"Health Beat"

Steady Steps Toe Hold

With the weather starting to cool off, nothing beats sitting around with a group of friends on a lazy Sunday watching football. Even though the players are wearing full pads, watching them getting hit and trampled on, you wonder how they get up.

Unfortunately, sometimes the players don’t get up on their own. Sometimes a player doesn’t realize they are sore until after the game. One injury I had never heard of until an announcer mentioned it is Turf Toe.

The official name is metatarsophalangeal joint sprain (yeah, I can barely pronounce it either). Even though Turf Toe is what it is called when it happens to the big toe, this can happen to any of the toes. Turf toe is named such because it mostly happens when playing sports on tough surfaces such as artificial turf. While it is common to football players, turf toe can happen to anybody.

Turf toe occurs when the toe is hyper-extended, or the toe is bent further than it is supposed to bend. This can happen in a number of different ways. One of the more common ways is when a player steps down on the toes, and another player hits their calf from behind.

While Turf Toe does not sound serious and it has a funny name. Turf toe can be a debilitating injury to anybody. Most football players have taken a month or more off to heal. There are a few things that can be done to help prevent Turf Toe. However, if you do get Turf Toe try this Toe Hold Toe Alignment Splint to help the recovery process.

If you should happen to get Turf Toe, don’t despair. While wearing the toe alignment splint people all over will be asking you what you did to yourself. Just think of the smiles you’ll get when you tell people that you have an injury with a name like Turf Toe.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2008 at 3:13 pm and is filed under Injuries, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.