Tore my distal bicep tendon deadlifting over the summer, had it repaired just before the holidays. Because of the delayed repair, had to have an achilles tendon graft from a cadaver to get it reattached. Because the graft tendon is dead tissue, I’m facing a six month recovery process before putting resistance on it to allow the tendon to vascularize and gain solid attachment to the radius.
Anyone have any advice on supplements or whole foods to help with increasing capillary growth or bone growth/strength? I’m taking a number of items now, curious if there’s anything I’m missing.
Padilla - yes, the doctor was my first resource. He’s a bit old-school. His response was “there is no magic oil”.
sjfou - thanks, I’ll do a search for that.
kroby - I’m currently taking athletic multi-vitamin/mineral (read high dosage), omega 3 and 6, glutamine, arginine, BCAAs, and lots of protein (as usual). Just wondering if there’s anything I’m missing.
chiquita - From what I’ve heard, they started using cadaver grafts for tendon replacement within the last 10 years, much more common over the last 5. This particular injury is rare, however the grafts are often used in knee tendon repairs. Nope no issues with rejection as there’s no blood in the tendon like there is in an organ. Kind of like when they use screws for bone repairs I guess.
Hmnn I know there are a lot of supps out there to help with connective tissue repair (Glucosamine, Chondroitin, OMega 3’s etc,…) but helping the new tissue to vasularize? Man, that’s a new one by me. Maybe some sort of dilator? Aspirin to thin the blood a bit? Heat treatments to stimulate blood flow? Man, I’m totally guessing here.
I’m going to get really old school for a second. Try using Knox Geltin. You can find it at the grocery , its in an orange box. It actually helps repair and strengthen connective tissues. I’m sure someone will call BS on this one, but it works. You just mix a packet with water and drink it a few times a day. As an added plus it also helps with digestive problems and nutrient absorption. Sometimes those old school remedies are the best out there. Good luck.
cissus
glutamine
collagen
lots of vit C and vit A should help with repair. as for getting blood to the area im not sure maybe serrapeptidase,niacin,heating and some stimulation to the area. hope that helps.
Just got a torn rotator cuff repaired and recently researched and put together the following I thought would be beneficial: glucosamine, chondroitin, msm and gelatin combo (like the one from Labrada), glutamine, creatine, calcium, high doses vit C. Maybe enzymes but not sure what type maybe someone could help out on that. I also heard about cissus but don’t know anyone who’s tried it, maybe someone can chime in with experience on it.
Sorry to hear about your injury. I greatly appreciated Berardi’s article when I was injured, but honestly I don’t think diet or supplements make much difference in recovering from injuries like this. Maybe it just seems that way when it takes such a long time, but I just don’t feel that anything you can put in your mouth makes the recovery any faster for injured areas with low blood supply.
If anything I think the most important factor to stimulate healing is putting exactly the right amount of stress on the area, no more and no less than optimal at any given time. But of course I never know what that optimal amount of stress is. Hopefully in your case, your doctor or PT will know.
Thanks, all. I was already using many of the items listed, and have added some others.
That being said, andersons has a good point. With little or no blood supply to the injured area, the effect of vitamins and other nutrients for healing may be minimal. However, right now I can’t put any “stress in the area”, so I’m mostly stuck with applying heat, and the hope that the good nutrients I’m taking in will help as the blood supply develops.
Additionally, they did damage the bone and muscle tissue to attach the graft tendon, so the nutrients shuttled there should help with repair.