When we are young children, the last thing we think about is feeling pain in our joints and muscles; or jumping off a 6 foot ramp on rollerblades causing damaged knees as we age into young adults. Some people are destined to arthritis suffering while others can avoid the future of walking around with every step a sharp, stabbing, quick pain to a joint or muscle.
What are some ways to eliminate or slow down pain in the joints and muscles as we age?
More and more emergency rooms are reporting younger people being rushed in for treatment due to “blowing out” their knee or shoulder. With extreme sports being so popular, the crazier and daring a trick, the better the athlete is portrayed by his or her peers within their sports community. Due to this form of thinking, would explain why the number of reconstructive surgeries increased and are being performed on young adults under the age of 18!
Some ways to eliminate future pains is by taking some precautions. There is nothing wrong with playing sports; anyone can hurt themselves just by walking and falling. The key is what you do after the injury and the amount of time given for recovery. At a young age, we all feel we can conquer the world and will never suffer pains from the torture we put our bodies through but as studies have found, this mindset is untrue.
Stretching, vitamins, supplements, and proper care for our bodies all help in conjunction with slowing down the inevitable symptoms of getting older. During a four hour session at age 14, while skating the half-pipe, your board files out from underneath you as you were about to do a 360 nose grab, and the only place to land is straight down, directly onto your knees! From at least eight feet in the air you fall like dead weight. SMACK onto the ground.
If you were wearing pads to protect your knees, then your knees may have been soar or bruised for a week and you may have even took a day or two off to rest and ice them. If you weren’t wearing knee pads, you might have found yourself in the hospital or at the orthopedic surgeon discussing how to treat the injury. Either way the pounding onto the joints, which help you walk and balance, were seriously hurt. If you followed through with the doctor’s orders of rest and not pounding your teenage body so hard, your knees today would be in better shape and less pain.
Many times the problem is cartilage which breaks down easily between the knee and socket which provides cushioning. This material of tough collagen, protein, and sugar only last so long within the joint and by your teenage years, it stops being produced and begins to convert into bone. Taking a supplement which helps produce cartilage to continue giving cushioning to your joints is recommended. Cartilage is considered a connective tissue which consists of cells called chonodrocytes.
A few supplements recommended can help individuals begin to relieve the painful joints. Bovine cartilage which is from cows and shark cartilage were lead to believe to help humans but this proved to be false. Glucosamine and chondroitin, in short term studies, have shown to decrease overall pain, give a higher range of motion, slow down the effects of osteoarthritis, and reduce swelling. Cartilage supplements contain a large amount of calcium and should not be combined with other forms of a calcium supplement. For specific information about which supplements can be helpful, consult your physician to discuss more options.