Anti Inflammatory Pills - Just pain relief or do they really promote faster healing for tendonits?

I was looking into some info on icing and came across these sites that I thought was pretty interesting on Icing, anti-inflams, cort injections, ect. They claim anti-inflams, cort shots, and icing do not help.

Here are a couple of the links. There is a lot more info here, you just have to keep clicking. I noticed a pic of Dean Karny on the site which made me a bit skeptical.

http://prolonews.com/can_i_take_anti-inlammatory_agents.htm

http://www.sportsprolo.com/prolotherapy_and_sports_injuries.htm

This leads me to another question that I was going to start a thread on - feel free to start a thread on it, if you feel inclined.

The question is, "has anyone done Prolotherapy and if so what was involved and was it helpful ??"

I'm no doctor, but I do know that inflammation is your body's natural response to infection (or injury in this case) in an attempt to HEAL itself. If healing (rather than just masking) the injury is what you want, why would you prevent that?

interesting, my DOCTOR says they do haste recovery, however my CHIROPRACTOR tells me of studies done on mice with soft tissue injuries (long story short they healed fast without anti-inflams) but I'm still not sold.

The answer is yes, anti inflammatory pills will promote faster healing for tendonitis. Because when they are inflamed your bodys immune system actually attacks the tendon and damages it further. That is why all the healing has to do with reducing inflamation. I got this info. from a joint doctor when I HAD TENDONITIS IN MY POSTERIOR tibial tendon

Yes, they will help...along with an ati-inflammtory diet.

Look up Zyflamend.

I took 4 ibuprofen every 4 hours for chronic achilles tendonitis for about 5 months. I tried to start running 5 different times, each time reinjuring my achilles... back to square one.

Finally I thought about it, and decided to stop taking ibuprofen... the pain got worse within 24 hours and was pretty bad for about a week after stopping. However, after a month of NOT TAKING IBUPROFEN my achilles has healed completely.

I don't think anti-inflammatories help and here's why: They mask the pain, making you think your injury is better than it actually is. You may think that you are ready to start running, but really you aren't because the ibuprofen is simply disguising the pain. Pain = your body's natural message to stop (I'm not talking about the kind of pain that comes from hard training). I think this is why I tried to start running too early 5 times... I thought my injury was better but it really wasn't.

Another thing is that when my achilles hurt more from not taking ibuprofen, I was more sensitive to the injury, so I iced more often and refrained from doing things that aggravated my achilles. This helped it to heal faster. It took me 5 months to figure this out - hopefully you will take my advice and save yourself some time.

jon kus wrote:

any thoughts?

Most NSAIDs impair healing of soft tissue. In other words, you will heal more quickly if you do not take them.

Let me give you an example. Let's assume two identical twins suffer the exact same type & degree of ankle sprain. "Bob" takes ibuprofen. "Sam" does not. While Bob will experience a faster decrease in swelling than Sam, and obviously will experience less pain in the days following the injury, if you examine the injured ligaments under a microscope 6 weeks later, Sam's will have healed to a greater degree than Bob's.

For more info, google is your friend...

b

It deepnds on the type of anti-inflammitory you take. For instance, NSAIDs like ibuprofen work well to let you keep running on an injury, potentially leading to chronic injury (which is why one of the above posters way probably having problems) but they don't help you heal. Other anti-inflammitories, like aspirin, don't have to same effect. They don't reducing swelling as well, but they also don't impede healing (as far as I have read). So... its kinda hit or miss.

ibuprofin masks the pain. Zyflamend, herbs like tumeric/curry and ginger, and anti-inflammatory foods heal the injury.

You are mistaken. The human body is a self-healing organism, and only the body has the power to heal itself. Inflamation is a self-healing process and any drug or herb that reduces inflamation interferes with the healing process. Food doesn't have the power to heal, all food does is supply raw materials.

Take 80mg of Oxycontin

Anti-inflammatory medication is really just palliative treatment. In other words, it only relieves pain. It does NOT facilitate the healing process, and indeed may even disrupt healing. At least one study has shown that bone injuries heal slower when treated with anti-inflammatory drugs.

Keep it real, feel the pain, and run when it's gone.

Ok good point, but doesn't the body almost of react to the injury and inflame the area too much, it is almost a over reactive stimulus from the body. Also do we not ice to reduce inflammation?

Here's a thought wrote:

You are mistaken. The human body is a self-healing organism, and only the body has the power to heal itself.

You are also mistaken. There are plenty of maladys that can affect the body, and without drugs, the body would not be able to heal itself.

A few nasty STDs come to mind...

an additional factor to be aware of is the impact that NSAID's have on your body outside of the injury site. After taking them at a relatively low dosage for an extended time, my iron counts were way down due to the effects on my digestive tract. I'm not saying don't take them but be aware of the fact that they don't just home in on the injury site and leave the rest of your body untouched. After six months on iron pills and no anti-inflammatories I'm finally running better again. Long term use is discouraged although of course they might be necessary for short term pain relief.

NSAIDs cannot be said to increase "healing" or regeneration of damaged tissues directly. The confusion regarding NSAISs effectiveness lies in the relationship of inflammation and swelling as well as the circulation of metabolites surrounding damaged tissues.

NSAIDs effectively increase circulation near damaged tissues in cases where swelling accompanies inflammation. In these particular cases, NSAIDs can be said to "increase" or speed-up healing.

However, each injury, each type of injured tissue is unique. In cases of pronounced swelling near the affected tissues, it is a good bet that NSAIDs do indeed promote healing. The end.

Anti-inflammatories help to relieve pain and also decrease swelling.

While swelling is the body's nature defense to an injury, it actually slows the healing process. It is there mainly to protect the area. The more blood you have moving through the area the better. So anti-inflammatories actually speed the healing process.

This is one reason why you ice injured areas.

I have a similar story. I had a stress fracture and I took bextra, which decreased the pain substantially. So I tried to run on it after only 3 weeks off and the bextra didn't heal my stress fracture! I was out for 3 monthes... STOP BEING DUMB!

I don't think anti-inflammatories helped you because you were dumb and didn't let your body fully heal before trying run on an injury... What you should have been doing instead of just taking anti-inflammatories was, stretching, icing, elavating and heating before activity... Also, Ibuprofen isn't strong enough to mask a pain that would keep you out for 5 months.