The Effects of Ibuprofen on Youth Throwing Arms

We are hearing more and more cases of tendinitis in our youth pitchers. The normal recommendations or treatments for recovery are Ice, rest and a lot of Ibuprofen. How does all of this relate to the recovery process on the throwing arm? Well, we all know that there is definitely an overuse of the arms by young pitchers. Some pitchers now play for three different leagues or teams. They can play for a Super League team, City League, and Fall League team. Regardless of whether each league counts pitches, many pitchers start two or three games a week on the mound. That’s ridiculous! There’s no recovery time for your arm and less time preparing for your next outing.

How do we care for or prevent Tendinitis? Diet plays an important role in the inflammatory process; the foods you eat can stimulate inflammation and feed it like gas in a fire. Inflammation is the breakdown of old cells and the replacement of new cells. The diet you are following may further stimulate a chronic type of inflammatory response. As a pitcher, you want to make sure you’re following an anti-inflammatory diet rich in essential fats.

Ice and rest are valuable, but there are many parents who give their children too much ibuprofen. Much of our diet is deficient in EFAs. Many authors right now are writing about how the body is dealing with the inflammatory diet and they say that it is having a long-lasting effect on inflammation. In fact, there are necessary fats that we need in our diet. For the past 30 years, the typical diet for Americans is fat-free, limited-fat, or no-fat diets. Essential fats are Omega 3 that prevent inflammation. DHA is good for the liver and the brain. EPA is good for joints. They decrease the inflammatory response.

When you throw a baseball, you are constantly wearing down your ligaments, tendons, and joints. Choose Omega 3s that are rich in these essential fatty acids and don’t really rely on all the ibuprofen. There is a lot of recent research being done on the effects of ibuprofen that suggests that it may actually slow down the healing process of tendinitis. The other danger of ibuprofen is that you can play in pain and continue to damage the surrounding tendons and ligaments in your throwing arm.