Urgent Care vs ER: Sedation for Broken Bones
Broken bones are unfortunately a common occurrence, with statistics showing just under 2 million people suffer bones every year in the U.S alone. If it is due to high force impact accidents such as falls, car crashes, fights, sports related impacts, work related impacts, among others as well as other causes of bone breaks like bone cancer, people are exposed to situations on the daily that exposes them to bone breaks. The trauma associated with broken bones means that folks are likely to be sedated when they seek medical attention so that they can be attended to. The question that now arises is where should one go for sedation if they have suffered a broken bone? Should they head over to urgent care or should they head to an emergency room? Well, this article will look to help in answering that question by highlighting the circumstances under which one should visit urgent care and the circumstances to head over to an ER, with the hope that it will help you in making the right decision when the situation arises.
One thing to have in mind when you think you have a suspected broken bone is that urgent cares are usually not equipped to provide patients with sedation. Due to the pain associated with broken bones, sedation is crucial if the medical practitioners are to attend to any broken bones and fractures or even dislocations. It therefore means they can’t be able to get you sedated so that they can be able to work on the part of your arm that is broken, align it and attend to it. With this in mind, it is recommended that only folks with sprains, strains, minor bone breaks and fractures should head over to urgent care, with frontlineer.com being the best place to visit, to be attended to. This is because these types of injuries are right into the alley of urgent cares which have facilities to take X-rays and set casts. As far as extremities such as the arms and legs are concerned, it is important to check if you can be able to move the fingers or toes after suffering a bone break. If you can, then you can head over to urgent care. If you can’t, then the ER is where you should head to.
The important point to note here is if the bone break is not severe and ii only involves the hand, wrist, ankle, arm or foot, then you can head over to urgent care and you will be attended to. This is because these injuries will only need an X-ray to diagnose as discussed above, and in most cases won’t need sedation. They also don’t require surgery but only require alignment of the bones and setting of the cast. If the bone break in these extremities is severe however, one should head to an ER not urgent care. Bottom line is, if you have broken bone injuries that may require sedation, then you should head over to the ER. This is because while urgent care physicians can still provide boots, braces among other broken bone supports, they don’t have facilities for sedation nor do they have CT scans for diagnosis of more severe broken bones.
As discussed above, severe bone breaks on the extremities should be attended to at ERs. If the bone breaks are in other body parts other than the extremities such as the spine, pelvis, skull, sternum, ribs, or multiple body fractures should all be attended to at the ER. Some of the symptoms to look out for include heavy uncontrollable bleeding at the site of the injury, if you have bone protruding through the skin, there is visible deformity at the site of the injury, there is a bluish color and swelling at the site of the injury or if there is numbness or one losses movement completely of the injured area. The ER is recommended for the above scenarios, with frontlineer.com being the pick of the bunch to visit, as it not only has X-ray and CT scan facilities, it also has sedation and pain medication facilities as well as facilities for when surgery is required. Most of the bone breaks listed above, those that don’t involve extremities, won’t be able to be fixed with a cast. Surgery is therefore required, which comes with sedation, a facility only available in ERs. The surgery allows for rods, plates, metal screws or pins to be implanted in order to hold the broken bones in place. Other broken bones such as the tailbone, ribs among others can only be attended to in ERs as they only require pain medication and time to heal on their own, with urgent cares not having these pain medications to offer, nor the CT scan to diagnose. Bone alignment also requires sedation as it can be extremely painful and as such it is a procedure only done in ERs not urgent care.
As is clear from the above discussion, if you have suffered a bone break that may require sedation to treat, then you are best served by going straight to an ER, with frontlineer.com being the best place to visit, since even if you were to go to an urgent care, you will just be referred to an ER which is the one that has facilities for sedation.
