to nerve compression or damage is another symptom of musculoskeletal disorders that we can address. In severe cases, musculoskeletal disorders can cause joint deformity, affecting mobility.

Urgent care clinics are equipped to provide swift medical care for sudden injuries, including sprains, strains, fractures, and more. Whether it’s a fall, sports accident, or motor vehicle accident, we’re ready to help you recover.

They treat a large number of overuse injuries, including tendinitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, tennis elbow, and golfer elbow. These injuries can be debilitating due to repetitive motion or overuse of certain body parts, and urgent care can deliver prompt and effective treatment.

Urgent care clinics can also cater to patients with chronic conditions like arthritis, osteoporosis, and bursitis. Joint pain and swelling such as knee pain, shoulder pain, back pain, ankle sprains, neck pain, hamstring strains, calf cramps, and muscle knots can be routinely treated. Conditions that cause headaches and migraines like tension headaches, migraines, and cluster headaches can also be managed.

If your primary care physician is unavailable and you’re dealing with a non-life-threatening yet urgent musculoskeletal issue, consider visiting an urgent care clinic.

Seek urgent care services if you’re experiencing:

• Persistent severe pain that over-the-counter pain relievers cannot alleviate.
• Unsubsiding swelling, redness, warmth, or bruising around a joint.
• Difficulty moving a joint or bearing weight on a limb.
• Pain accompanied by a popping or snapping sound in a joint.
• A sudden onset of pain following an injury or fall such as strains, sprains, or fractures.

Urgent care clinics can provide care for:

• Fractures: Any bone break, particularly if it’s open or involves a weight-bearing bone.

• Dislocations: Instances where a bone is displaced from its socket, causing intense pain and deformity.

• Tendon or ligament ruptures: These can lead to severe pain and limited mobility.

• Severe sprains: Injuries to ligaments that cause significant pain and instability.

• Chronic conditions: Conditions like arthritis that cause a flare-up resulting in intense pain, redness, warmth, or swelling unmanageable with over-the-counter medications.

The process begins with a thorough review of the patient’s medical history. Time is taken to understand your past medical conditions, surgeries, lifestyle, and other relevant factors. This information helps identify any risk factors or triggers that might contribute to musculoskeletal disorders.

Following the comprehensive medical history review, a detailed physical examination is conducted. Highly trained doctors are adept at identifying the signs and symptoms of musculoskeletal disorders. They evaluate the patient’s range of motion, flexibility, muscle strength, joint stability, and overall physical health.

Depending on the suspected diagnosis, advanced diagnostic tools like X-rays, MRI, or CT scans may be utilized. These imaging studies help visualize the structure of your bones, joints, and muscles and can reveal any abnormalities that might be causing your symptoms. To establish an accurate diagnosis, our healthcare specialists take all of these factors into consideration. They also employ differential diagnosis to rule out other conditions that may mimic musculoskeletal disorders, such as neurological or vascular problems. We encourage everyone to visit us online to learn more about our services and to sign up for our special offers – you will be glad you did! We serve patients from El Paso TX, Horizon City TX, Lee Trevino Drive TX, Fort Bliss TX, Mission Valley TX, Resler Canyon TX, Alfalfa TX, Montwood TX, and BEYOND!