What is bursitis?
Bursitis is a common sports-related injury and can also be an occupational hazard if one’s job requires repetitive motions over extended periods. A bursa is a fluid-filled sac inside the joint; it lies between a joint bone and the muscle or tendon that covers it, and serves as padding or a shock-absorber, protecting the soft tissue from damage due to friction against the hard bone. In vigorous or repetitive movement, the friction of the bone on the bursa can cause inflammation of the sac, leading to pain and swelling. This condition is called bursitis and can occur in any joint. Shoulders, knees and elbows are the most common sites of bursitis. Common bursitis is caused by overuse of the muscle covering the bursa. Infectious bursitis is a condition in which the bursa itself becomes infected. If the pain of common bursitis is accompanied by fever or swollen glands, infectious bursitis is a possibility. Such cases should be treated by a doctor, usually with antibiotics. Some cases of inf
From your head down to your big toes, your body has lots of differently shaped and sized joints. Many have something in common near the area of the joint — a customized fluid sac that provides cushioning for movement and pressure. These small cushions are known as bursae (a single one is called a bursa). If a bursa becomes irritated, either by a direct hit or from a nearby joint repeating the same movement (like a tennis serve), then bursitis can occur. People can also get bursitis when the body has to change its balance or movement to adapt to differences; for example, if a person has one leg that’s longer than the other.
Bursitis is inflammation of a bursa. A bursa (the plural form is bursae) is a tiny fluid-filled sac that functions as a gliding surface to reduce friction between tissues of the body. There are 160 bursae in the body. The major bursae are located adjacent to the tendons near the large joints, such as the shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees. What causes a bursa become inflamed? A bursa can become inflamed from injury, infection (rare in the shoulder), or due to an underlying rheumatic condition. Examples of bursitis include injury as subtle as lifting a bag of groceries into the car to inflame the shoulder bursa (shoulder bursitis), infection of the bursa in front of the knee from a knee scraping on asphalt (septic prepatellar bursitis), and inflammation of the elbow bursa from gout crystals (gouty olecranon bursitis). How is bursitis diagnosed? Bursitis is typically identified by localized pain or swelling, tenderness, and pain with motion of the tissues in the affected area. X-ray test
