Ibuprofen seems to have cured my tennis elbow...
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So I've had a chronic case of tennis elbow pretty much since September. It's lasted as long as it has largely because I'm a stubborn bastard who hasn't been willing to cease climbing completely. I've tried a variety of different methods (hammer drills, stretching, gyro balls, antagonist training) which have had varying degrees of success at managing and/or reducing the pain, allowing me to carefully continue climbing, I haven't been able to shake the chronic aches and soreness. I'd read somewhere that NSAIDS should be avoided, as they can slow the healing process, and that you especially don't want to use pain meds to mask the pain while continuing to apply stress to the tendons, so the one thing I hadn't tried was drugs. |
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It will be interesting to see if it stays gone after you return to climbing. My guess is that it will return. |
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Drink more really cheap swill and cut back on the coffee intake. I'm serious. Coffee dries out the tendons etc. You can substitute water for swill ifna ya have to. Keep pullin down. Now puke. |
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Ted Pinson wrote:I'd read somewhere that NSAIDS should be avoided, as they can slow the healing process, and that you especially don't want to use pain meds to mask the pain while continuing to apply stress to the tendons, so the one thing I hadn't tried was drugs.Well, NSAIDS ARE prescribed for a reason. Long term tendon pain can have a large degree of inflammation involved. My guess is you should have addressed that months ago. |
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Steve Sangdahl wrote:Drink more really cheap swill and cut back on the coffee intake. I'm serious. Coffee dries out the tendons etc. You can substitute water for swill ifna ya have to. Keep pullin down. Now puke.Source? What would be the mechanism for coffee "drying out" the tendons? If by swill you mean booze, alcohol can wreck your recovery. If I have even a couple drinks after an intense bout of training, I'm noticeably achier the morning after. |
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Hmmm. My understanding of the timeline for epicondylitis is that once past the 6-8 week mark things begin to shift towards tendinosis, which is a chronic degenerative condition of the tissue. After this the basic anti-inflammatory treatments (NSAIDs & Ice) tend to stop working, and a more regimented rehabilitation program is necessary to stimulate micro-inflammatory processes that progress healing. Given that you've been working on and climbing through it since September makes me wonder if it isn't in the "-osis" camp. At this point it takes 6-8 weeks for the tissue to heal properly and be fully functional under loads. Seems like a few doses of anti-inflammatory meds couldn't just make this all happen magically. |
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Steve Sangdahl wrote:Drink more really cheap swill and cut back on the coffee intake. I'm serious. Coffee dries out the tendons etc. You can substitute water for swill ifna ya have to. Keep pullin down. Now puke.Don't quit the coffee and booze! Nuh uh, no way. You'll end up with heart disease and early-onset alzheimers. Plus, at least initially, you'll climb worse without the caffeine, AND you won't have the booze to console yourself. It's a lose-lose situation really. |
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Yeah, there are family members I would give up before coffee... |
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Hate to tell you Ted, but you're not cured. I regularly used up to 800 mg ibuprofen to manage medial epicondylitis (golfer's elbow) pain. I could get pain free for up to a day or two but the next time I climbed it flared right back up again. Keep doing your usual PT and it will heal slowly over time. |
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Yeah, I'm fully expecting the pain to return next time I climb. It's just weird that my baseline shifted that much. |
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Ted Pinson wrote:Charlie: interesting that the Armaid worked for you, as that one is also controversial. I found it helped reduce symptoms but didn't seem to have any long term effects. How often did you wear it, and for how long?We must be talking about different things. You don't wear the Armaid. It's a self-massage tool which looks about as mideval torturesque as cams. I use the big orange roller as opposed to the 3-ball roller to really dig into the elbow. Symptoms began to disappear after a week of consistent use. Now I only have to use it after a day of climbing. rockandice.com/climbing-acc… |
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NSAIDs are not addictive. Could it be, just perhaps, since you twisted you ankle, you took a few weeks off of climbing and the rest cured your tennis elbow? |
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I had a bad case of "tennis elbow" last Summer, tried climbing through it while doing exercises and basically just made it worse. I ended up not climbing for nearly 2 months and followed the protocol listed here: |
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+1 for the armaid |
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Charlie S wrote: We must be talking about different things. You don't wear the Armaid. It's a self-massage tool which looks about as mideval torturesque as cams. I use the big orange roller as opposed to the 3-ball roller to really dig into the elbow. Symptoms began to disappear after a week of consistent use. Now I only have to use it after a day of climbing. rockandice.com/climbing-acc…Aaah, yeah I was picturing a compression strap. Interesting. Matt: although they may not be chemically addictive, anything can be addictive if it stimulates a positive response (consider how many people are addicted to climbing!). I don't like the idea of feeling like I have to take a painkiller every day indefinitely...that seems like a bad road to go down. Also, it was not a serious twist, so I was not out for weeks. I twisted it Thursday, got sick Friday and started Ibuprofen, and woke up Sunday morning with no elbow pain. Usually, it takes over 1 week for the pain to fully subside, and since it's turned chronic, it does weird things like get worse if I don't climb. I also was obviously not doing any of the PT exercises or wearing the compression strap, so it normally would have felt much worse at that point of time between climbs. |
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For my aches and pains (anything more serious that just the fact I am an old fart), I go to my physical therapist. She is working on the three fractured bones in my left foot at the moment while shaking her head at the fact that I am still climbing. |
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I've had it explain to me that it's probably the nervous system being out-of-sync with the condition of the body: the body part may have already healed but the nervous system is still trying to protect it. Dry needle/e-stem, high effort exercise, prolonged stretching, pain meds or other types of out-of-ordinary exertion on the nervous system can help reset it. I've had the first 3 things alleviate the symptom from forearm (medial & lateral) to groin muscles almost immediately to overnight; I don't think a long term injury typically heals that fast. |
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It's almost like some old cartoon doctor routine. Patient comes to the doctor with a sore arm, doctor stomps on his foot and asks "does your arm still hurt" |
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Ibuprofen is awesome. Do not take it chronically though. My mom did that for 2 years and ended up on the kidney transplant list. Fortunately, her kidneys recovered. Ibuprofen can be abused like anything else. |
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Rick Blair wrote:Ibuprofen is awesome. Do not take it chronically though. My mom did that for 2 years and ended up on the kidney transplant list. Fortunately, her kidneys recovered. Ibuprofen can be abused like anything else.Can't overstate this enough: NSAIDs are NOT for long-term use. I have a family member with ITP (look it up, basically chronic blood thinning) that now needs upwards of several thousand in additional medical expenses for even simple procedures because she can't have them without platelet transplants to prevent excessive bleeding. I've had multiple orthopedic surgeries, and won't use NSAIDs because of that history, despite chronic pain. It's just not worth it in the long run. However, Ted, your assertion that you understand painkiller addiction after having moderate chronic pain go away from using some Vitamin I is silly. Cute, but silly. |
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Ted Pinson wrote: The causes of tennis elbow and other climbing-related injuries are not well understood, but it is believed that excessive muscle tension in the shoulder can play a role, as well as muscle imbalance (too much pulling, not enough pushing). Sort of, muscles get strong faster then tendons, this causes muscles rip off the tendons, the tendons rip off the bone, or the tendons rip apart from themselves. Keep up the PT, including pushups, every day. Every Day, EVERY DAY. It might take a year to fully recover, and the problem could easily resurface after then, just do PT again for a while.... Did you check this rock and ice article?http://www.rockandice.com/rock-climbing-injuries/elbow-elbow-pain-and-dodgy-elbows |