I have destroyed my forearms while building my house!

Hi Gary,
I seem to have destroyed my arms with lots of digging, hammering, nail pulling, lifting, and so on.
Both forearms gradually got more and more sore. Now it hurts sort of between my biceps and my forearm, but mainly in the forearms when I do simple tasks like pick up my children and even brushing my teeth. This makes it hard to build my house. :)
Do you have any suggestions, or will I have to impatiently wait for 2 or 3 months? I gave them a week, they felt better, like it didn't hurt to pick up a child anymore. I went back to building for 3 hours and my arms went right back to hurting again. Is there anything I can do to speed up the healing? Can I work them if they are sore, but not work if they are in pain or do I have to wait?

"C"

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Gary responds:

One of the over-riding themes of this website is self help. Rest is mostly a waste of time and compromises the need to build strenght. Rest longer then a few days weakens. Most injuries do not need numerous visits to the doctor/physiotherapist/chiropractor. This is certainly the case for "C".

"C": What you need to do is to locate the area of most intense pain. In your case, this should be over the origins of the brachioradialus and extensor radialus longus muscles (refer image left).

Go see a massage therapist and have them thoroughly massage the affected area of both arms - plus all of the rest of the upper, lower arms, wrists and hands. While taking care not to overdo it on the first session, you should feel tender, bordering on bruising the following day.

Repeat the massage once a week with only gentle massage of the arms in between, if anything at all. You should notice a significant improvement by the 3rd session (3rd week). Continue for another couple of weeks for good measure, or for as long as it takes to be 100% pain free.

While it may be sensible to have a couple of days break from the house project, it helps the healing and strengthening process to continue to use the arms as per usual while avoiding the more damaging exercises such as heavy lifting, jack hammers and the like.

There are some nutrition measures that will aid recovery and the building of strength. Please read this article here for more about forearm pain and nutrition.

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I am a massage therapist with overuse injuries affecting my wrists and arms

Hi Gary,
I was just doing some research online about the risks of cortisone injections and came across your web page. I was wondering if you could give me your opinion about my wrist problems?

I'm a 26 yr. old female massage therapist. I've been working as a massage therapist for the past 3 years. I have been having a lot of pain on the ulnar side of my wrist next to the carpal bones.

 Ulnar deviation is very painful while I'm working and just doing everyday activities. I just took three months off to rest my wrist to see if the pain would go away. It did a little... but not too much. I have been receiving ultrasound treatments, but they don't seem to do too much. I had nerve conduction testing done because I was having some numbness, but the doctor said my nerves were fine. I'm extremely flexible so the doctor thinks the extreme range of motion in my wrists leaves me vulnerable to injury when I'm massaging. I need to build strength, but I also have tennis elbow from doing massage. Every time I try to use bands to do light strength training, the tennis elbow is aggravated. I feel like I'm stuck in a big catch-22. I just went back to work this week and the pain is right back to what it used to be. My doctor said the next thing we could do is cortisone injections. I'm going back to school to get into a different career because I know I won't be able to do massage for much longer. I wanted to be able to work my way through school by doing massage just part time. Even if I can't do that, I want the pain to go away so i can at least do everyday activities pain

 free.

I wanted to know if there are any other options other than cortisone injections to help relieve my pain? I massage it and stretch it. Warm up before doing massage and ice after. Wear a wrist brace to bed at night. Wear a magnetic bracelet during the day. I would really appreciate any advice you could offer.

Thank you,
Lisa
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Gary:

Lisa, I usually massage several clients daily, so I can identify with the problems you have.

  Massage can be a tough workout; especially when working on gristly male athletes who have run themselves into the dirt!  I do not do relaxing massages - they are hard work designed to restore diseased muscles, tendons and ligaments to a healthy state.  To answer your questions, let me explain how I manage to cope....

I recall it taking the best part of 6-8 months to get my arms up to scratch and this was on top of a background of decades of competitive sport, including kayaking and constant gym work.  there were times that I struggled with tendonitis in the wrists and even now the finger joints are not 100%.  Massaging full-time is repetitive, exhausting and every bit as tough on the upper body as, say doing an all day paddle down a river.

Here is how I cope:

• I try to limit massages to no more than 4-6 hours per day
• I try to space the males out so that I do not get too many of them in a row
• I have a quick snack between clients just as I would if I was competing in an all day multisports event
• I am a stickler for good nutrition, including tissue salts and the occasional dose of joint food, otherwise how can my body recover and heal?  You can find heaps of information on this website about nutrition
• My partner, Alofa, is very strong and very good at massage.  Twice or more a week, she gets stuck into my arms and shoulders to work out the knotts and inflammation that builds.  Without this ongoing maintenance massage work, I would be disabled with tendonitis and arthritic joints
• If I take a break from doing massage, the longest has been about 10 days - any longer and the body deconditions and the risk of injury is high if one then dives back into it full-time

Lisa, if you look at the arms and hands of an experienced professional massage therapist, you will see strong, well defined muscles, tendons and ligaments and huge, profuse blood vessels.  It

 takes years to build these.  I will make the observation that many, if not the majority of young women and men nowadays are fragile as compared to what I recall of my 20's.   Young people generally do not eat well due to low fat diets.  Lack of sunshine ensures general fragility including weak bones and sinews.

  These young people are consequently not well suited for hard manual labour.  You may very well be one of these young people with the extreme range of

 motion being an indicator that this may be the case.  

Picture: Moller family portrait, with the strongest legs belonging to the teenage daughter - Point is strong muscles, sinews and bones like these are less common nowadays

I am not about to tell you to give up.  Better still; train and eat like an athlete preparing for Olympic competition:  Get onto a nutrient rich diet, get regular massages on your upper body and arms and pace yourself.  Restrict massage to every second day with 2 days complete break during a week.  I would not bother about trying to do additional strenghtening exercises.  Use the massage sessions as your workouts and concentrate on recovery and growth between sessions (workouts).

Cortisone is not an option unless you want to become a long term client of mine!   Read my articles about cortisone injections.

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What can I do for chronic tennis elbow?

I have a chronic case of tennis elbow for which I was treated about 18 months ago with a cortisone shot into the elbow area. The pain resolved but returned about 9 months later due to repetive motions (mostly golf but I must admit also playing video games). About 4 months ago I had a second shot but the pain did not completely resolve, I would say it was about 80% better, though the pain was bad enough before the shot that it would wake me at night.

Over the last month the pain has steadily increased and I thought about seeing my sports doctor again, but I was getting nervous about the side effects of these shots. I found your site and was more than a bit shocked that I did not know about these dangers caused by deterioration of the bones, tissue, etc.

My question is, so far, only the shots have seemed to help. I do the stretches, wear a band on my arm when I play golf and I generally try to go easy on it but I also work at a desk and type all day which also seems to aggravate it. What can I do, in terms of stretches, supplements, etc. that I haven't been doing, or need to do more of, in order to relieve the pain?

_____________________________________

Gary replies:

The flexor and extensor muscles of the forearm are most likely to be very tight and probably have sore knotts in them.  The point of pain at the elbow may be inflamed and probably thickened with some gristle.

The best treatment is some form of deep tissue massage of the obvoius area sof pain, lumpiness and thickening, as well as the whole of the lower and upper arm.  Those areas affected and not affected.  This shoudl include the wrist, hands and fingers even if there is no discomfort.

Some areas may be acutely painful at first but should ease as the massage proceeds.  It would take about an hour to have both arms completed.

This should be repeated every week for 4-8 weeks by which time significant relief should be obvious.  Continue with this therapy untill 100% and have followup sessions every now and then.

I believe that adequate nutrition is essential to ensure the healing processes are up to the job between each session.  If not, then there will be only partial relief.  Nutrition should centre on minerals (Principally silica and calium flouride), the fat soluble vitamins, protein and essential fatty acids.  If you complete the Active Elements Assessment and supply all the additional information requested, I can assist in more detail since the best diet advice is that which is tailored for the individual, rather than a one-size-fits-all set of guidelines.

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My doctor has poisoned me with flouroquinoline!

Dear Sir....
Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God.....thank you soooo much from my heart, for your articles of the TRUTH about the TOXIC fluoroquinolones!!!!! Oh Sir, you just have no idea of the HELL that this previously HEALTHY single mom of twin 10-yr old boys has been through....NOT ONLY WITH MY DETERIORATING HEALTH but the TOTAL IGNORANCE and LACK OF CONCERN from the medical community (for starters).

Photo: Shelley in healthier days

If it were not for the information I finally found on the internet, after nearly 2 years of searching and struggling to find the CAUSE of my "mysterious symptoms"....I don't know where I would be now. At least I have found the MUCH NEEDED *SUPPORT* from groups like FQRESEARCH.ORG and our wonderful YAHOO quinolones discussion forum. And valuable information from articles like yours.

How do I deal w/ the fact that the life I had is gone. Over. because of the INCOMPETENCY of our DOCTORS....AND GOVERNMENT??!! My life has completely changed. Everything about my life.....the pain and suffering have been HORRENDOUS!!! It's INCOMPREHENSIBLE how this has happened to me....and so many others who are suffering NEEDLESSLY!!!!! I receive email from people on a daily basis....people I have never met or even heard of before....searching for answers.....suffering, begging, praying...... And as it stands today, we have NO PROTOCOL FOR HEALING....NO RECOURSE FOR COMPENSATION!!!!! NOTHING!!!!! OMG what has happened to us??!!!!

I have pictures of my skin, the blood that started appearing on my face, from tiny specks of "sores"....just appearing in the morning when I woke up, for NO REASON AT ALL!!! I began telling my doctor about mysterious aches and pains I started having, that would NOT go away....and I had no clue as to why it was happening. I told my doctors about a feeling of malaise....almost to the point of being a constant nausea.....and a very strange sensation of my body "stiffening up" so that I could hardly get out of bed in the morning, and it was a struggle to make it down the steps.

I told my doctors about the ringing in my ears....pain behind my right ear, where a "knot" appeared. I actually had one doctor try to convince me that it was from my glasses!! I insisted she feel the bump....and stood firm that I knew the difference between "mysterious pain" and pain from where my glasses would sit along my ear! It just made NO SENSE. Yes she finally (in exasperation) decided to send me to an ENT... who also HAD NO CLUE (OR LIED) and offered not much as far as diagnosis after SEVERAL VISITS....it was a lymph node, and I could have it removed. Well, still, there was NO ANSWER about the strange "swelling" or tenderness I felt all around my ear....then ALSO all around areas of my HEAD!!!! I chose not to be cut into until a doctor could tell me what it was....I was worried that something else was going on that could be made WORSE from surgery.

The more I suffered and tried desperately to recover and heal, the more "new symptoms" would appear!!! Can you imagine my DESPERATION and FEAR??!! Going from crying to the doctors, to becoming angry.....even taking my 70-yr old mother AND my little boys with me for some kind of VALIDATION!!!! I was finally sent to a rheumatologist (even though my test results showed that I did not have rheumatoid arthritis). So I really had no faith in that visit...even though by this time, my hands and feet were so sore, my right hand swelled, and I believe there is permanent damage. X-rays showed nothing abnormal....and I was once again dismissed....though any MORON can SEEEEE the damage with their own naked eyes!!!! I kept complaining....and I kept being told there was "nothing else" they could do. I would go home, completely mystified, crying.....I didn't understand. How could a doctor NOT be "concerned"??!

I was eventually diagnosed with tennis elbow (tendinitis), arthralgia, musculoskeletal disorder, trigeminal neuralgia....I've recently had an MRI for a stabbing feeling at the top of my head....but the MRI came back "normal". (Of course now I understand WHY) I had gone to physical therapy several times. (Which may have even been a big mistake on the doctors' part) There was one time, during a course of therapy that I thought I started to feel a little better....but that did not last long.....and in fact, my pains became worse. In frustration, I then said "The hell w/ all of them!!!" And continued to suffer.....searching for ANY clue!!!

You will not believe how I found out the TRUTH!!! I searched UNDETECTIBLE TOXIC DRUGS and POISONING....because that's exactly how it felt to me!! It felt as though I had been POISONED and the doctors could not find it!! And suddenly....THERE IT WAS!! How was I supposed to even REMEMBER the name of some antibiotics I took in 2003??!!!! YES 2003!!! I had been given AVELOX as well as TWO courses of LEVAQUIN!! I know I felt side-effects but continued my medication as prescribed by my physician. By the time the actual DAMAGE by these fluoroquinolones had occured, (we call them FQ's), I would NEVER have held these drugs suspect!!! WHO would even THINK such a thing!!

That's how absolutely mind-boggling this situation is!! AND IT IS KILLING US!!!!! I have been taking supplements daily....faithfully. The first thing I start with is COLLAGEN!! And I am finally coming to terms w/ the fact that my life has changed....and I may never fully recover. Every minute of every day is a struggle physically and emotionally. But I continue to fight the good fight. I have to..... what is the alternative??!! I am sharing your articles w/ my forums, as well as passing them along in emails. I am committed to promoting awareness about this grave situation esp through an informative email campaign that I call D-A-A-M....DEADLY ANTIBIOTIC AWARENESS MISSION.

Instead of enjoying the life I share w/ my children and mother....and our 7 cats....and being able to enjoy the simple pleasures of life itself.....I am working on this mission from the time I awaken (in PAIN) to the time I finally go to sleep, which is always in the wee hrs of the morning.

I found YOUR website about 5 AM!! In between time, I also home-educate my boys!! But I cannot and will not keep SILENT about the dangers of TOXIC FQ's, and how they are literally crippling innocent people...and DESTROYING THEIR LIVES!!!!! PLEASE....if there is ANYTHING you can do to help us.....ANYTHING at all....would you please consider giving us some of your time and insight into this matter?? We are struggling on a daily basis, with NOWHERE to turn, but each other. I am hoping I can make a difference. Will you please TRY to do something for us???? I am asking, at the very least, if you could possibly help w/ healing protocol. No promises, or guarantees......just some insight. It could be the start we are hoping and praying for.

Please continue to research and promote awareness with me!! For all of us!! I appreciate your time and consideration.....and anxiously await your reply!!

Thank you Sir, I remain Sincerely and gratefully yours,
~Shells~
Ms Shelley Sealover
ShellsPink@aol.com Toxic_Pinx@Yahoo.com
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Gary Moller comments:
Thank you so much, Shelley, for the moving story of your struggle with these harmful drugs that continue to be prescribed. I have retained your email address with this article so that others can contact you.

Sadly, current medical opinion about these drugs is the damage is permanent. However; I am much more optimistic than most. While there is undoubted damage to collagen in the body, I am forever amazed at the capacity of the body to heal, if only we provide the best possible conditions to assist it with that job and if only we give it time before resorting to more drugs.

I think the drugs companies and the doctors who manufacture and dish out this class of drugs to unsuspecting patients deserve to be sued to Kingdom Come. There is more than enough evidence that these drugs do irreparable harm and we have known for years.

I recommend that readers who think they may have been harmed by flouroquinolines and other drugs, like biphosphenates, contact Tom Lamb of Drug Injury Watch. It was Tom lamb who first brought these flouroquinoline antibiotics to may attention. There may be a class action law suit that one can join, rather than battle the Big Boys alone.

Some thoughts about how to support a Floxy Body

• A hair tissue mineral analysis will be most interesting and may throw up some very interesting results that will help direct nutritional interventions.
• Take collagen supplements, as you are, and natural sources such as beef and chicken bone broths which will also provide much needed minerals and proteins - refer to my Recipes Section.
• Please read and follow my article here about chronic pain and fatigue. The advice applies.
• Take up to 8,000 mg of Methylsulfonlymethane (MSM) per day, plus 2,000 mg of vitamin C per day. You could add a quality garlic oil and vitamin E. These will help detoxify the body of any poisons as well as providing nutrients - vit C and sulphur for healthy collagen.
• You can also add a glucosamine supplement to the daily diet. If over 40, ensure there is also chondroitin. You do not need one with MSM, since you will be taking large amounts from a dedicated MSM supplement.

Give this time - the best part of a year to see if there are any significant benefits. Please keep us posted as to how you get on and we wish you all the best Shelley.