Throughout our lives we participate in activities which often result in initial pain, but which later on reappears as joint pain. I remember my Mom telling me “all this sports stuff is gonna come back to haunt you later in life”. I remember assuring her it was all good and it was helping me stay healthy. Of course, as I grew older I remember not to “mess with Mom.” Really I learned that a lot earlier, but as far as exercise goes I thought she was just being Mom. Plus, she was Miss Tennessee in high school basketball. She was an amazing jock in her day. So, she had to understand. Well, she did AND she saw the WHOLE picture.

As we get past the age of 50 we often start to stiffen-up, develop chronic pain from general injuries or arthritis, gain weight and recover more slowly from exaercise (if we do it at all).  As we exercise we tend to initially get sore (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, DOMS), which makes us not want to keep doing it.  Sometimes we develop new injuries and recovery is sooooooo slow.  What's a girl or guy to do?  We've tended to focus on resting, wrapping, elevation and taking pain medications, but that's no way to live.

I went to one orthopedic doctor and after he did all his tests and hmmms and haws he said, "There is very little you can do other than take a larger doses of ibuprofen".

OMG!!!  My stomach replied.

I chimed in with "Is there any thing I can do besides medications to reduce the pain, increase my range-of-motion, increase my flexibility?".

He shrugged.

"So, I just have to get old and die, right."

No response.

I went on a mission to see what was possible, financially manageable and did not involve dancing around a cauldron and drinking an aperitif of “eye of newt, leg of toad and witches whiskers”.

I've got four suggestions that I've found make a huge difference for me.  They reduce inflammation, increase range-of-motion, increase flexibility, minimize osteo-arthritis, reduce that horrible aching we get when we start an exercise regimen, help us recover faster from injuries we know we’re going to get and actually help us lose some weight. "Can you hear me now?"  Sounds like it heals "corns, calluses, bunions and sore feet too".  Not exactly.  I call them "THE BIG 4."  Read the next posts to find what the BIG 4 are - Read the next four(4) posts.