Intersection syndrome??

[antonputman]

Anyone has suffered from this after windsurfing?
2 days ago I went out in offshore winds for a session of about 3 hours blasting long reaches up and down the bay and coming in upwind 3 times.

I did not really noticed anything when packing up apart from the usual sore biceps and forearms. I took creatine before and during the session because it was more than a month since my last sail.
When unloading the van at home and after a shower I started to notice the pain above my right hand wrist.
The pain started to get worse and now up to even not being able to work, write or even eat with a fork anymore.

I made an appointment with a physiotherapist but that's only day after tomorrow. Did some DIY diagnoses on the internet and it all looks like it is a Intersection syndrome.
http://www.methodistorthopedics.com/intersection-syndrome

[isobars]

Our biceps and forearms and grip are for gybing and unhooked DTL wave sailing, and should be essentially resting during the bulk of our session. Learn to trust and use your harness more effectively, and if one body part gets overused anyway due to operator error AND successive long days of fun, change your grip and use some other part.

The old-fashioned cure for tendon abuse is RICEN ... Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation, and NSAIDS. Now we know better ... that ice and NSAIDS simply make it feel all better but IMPAIR healing, often by months. Gut out the pain or use Tylenol rather than an NSAID and let the affected tendons rest and actually HEAL if your long-term goal is to heal rather than to risk chronic, maybe even permanent, damage by shutting down the healing process and repeating the abuse. Then when it's all better, concentrate on letting your harness do its job except when you're changing tacks (i.e., reversing direction).

Once you've mastered that (it might take a whole session), your arms should last all day and your legs will follow suit. The objective is to be able to use technique and hardware to outlast the wind (i.e., still be fresh at dusk) without any specific body part getting too tired. You'll know your technique is right when you have to stop and rest due not to localized pain or exhaustion but to overall/central fatigue, the antidote for which is plenty of the right kinds of fluids and fuel.

If our pain is simple DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) from overusing some long-ignored muscle (e.g., your first pushups in three months), that's a different issue. That presents no long-term threat and can be ignored, prevented, or minimized in other ways. The symptoms of intersection syndrome do not suggest that.

Kudos for being able to muscle a longboard (any board with a daggerboard) in big winds, but is there nothing you can do -- nowhere else to launch -- that affords side-shore access, so you don't have to sail such big gear in order to return to shore reliably?

Mike \m/

[antonputman]

You are right Mike, it must have been happened during the beat back in the squall because I could not use my harness at all, hanging on the boom at 15° apparent wind angle with a very noisy sail.
It was that or being lost at sea in offshore winds

The longest beat was a starboard tack so my right hand was holding the boom underhand, I must have forced the tendons.
The longboard is the only board I would trust in those conditions btw.
There is no way I would be out on a small volume shortboard without a daggerboard. Another spot? I will have to drive at least 5 hours for side shore. In the winter it's like that or nothing here. That's why I am always the only idiot out!

Looks like I am gonna have to quit WS-ing for a few weeks

Let's see what the doctor orders.

[U2U2U2]

the doctor will likely recommend , time on the beach, yes.

Probably some strengthening exercises .

Wait till you put a few years on for the onset of more aliments

[antonputman]

Makes me think.... underhand or overhand to prevent injuries?
Alternate more right?

[isobars]

I figured you were on the longboard for that reason; I would be, too, in that scenario. That ... or just not sail unless there were plenty of boaters out there eager to rescue me.

As for 5 hrs to a sideshore launch ... also makes sense. I was hoping there may be closer options, like so many people I've seen risking unplanned overnight adventures or even hypothermia and loss of gear simply because it hadn't occurred to them to park a quarter mile away at a more suitable launch for a given wind direction.

I gather from a few clicks that I.S. is due to abuse of one's wrist entensors -- the muscles/tendons that [correction] LOWER the hand at the wrist -- implying you were curling your wrist while gripping underhanded (hand beneath the boom.) Maybe it was simply the angle involved due to having to pinch so hard overpowered, but it's not clear why you couldn't hook in. Probably my most completely relaxed point of sail is when I've vastly overpowered in a huge sustained gust, pointing as high as I can without losing the plane yet planing slowly for full control in wild winds, hooked in with most of my weight in my harness, my arms along for the ride just dangling from my hands laid on the boom, sail sheeted out naturally to assist in the close reach. Or maybe that daggerboard changes everything to the point none of that applies.

The doctor will probably order ice and NSAIDS, because that's what they were taught in med school. I, OTOH, would at LEAST ask her about this:
http://drwheatgrass.com/info/newsletters/sometimes-inflammation-is-a-good-thing ,
and would be suspicious if she dismissed it without a credible explanation. Too many providers turn their minds off the day they hang the diploma on the wall, leaving it up to us peons to determine who's right. It shouldn't be that way, because research isn't flawless, but that's what research is for ... to help decide which research is correct. Hint: it's not always the first guy who makes a claim that's correct.

Switching grips is usually good, but not if one position is simply wrong. Thus the most prudent measure is reducing the amount of force we're transmitting by trusting more of it into and through our hardware. That's why I learned how to use my harness (and will not use anything but a roller bar) even in the closest thing to DTL sailing I can muster in Gorge swell. Until I reverse course, I stay hooked in.

[adywind]

Ibuprofen/Advil/ usually did the job, when I was doing similar shit with big gear and my forearm tendons were suffering ...and rest.
Underhand when just reaching is better, switching to overhand before any maneuvers though. Balanced harness lines are imperativ to not having to pull with any arm for longer periods. Also holding the boom with your fingers only instead of your whole hand helps to get rid of the squeezing problem. Long harness lines for my 5'8" -28-30" let me commit to the harness better -especially on deep downwind it's essential!

[isobars]

Notice my correction in the third paragraph of my post above.

I should also mention that when one of my muscles or tendons hurts, I do what you did -- Google its causes -- with close attention to the nitty gritty details. An in-depth description states the exact positions and stress paths leading to a particular ache or pain ... all the interior/external, anterior/posterior, distal/proximal, etc. stuff describing the orientation, location, angles, linear and twisting forces and motions of each joint including shoulder, elbow. wrist, hand, thumb, and fingers, for example. Then I'll put my arm in that position and pull or push as appropriate and ask myself, "During what WSing activity am I doing exactly that?" Then I stop doing that. It might mean changing from over to under hand grip, gripping the boom further forward or aft of its curve, moving a harness line a centimeter, buying booms with a different curve, twisting or bending more or less at the waist to change some angle at the shoulder, putting my thumb with or opposing my fingers, elbow up vs down, shoulder up or (much more likely) down, straightening rather than cocking my wrist so my whole arm is acting like a cable rather than an actuator (no bicep or tricep actuation), and many more such nuances.

Simple but very common example: you're pinching upwind and feel pain in the outer and upper part of the upper segment of your front/mast arm, below the shoulder. It can be an ache, or can be so painful that you simply cannot do it. You might think it's a torn bicep. The usual fix? Lower that shoulder for instant relief. The pain was caused by muscle-to-bone impingement inside that shoulder; it only FELT like it was in your upper arm (referred pain). The long-term cure? Learn to keep that shoulder low, where it belongs anyway. The pain will be an excellent reminder until it becomes habit. That and simple rotator cuff exercises will usually make surgery unnecessary.

Similarly, I'll bet you will learn to stop extending your wrist and will work more on committing most of your weight into your harness almost all the time. Anything less and pain will remind you.