Common injuries – whether you’re a clutz or not -- and how to take care of them

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It’s easy to twist an ankle or sprain your knee, whether you’re athletic or not. You can slip on the stairs or step wrong off the curb, causing everything to go downhill relatively fast. It’s not uncommon to get injured, but sometimes people don’t know how to take care of themselves when they are injured. This can be problematic, as it can take a minor injury and turn it serious rather quickly. 

There are a few simple steps to taking care of yourself; however, if it doesn’t get any better, you should seek medical attention. 

Step 1: Avoid using the injured area for a little while

If you’ve sprained your ankle, try not to walk on it for a little bit. If you’ve sprained your wrist, don’t use that hand as much as you normally would, if at all. Overusing an injured part of your body can worsen the injury rather than help it. 

Step 2: Ice the injury 

You can get ice practically anywhere, and when you have hurt yourself, that flexibility is a saving grace. You can purchase a personal ice bag at Walgreens or Walmart for relatively cheap, so that way you don’t have to use plastic bags and you’re not participating in slowly damaging the environment. 

Step 3: Wrap the injured area

An ace bandage is something to keep handy whether you get injured a lot or not. There are different ways to wrap every part of your body, so you can easily Google a tutorial for whatever you have injured. However, an actual brace might help more than an ace bandage, and they aren’t that much more, money-wise. 

These are the three simplest things you can do when you have hurt yourself. After a couple days, you should be good to go. However, if the pain lasts longer and there’s no sign of improvement, you should be seeking medical attention, as the injury might be much, much worse than you originally anticipated.