I recently crashed on a trail I hadn’t ridden in years; which by the condition of the trail, hadn’t been ridden by anybody else either. Ned’s on Mt. Seymour was a trail that my brother and I rode a lot when we first moved to the North shore. I don’t think I’ve ridden the trail in 3 years, if not more, but the day was so rainy that any other trail would be washed out and full of puddles and running water. Since Ned’s is basically just a river full of rocks, it is pretty good in the wet, in fact, the rain washes away all the dust and dirt from the rocks which makes them quite grippy. This was the same for the wooden ladders. Since nobody, or very few people had ridden it in recent years, the rocks were still grippy, but the wood was slippery. My front wheel washed out as soon as I touched the wooden ladder on a relatively fast section. Since the trail was mostly rocks, it wasn’t a soft landing and I stuck my hand out and my palm hit a big rock. It was pretty painful and got very swollen and bruised, which usually doesn’t happen when I have big impacts, so I was a little worried something may be wrong.
After 2 X-rays over a couple weeks the Dr determined nothing was broken, but it was still pretty tender. I started doing some research and learned that the use of Advil and other similar drugs can interfere with the healing process if used long term. Several articles suggest that athletes shouldn’t use these drugs over long periods of time and should look at natural pain killers instead. I went to a health foods store and picked up some things that may help me heal a little quicker.
The Curcumin reduces inflammation and research shows can be better over long term than more mainstream drugs that do the same thing. The Piperine helps the body absorb both the Curcumin and White Willow Bark, which helps reduce pain and is safer long term than Advil.
This is sort of an experiment to see if these help my hand get back to normal quicker and I’ll keep you updated with the results!
