What to do if you have a broken toe?

Fractures are not unfamiliar to many people. Fractures may occur in many parts of the body, but toe fractures are relatively rare. Toes can also be fractured. When a toe is fractured, emergency measures must be taken to avoid aggravating the fracture. Fractures must be treated in combination with symptoms. So what should people do when their toes are fractured?

1. Western medicine

The typical symptoms of fracture patients are local deformation after injury, abnormal movement of limbs, bone friction sound when moving limbs, severe pain in the wound, local swelling, congestion, and movement disorders after injury. Move the patient as little as possible after the injury. If you need to move, you must move carefully, gently, and steadily, and do not increase the patient's pain. The ultimate goal of treating fractures is to restore the function of the injured limb to the greatest extent possible. Therefore, in the treatment of fractures, the three basic principles of reduction, fixation, and functional exercise are very important.

2. Reset:

It is to restore the displaced fracture ends to their normal or nearly normal positions to restore the support function of the bones. The reduction methods include closed reduction, surgical reduction, and external fixator reduction.

3. Fixed

After the fracture is reduced, it is unstable and prone to re-displacement, so different methods should be used to fix it in a satisfactory position so that it can gradually heal. Common fixation methods include: small splints, plaster bandages, external fixators, traction and braking fixation, etc. These are called external fixation. If a steel plate, steel needle, intramedullary nail, screw, etc. are placed through surgery, it is called internal fixation.

4. Functional exercise

By contracting the muscles of the injured limb, blood circulation in the tissues around the fracture is increased, fracture healing is promoted, and muscle atrophy is prevented. By actively or passively moving the unfixed joints, joint adhesion and joint capsule contracture are prevented, so that the function of the injured limb can be restored to its normal state before the fracture as soon as possible.