Expand Quote
a lot of recent sports medicine research says that nsaids like ibuprofen actually slow down the removal of old crummy tissue from a swollen area, having something to do with the way they thin blood or something. im not a medical doctor so i don't know the details, but i do have a phd in a different stem field, and access to all the big journals thru my job, so i've skimmed thru a bunch of the relevant studies and it seems to make sense.
trainers today will often say to use acetaminophen instead of ibuprofen now because it doesn't have this effect. but it's still tough on your stomach and all that, so best to not make it too regular of a habit.
how do you avoid needing constant relief from pain meds like advil or tylenol? try as many of the other suggestions in this thread as possible. for me a regular strength training plan has done wonders. i could barely skate at all for a few years ago, but after working on core and glute strength for a while i am now skating pretty decently.
another thing that i didn't see mentioned is KT tape (also called kinesiology tape). this stuff helps me out big time. the difference between how sore my knees will be after a session when i tape them up vs how they'll feel if i dont is pretty huge. here's a link to the product i use: https://www.kttape.com/
the type of knee pain that i had, and a type that's very common among skateboarders, is patellofemoral pain syndrome, also known ass 'runners knee.' it's often caused by dysfunction in the glutes, and improved through lots of squatting type exercises, as well as foam rolling and targeted stretches.
physical therapist Kyle Brown did a series of workout plans, discussions, etc on this common issue and the ways to treat it. it's paywalled but i spent the 10 bucks to get what i wanted and then canceled, it was worth it (and cheaper than seeing an IRL physical therapist, although I hope to do that eventually as well): https://www.patreon.com/oldfriendsfitness
and finally, here's a tutorial for how to apply KT tape when you have patellofemoral pain:
note that there are several other ways you might apply the tape and i'm not a trainer or physical therapist don't know if this is necessarily the best, but it seems to work for me.
I'm glad you're doing better but I just want people to know that kinesio tape is most likely a huge scam and does absolutely nothing. Like literally think about how it could possibly work. Makes zero sense and there is no scientific proof whatsoever
https://www.painscience.com/articles/kinesio-taping.php
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I was introduced to taping by an actual physical therapist who i saw for 2 years or so, during which time I made some massive improvements. Since his advice was usually pretty good, I didn’t bother to look too deeply into studies about it.
Kyle Brown (an actual doctor, fwiw, although he didn’t exactly go to Harvard Medical school, but I digress) also advocates it, *at least for this particular condition* and he’s a PT who’s worked with a bunch of pro skaters we all know. I emphasize the “for this particular” condition” aspect here because I think it’s important to note that all of the things we’re discussing in this thread, from Advil to foam rolling to changes in diet, are going to work better for certain people with certain conditions and worse for others. Ideally we would all have a good PT who we trust who can help with this shit and give us personalized, educated advice.
Anyway, the article you shared here presents a review of other articles, and there’s a section that summarizes a few of them. They found that taping didn’t make people stronger, didn’t make them jump higher, etc. That’s all a bit different than “does it reduce some soreness from a chronic condition.” I’m not saying there aren’t any studies that find taping is ineffective in that sense. There probably are. But this gets to a really key point about research in sports medicine: it’s really tough to develop a consensus around anything like this because the studies are all designed to test subtly different hypotheses with subtly different methods.
The article you shared also has a really quick note that I think is worth highlighting: “[methods like taping] drive a more potent placebo effect by using persuasive sensations, like tape on your skin. A more potent placebo is still just a placebo, and it doesn’t mean the treatment works.”
This is a slightly incorrect premise. Our sense of proprioception (sensing input and adjusting the body accordingly) means that sometimes just introducing a “persuasive sensation” actually CAN provide certain kinds of relief, and may even help to re-train the way you perform certain motions to a positive end. This is basically the premise behind trigger point release therapy, which (I think) has become pretty accepted *for certain conditions* (again, it’s key to emphasize that none of these things are a magic bullet for every condition). It’s also at play with acupuncture, which is another treatment that you can find wildly varying opinions on in the literature. Some say it’s great, others say it’s BS, but I suspect it has way more to do with the particulars of who gets it, for what condition, and how it’s applied.
(Speaking of acupuncture, that’s another thing OP might try. I’ve done it a few times and had extremely varied results, ranging from good relief to pretty much no change to actually making shit worse. But maybe it’s worth a try.)
Anyway, this site you linked is called “painscience.com” and it’s run by a guy who calls himself a “science journalist” (not a doctor or practitioner of any kind, although I see he used to be a massage therapist), and it mostly exists to sell eBooks. Now I’m not saying this makes it disreputable. Hell, I’m interested to read some of his books! But we shouldn’t take his word to be gospel.
Maybe the real takeaway here is that pain relief is still a pretty mysterious field, and there is a LOT of disagreement. Hell, even ice, the thing many of us take for granted, is up for debate now. Sure, there’s new research saying it could be counterproductive. But there are also I guarantee legions of doctors, nurses, trainers, and parents who use ice to treat injuries all the time and do just fine.
So OP, don’t fret. Just try everything. I mean seriously, everything. Don’t expect it to actually work. Eventually you’ll find something that does, whatever it is.
Topic: Anti Inflammatories After Skating (Read 4395 times)