Ultra Runners

12

Hands Swelling - Not Sure What to Adjust (Read 80 times)

NYCNorma


    Hi NYCNorma - am I guessing correctly that you're female?  I am too!

     

    So, I've been discussing Waterlogged, hydration, electrolytes, and swelling a lot with my female training partners, and we seem to think that hydration and electrolytes are different for men versus women.

     

    First thing, unless it's extremely hot, we've all admitted that we typically gain a pound or two from our long runs, and none of us seem to be overdrinking.  Also, not associated with feeling ill or off.

     

    Regarding the hand swelling, it happens to most of us, and it seems to happen most often when there is a large change in temperature from the start of the run to the end of the run, or if we climb a lot and have temp changes at peaks.   When I'm running on roads, I wave to oncoming cars (raise my hands) and this brings down the swelling a lot for me.  One woman claims she swells more during the last week of her menstrual cycle.  All of our hands swell - and we all feel good!

     

    Thirdly, we all like the drinkable electrolytes.  Only one of my friends uses so much as to want to fill a reservoir with it.  I like to use drinkable ones rather than S caps because I can decide whether or not to drink it based on whether it tastes good or not.  If it tastes yucky, I stick with water.

    Waterlogged! That's what I wanted to read.

     

    A lot of what you say makes sense and corresponds to my experiences as well. Not sure about temperature, I'll have to pay attention on my upcoming long runs. Now that you mention it, I have seen more complaints about hand swelling among women--both online and IRL.

    NYCNorma


      Sorry, that posted twice for some reason.

      SillyC


        NYC Norma - my winter break project is going to be to read waterlogged and look up the primary literature (I'm a biology professor).  Then see how much of the research was done only on men.

         

        This is a HUGE problem in medical research - so many studies are done only on men, with no comparable group of women, and then it's not easy to find that information.  Another problem is the "file drawer" problem - if an intervention  / drug worked for men but not for women, the researchers publish the information about men but toss the womens' data in the "file drawer".

        NYCNorma


          Well I'll be anxious to see what you find, if you're sharing it anywhere.

          AmoresPerros


          Options,Account, Forums

            The table (water state vs electrolyte state, with symptoms*) was interesting. I've never seen that before. Thanks.

             

            * At bottom of article mentioned above: http://www.succeedscaps.com/articles/water_electrolyte_balance_table/

            It's a 5k. It hurt like hell...then I tried to pick it up. The end.


            Uh oh... now what?

              NYC Norma - my winter break project is going to be to read waterlogged and look up the primary literature (I'm a biology professor).  Then see how much of the research was done only on men.

               

              This is a HUGE problem in medical research - so many studies are done only on men, with no comparable group of women, and then it's not easy to find that information.  Another problem is the "file drawer" problem - if an intervention  / drug worked for men but not for women, the researchers publish the information about men but toss the womens' data in the "file drawer".

               

              SillyC -- you might check on the Western States Web site for medical research.  They used to have a program and the results, or at least a reference link, made it to the ultralist.  If you try and and can't find it, tell me and I can search the 'list archives.

                WSER medical research has both the new studies as well as publications listed. (I have it bookmarked.)

                 

                It's interesting since they're starting to get a body of research collected, and some of the researchers may have studies elsewhere, including Alaska. Then you can follow those authors and ...

                "So many people get stuck in the routine of life that their dreams waste away. This is about living the dream." - Cave Dog
                SillyC


                   

                  SillyC -- you might check on the Western States Web site for medical research.  They used to have a program and the results, or at least a reference link, made it to the ultralist.  If you try and and can't find it, tell me and I can search the 'list archives.

                   

                  JohnM - the Western States team typically does use data from female competitors as well as male.  However, they aren't the ones that produced most of the research on hydration / antidiuretic hormone / electrolytes, which went into Waterlogged.   A lot of that information comes from more controlled experiments in physiology research laboratories.

                   

                  If I ever end up doing this project, don't worry - I'll write up something nice and probably do a fair amount of blogwhoring.  It won't be easy, and I'm sure I'll need to do a ton of Interlibrary loaning to get access to all the articles.

                     

                    JohnM - the Western States team typically does use data from female competitors as well as male.  However, they aren't the ones that produced most of the research on hydration / antidiuretic hormone / electrolytes, which went into Waterlogged.   A lot of that information comes from more controlled experiments in physiology research laboratories.

                     

                    If I ever end up doing this project, don't worry - I'll write up something nice and probably do a fair amount of blogwhoring.  It won't be easy, and I'm sure I'll need to do a ton of Interlibrary loaning to get access to all the articles.

                    IOW, they may have different results? Wink

                     

                    One of the things I've noticed in some controlled studies is that their protocols may not resemble the way people actually hydrate and use electrolytes..(at least that was my recollection from some readings.)

                    "So many people get stuck in the routine of life that their dreams waste away. This is about living the dream." - Cave Dog
                    SillyC


                      IOW, they may have different results? Wink

                       

                      One of the things I've noticed in some controlled studies is that their protocols may not resemble the way people actually hydrate and use electrolytes..(at least that was my recollection from some readings.)

                       

                      This is true, but these kinds of experiments take the peanut M&Ms and pringles out of the equation.  They also remove choice - people might take more or fewer electrolytes in response to physiological cues.  You sacrifice some "reality" and gain a lot of power.

                       

                      It's not so much that they may have "different results" - typically with women there are no results reported.  Sometimes because they can't recruit enough participants to make their results behave with the statistics programs.

                      12