Ask HN: How can I deal with chronic ligament and tendon injuries?
I love physical activities but I seem to get injured very easily.
I played tennis for a bit, now I have tennis elbow.
I did biking for a while, now I have IT band syndrome.
I tried swimming for while thinking it would be safe, now I have shoulder impingement.
I have had these injuries for decades and have gone to countless doctors, done countless hours of physical therapy. nothing helped. I just sit on my couch all day due to these injuries. I know people all over the world are suffering from much worse but this is making me depressed and resentful. What should I do? also, Has anyone tried stem cell therapy?
62 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 78.0 ms ] threadAnd foam roller your it band. Every evening, and maybe every morning as well.
edit: with the it band, make sure it is your it band. Check with a good pt person that you don't have weak butt muscles (I forget which.) There's a simple test for this that involves lying on your side and raising a leg, but I don't think I can adequately explain it in text.
source: 10 months on crutches and a very tight it band.
(Of course - I know you mean kg! But the point stands.)
500kg = 1102lbs; the list of people who can dl that is: Eddie Hall. AFAIK only 4-5 men have dl'd over 1k lbs ever (regulation height, no suit, not tire deadlifts or some bs) -- Benny, Eddie, Andy Bolton, Jerry Pritchett, Brian Shaw.
The list of 1000 pound squatters (no suit) is short too. Ed Coan, Malanichev, and a few others.
Anyone who can squat 500 lbs is strong. To depth, obviously -- lots of people can do 500 lbs knee bends.
Ordinarily I'd deploy hash tag that was the joke... but your reply in this instance was far too informative, and I'd run the risk (?) of looking (?) like (?) a twat.
the sound of that joke going over my head =P
If they want to operate get a second opinion (at least), if you or someone in your family have something that you think is a problem then keep going to doctors till you find a solution. Don't just take the first doctors answer if they don't know.
If you're in the chronic pain or odd problem area though then if doctors can't help go the diet / alternative medicine route - they may have an answer.
There's a lot modern medicine doesn't know, and most practitioners don't know it all anyway.
Just trying to see if anyone here has tried not anything unconventional.
I also had tennis elbow some years ago, the doctor had no advice, Tai Chi helped me with that, same principle I suppose - gentle exercises for the small muscles. Though the results from Pilates have worked everywhere.
As medical professionals run out of ideas, they tend to identify mental background. Just ignore these notes and don't loose your trust. On one hand this is their natural response to their limits of knowledge; on the other hand many people stresses so much over their condition that they develop a mental root cause indeed.
One of the best treatments for tennis elbow is heavy icing.
There is no financial incentive for anyone to tell you that.
Some people with long term pain benefit from cognitive behaviour therapy. You might want to see a pain clinic to get best quality advice about pain, and about rehabilitation.
If you want to know what treatment you could expect from the English NHS you could enter the condition in the search here: https://www.nice.org.uk/
They tell you the evidence they've used to come to their decision. They sometimes give "Do NOT" advice, telling people to avoid some treatments.
Or you can try NHS Choices to get some general information. http://www.nhs.uk/pages/home.aspx
In general, getting medical advice from the Internet is probably a bad idea.
Quite often the pain itself is caused by psychological factors. It's certainly worth addressing psychological issues either way.
If you drink sufficiently, have a clean diet and had some chiropractic consultations then you need to explore radical options.
Look at the Wim Hoff method, it's a crazy Dutch man that swims near icebergs and run naked in the snow. The method consist of breathing exercises, yoga postures and cold showers. Apparently it cures inflammation in the body (among other things).
I plan to give it a go this winter. If you can't afford it ($200) the backup torrent is not that hard to find ;-)
I've been researching this for a bit and seems like chronic tendon injuries show no sign of inflammation.
http://www.aafp.org/afp/2013/0401/p486.html
I've had blood tests done but i am not sure if these were tested. I am reasearching these now and will get this done if not already. Thanks for the pointer.
A friend with EDS practiced and taught Ashtanga for years before her diagnosis. The ways the syndrome affects the joints meant that she was able to perform asanas from the later series within a couple years of beginning her practice.
Since she was doing stuff she was only capable of doing because of her condition, however, and not stuff she'd trained up to, she ended up doing significant damage to her joints; she's at the point now where her shoulders often dislocate just from carrying too many full grocery bags up the stairs.
Just a few thoughts, could be related. Good luck, chronic health issues suck.
At the very least read one of John Sarno's books, and see if your symptoms change. If they do, you are on the right track.
1. https://arbital.com/p/bayes_rule/?l=1zq
2. http://www.ajnr.org/content/early/2014/11/27/ajnr.A4173.full...
i) don't give up on exercise, I have had chronic injuries stay static or worsen with deliberate rest and only improve with focussed work. Very high rep pump exercises (30+ reps) getting a lot of blood into the muscle/tendon area really helps. Cable machines are great. You can usually find an exercise/angle/attachment combo that works the area without aggrevation. Something like walking for a few miles helps my back.
ii) avoid actions that aggravate the specific impingement e.g. using a mouse would cause acute pain in my shoulder but it was difficult to correlate activities because the pain can show up a few days after the activity.
iii) Work on flexibility and mobility. Causes of injuries are often non-local i.e. things are pulling other things out of place. Just work on complete flexibility especially where you are inflexible - like hip-flexors, shoulders and stuff. I have to do yoga exercises, stretching (90 second holds) and foam rolling everyday if I want to sit down for hours without significant pain.
I find there are some things that make it worse but overall feels pretty uncorrelated with anything obvious. Try keeping a detailed log of symptoms along with possible triggers as well as things that make you feel better.
Good luck
How quickly do you increase your training volume? Do you have enough rest and recovery time?
When you first start feeling injured, do you stop, and rest a week or two, or do you continue through the initial pain?
For running, it's commonly known that you shouldn't increase your distance by more than 10% per week. For me, if I find that increasing 10% per week causes injury but if I increase only 6% per week, I'm ok.
Do you warm up and stretch? Do you do strength training or rehabilitation exercises? What about core strength?
I found a great massage therapist who points out issues with my body and recommends stretches to help fix some of them. (I can give you a recommendation if you are in SF)
Are you sure you have the correct form for the exercises? Maybe work with a personal trainer? I biked for years with a bike way too small for me. Only when I went to get my bike fit, and got a different one did pain go away.
Have you read up and gotten a good understanding of your injuries? I was better able to understand and manage some injuries when I read "Treat Your Own Rotator Cuff" and "Treat Your Own Back".
How carefully do you track your exercise? I tracked my exercise for a year and discovered that I was 3x more likely to be injured after any given workout if I had done X minutes of lower body exercise in the past Y days so I cut back and had less injuries.
If you find any good solutions, please respond to the thread and let us know!
About the tendons et al: are you able to voluntarily move your shoulder out of joint? Can you bend your fingers and thumbs backwards? Would you characterize yourself as "double-jointed"?
http://www.livescience.com/33186-double-jointed-people-hyper...
http://www.wisegeekhealth.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-double...
Here is a link to the product. http://amzn.to/29Ni3Ex
I don't understand the "the our product was so successful we were forced to end trials" argument. How long is the trial? 4 weeks? How big is the control group? 8 people? Is it really unethical to have the control group wait a few weeks to start using the effective treatment? This sounds like the exact argument that a snake oil salesman would use.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/health/a-cautionary-tale-o...
I improved my tendons by consuming gelatin as a supplement daily for like a year or two when they were so bad they were seriously interfering with, for example, my ability to get out of bed unassisted.
/anecdata
Let me address 2 of the non-impact sports you listed:
1. Swimming - if you have a bad stroke and immediately go on to do long yardage workouts you will hurt your shoulders. Working with a stroke coach and slowing down to focus on your form will do a lot to avoid shoulder issues. Alternate breathing mixed with some dry land work will help muscle imbalance issues too
2. Cycling is about fit and form. For i/t band issues if your position is incorrect and you do a lot of mileage you will have knee problems. Also doing some weight training can help. Get a proper fit from a bike shop that specializes in shoe/saddle fit as well. Adding some resistance training will also help
You must work up to being competitive. Going out and doing 60m or 3000 yards on the first day will definitely lead to injury. Investing in a good coach here can help.
Rest properly. I sleep poorly, but I also only work out very heavily three times a week. The system need rest to recover.
It sounds like you're not differentiating different types of activities. So we don't know how often you do them, or anything else. Whether you took lessons or professional guidance or just jumped in the water and starting splashing hard around you, or what. Calisthenics / bodyweight training is very powerful, well-rounded as it will strengthen your ligaments and tendons as well as your muscles. In contrast to weight training (stay the hell away from machines unless you are in physical therapy), calisthenics strives for functional movements, which use several muscle groups in conjunction. You can find a lot of material on this online.
Tennis elbow I can't help with, but running pains are very normal. I have over-pronating feet so always suffered from knee issues and shin splint. But most runners I know have issues like this. Muscle imbalances mixed with individual mechanical quirks like flat feet (me). The muscle imbalance part is even more common, and fixed by educating yourself and doing complementary exercises. For example, exercises like squats and lunges help balance things out against the evils of running alone.
Doctors are a pain. As someone said, find a sports one. Otherwise you'll risk hearing 'Okay, stop exercising for 2 months and take aspirin every day.' I hate it when doctors do stuff like that (ignore the individual person's goals rather than work with them).