Pain killers and ice. Effective? Any downside?

[sinK]

I fence and train legs and stuff for fencing 5-6 times a week and I get pretty sore the next days so I'm working most of the week a little bit sore (not enough to bother me, but its still something).
I drink and eat a good amount of protein afterwards to regenerate muscles, but my coach tells me to take something like an advil and pack ice around the muscles to reduce the inflammation as well.

I know the ice works, but are there downsides to this?
Also, I've never been a fan of drugs, in fact I've never taken painkillers unless prescribed, so I'm skeptical of this.

[Warrior Princess]

Don't ice before you stretch, it could cause you to pull a muscle, and be careful with pain killers, take them too often and you'll become resistant which sucks, believe me. Other than that, you should be fine, but I could be missing something.

[Delta]

If you think the pain isn't something that isn't enough to bother you, then taking anti-inflammatories probably won't help you that much.
Soreness is probably something that would be better resolved in your case with rolling it out (pvc, foam, or a nalgene could work if you're short on resources). I'm a huge fan of rolling out.

[MyrddinsPrecint]

Useful follow-up questions:

How long have you been fencing? If you've just started, or have recently started training harder or more often, your body might just need some time to adjust. If you're just sore, but not so sore you need pain killers to function effectively, give it some time, and don't worry about it unless it gets worse, or never gets better.

How old are you? If you've been fencing for a while at the same intensity, and are getting older, this might be part of your aging process. Many people can't train as hard even at the end of college as they could at the beginning, you don't have to be in your mid-90s to find your body not healing as easily as it once did.

What hurts? If it's your feet--- or any of your lower extremities--- look at your shoes. If it's general body ache, make sure you're getting enough water. If it's all your muscles, make sure you're streching before and after fencing (different kinds--- use the search function for lots of threads about stretching), and possibly when you wake up in the morning as well. If it's a very specific body part, have your coach look at your technique, possibly see a doctor, and stregthen all of the bits around that joint, muscle, tendon, whatever.


I don't really understand people who don't like utilizing medication properly. I appreciate not wanting to have to depend on it (which is certainly not a luxury we all have). I definitely understand not wanting to be addicted to something, or to build up a tolerance. But you're already looking at your diet to indentify ways that could affect the way you feel. There are plenty of foods that have been shown to affect inflamation. You could either try eating a pint of berries that might help your inflamation, you could take a bucket of homeopathy-type capsules, some of which will help, some of which won't, and some of which might hurt, or you could take a regulated pill that has the benefits of the berries and/or the benefits of some of the better homeopathy stuff that comes in a bottle that's actually required to list what's in it and is required to have done some studies that show it safe and effective......


If you were to get a chemical ice pack that would stay cold for a very long time, you were to put it somewhere delicate on your body (like fingers or toes), and you were to fall asleep after having taken sleeping pills and leave said ice on you for a very long time, you could get frostbite. Maybe. As long as you ice when you don't need flexibility and range of motion in the area, and you ice for something like 15-20 minutes per hour, and try to keep some sort of cloth barrier between you and the ice, it's unlikely to be a problem. Unless you have a religious objection to the machines that make the ice

[telkanuru]

Originally Posted by Delta

I'm a huge fan of rolling out.

You're an Autobot, aren't you.

For muscle pain, a good hot shower normally does the trick for me, but I'm young yet.

[edew]

I prefer my painkillers neat. The ice dilutes the effectiveness.

[Peach]

I have frozen bits of me with ice packs. It's unnerving to stand up and realize part of you has gone solid.

All painkillers have downsides. Ibuprofen makes me bruise. Tylenol is very toxic if overused. Aspirin has disappeared from people's repertoire in recent years, but is still an excellent anti-inflammatory.

If you're sore all the time, you should consider making one of your training days low-intensity. Much of the training effect is reaped during recovery from stress, not from the stress per se. If you're not letting yourself recover, you're just overtraining. More is not always better.

[bunbury]

Originally Posted by edew

I prefer my painkillers neat. The ice dilutes the effectiveness.

Yeah, but the ice makes it easier to get it in the IV.

[wwalkerjr]

Ice reduces inflammation and is a recommended part of sports medicine (observe baseball pitchers who ice up their shoulders upon conclusion of their game).
Anti-inflammatories reduce acute swelling but inhibit healing of soft tissues.
See the following. As painful as the next day is, try to get by without them and you will heal faster.

http://http://prolonews.com/can_i_ta...ory_agents.htm

[Peach]

Originally Posted by wwalkerjr

Ice reduces inflammation and is a recommended part of sports medicine (observe baseball pitchers who ice up their shoulders upon conclusion of their game).
Anti-inflammatories reduce acute swelling but inhibit healing of soft tissues.
See the following. As painful as the next day is, try to get by without them and you will heal faster.

http://http://prolonews.com/can_i_ta...ory_agents.htm

Link doesn't work.

[mapfencing]

http://www.prolonews.com/can_i_take_...ory_agents.htm

Just need to replace the second http:// with www.

[Sean Butler]

Originally Posted by wwalkerjr

Ice reduces inflammation and is a recommended part of sports medicine (observe baseball pitchers who ice up their shoulders upon conclusion of their game).
Anti-inflammatories reduce acute swelling but inhibit healing of soft tissues.
See the following. As painful as the next day is, try to get by without them and you will heal faster.

http://http://prolonews.com/can_i_ta...ory_agents.htm

Funny that you should recommend ice, which obviously has anti-inflammatory effects, especially since that article itself recommended against the R.I.C.E. method of reducing inflammation: Rest - ICE - Compression - Elevation. Still, it's an interesting article. I know that one japanese MLB pitcher refrains from using ice on his arm (Matsuzaka) and instead actually works the pitching arm harder to make it more resilient to the punishment it takes during a game. If your article is right, his career should last longer as a result.

[Peach]

Originally Posted by mapfencing

http://www.prolonews.com/can_i_take_...ory_agents.htm

Just need to replace the second http:// with www.

Hmm . . . seems to be a website advocating the use of prolotherapy. Wikipedia says There is conflicting evidence about its effectiveness and it is an experimental treatment.

[wwalkerjr]

I originally read the same thing on another, non-commercial, site, but I couldn't find it again on short notice. I will try to find one that inspires less skepticism.

Tim Lincecum also eschews ice after pitching, but he is 24. He may be more interested in icing down in a few years.

[hello?]

An acupuncturist I was going to for a while told me that Chinese medicine "does not like" ice. They prefer heat before AND after. (I still ice if it hurts and I manage to get home soon enough after fencing -- rarely the case.)

[Fechter1]

Since my 30-something body is now outfitted with something like 60-something knees, I use both ice and advil (antiinflammatories) for recovery. I try to limit my medication as much as possible, but there are times when just ice ain't gonna cut it.

I was, however, just told by my therapist that icing more than 15 minutes is actually counterproductive, as at that point, the tissue begins changing...

$.02

[DangerMouse]

For reducing soreness between training days, you probably don't want to take meds. It's just not good to take anything that often.

What I've found works really well are leg drains. Lay on the floor and put your feet up on the wall. Lay there for about 5-10 minutes. It drains the blood out of your legs so that when you get up again fresh blood can work its way back into your legs. I've never really needed this for fencing, but it works great between days at Ultimate Frisbee tournaments.

[MyrddinsPrecint]

Originally Posted by DangerMouse

What I've found works really well are leg drains. Lay on the floor and put your feet up on the wall. Lay there for about 5-10 minutes. It drains the blood out of your legs so that when you get up again fresh blood can work its way back into your legs. I've never really needed this for fencing, but it works great between days at Ultimate Frisbee tournaments.

I'm not a doctor, I don't play one on tv. But blood is part of a circulatory system. Your legs are receiving "fresh blood" all the time. Since your blood is mostly in charge of distributing oxygen, and without oxygen, your cells die, if you were actually able to drain a significant amount of blood out of your legs, you would experience tissue death, which we all know from watching House, is incredibly painful.

Now, from cursory research, it's possible that there is a positive effect from this-- if there's lactic acid in the lymph system, raising your legs could drain some of THAT from your legs.....

[Peach]

Lactic Acid Is Not Muscles' Foe, It's Fuel

[DangerMouse]

The leg drains were recomended by my girlfriend, who is a massage therapist and a medical professional, for increasing the circulation to the legs. Circulation is not consistant, like when your foot or leg falls asleep. Raising your legs speeds up the circulatory process.