I’m not surprised. The inflammation probably occurs for a reason:
Blocking Inflammation May Lead To Chronic Pain – Neuroscience News
Using anti-inflammatory drugs and steroids to relieve pain could increase the chances of developing chronic pain, according to researchers from McGill University and colleagues in Italy.
Their research puts into question conventional practices used to alleviate pain. Normal recovery from a painful injury involves inflammation and blocking that inflammation with drugs could lead to harder-to-treat pain.
Growing up we didn’t have any pain killers in the house. I did not even take an aspirin until sometime after college. Yes, I had anesthesia for dental procedures, but nothing afterward.
In later years I had sports and related injuries but almost never took pain medications. And some interesting things did not happen.
I injured my left knee playing tennis in my early 30’s. As a result, the medial meniscus was removed. I had bone-on-bone action from then on. The orthopedic doctor told me I probably would be looking at a total knee replacement in 20 years. Nope. I’m still using the same knee for hiking, shooting action pistol, and shoveling tons of dirt for my underground bunker.
It is not that I am just pushing through the pain. Unless I push things with really long hikes or carrying a heavy load, I don’t feel any pain in that knee. It does have a lower threshold than the undamaged knee. But I still have endurance that exceeds most of my five children*.
Barb calls me amazingly durable. I feel pain sometimes. But I almost never take medication for it, and it goes away and I heal up quickly.
There are some exceptions. A few years ago, I had a pain in my shoulder. I tried some anti-inflammatory drugs, but it did not seem to help beyond the short term. The doctor finally got an MRI. I had a bone spur tearing up the soft tissue. They removed the bone spur. Then without pain medications and just a few days of rest, I was back to shooting again.
* Xenia and Maddy are exceptions. Xenia competes in long-distance running events. Maddy is a competitive dancer.