Microfracture Surgery cont.

Nutritionally I also had a strong programme and left no stone unturned. My first thought was calcium and making sure I had the right "stuff" to make new tissue. So my wife cooked beef bone broth for me every day for lunch, it was great for the waistline too.

My primary concern was to reduce the inflammation. I want to talk in later posts about chronic whole body inflammation, but this acute inflammation was my primary concern. So I started taking Arnica and Symphytum as homeopathic rememdies and symphytum cream topically. Now I know this will make many jump up and down, such as Prof. Brian Cox who describes homeopaths as distillation wizards. Well rather than just shout people down I looked to the literature and found some papers that suggest it might not be such a bizarre thing to be doing:

Symphytum Cream

Symphtum Cream 2

Arnica vs Voltarol for wound healing

Arnica gel in osteoarthritis

Arnica and symphytum treatments are not expensive and there appear to be no side effects so my professional opinion as a scientist is to give it a go!

I had also been taking glucosamine and hyaluronic acid chronically since well before my surgery and I would do the same again as there is enough positive evidence to suggest that for some people with certain conditions it could be helpful. Science could really be helpful here by increasing the amount of funding for these treatments and ensuring there is no observer bias such as funding from the biotech industry. This needs careful scrutiny.

More recently I have been focussing my efforts on getting rid of whole body inflammation. I have been reading a lot and a good text that I would recommend is the Gene Smart Diet. I will review this book in the future but I would definitely put it on your reading list. Basically I have been taking long chain omega-3's from fish oils, and omega-6's from borage seed oil. The potential benefits of this are long and varied so I won't include references. Secondly I have been increasing the polyphenol content of my diet including more veggies with the skin on, berries and other high polyphenol intake such as dark chocolate (control intake as high in calories), red wine (control intake because of alcohol) and supplements such as cherryactive. We have done work in our lab on cherryactive and I will cover this in a later post. Again these things are not expensive and will add to your health.

I can't be sure what had an effect and what didn't but I am sure that my refusal to fail helped me find the best possible strategy for recovery from microfracture surgery. An update on my progress, I am now double arm swinging 40Kg and double snatching 32Kg comfortably. This was more than I was doing before the surgery. I won't be jogging till at least January and I intend to investigate barefoot style running when I do. I am in a better place now than before my surgery.