Team Advil
There is one inevitable undesirable side effect of Xtreme Geezerhood: Pain. If you work your body hard at any age past 30 it’s gonna hurt. That’s just one of the facts o’ life. As a guy who has been practicing Xtreme Geezerizm for twenty years I have a whole bandolier worth of ways to deal with the side effects of having dangerous fun. One of them of course is “suck it up”. But there are better ways.
My first line of defense is Advil. Before you say it, I know in my head that Ibuprofen is ibuprofen no matter what it costs per pill or who makes it. Doesn’t matter. For the small difference in price between name brand and generic I always buy Advil. Because it works far better for me. Why? No idea, probably purely a placebo effect. But I don’t care. What I do care about is that I can take a couple of pills and the white-hot flames in my shoulders the deep throb in my hips, or the nasty pull in my chest that spasms with every deep breath will temper down to a tolerable low burn. For me that’s Advil–your mileage may vary. Costco has big bottles, cheap. Big is good.
One important element of managing athletic pain is getting out in front of it and understanding the difference between the kinds of muscle and joint pain.
Delayed Onset Muscle Pain: If you are doing something you don’t normally do, and you’re going hard at it, you should assume you’re going to have some pain. This kind of pain is different from the typical soreness of an activity that you do frequently but might have overcooked a little. The serious pain is probably going to come eight to twelve hours later when your muscles are thoroughly cooled down and start to wad up. But you’ll have some precursor pain that should let you know what’s coming if you’re in touch with your body. I’m not all that sensitive, but I can tell when I’ve screwed up.
Getting ahead for me means a couple of Advil along with a bite to eat so it won’t screw my stomach up. A whole bunch of water. Not sure why but drinking a lot of room temperature water seems to stave off some of the aches. When the Advil is starting to wear off (about the time I should be able to take more), I delay taking the Advil and do some gentle exercise of the affected areas and the muscles around it. For lower ab pain, for example, I do some alternating leg raises. For shoulder pain I work with a light weight. I don’t push hard, just work the muscles with some resistance to warm them up. The pain might intensify for a short while, and THAT’S when I take my next dose of Advil.
A sports medicine doctor I went to for awhile said to never take painkillers before exercise. He said not only can you overdo it because you don’t feel pain as early, but the medicine itself may increase the severity of injuries.
I find taking an alternating hot/cold shower helps. Here in Maui that’s easy, we have a lap pool that is always cold, and a hot shower right next to it. Warm up in the shower, get in the pool and walk around a while. Repeat. Feels good even if it doesn’t really do anything.
Injury: A pull, strain or muscle tear is very different from general muscle pain. You know you’ve done something bad, usually from the white hot flash you felt deep inside your injured muscle. The standard treatment is RICE: Rest, Ice, Compression, elevation.
Rest means stop what you’re doing, get medical attention if necessary, and then chill out, resting as much as possible, both to avoid exacerbating the injury and to let your body marshal it’s repair capabilities.
Ice is cold, applied directly to the injury site as quickly as possible. No ice around? Cold water on a towel helps, but you can also use a bag of frozen vegetables, or anything frozen or very cold that can be conformed to the area. The old method of applying a steak to a black eye was simply a way to get something cold against the injury. If you are using ice you don’t want to add skin damage to your problems. Apply it for 15 minutes and let it warm for 15 minutes. Repeat.
Compression: Wrap the injured area with elastic bandages. If you get throbbing, rewap a little looser
Elevation: Elevate the injured area higher than your heart. This not only helps keep inflammation down, it also feels better.
After the initial swelling period is over you can apply heat, perhaps get a massage, even do a little stretching and light exercise. If your pain worsens, or doesn’t subside in a few days, see your doctor.
Nagging, chronic pain: My shoulders are always going to hurt. After multiple surgeries and multiple injuries it’s just part of my life. But it can be minimized. Warm up any compromised parts of your body especially well before committing to full throttle. Consider doing Yoga to increase your flexibility and stretch muscles that rarely get attention. Apply heat after workouts or hard use. Consult with your doctor from time to time to ensure your chronic limitations are not getting suddenly worse.
If It All Goes Bad
Sometimes home remedies are just not enough and you need to go pro. If an injury is seriously impacting your ability to play, then you either need to change what you do or get help. First step in my book is seeing a specialist in sport injuries. The best people really are the best, but it can be hard to get in to see someone who is top tier without a recommendation. That’s one reason why it’s a good idea to network with other athletes. If you have a well-known doctor treating you, their recommendation can carry great weight. My wife had some nasty medical issues last year, and her diabetes Doctor who is considered at the top of the profession was instrumental in connecting her to the very best people available. Worth the effort.
Before anyone cuts on you though, here’s the order of approaches I prefer to try:
1. Physical Therapy–Quality is a big issue here. There’s a world of difference between someone who has dedicated their life to learning to be a great therapist, and someone doing a job. Size is also an issue. If you’re 6’2″ and 240# a 120# therapist isn’t going to be able to move your muscles much. They can make up for it in some ways, but understand that the difference in your sizes is going to take some tools out of their kit.
2. Cortisone shots–they work. Not a permanent solution, but then what is? Surgery certainly isn’t. The best a surgeon can hope for is restoring some function. They don’t make the parts brand new.
3. Surgery–If you need it, you need it. Get the best, at the best hospital you can find. It can mean your life. Even a minor surgery can infect and kill you, and the best place to get nasty infections is a hospital. Learn all the indications of infection post-surgery and get to the hospital immediately and INSIST on examination if you think you have an infection.
Post surgery infection symptoms: Great information here: http://surgery.about.com/od/aftersurgery/qt/SignsInfections.htm— but in a nutshell:
Malaise: Post surgery you will feel tired and not up to doing normal activities, but that feeling should decrease day to day. If you feel a bit better each day then suddenly feel exhausted you might have an infection.
Fever: A fever of 101 or more should be reported to the surgeon.
Around the incision, suspect infection if you have:
- A Hot Incision.
- Swelling/Hardening of the Incision
- Redness, or red streaks radiating from it to the surrounding skin may be infected. A pink color near the incision is normal, and redness on the very edge may occur but it should decrease over time, rather than becoming more red.
- Drainage. A foul-smelling drainage or pus may begin to appear on an infected incision.
- Pain. Your pain should slowly and steadily diminish as you heal. If your pain level at the surgery site increases for no apparent reason, you may be developing an infection in the wound.