SportsGeezer

Ankle Sprains: What To Do Once It's Done

High on the list of events that Geezer is not eager to experience, or even imagine, is spraining an ankle. He remembers all too well the moment of realization that the entire weight of his body has just forced the bones of his ankle into a position they were never intended to assume. There is the strange clicking sound that bones are not supposed to make, and the rush of nausea informing us that we will spend the next few days doing something that doesn't involve walking. Sprained ankles hurt. And they can do permanent damage.
What to do once it's done? Geezer recommends sending the wife out for nice Rioja and renting a good movie--The Savages, perhaps. The New York Times has some other ideas, (forget about taping). Read the Times' suggestions for getting back in the game in the wake of a sprain.

Another Gender Difference: Sports Injuries

While Geezer is constructing his proof that male athletes injure themselves better than women athletes, readers can see what the more reliable Judy Foreman says about the sports injuries that women seem drawn to: tears in the ACL, plantar fasciitis, compartment syndrome, shin splints in runners, and kneecap pain.  Foreman, the premier fitness writer for the Boston Globe, tells us that women's knees are more vulnerable than men's because the angle between the hip and the knee - is greater in women than in men. While wide hips are good for childbearing, Foreman writes, they mean there is more stress on the knee in moves like landing from a jump and twisting. This torque can shred the ACL, a ligament that helps stabilize the knee,and is a major reason why female athletes have four times more ACL tears than men do. Read more about sports injuries that women just can't resist in the Boston Globe.

Stress Fractures: What Little You Can Do to Prevent Them

Looking for the good news in this L.A. Times story on stress fractures is a stressful exercise. The bad news is easily found: stress fractures--tiny breaks in bones, usually in feet or legs--are common injuries for runners and other athletes whose training involves repeated pounding. Being in great shape doesn't necessarily protect one from stress fractures: Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong suffered through a stress fracture when he ran the New York Marathon for the first time after retiring from cycling competition. The Times' cites a study of 167 runners from the UCLA track team. Over five years, 37 of the runners suffered more than 60 stress fractures.
What can you do to prevent them? Weight training helps to strengthen bones. So does good nutrition (calcium), and running on softer surfaces is a good way to go.
Read more in the L.A. Times.

Glue in the Wounds: Can Super Glue Mend Cuts?

The New York Times "The Claim" column wonders: Can Super Glue heal wounds? The short answer, according to NYT health answer man Anahad O'Connor, is yes. A longer answer yes, but you would be foolish to use it when you can use Dermabond, which is made for that purpose. 
O'Connor informs us that "during the Vietnam War, emergency medics began using the all-purpose glue to seal battle wounds in troops headed for surgery. The glue was so good at stemming bleeding that it was credited with saving many lives. Nowadays, professional athletes often close small cuts with Super Glue or similar products to get back in the game in a hurry. The glues are also used by veterinarians, and many people keep a tube around the house to help them out of a medical pinch. It is believed that the glues — made from the chemical cyanoacrylate — not only stop bleeding quickly, but also lead to less scarring."
For practical purposes, not to be confused with posts on SportsGeezer, Anahad recommends a similar, antibacterial form of the substance called 2-octyl-cyanoacrylate, which is  marketed as Dermabond. For larger wounds, Geezer recommends duct tape.
Read more from Anahad O'Connor.

Meditation Eases Chronic Pain

Geezer recalls the less-than-usefyl advice that was routinely offered by high school coaches to anyone who complained about pain. "Don't think about it." Now comes a study from an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh suggesting that the best advice may be "Don't think about anything."
The L.A. Times reports on research that tracked the effect of mindfulness meditation on chronic lower back pain in adults 65 and older. The paper reports that the randomized, controlled clinical trial found that the 37 people who participated in an eight-week mindfulness meditation program had significantly greater pain acceptance and physical function than a similar size control group. Subsequently, the control group took the same eight-week program and had similar results.
Read more in the L.A. Times.

Does One Sports Injury Lead to Another?

Noting that soccer rocker David Beckham sprained his ankle, then his knee, the L.A. Times wonders if it's true, as is often said, that one one sports injury leads to another.  The Times turns to UCLA orthopedic surgeon Dr. David McAllister, who informs us that "the data are scant."
What data we do have deals mainly with recurring injuries.  The Times cites a 1998 study of 714 athletes who'd had surgery to repair the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) of one knee tallied how many tore their previously injured ACL again or hurt their healthy ACL instead. The half who had thinner ligaments were far more likely to damage the ACL in the healthy leg than the half who had thicker ligaments, and most of the thin ACLs belonged to women.  But in a 2007 study of 235 patients, risk of injuring either knee was the same, about 3%, two years after ACL repair.
The best data, the Times reports, come from baseball, which is an easier sport than most to study because pitchers tend to injure the same kinds of joints. Players who hurt their elbows are more likely to have shoulder injuries, says orthopedic researcher Brady Tripp of Florida International University in Miami. A 2007 study by Dr. William Grana and colleagues at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center in Tucson found that of 84 Chicago White Sox pitchers, 27 had elbow ligament injuries, and 60% of the pitchers later had shoulder injuries.
In any case, most experts advise waiting for one injury to heal before pushing the body in any direction, and that means more than waiting for the pain to subside. The rule, experts say, is make sure recovering joints have the same range of motion as the healthy joints, and that limbs regain full strength before taking them out to the field of glory.
Read more in the L.A. Times.

How to Treat Shin Splints

A runner known only as CJ asks L.A. Times health writer Jeannine Stein what can be done to ease the pain of shin splints.  Stein tosses the question to Dr. Phillip Kwong, a foot and ankle surgeon with Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic clinics in Los Angeles and Anaheim, and to Robert Forster, owner of Forster Physical Therapy and Phase IV Scientific Health and Performance Center in Santa Monica.
Kwong suggests starting with a good look at your feet. If they're flat, you may need an orthotic that gives more support on the instep, preventing the feet from over-pronating, or rolling in too much. If your arches are high, on the other hand, your foot may less flexible, making shin splints more likely.
"When the foot lands, there isn't the elasticity of the tissue or the mobility in the joints to go side to side, so everything goes up the leg," he says. Your feet will benefit from more cushioning, via shoes with more padding or an orthotic.
Kwong and Forster both recommend stretching before and after you exercise, to help the muscles move and be more flexible. Forster says it's a good idea to start with the standard runner's stretch: Lean forward, with your hands against a wall, keeping heels and toes forward and aligned. Lean until you feel a stretch in your calf muscles.
For a more advanced stretch, says Forster, stay in that position but move about 6 inches closer to the wall and bend one knee -- you should feel this in the lower part of your shin and your Achilles heel.
Readers who prefer a visual aid should visit this page of MedicineNet.com.

What Acupuncture Will Do, and What It Won't Do

There are at least two things that everyone should know about acupuncture: It can help relieve tension headaches, and it can ease back pain. It most likely does not, on the other hand, relieve depression, and it appears to be fairly useless against asthma. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has a lot to say about acupuncture, including some attempts to explain the science of how it might work. Or not.

Read more about the truth and the myths of acupuncture and four other alternative medical treatments in Men's Health.

Study Shows Brain Injury Risks of Soccer

A small--OK, very small --study of 10 men who play college soccer and 10 men who don't has found evidence of reduced gray matter in the brains of the soccer players.The Scientific American reports that researchers at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Ohio used MRI scans to look at the brains of the 20 subjects. The scans revealed reduced gray matter (which controls thinking and memory) in the anterior temporal cortex. Sciam reports that the significance of the relatively smaller gray matter volume and density seen in these players is not yet clear. Of the 10 soccer players in study, which is published in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine, only two said they had suffered concussions. Read more in the Scientific American.

Active Men Break Fewer Bones

The next time you decide not to play whatever sport because you don't want to risk breaking bones, read the study that was recently done at Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden. It strongly suggests  that men who maintain the highest levels of activity have the fewer fractures than their more sedentary peers. The New York Times reports on research, which studied health records of 2,205 men beginning at age 49 to 51, and then followed them for up to 35 years, during which 482 men had at least one fracture. The men were interviewed and examined again at ages 60, 70, 77 and 82. At each of the five interviews, the scientists posed the same questions about watching television and movies, engaging in other sedentary activities, walking or cycling for pleasure, and engaging in sports. They also administered exercise tests and performed muscle biopsies to measure physical fitness, confirming that the men who reported higher levels of exercise were in fact more fit. The paper reports that researchers found that the men who maintained the highest levels of activity had the fewest fractures, and that those with the lowest levels had the most. Read more in the New York Times.