What injury heals the slowest?

Asked by: Ora Cassin DDS  |  Last update: April 9, 2025
Score: 4.6/5 (47 votes)

Ligaments, nerves and wounds in areas with more movement heal the slowest. Injuries to these areas have a longer recovery time because of poor blood circulation and constant motion stress.

What injury takes the longest to heal?

5 Top Sports Injuries that Can Take Months to Heal
  • Torn ACL. The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of the major knee ligaments that is essential to leg movement and knee stability. ...
  • Torn Achilles Tendon. ...
  • Complex Bone Fracture. ...
  • Hamstring Strains. ...
  • Shin Splints. ...
  • Sports Injuries Treatments in San Antonio, Texas.

Which of the following would heal the slowest?

Nerves typically take the longest, healing after 3-4 months. Cartilage takes about 12 weeks to heal. Ligaments take about 10-12 weeks to heal. Bones take about 6-8 weeks to heal on average.

Which type of wound is extremely slow to heal?

A skin wound that doesn't heal, heals slowly or heals but tends to recur is known as a chronic wound. Some of the many causes of chronic (ongoing) skin wounds can include trauma, burns, skin cancers, infection or underlying medical conditions such as diabetes. Wounds that take a long time to heal need special care.

Which fracture heals slowest?

Fracture Type: Simple fractures generally heal faster than complex ones. Comminuted fractures, where the bone is shattered into multiple pieces, take longer to heal. Location: The healing time can vary depending on where the fracture is located.

Comparison: Fastest Healing Wounds

44 related questions found

What injuries heal the slowest?

What Part of the Body Heals the Slowest? Ligaments, nerves and wounds in areas with more movement heal the slowest. Injuries to these areas have a longer recovery time because of poor blood circulation and constant motion stress.

What bone takes the longest to heal?

Your femur — the leg bone between your hip and knee — is the longest, heaviest and strongest bone in your body. It takes tremendous force to break your femur. If you break your femur, you will need immediate medical help. Your broken femur can take months to heal.

What kind of wound takes the longest to heal?

If your wound is large or deep, it may take longer to heal. And if you have lots of tissue damage, your body may need more time to fully recover. Larger or deeper wounds heal faster when treated by your doctor. When your doctor closes a wound using stitches, it reduces the area that your body needs to work at healing.

What is the hardest wound to heal?

An example of a hard-to-heal wound is a pressure ulcer, otherwise known as bedsore. These form on bony prominences, usually in cases where people are immobilized for extended periods of time such as people who are injured or the elderly.

Are there wounds that never heal?

Arterial ischemic ulcers are nonhealing wounds that occur because of poor circulation in your arteries. Without an adequate supply of oxygen-rich blood to a specific area, the cells and tissue in the area die, causing these nonhealing ulcers.

What body part heals fastest?

Wounds in the oral cavity heal faster and with less scarring than wounds in other parts of the body. One of the factors implicated in this phenomenon is the presence of saliva, which promotes the healing of oral wounds in several ways.

What is the disease where you heal slowly?

Slow-healing wounds, including leg and foot ulcers, can be a complication of autoimmune inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), lupus and scleroderma. Normally, even serious wounds heal in three months or less, but for many people with arthritis, healing can take much longer.

What makes bones heal slower?

Just like certain foods promote bone healing, some hinder it. These foods, known as bone robbers, hinder your body's ability to absorb calcium and vitamins. In some cases, they may cause your body to pull nutrients from the bones. Foods to avoid include foods high in sugar or salt, red meat, alcohol, and caffeine.

What is the hardest injury to heal?

But injuries like torn ACLs, herniated discs, compound fractures, and dislocated joints are often considered among the most painful and challenging to recover from.

What injuries Cannot heal?

Although many non-healing wounds share common characteristics; there are four main categories of chronic injuries:
  • Pressure ulcers. These types of wounds affect the skin and underlying tissue and are most often a result of prolonged pressure on the skin. ...
  • Diabetic ulcers. ...
  • Venous ulcers. ...
  • Arterial ulcers.

What is a lifelong injury called?

A long-term injury, also known as a residual injury, is any medical problem that involves lingering symptoms or limitations. Long-term injuries include permanent disabilities. However, you could still have a long-term injury even if you aren't considered to be permanently disabled.

What cut is slowest to heal?

The type, size, and severity of a wound can affect how quickly it heals — shallow cuts heal more quickly than deep lacerations, clean wounds heal faster than infected ones, and linear wounds tend to improve more quickly than round ones.

What is the most painful wound?

A burn injury is one of the most painful injuries a person can endure, and the subsequent wound care required to treat it is often more painful than the initial trauma [1]. Severe burn injuries are almost always treated in surgical units and preferably in multidisciplinary burn centers.

What tissue is the hardest to heal?

Cartilage is avascular, meaning that it has no blood supply. The lack of blood circulation in cartilage means that it is a very slow-healing type of tissue.

What is a slow healing wound?

Unfortunately, that's not necessarily true. Chronic wounds can linger for weeks, even months, and in many cases don't heal without medical intervention. A wound is considered chronic if it has not healed significantly in four weeks or completely in eight weeks.

Does drinking alcohol slow wound healing?

It has now been proven that repeated exposure to alcohol, particularly at binge levels, reduces the levels of certain components of the immune system essential to healing. Drinking large amounts of alcohol reduces the amount of white blood cells called macrophages that chew up the bacteria and debris.

What injury takes the longest to recover from?

Chronic injuries occur from the overuse of a single body area. However, acute injuries occur suddenly when a person twists a joint, blows, or falls. A torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is the hardest sports injury that takes more recovery time. It is usually 12 months.

Which bone never heals?

A nonunion, delayed union, or malunited fracture may occur in any bone, but these conditions are most common in the humerus, or upper arm, and the tibia, or lower leg.