The aging, achy fencer

[Redblade]

For those of you who are old enough to actually have persistent joint aches or pain the morning after fencing, at what age did you start to notice it?

[Rick Shellhouse]

For those of you who are old enough to actually have persistent joint aches or pain the morning after fencing, at what age did you start to notice it?

Check out a supplement called Flameout...its been working well for me

I noticed aches and pains when I started back heavy workouts and training....spoke to some gym rats who told me this stuff would work well and so far has at least on the joint pain...


R

[darius]

I'm a big fan of Flameout. It decreased my NSAID (Ibuprofen) use heavily.

For those on a budget, Flameout is a high-quality, souped-up fish oil - you should be able to get a lot of the benefits by finding something similar.

darius

[magic_moose]

Just after fencing?

I found I could barely walk after heavy week long hiking trips starting about 20.

These days, I find that fish oil capsules seem to help. Supposed to reduce inflammation.

With that and regular training, I feel pretty good the morning after fencing and I am in my 50s but everything is relative.

[Peach]

I don't have joint pain after fencing. I have it before I start fencing, and after I wake up in the morning. Going up and down the stairs in the morning is narsty, and I have considered asking the bus driver to use the "kneel" function on my way in.

I usually feel much better after fencing.

I stopped running around ten years ago because of joint pain.

I stopped using ibuprofen because it started causing random bruising in my finger joints.

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

I second the recommendation for flameout.

A lot of it also has to do with the stuff you eat.

Reducing the amount of carbohydrates (particularly lactose), goes a long way.

Reducing your intake of things you're allergic to (even mildly) also helps. A lot of people have a very mild and unnoticed reaction to peanut products. No hideous boils or suffocation, just increased levels of inflammation.

Tumeric, Flameout (or, around 40 grams of fish oil per day), and a lot of zinc.

The zinc goes a long way. A lot of people are zinc deficient. Get a bottle of zinc tally to test yourself.

I'm not really "Old", but I'm a fencer and a lifter. I'm always fighting inflammation.

[Lance K]

First noticed aching knees at around age 42--not just after fencing, but pretty much continuous. I changed three things: switched from using thin-soled fencing shoes to thicker-soled court shoes, started taking glucosamine, switched from foil to epee.

Three years later I've got no pain at all. I'm back to using thin-soled shoes and I quit taking glucosamine well over a year ago...guess it was the foil.

[tchwojko]

I feel far less creaky this year than previous years. I have no idea which of the following causes produced the effect, but I would bet most of these helped:

1. Lost 20 pounds.
2. Bought new shoes more often.
3. More well rounded workouts, with more core work, giving me better balance.
4. Better diet (though it wasn't too bad previously)
5. Cycling instead of jogging/elliptical/treadmill
6. More consistent use of multivitamins and fish oil (though I didn't take the oil for joint pain).
7. Removed a fair amount of sugar (both real and fake) from my diet (though there wasn't much there to begin with).

[Fencergrl]

I tore the ligaments out of both knees (and one of them twice) before I hit my 20's by playing sports. I couldn't walk without inflammation and pain. I doubt I would have been able to fence.

Even years of cycling to build-up the muscles around the knee (as suggested by a sports specialist (25-30 years ago) didn't fully regain the function without pain.

In my early 40's I started taking fish oil (1 tablespoon daily/ three 1000 mg caps) for a different injury. Much to my surprise, my knees stopped aching. I still feel a little pain from time to time in one knee (although fencing never bothers it). Mostly I feel pain when I've skipped my fish oil for some reason for a few days.

Fish oil has also been shown to improve brain function and mood in addition to keeping inflammation down. Flax oil can also be used, but the body gets less benefit from it because it has to process it more than fish oil. Some fish oil has a nasty fishy after-burps. The good quality ones don't.

Alternatively, you could increase your intake of deep water fish (salmon, cod etc..).

[Elendae]

I'm in my late 20's and I don't remember a time that I didn't have joint pain. I inherited a tendency towards bad ankles and my babysitter broke my leg when I was about 18 months. I had a walking cast, which messed my gait up, and no one ever corrected it, until after I had knee surgery a year ago. This weekend will be my first tournament since I was injured last summer. I tried a glucosamine supplement, but it made the pain worse. Perhaps I will try fish oil. It might be nice to walk without being in pain.

[campb1pr]

When I stopped coaching, practicing and competing regularly at age 33 I noticed that the occasional harder workout would leave me in more pain.

When I got a sedentary job at age 37 and gained about 25-30 excess pounds it got worse.

Like they say, acting young keeps you young.

The more active times of year (summer golfing and swimming with kid) are easier on the joints. The once a week of two hours of fencing in the winter is just enough to remind me that I hurt a lot when I get that exercise. Replicating fencing motion and stretching proper muscle groups during twice weekly gym workouts helps.

[Fencergrl]

I tried a glucosamine supplement, but it made the pain worse.

Like anything else, not everyone gets the same results from a supplement. Glucosamine doesn't do much for me either. MSM works better and is something we naturally used to get in our foods (when we didn't use chemicals to farm).

My sisters used fish oil for inflammation from their arthritis. Again... something we used to get much more of in our foods. Not just from eating fish but other foods, for example, free-range beef has omega 3 in it, but feedlot beef doesn't.

To make it worse, a lot of processed foods use oils (that don't naturally occur in foods). These fats/ oils encourage inflammation.

A good diet can go a long way towards improving one's overall health.

[D'Artagnan1673]

I've heard that fish oils have some other, err... shall we say perks?

I started having front knee pain my second year of fencing. I was 20. I find that my knee hurts for a few weeks right after I pick up fencing after an extended period of time. Watching my form generally corrects the issue.

I've been out of college for 4+ months now, and I've lost 15 pounds. It feels great to be near high school weight again. I cannot agree more that acting young keeps you young. I am, of course, just 27, so that might have something to do with it.

[piste off]

FYI - Not all fish oils are created equally...

http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=16...FQiNHgodJAN-jQ

R-

[Fencergrl]

Yeah... I was hinting at that with the "fishy after taste" comment. In Canada, you're looking at pharmaceutical grade, for properly filtered oil.

[fatfencer]

If you have reached the age of thirty and have never cleansed your liver your blood is so full of toxins/bacteria that you will have all sorts of phantom aches and pains.

I had them a number of years ago and probably even posted about them here.

Bottom line?

Eat LOTS of nuts and seeds and fish unless you are allergic to any of them. Take a fish oil supplement. Iceland Health i hear is a good one.

Go easy on the refined sugars and starches. Many of the body's harmful bacteria love that stuff.

Take a liquid multi with crap tons of antioxidants.

Lean well cooked meats and cruciferous veggies.

Keep a stronger medicine handy to triage your pain until you do finish the cleanse. You will feel worse b4 you feel better but more often than not your pain will go away permanently.

Phantom pains have systemic(large, multifaceted) causes as a general rule.

But remember... you are likely sick because your body is rebelling at something you did to it.

Fatfencer

[magic_moose]

Yeah... I was hinting at that with the "fishy after taste" comment. In Canada, you're looking at pharmaceutical grade, for properly filtered oil.

I take the Costco enteric coated fish oil concentrate capsules. The enteric coating seems to prevent the "Mackerel? Yes, definitely mackerel.....again" effect.

(FWIW, they appear to be made by a Canadian company)

[parryDoh]

I had terrible pain under the kneecap, chondromalacia patella, on my front leg for years caused by fencing. After seeing sport med doctor, I tried strengthen exercises and stretching but it didnt help that much. I final fixed that probelm by replacing my gel heelcup with a hard plastic one and a different brand of fencing shoes. After years of living with that, the pain was gone in a week! The hard plastic heel cups are from fencing.net, Thanks Craig!

I never heard of using fish oil for pain. Will have to try that and Zinc. I feel so exhausted the day after fencing. It makes getting up and going to work the next day very difficult. I had that problem since my late twenties and im 33 now.

What is Zinc Tally?

[fencerbill]

I have tried many glucosamine/condroitin combinations but the ones with MSM seem to leave me feeling a little better, compared to the others.

[Fencergrl]

MSM is absorbed better than glucosamine for the vast majority of people because the body recognizes it. For some reason glucosamine seems to have better press agents.

Sisu makes a MSM supplement with the herb Boswellia which is fantastic for people with severe joint pain such as arthritis. The two supplements work really good together in dealing with inflammation. I don't know if this is available in the US, but see if you can buy the herb from a health store if MSM is not enough for your pain.