Protecting Your Knees and Shoulders as an Athlete: Tips and Treatments

[houlahound]

If you are athletic and young, watch your knee and shoulder health. The amount of people I know with knee and shoulder injuries is truly staggering. The common denominator, all athletes in the day.

I wish I would have bought shares in artificial knee joints.

Anyone had treatments, how did it work out?

 

[berkeman]

Anyone had treatments, how did it work out?

I've had several close friends get knee or hip replacements recently, and they have worked out very well. I'd recommend talking to your doctor about whether replacement surgery is right for you.

If anyone is near Northern California and is considering knee or hip replacement, I can highly recommend the superstar doctors at IJR, especially Dr. Sah.

http://www.dearbornsah.com/

(sorry if this looks like spam -- Dr. Sah literally saved a person very dear to me)

 

[newjerseyrunner]

My mother has had a titanium knee for almost a decade now. It seems to provide her most of the functionality that she had in her leg before, but it took a pretty long recovery time.

I've known a lot of runners, some people get bad knees and some don't. My old coach in college has run sub five minute miles every year for the past 37 years and has no issues at all. I've started to feel some problems in my own knees but they're still minor. I have a feeling that being athletic once isn't a problem, it's being athletic once upon a time. Since I sit in front of a desk all day, my knees don't get the same training they used to.

 

[berkeman]

but it took a pretty long recovery time.

Orthroplasty surgery has come a long way in the last 10 years. Knee and Hip replacements at IJR use the latest (less-invasive) surgical techniques, and have hip patients walking the night of the surgery, and knee patients walking the next morning. Recovery is pretty complete after 6 weeks. Just amazing.

So for the hip replacement, the incision is no longer 10"-12" long, it's more like 4", and they do not cut any muscle. That's one of the reasons the recovery times are so much quicker nowadays.

 

[jedishrfu]

Some of the knee issues come from being overweight. I've known some athletes who were quite trim when they were active but added a bit too much weight in retirement due to higher protein intake diets and started to get knee problems.

I was in cross country running during high school and would routinely get shin splints and sometimes knee pain when running on hard surfaces like roads.

Later on I got into Okinawan karate with the hard kicks and again knee pain. I then tried Tai Chi and it was better until I tried to do the snake creeps down stance. The instructor warned that we should never allow our knee to go beyond our toes when bending as that will induce too much stress in the knee joint. I've yet to master that stance because of the knee fear.

I also took Taekwondo and many of my fellow black belts had knee issues from the front snap kicks they practiced so religiously. I did not from my Tai Chi experience. One older black belt warned me about it too.

My brother also had knee issues early on he liked basketball and would do those spinning around jump shots but I noticed when he did it he would spin twisting the knee joint then jumping which put some torsional stress on it.

 

[newjerseyrunner]

I always told my students to pull their punches and kicks as much as possible when practicing them in the air. I taught a wide variety of students and some of them had judo experience. Those guys had the worst knees, I didn't understand why until I carefully watched their sweeping technique. I was taught, and I teach to students that to properly sweep someone's leg, you hook their leg with your foot, then you turn so that the motion your leg takes is in line with your own hips (you basically kick their leg out.) I noticed the Judo guys didn't like turning to their opponent and tended to attempt sideways sweeps.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

If you are athletic and young, watch your knee and shoulder health. The amount of people I know with knee and shoulder injuries is truly staggering. The common denominator, all athletes in the day.

I wish I would have bought shares in artificial knee joints.

Anyone had treatments, how did it work out?

My hips, ankles, and elbow have more pain than my knees and shoulders (tennis and Ultimate, mostly).

Under medical guidance, I am transitioning to more biking (50 miles/week), less tennis and Ultimate, and moving toward doubles and clay courts in my tennis time reduced to once per week.

My hips may go at some point, but replacement hips are easier to come by than a new pancreas, heart or liver. (With insufficient exercise, I am high risk for diseases likely to affect those, already diagnosed pre-diabetic - genetic disposition with Hispanic background.)

For most Americans (and others in both first and second world nations), I think the greater health risks are related to sedentary lifestyles and being over weight rather than overuse of joints.

If I can keep my BMI in the healthy range and live an active and long enough life to need a hip replacement, then that's more success than most men in my natural family. I am taking care to reduce the wear and tear on the joints, but high BMI and lack of activity are bigger threats to most Americans (even many who consider themselves athletic).

 

[houlahound]

Not spamming but I am going to try a gel injected directly into the knee. Problem is you have to be allergy tested cos some people react badly to the gel. The injection is supposed to hurt so bad you beg for death to make it stop.

Young guys don't be fooled by apparent recovery to injury. Honest to god those are not recoveries. With youth your body seems to absorb the injury, they just go dormant like cracks forming in concrete. Those are the ones that accumulate and return when you are older.

 

[berkeman]

Not spamming but I am going to try a gel injected directly into the new. Problem is you have to be allergy tested cos some people react badly to the gel. The injection is supposed to hurt real bad.

Your doc recommended that?

 

[houlahound]

No but I think its legit and the physics seems sound in principle.

 

[berkeman]

No but I think its legit.

I'd strongly recommend that you discuss this with your family doctor. If the knees are bad enough, you should be able to get a referral to a specialist for evaluation.

 

[houlahound]

I have had the specialist appointment, just grinding bone on bone now.

The thread is to raise awareness for others, especially young athletes.

 

[newjerseyrunner]

What kind of gel? My mother has corticosteroids injected into hers every once in a while, but I don't think it's a gel.

 

[houlahound]

I think this one;

http://synviscone.com/what-is-synvisc-one.aspx

 

[berkeman]

What kind of gel? My mother has corticosteroids injected into hers every once in a while, but I don't think it's a gel.

One very important caution about corticosteroid injections...

Corticosterroids have anti-inflammatory properties, but they are also an immunosuppressant:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3047790/

If you get an injection into a bad joint (like bone-on-bone), and the injection doesn't help, you will have to wait 8-10 weeks for any joint replacement surgery. The risk of infection after the joint replacement it too great if the area is immunosuppressed.

 

[houlahound]

Geeeessezus, from link;

"
effects of long-term treatment, which include osteoporosis, hypertension, dyslipidaemia and insulin resistance/type 2 diabetes mellitus. "

 

[berkeman]

Geeeessezus, from link;

"
effects of long-term treatment, which include osteoporosis, hypertension, dyslipidaemia and insulin resistance/type 2 diabetes mellitus. "

Oops!

 

[houlahound]

For clarity the quoted side effect were from the link on corticosteroid not from synvis link.

 

[houlahound]

I want to start a men's health page as a sticky, how do I contact mods?

 

[berkeman]

I want to start a men's health page as a sticky, how do I contact mods?

Maybe try sending a PM to @Greg Bernhardt but keep in mind the PF rule about how we can't provide any diagnoses here. There may still be a way to start such a thread with some ground rules.

 

[houlahound]

Thinking about it, such a thread would already have been created if it was desired.

 

[CynicusRex]

If you are athletic and young, watch your knee and shoulder health. The amount of people I know with knee and shoulder injuries is truly staggering. The common denominator, all athletes in the day.

I wish I would have bought shares in artificial knee joints.

Anyone had treatments, how did it work out?

Shoulder injury, like what exactly? I know a lot of young people who have or have had hernias in their lower back or had knee injuries. But shoulder injuries being most common is new to me, even when I have some aching at the moment as well.

 

[newjerseyrunner]

One very important caution about corticosteroid injections...

Corticosterroids have anti-inflammatory properties, but they are also an immunosuppressant:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3047790/

If you get an injection into a bad joint (like bone-on-bone), and the injection doesn't help, you will have to wait 8-10 weeks for any joint replacement surgery. The risk of infection after the joint replacement it too great if the area is immunosuppressed.

Thanks, hers was a decade ago though. She's a nurse, she reads all available literature on anything she takes.

 

[houlahound]

Shoulder injury, like what exactly?

Prolly a lot to post about but shoulders are very prone to injury due to both the range of motion and the almost omni directional nature that load is distributed.

The knee realky only has to work in one direction/plane.

The shoulder has to shift load forward, back, sideways. The rotator cuff is under enormous stress when you start working angles.

Anything that involves throwing, lifting/pulling or impact can destroy your shoulder instantly and for life.

Plenty of on line info about shoulders and activities that destroyed them.

 

[phyzguy]

Echoing what Dr Courtney said, I highly recommend bicycling to keep your knees healthy. My knees are not in good shape from too many impact sports when I was younger, plus I had an ACL tear. I can't really run or do any impact sports any more. But the more I cycle, the better they feel. I can ride 100 miles, and my knees feel better after the ride than before.

 

[houlahound]

+ swimming.

 

[davenn]

Echoing what Dr Courtney said, I highly recommend bicycling to keep your knees healthy.

doesn't do it for me ... as much as 20 yrs ago less than 5 minutes on a bike or exercycle and my already arthritis filled knees become screaming pain. Things have only got worse since then D