OK T-folks, I need some help here. I just sprained my ankle rather severely. Assuming that it is a soft tissue injury as opposed to fractured bone or cartilege what can I do to speed up recovery. I am open minded and interested in all suggestions. I am already doing or will be doing the following:
anti-inflamatory medication
topical ant-inflamatory (Equi-Block)
r.i.c.e.
contrast baths
electronic muscle stimulation
light myofascial massage
increased ammounts of Vitamin C and Glutamine
I need some other suggestions. I would like to treat this injury as aggressivly as possible to get back to my training. Any suggestions are extremely appreciated.
Well it really sounds like you’re going after it aggressively and have covered treatment thoroughly. I’m not familiar with the topical anti-inflammatory you’re using but I do know that DMSO in a 50/50 mixture with distilled water will, when applied topically, drastically decrease swelling and improve pain. When you say contrast baths does that mean you’re just using cold water or ice? For best results use ice several times per day along with heat in some form. I’ve always liked using the sauna for this. Also increase your antioxidant, protein, and especially vitamin C intake. It also wouldn’t hurt to take glucosamine/chrondroitin and/or msm. Best of luck
Kelly, contrast baths are when you alternate between hot and cold baths of the injured part to help constrict(cold) and dialate(hot) the blood vessels to act almost like a pump to help pump out swelling. Thanks for your input.
Kelly, I think Goldberg corrcted my missunderstanding of your last post. For the contrast bath I am basically using 2 pails, one with fairly hot water and the other with a mix of cold water and ice. Is there one (ice or cold water and ice) that is more suitable for contrast baths ?
For contrast baths you usually just go no longer then a couple of minutes of each (hot and cold) at a time for 2 or 3 cycles and ending with the cold. For this you really don’t even need a special pail of cold water or anything as a contrast hot and cold shower will work fine. For using the ice you’ll want to go for longer periods of time such as 10 minutes of ice, 10 minutes of heat and then come back several hours later and repeat that (if you decide to ice more than once a day). Hope this helps.
vit c and glucosamine are great… i’m not sure of the dosage of glucosamine but I believe that you need to take about 6-8gm a day of that stuff. make sure you start moving as soon as you can. if i remember correctly, adhesions and scar tissue can build up and if you don’t start moving you can ultimately limit your range of motion in that ankle.
Before you start any treatment yourself you should make sure that there is nothing severly damaged (if you have experience with injuries you can usually ‘feel’ the difference). The one thing I miss is actually moving your foot as soon as possible (and this is the part where it’s absolutly vital to make sure you don’t have a broken bones or a torn ligament). Start wiggling your foot up-and-down in whatever limited range of motion you have. Depending on the severity of the injury you will find that this range of motion will increase once you got warmed up a bit and moving your foot will be less painful. Slowly progress with increasing the load (light calf raises etc, you might experience dramatic improvements once you start moving your foot). Also try light stretching as soon as the swelling recedes. www.elite-sports-med.com/sprains.htm gives an example of a rehabilitation routine.
Kelly, Where do you get DMSO and is it already mixed with distilled water? Also, in an article about Westside training the author mentioned a blue liquid the guys put on their lower back to decrease swelling, was that DMSO?
Kali, the blue liquid was discussed on a previous forum post and it was determined to probably be a product call Jack’s Blue Heat (A horse linament). I am currently using Equi-block as the topical anti-inflamitory which is also used as a horse linament but works great for some people as well.
Kelly, how do you get over the extremely brutal smell of DMSO. I am trying it as you suggested as well (have tried it once in the past at full strength...not to pleasant of an experience). What are is your opinion of using it (DMSO) as a transport medium for something else like liquified glucosomine or ather topical anti-inflammitories ?
OK I got to ask this. . .has anyone on this board used Jack’s horse blue heat liniment and is this stuff going to do its magic on a human (of normal proportions). This stuff is on sale for approx. $9.00 on the web but prior to the purchase I kind of would like to know if it would have any negative side effects (insert all the horse jokes here).
This forum is great. I was just going to post a new thread to ask Avoids Roids about that horse linament and here it is already. So cool. Anyway, Avoids, is Jack’s Blue Heat what you were talking about on that other thread as a great tendonitis reliever? If so, where can we order it? Someone posted about getting it for 9 bucks on the web; URL please? Thanks! -Char-dawg-
I get my DMSO at a health food store and it’s 99.9% pure so I mix it 50/50 with distilled water. I’ve used DMSO for periods of up to 1 month straight with fantastic results in pain management, swelling, mobility, (for arthritis) and it also helped me get over a bad case of patellar tendonitis. Used full strength it did burn my skin a bit and gave me the weird garlic breath smell but with the 50/50 mixture i havent noticed any of these side effects. I usually just clean the area thoroughly and apply the dmso with a cotton swab. I’m not too sure what the blue horse liniment contains. There are many things that heat the area up or cool it down and tend to mask pain like ben-gay or something along those lines but with dmso I dont get that feeling. It just seems to penetrate in without any feeling and acts as an internal anti-inflammatory. I’ve never used it as a carrier for anything and I’m very careful to keep the area extremely clean and sanitary when using it.
Dr. Kinakin says that you should use protolytic enzymes and an anti-inflammatory cream called Traumeel, which is at a health food store. By taking protolytic enzymes immediately after an injury, it will reduce it by about 50%. They can decrease scar tissue formation.