I was wondering what type of protocol many of you use regarding anti-inflammatories. I’ve started to get a minor case of shin splints and have started taking ibuprofen somewhat regularly (4-6/day) to help heal/recover/train thru them. I was wondering at what point i should lean more towards resting and recovery as compared to how long many of you stay on antiinflammatories. What period of time do many of you use them for recovery/injury prevention?
How much are you taking?
7-10 days is probably OK?
If I’m not getting better in 3-4 days, I just stop what I’m doing for a week. So far, that’s worked. However, I’m getting older! Instead of taking them more/longer, I’ll probably stop doing what hurts for a week plus 2-3 days, or even two weeks. I don’t think it’s a real good habit to take more rather than to rest more.
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Why Ibuprofen? Why not take Naproxen? You don’t have to take nearly as many pills.
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I was told by my doc to take 2 naproxen twice a day for 2 weeks to deal with the inflammation in my IT band. While I was doing this, I was still icing and was not running or cycling.
NSAIDs should **NEVER **be used to “train through” any injury. You’re just fooling your mind/body into thinking you are ok because of the analgesic effect of the NSAID. If you continue to do this with shin splints you run the risk of progressing this to stress fractures. The proper use of any NSAID for the anti-inflammatory effect is a prescription dose (varies depending on the NSAID for example Motrin is 800mg 3x/day) for 7-14 days. I typically tell my patients to take a prescription dose for 3 weeks, if no effect then dump it. May recommend trying a different NSAID to see if they have a better response.
The key for you is cross-train, stretch, check out your shoes and then a slow return to running. If it’s not getting better go to your doctor or see a physical therapist. Also if this has been going on for a while, you may want to go see your doc sooner rather than later just to be sure you haven’t already progressed to a stress fracture.
Remember we coming into the off-season. You’ll have plenty of time to recover and re-build your run before next season if you handle this appropriately now.
Best of luck.
DH