You mean, you're covered for every eventuality?!

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

Sessy,

Hmm, I started skating because of my injury. I had been out of my cast 6 or 7weeks before I started. I didn't try jumping for a few months. When I first started however it hurt BAD. It would swell and sometimes I couldn't get my boot off without help. It's rare for me to hurt now but it does happen. Like I said, cold can cause me to ache. I've found that exercise is the best medicine for tendon injury. Heat is the second. Massage the third. How long ago did you hurt yourself? Did you skate before? You can overcome this injury, honest, but it is tough. I'm sure most folks don't even think about my past injury when I skate. I'm proud of this, as the doctor told me once I would never have ankle strength in this leg. =-) He was wrong!

teresa

Yeah I was skating before and they told me I'd probably have enough strength in the ankle to skate, but never to dance again, although they encouraged me to continue ballet anyway cuz it would strengthen the ankle...

Yeah heat and massage are great! I was jumping before, that's why it was so frustrating. I hurt myself from february to june, basically, so I'm sure it'll take longer than a few months, I was just curious on what to expect.


So when you first jumped and it hurt and it started swelling, did you just like, continue exercising and jumping or did you take a break for a while?

I've found so far that for example with the crosstrainer, which did cause a little pain at first, the ankle got much better. So I'm wondering if pain after jumping might not be as bad as the doc painted it out to be.

Generally, or as far as I've learned, it usually takes twice as long to gain back the strength as you were immobilized. So say you didn't walk for 4 weeks, it normally take 8 weeks to get full strength back in the leg. By 3-5 weeks of immobilization and not moving it, you've lost between 20-50% of your muscle strength. And how do I know that? Because it was a question on my exam and I got it wrong, so now I'll never forget that.

So yea, these things take time to heal. And soft tissue injuries tend to take longer to heal than broken bones, which is why when you break a bone, the docs tend to be more concerned about the soft tissue injuries that happened when you broke the bone than the actual broken bone itself.

As a skater, you can tell your patients all about their injuries from first hand experience.

P.S. - since you are almost a doctor, has anyone figured out why weather changes affect chronic conditions? (Easy to come up with theories. Temperature, pressure and moisture affect many chemical reactions. Someone told me low air pressure reduces flexibility and mobility, because organs containing fluid swell. But theories aren't proof.)

Sessy,

I just skated "over" the pain. =-) I tried to ignore the hurt. Not a good thing I'm sure but I did it anyway. My first coach was fun and I found it easy to ignore most pain. Everything was fun and games. Her coaching style probably was bad for me as a skater but great for someone ignoring hurt.

Good luck.

teresa

Hey Sue123, I wonder if that is also age-related. Because I was immobilized with no weight on my broken ankle for around 6 1/2 weeks. Then there was the second surgery, which also set me back. It's been a year now since I broke my ankle, and I can't say I have 100% of my strength back. Close, but not 100%. But it probably was about 4 months or so before I was walking without a limp.

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August 22, back on the ice!

Let me preface by saying I am not a doctor (yet) so I don't have experience to go by, just the texts and what we've learned in class, which of course, always has exceptions, as well as different information depending on who you're talking to and their experience and their preferred treatment and techniques. But generally, age will effect just about everything. When you break a bone, you have to form new bone to replace the broken one, and I would assume that like other cells in your body, they slowly lose the ability to regenerate as you get older.

So that would be from the bone part, but really, it's your muscles that atrophy when you don't use them. You also lose the number of muscle fibers as you age, and teh number of filaments in the fibers also decrease with age. So then, the ability of muscles to benefit from exercise is not as noticeable as it is in someone younger. So now, you've got muscles that lose the filaments because of lack of use, and muscles that lose filaments as a part of aging, and your muscles do not respond to exercise the same way that a young person would, so I would venture a guess that yes, your age has something to do with how long it would take for you to get strength back. I just don't know at around what age you start to lose muscle fibers, but just about everything else we've learned as far as age related stuff goes, it's usually around 50-60 that you start seeing these things, just not sure if that's the same age for muscle.

As far as weather changes and chronic conditions, I really don't know. Everything we've gotten that is affected by weather, we're always told "For some reason..." So I guess it really is just theories.

Hi

Ive had a damaged knee, ankle, wrist and thumb over the last couple of years and when the weather changes, goes damp or cold, I do notice a difference. Infact the joint in my thumb aches for ages after I have been in the ice arena, must be due to the cold despite the fact im wearing gloves.

The biggest thing with me at the moment though is not the fact that the weather is changing but more that I have lost confidence in my left knee and ankle since my accidents earlier this year. I know this is likely to be affecting my skating and is slowing down my progress.

Andrea xx

I broke my 5th metatarsal in May. The summer in Charleston, where I live, is in the 90 F - 100 F range. Last week the temperature suddenly dropped to the 50 F range. I haven't felt much difference with that bone. Let's see how it goes in the winter when the temperature drops further, at least a little closer to where Sessy lives.

Hmmm well about the weather thing... I tried sleeping with just my feet (else it's too hot) on an electric blanket set on maximum, and it's making a big difference for some reason! I think the dry heat helps, where as the wet cold really makes it ache.

Not sure if this helps anybody else.