Like all athletes, the cowboys at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo are exposed to situations that could easily land them in their local urgent care center for sports related injuries. A 2007 Reuter’s article says that “Knee and shoulder injuries are most common” (Reuters Health, 2007).

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo boasts many classic rodeo events where the most protective thing the athlete is wearing are jeans, a flannel shirt, and a cowboy hat. They lack the basic head protection afforded to many pro-atheletes in other sports like football and baseball. This sitation is ironic, considering that a football linebacker is significantly less of a threat than an angry bull. As a result, the same mentioned article also reports that “Concussions account for nearly 9 percent of all bull riding injuries” (Reuters Health, 2007).

List of Common Injuries

As always, untrained people should never attempt the feats that professional rodeo athletes “make look so easy.” Rodeo injuries, like most physical trauma, may result in chronic conditions that take years from which to recover.

If your loved one gets a little “carried away” this Rodeo season, your local urgent care center in Houston is available with onsite x-ray to diagnose and treat non-critical injuries.

Blood clots show that platelets are doing their job

Sometimes, accidents happen during Christmas season. You may cut your finger open when preparing a holiday meal. However, you know that if you are a healthy individual, the cut will form a blood clot and start to heal on its own, even without medical care from your local urgent care center.

When a patient discusses tissues, organs and organ systems, often they forget that blood is a vital tissue as well. Blood consists of three cells which circulate in plasma: white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets.

Blood clots rely on a blood cell known as a platelet. Platelets are fragments from a bone marrow cell, and they are responsible for the human body’s most basic injury care function: closing the skin to keep from bleeding excessively and to keep pathogens out of the body. 

 Platelets are the key component to coagulation, aka thickening the blood in places where blood and oxygen meet. Additionally, platelets present bleeding when the skin is not broken because they prevent blood leakage in capillaries (the smallest blood vessels). This function- regulating bleeding- is why platelets are critical to human survival.

What happens when the skin gets injured?

Superficial blood clotting occurs in stages:

The human body’s processes for injury care have more stages than most non-medical professionals are aware of. Any defects at any of these clotting stages- like Von Willebrand’s disease or hemophilia- should be treated by a Hematologist (a doctor who specializes in blood disorders). However, for minor emergencies like large lacerations that happened when you fell off the ladder when hanging Christmas lights, see your local urgent care center in Houston to help your body with what it already does best.

-Carolyn A. Medrano

West Oaks Urgent Care