Your opinion is duly noted.
Avoid if possible
Stretching, yoga, a few calisthenics, and regular exercise both paddling and non-paddling mostly take care of keeping pain away, for me.
The time I have to be very careful is at the beginning of each new season (spring). That’s when a few months of no paddling and overall lower physical activity followed by anxiousness to make up for lost time = high potential for overuse injuries. When this happens, backing off the activity level combined with a few days to a couple of weeks of taking ibuprofen work pretty well. I don’t like to take any painkiller for long.
If pain lasts longer than that, I figure there’s a problem either with technique or body. The first can be experimented with. The second one merits seeing a doctor.
I agree with the poster above who is appalled by knee-jerk pill-popping. Painkillers aren’t meant to be a permanent daily dietary supplement.
Jelson, here’s a link to a report of an
older woman whose tremor condition (from idiopathic Parkinsons) was evidently agrivated by Aleve.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/311/7002/422/b
Some mild Parkinsons is not uncommon in older folks, but it isn’t clear from what you say whether your relative’s tremor was Parkinsonian.
linda, I just googled through the
studies again, and the picture is not as clear as I thought.
- Ibuprofen does interfere with the key effect of low dose aspirin, but if you need ibuprofen, you can reduce the interference effect by taking the ibuprofen and the low dose aspirin at widely separated times.
- Like ibuprofen, naproxen can interfere with the key effect of low dose aspirin, though perhaps not to the same extent as ibuprofen. It appears that taking naproxen some hours after or before low dose aspirin can reduce the interference.
You should ask your doc about naproxen rather than ibuprofen, but the picture is not as clear as I thought.
Try MonaVie
Not!
Sheesh
– Last Updated: Sep-04-09 12:56 AM EST –
I was trying to be funny...
As to long paddle, I mean a long one like a full day on the water with some fighting of the wind and two snack/lunch stops. Whatever tylenol I took before I left is long gone from my system 8 hours later after getting in, bringing in and rinsing my gear and taking a shower. I hardly pop it every time I paddle. The NSAIDS are a no-no for me, according to my doc. So acetominophen and my TENS unit, yoga etc are all I got.
Somewhere after 50, if you have been physically active when younger and had some major dings or stressed some joints like playing an instrument for 30 years, your body is often just trying to tell you that you are past 50...
“After 50” rebuttal
"Somewhere after 50, if you have been physically active when younger and had some major dings or stressed some joints like playing an instrument for 30 years, your body is often just trying to tell you that you are past 50…"
I have to object to this defeatist view of 'aging". I’ve been physically active my whole life including extensive dance training, working for 7 years in heavy construction, regular backpacking, XC skiing, bicycling, paddling, etc, as well as doing extensive remodeling of all my homes (structural carpentry, drywall, flooring) and volunteering with trail clearing and community rehab building projects Have sustained such major “dings” as fractured skull, elbow, clavicle and both wrists, including major surgery on my dominant one last year.
I am no superman, only an average sized, somewhat small-boned woman who has just turned 59. I also chose to not take replacement hormones when I hit menopause but my bone density is excellent. Having good genes has helped – most of my great-grandparents did physical work on farms until well into their 90’s. But I also believe reasonable lifestyle choices, attention to what works for my body AND the avoidance of knee-jerk consumption of OTC drugs have been factors in my durability.
I even stopped after the second Vicodin the day of my hand surgery. Yup, it hurt like hell but the nausea and disorientation from the drugs were worse than the pain. And, as always, i found i got past the pain better by distracting my attention to other things and just ignoring it or practicing relaxation, self massage and breathing techniques.
As another poster has noted, if you continually mask persistent pain, you never learn to adapt your technique and habits so you aren’t causing the pain to begin with – you continue the cycle of damage and discomfort. I realized this Spring that my screwed-together wrist was becoming tender after a few hours of kayaking. Maybe I could have numbed it with pain-killers (so it would have really hurt as they wore off, forcing me to take more) but instead I switched to a Greenland paddle and found I no longer experienced that pain.
I started having lower back pain a few years ago and traced it to the way I had to repeatedly twist to get in and out of the company truck I’d been assigned. I started being more careful and deliberate about how I used my body entering and exiting the car, which helped but I also realized the driving position was hard on my right side. So I switched to driving a Volvo (say what you will about their lack of “style”, Volvos are like Birkenstocks for your bod) and my back and leg pain vanished.
Even my mother, who suffered a double spiral fracture of her leg and a cracked vertebra in a bad fall at the age of 78, was helped enormously by the adjustments, massage and physical therapy techniques offered at a reputable chiropractor’s clinic and by acupuncture. She went from being nearly paralyzed with excruciating sciatica( for which her orthopod had heavily drugged her and was pressing her to have surgery) to being able to move, sit and sleep freely without pain and stiffness or pain pills. She regained near full mobility less than a year after the accident, without surgery.
Yes, I do realize that some people have suffered severe injuries and others have had progressive joint deterioration and i do feel for them. But i still feel that it is a mistake for anyone to rely almost exclusively on pharmaceutical numbing to deal with pain, whether “prophylactic” or reactive. The nonchalance with which so many on this exchange have reported gobbling pills is unsettling. There are alternatives. Our bodies, and our minds, can be quite amazing if we figure out how to work with them rather than ignore and numb them.
Willowleaf, I agree with you, it
amazes me how drug dependent our society is. I realize there are times when they are needed, and I’m glad they are there,but some doctors seem really quick to medicate.
I am happy to say that I am “drug free” after having conceded to my doctors wishes to put me on an antidepressant when my younger brother died (we were extremely close)and the last of my family alive…I now know what drug addicts feel like when they try to kick the habit. It was awful. I also let my doc talk me into strange drugs when I hit menopause…hot flashes were so bad I had to do something! Then I decided I’d had enough with all the stuff and weaned myself off, with a different doctors help. I do take good care of myself (54) I walk and exercise everyday, eat right, don’t smoke or drink…well a glass now and then. Genes are not in my favor, as my mom died of cancer at 56, which is one reason I’m diligent about my health. I want to be able to paddle and hike as long as I can!
Leigh
joints, aspirin, lipitor,etc
my joint problems are my knees, and while the gloucosamine products and halyuronic acid (sp?) help, they work a lot better if you take Microlactin (from swanson vitamins) with them. daily walks and the right vitamins and I no longer have pain or stiffness. Right knee hurt really bad due to an injury a couple years back, the doc gave me a shot in the knee joint (the shot hardly hurt at all) of the same stuff your knee makes to lube the joint, and told me to take fish oil daily forever. a bit later I was able to skip the elevator and take the stairs. I think the Omega 3 in fish oil reduces inflammation. MSM does also, and inflammation - just read “Inflammation Nation”, I forget the authors name, you will make some changes. Guys, stay away from Chondroiton, most of it is produced from parts of commercially grown cows, and too much hormone-fed cow products and you’ll have to pop saw palmetto pills like candy to get your prostate gland back down to size.
Aspirin can cause you problems, if you need to thin your blood for heart reasons you can use nattokinaise. IF YOU TAKE LIPITOR YOU ARE AT RISK FOR NERVE DAMAGE, and unless your cholesterol is extremely high, it won’t do you any good anyway, read the newsletter “Health, Heart and Nutrition” by Stephen Sinatra, a cardiologist. Actually, you should read his newsletter whether or not you take Lipitor, you can save yourself a lot of money and problems by taking care of the old ticker.
Anything that make drug companies big bucks is going to be the subject of marketing efforts that will result in it being overprescribed, to the detriment of patients health.
I’ve been all over the web for lipitor
problems, and I haven’t seen references to nerve damage. What sort of nerve damage? Do you have a link?
probably peripheral neuropathy
– Last Updated: Sep-04-09 11:34 AM EST –
Statins have been increasingly associated with a higher than expected rate of peripheral neuropathy.
I believe the initial report of an association was from a Danish study reported in May 2002 in Neurology.
A couple of links:
http://www.spacedoc.net/neuropathy_statins.htm
http://www.tripanswers.org/answer.aspx?criteria=&tagtrail=%2Fprognosis%2F&qid=2095&src=0
Makes some sense, though I have a
problem with spacedoc’s patient reports, because they are like letters to Dear Abby… they read like they have all been re-thought and rewritten by the same editorial mind. That makes it very hard to decide whether they are accurately reported (from the patient’s subjective point of view).
When my own cholesterol level dropped into the low 100s, I grew concerned about overtreatment and began splitting my 20 mg pills in half. Soon I will learn the effect. But if there are problems with overtreatment using statins, it might in some cases be not the absolute low level of cholesterol that needs checking, but the relative percentage drop from where the patient started. Or both, or neither.
You soo don’t know me
– Last Updated: Sep-04-09 8:17 PM EST –
Sorry willow (and others). It's a democracy, and preaching without adequate info is certainly protected under free speech. So I defend your right to be hugely mistaken about my habits and fondness for drugs. Suffice to say that we have considerably more in common than you have bothered to find out.
Don't take this as angry by the way. My first response (and second) is to giggle. The long post about how I am screwed up is actually pretty funny in light of it all.
Right on, Celia!
You, me and pez dispenser…that’s all WE need. Let the grumpy old lady complain.
vicodin
thats my answer
Pain is a Signal
I don’t have time today to read all the posts, but why take something that’s going to mask pain. You will only hurt yourself further. Pain lets you know something is wrong and to address it.
-Capri
Because that “something,” NSAIDs,
reduce inflammation and thus hasten healing. That’s why.
I haven’t seen anyone in this thread who could be called a “pill popper” or who appeared to be dependent on opiate-type pain killers. But there is no dependency on NSAIDs. And they can hasten healing.
NSAIDS
g2d, there is more to know about NSAIDS, especially if you take them often. They do have side effects:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-steroidal_anti-inflammatory_drug
-Capri
Capri., I have googled NSAIDs far more
– Last Updated: Sep-10-09 10:57 PM EST –
than you, and I am completely confident that I am using them intelligently. The Wikipedia article for which you provide a link is sufficiently full of detail omissions and overgeneralizations that it really should not have been put in front of the public.
It's one thing to have some sensible doubts about modern medicine. It's quite another to reflexively doubt nearly everything and steer people away from entire classes of valuable medicine.