Out with the Old, In with the New...

I'm not sure if there is a polite way to tell someone that in order to prevent the same problem from happening again and again they are going to have to lose 20 pounds or do more than 5 minutes of core work a week. Remember those crazy electric football games where you end up with a scrum of electric player figures that got all jammed up in the middle of the field? That's kind of how some of us go through our preventative injury programs. Doing some antiquated old school nonsense. For some men it's "I can't be caught dead in a yoga class" yet I'll be caught with L4L5 disc herniation running like an old man because that's what we KNOW. It's not easy to change what we do. It requires effort and discipline. You also need to know if your muscle, fascia and tendon tissue are just plain worn out or if there is a tear. Tools like diagnostic ultrasound can delineate The DEGREE of injury. That's why you see the doctor for a sports injury; not because you have no idea what it is. Only YOU can change that paradigm. And guess what? It doesn't happen overnight. It's about a lifestyle not a boot camp with someone yelling at you. Last time I did anything remotely close to that I reinjured my ACL in a sports conditioning class doing a standing broad jump relay race on a gym floor with running shoes. Keep crashing up against those old cast iron players on the electric field and keep getting the same result or do something different and put yourself on the line to improve.

The Skinny on Lasers and Toenail Fungus

People have been fascinated with lasers going all the way back to the iconic image of James Bond being nearly split in two in the movie Goldfinger. Goldfinger was the first blockbuster movie ever. No doubt this brought the idea of lasers as being cutting edge into the American psyche. Lasers have been used in medicine for everything from zapping off warts to whitening teeth and now for treatment of those ugly thick fungal toenails. Another unforgetable scene on the Hollywood silver screen highlightd the social stigma attached to feet that aren't pretty. Eddy Murphy from the movie Boomerang pulls back the covers of his bed to reveal that his sleep over guest has jacked up feet. Lasers are part of a program that can help with the thick fungal nails and are an alternative to oral medication. The should not be thought of as effective as the oral but there are no potential side effects unlike oral aGENTS. Sports like running skiing and soccer increase your risk of getting toenail fungus because you sweat inside a closed shoe or boot and you are subjecting your toenails to repetitive microtrauma. The treatment should be only part of a regiment for a pesky problem.
The laser helps eliminate the fungal spores that lie within and underneath the nail. Just as in fading with laser teeth whitening the nail fungus can come back. It should be used as an adjunct treatment either with an oral or topical treatment. It is also important disinfect the areas the fungal spores reside, so the nail does not get reinfected. There are now ultraviolet lights to do this. Lysol is not a great idea because you are subjecting your skin to strong chemicals but there are other more safe disinfection sprays for shoes available. Health insurance does not cover the cost of this treatment. The treatments are administered once a month over three months and do not require anesthesia. You don't have to hiode your feet. You can flash them like your teeth with or without the teeth whitening!

Warts & the Wolfman

No this post isn't about a new Wolfman movie. It's actually about trying to get rid of plantar warts. Warts are a virus. They are a strain of HPV. Plantar warts are a partiicularly hardy strain and they can reside on pool surfaces, bathroom surfaces and the skin itself. Do you remember the old Wolfman movies wear the nice guy turns into a werewolf and they film it time lapse style? I call a treatment I use on warts the reverse wolfman because when it does work it cause warts to fade away. It uses a dectivated yeast called Candida which gets the body to recognize the foreign antigen because it sometimes cannot recognize the wart virus. The treatment takes about 2 months to work but it sometimes has no effect since everyone has a slightly different immune system. Lasers can also be used for warts. They work by damaging the blood vessels that provide nutrients for the warts. If you look at a wart you will saee little black dots; those are the blood vessels. Although some warts go away on their own, plantar warts tend to be tougher to get rid of without treatment.

Marathon Man

I just read how would be Vice President, Paul Ryan "mis-remembered" his marathon time from 20 years ago and I think it says a lot about him and our country's obsession with perceived accomplishment. Who does not remember their marathon time?? I mean it's a race against the clock and there is only one winner. I remember my best time over 30 years ago- it was 3 hours 42 minutes 12 seconds. Who cares? It's about what you can do. Now don't get me wrong. I hate losing. When our bike race team failed to make the "Little 500" my Junior year at I.U. after giving about every ounce I could to train not only could I not watch the race, I went to train the next semester by myself at Virginia Tech staying in my brother's dorm to wash away the disappointment before returning in the Spring to I.U. Now you can say,as Paul Ryan did, my brother ribbed me about rounding down to 3 hours and that might be exusable if if you're at the maturity level of a pre-adolescent but not the person of character I want a heartbeat away from the presidency or coaching young people. Nothing wrong with the run/walk thing. Self actualization in sports is about laying it on the line and being content with what YOU can achieve.