Imminent middle age

[abendgules]

...when all you can do is moan about your ailments. 

Going to a sporting goods store recently for new running kit, I also was in search of elastic joint supports. And I realised that they were all for my right side - right foot, right knee (well, shinsplints immediately below the knee actually) and right elbow.

This is a bit odd, since I'm left-handed and somewhat left-sided - not to exclusion of my right side, but decidedly. 

The elbow is worrying me a bit. The main right-side activity is, of course, using the mouse at work - I learned right-handed, and just never changed. But I really noticed it at Raglan, when I didn't want to hold the buckler for any length of time in my right hand, and had to pack it in early at the last fencing practice. (The support is for the next fencing practice.)

There's tendonitis, plus some muscle tension in my upper arm and shoulder that surprised even my osteopath. He was happy to treat it, but pointed out that I had to figure out the cause to really fix it.

Since then I've had my desk seating assessed (changed seat height), changed my mouse, and installed more nagware on the PC, to keep me from sitting near-motionless for long stretches. I've also tried to avoid repetitive hobbies in the evenings (knitting and hand sewing) which seemed to aggravate the elbow, though I don't want to give them up forever.

Right foot is a mystery: I wake up in the morning, and can't put my R foot flat on the floor w/out pain, in the mid-foot, what I'd call the instep. After 5 mins of bearing weight, though, it's fine, and seems happy. But some times this pain is more serious than others, sometimes quite sharp, and I wondered if an elastic support would change it.

I've noticed though that my left and right feet no longer match. There's a bump in the space above the arch of my right, and it's a bit wider than my left. On a particularly sore-foot day, it was swollen. I'm wondering if it's something to try to remedy now, or if I can ignore it, as I've been doing for months (can't remember when it started, but probably in the past two years).

I've looked up running injuries, but I don't think this is plantar fascitis, and I already know what shinsplints are.

Right knee - I've had shinsplints on and off for years in both legs, this is the first time it's flared up in earnest, so I'm limiting myself to 3 runs a week at my usual leisurely pace, with occasional long weekend runs, and bought squidgier shoes. 

I'm not convinced they're any improvement though - when you have softer shoes you're just freer to pound the pavement harder, whereas if you have less cushioning, you moderate your stride - at least, you do after the first day of serious swelling and soreness. I've rarely had sore feet from my unpadded, unshaped medieval shoes, usually because I'm on grass or non-pavement at a site.

I'm also trying to stretch more, with mixed results; I don't often feel much different from stretching, though I enjoy it.

Sometimes I watch seniors on the streets, walking so hunched, or hobbling, or limping heavily, and I wonder how they got to that stage of physical impairment. Did they neglect a small ailment, or are they work related? Would osteo treatment, or better shoes have helped earlier on? (My pronation was corrected when I was a teenager.) Part of my mum's back problems are from having one hip higher than the other, from carrying a heavy nursing bag for years.

There's not much help for chronic arthritis, obviously; but I want a body that works reasonably well into my old age. 

Comments

[ethnowoman.livejournal.com]

I have bumps on both achilles tendons on my ankles, that used to cause me severe pain on waking up, then in about five min they would be okay to the point that I could walk (sounds likes your feet, yes?) I finally got around to going to physio and she said the nodules were--erm, enflamed tendons or tissues that had grown up around the injury (sorry, can't remember exactly)--anyway the gist of it was that the muscle was damaged and something had grown up around it like a pearl in an oyster. So we did a lot of work on those ankles and she was able to massage the tissue away a fair bit. In my case, she said they had probably come about by walking barefoot (turns out being barefoot and preggers really is bad for the body) and she recommended orthotic insoles, which are the BOMB. They make my feet happy. So I don't know how similar your case is but it certainly does sound like you need a lifestyle change somewhere.

[snugglebum271.livejournal.com]

Your story sounds quite similar to mine. I am left-handed, yet all the issues with headaches, pain and joint problems affect my right side. I have had bursitis in my right shoulder since May, and had to stop the gym. However, since I shifted my mouse to my left hand and started getting massage therapy things seem to be easing up. Most of my issue appears to stem from lower back problem where the muscles on the right side are permanently contracted, which drags down my right shoulder and cause the neck muscles to stretch out to leading to tension in the muscles over the head and behind the eye. Chiropractic and massage therapy have helped immensely, although the cause of the problem can’t really be fixed at this stage(desk job).

I can also recommend the Barefoot running system. The theory is that by using shoes to correct your running irregularities it ends up weakening all the muscles in your foot/ankle/knee etc. The barefoot running system retrains and strengthen the muscles. When I started training I bought a pair of expensive Brooks shoes designed to correct my pronation, but continued to develop painful shin splints, knee pain, and rolled over on my ankle more than a few times. I now swap between a pair of Vibram “Five-Fingers” and New Balance “Minimus” shoes, and have not had a return of my symptoms as well as a much more comfortable run/circuit workout. Of course, I suspect for as many success stories to this system, the will be as many complaints, but it works really well for me.

[suelet.livejournal.com]

Do you see a massage therapist? right now the tension in *both* shoulders is leading to extreme sensitivity in my elbows and wrists. I have issues with my lower back (to do with a hip problem) that are causing issues further down. As he works the muscle groups, I feel the pain go away in the other areas. I also need to find a reliable and accessible chiropractor who isn't going to try to con me into a "regimen" to reset my hip....

[kirieldp.livejournal.com]

The pain in your foot sounds very much like the pain I have from the tendonitis in my achilles tendon. My osteo advised rolling a golf ball with the arches of my feet regularly, and doing stretches of the achilles tendon - oh and putting gel inserts into my shoes. Icepacks (6 minutes) and resting (and anti-inflammatories if you can take them, which I can't). Of course I have failed utterly to do the resting as I have been walking everywhere while I travel, but otherwise the advice has been helpful. I did buy an ankle strapping support thingy, with mixed results. Immobilising the ankle seemed to help, but the strap sat halfway under my heel, which made my heel tender. Maybe I just need to find a different model.

[frrsawyer.livejournal.com]

It may be worth considering making an appointment with a qualified Personal Trainer who is able to look at your posture and the various ailments that you are starting to experience and may be able to recommend an appropriate program of strength training / stretching to hopefully enable you to start overcoming some of these issues. There are a lot of exercises that can be done at home and don't require additional expenses such as gym memberships etc.

Often it can be a case of finding the correct balance of doing strength training for one set of muscles while counter-balancing that with stretching for the opposing muscles. For example, someone who experiences knocked knees in the feet would probably benefit from a program that includes strength training for the Abductor muscles (outside of the leg) counter-balanced by additional stretching of the Adductor muscles (inside of the leg).

I'm dealing with similar issues at the moment with a dicky knee that just doesn't want to stop going out of alignment. In the end it took my Chiropractor telling me to stop fighting with my body and forcing it to do what I want it to do in order to give my knee the break that it seems to have been screaming out for over the last six months or so. I now have a program that completely excludes exercises that would aggravate the knee (ie. squats, lunges, leg extensions, high impact activities, etc) and is focusing on other parts of my body (from the hips up). I am also starting to get back into RPM (Spin) classes slowly and surely as cycling is a great for knee rehabilitation albeit still modifying those classes so that I'm not standing up on the bike. And surprise, surprise, my knee is already feeling much happier with me after just two weeks. I am missing some of the stuff that I used to be able to do but hopefully, with a suitable period of "not fighting with my body" I will gradually be able to work my way back into them.