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My journey as an allergy-suffering dancer:
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My journey as an allergy-suffering dancer:
BUSTING THE MYTHS:
"I'm aching cause I'm tired"
Let's say you are a dancer who recently has started getting all sorts of
joint pain.
Chances are, you think it's your training or practice that brings it on; maybe, you've been working too much lately; maybe, your technique and alignment have been a little "off", or you haven't been addressing certain muscle imbalances lately.. Maybe you plain accidentally pulled or sprained something. While all those reasons are quite possible, there's something else that can be causing it.
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allergy can cause joint pain
Allergy can strike unexpectedly and not manifest itself other then joint pain. During an allergic reaction it's the HISTAMINE in your body that wreaks all the havoc. HISTAMINE is a natural and otherwise necessary chemical that your body produces. It is a part of your immune system and acts as an inflammation trigger, pathogen response trigger and neurotransmitter. Your body is built to react to histamines with any part of it - it could be your joints, your nerves, your stomach your cardiovascular system.
You can have multiple allergies and sensitivities and each one can give you a different reaction. Elimination and getting to "baseline" are the way to find the culprits. Sometimes, you get "lucky" enough and get an immediate reaction like the one I have experienced:
I love grapes, even though my whole life they have been giving me a bit of a tummy ache. Everybody I knew was having belly ache from grapes. So I was not worried. Recently, I got myself that nice big bunch of grapes and had a couple - the next thing I know is bad very BAD pain in all my joints. It lasted for a day or so. Later I found out, that grapes and corn share a chemical. My body hates corn, and now it has started hating the corn part of the grape. Expressing the hate to this particular chemical in it's own unique cute little way. So there.
What to be done here is to select safe food and personal care items only, products that are good for you.
What to be done here is to select safe food and personal care items only, products that are good for you.
Additionally, Benadryl is considered to be a good histamine blocker.
More on the tricky, not-so-famous allergy symptoms and other useful info here:
Science behind allergy
If you would like to lower your histamine levels it is possible to be done by taking corn-and-soy-free QUERCETIN.
Science behind allergy
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Solanine intolerance can cause joint pain
Solanine is a toxin, naturally occurring in the Nightshade plant family. The delicious tomatoes, potatoes, peppers are representatives of this family.
I love them all!
Well, you never know when it can hit ya.
Once upon a time i made delicious french fries and, you know already, what happened next. BAD joint pain that lasted for a couple of days. Turns out, there's a couple of tricks - how to prepare and consume them more safely if you feel you absolutely must.
First off, make sure you get your nightshades, if possible, from farmers with the most healthy practices, and the veggies are not coated in waxes/anti-sprouting agents.
Now, here's my trick:
1) Potatoes, if disturbed, turn on a self-defense mechanism and start producing more and more poison. They think you are a bug or a small animal and they try to get rid of you ASAP. The longer you play with the raw potato, no matter peeling, cutting, shredding - the more poison the cells produce.
I suspect, it is coming from two things:
the potato tuber does not have seeds that go through animal's digestive system undamaged to secure the reproduction and survival of the potato species. Thant's why eating it means death for the plant, and a fight is put up.
Why cutting/peeling does not disrupt the process/kill the potato? Because potato tuber is built to multiply via individual "eyelets", several of them on a potato, and if there's only one small piece left with an eyelet on it. while the rest is eaten by a pest, the plant will still produce babies.
So how to consume potatoes the very safest way?
Throw them in boiling water skin on and cook them till done!
Then you can peel them and even cut them and fry them - comes out tasty!!
2) Now, TOMATOES are a different kind of animal, they're the opposite from potatoes. The longer you cook them the more toxic they become!!
They like you to eat them raw and have their seeds come out on the other end of you, so make sure to do your business while covering a lot of territory, so many many baby tomato plants find their new fertilized home.. Or at least is seems to me to be the reason why the more you cook tomato the more toxin it actually produces.
Cooking does kill the seeds, but does NOT stop the process of tomato getting more and more toxic as time goes.
So, eat it raw to get the best chance in avoiding joint pain...
So far those are the two nightshades I have researched and tested on a human.
Other nightshades are full of solanin too, so for the time being I just plain avoid them.
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Another thing that can affect your joints:
DIETARY SULFUR can cause joint pain and inflammation.
if your body does not process sulfur-y chemicals well.
Cystathionine Beta Synthase or CBS mutation can be the reason for it, making your body over-produce sulfur.
When dietary sulfur is added, the total sulfur levels get toxic, causing inflammatory response (migraine headaches and/or joint and tendon pain and others).
The culprits, causing your joints and tendons to inflame in this case would be sulfites, sulfates, sulfur, thiols.
More specifically foods and medications containing them.
Examples of inflammatory foods and meds in case of CBS or other types of sulfur intolerance would be:
All dairy, all fermented foods, egg whites, cabbage and other cole crops, onions, garlic, animal protein, processed and refined foods, and many more. Medicines, like zantac, protonix and many others..
Here's a few handy articles on what to avoid if you have sulfur issues:
Provided you've found your happy medium on how much sulfur to consume and what to avoid, you can get rid of your tendinitis/joint inflammation pretty well, enough for a dancer to continue being active.
To address CBS sulfur issues more properly, like deciding whether to take molybdenum to help your body bind and excrete sulfur,
it is important to study the whole methylation thing, more on that here:
Provided you've found your happy medium on how much sulfur to consume and what to avoid, you can get rid of your tendinitis/joint inflammation pretty well, enough for a dancer to continue being active.
To address CBS sulfur issues more properly, like deciding whether to take molybdenum to help your body bind and excrete sulfur,
it is important to study the whole methylation thing, more on that here:
Methylation
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(me gets it from too much sulfur in food)
Exercises that help me the most:
I sit down comfortably closer to the edge of the /chair/, feet comfortably apart.
Lean forward so that my elbows and forearms can rest on top of my thighs.
I may or may not use weights in each of my hands, depending on how built up my feet and ankles are at the moment (strong=use weights, not so strong/beginning = absolutely NO weights)
I make sure i feel light stretch in the back of my calves:
I elevate my heels off the ground as high as I can while pressing the balls of my feet and toes into the floor gently.
I make sure I do NOT sickle my feet and that I don't look pigeon-toed!
It is the insides of my feet that take the weight and my big toe is the one that presses into the ground the most.
I make sure I lengthen all of my toes, my toes are completely straight, no curling or bending.
Repeat the elevations 20 times or more.
Once a day or more.
All depends on how sore and tired you feel - overworking is not the best thing to do, while not doing enough will not bring the desirable effect.
A pleasant feeling of heat and slight tightness in the muscles are the things that make me stop.
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Allergy-or-chemically-induced TENDINITIS:
how does a dancer recover sooner?
In my personal experience - the most imbalanced parts of your body are gonna suffer first.
Besides cutting out the inflammatory culprits that drive your immune system nuts, stretching and strengthening can help your recovery a LOT.
Peroneal tendon inflammation
or tendinitis in the "outside of the ankle"
(me gets it from too much sulfur in food)
Exercises that help me the most:
1) "Sitting releves with weights":
I sit down comfortably closer to the edge of the /chair/, feet comfortably apart.
Starting position:
Lean forward so that my elbows and forearms can rest on top of my thighs.
I may or may not use weights in each of my hands, depending on how built up my feet and ankles are at the moment (strong=use weights, not so strong/beginning = absolutely NO weights)
I make sure i feel light stretch in the back of my calves:
Ending position:
I elevate my heels off the ground as high as I can while pressing the balls of my feet and toes into the floor gently.
I make sure I do NOT sickle my feet and that I don't look pigeon-toed!
It is the insides of my feet that take the weight and my big toe is the one that presses into the ground the most.
I make sure I lengthen all of my toes, my toes are completely straight, no curling or bending.
Repeat the elevations 20 times or more.
Once a day or more.
All depends on how sore and tired you feel - overworking is not the best thing to do, while not doing enough will not bring the desirable effect.
A pleasant feeling of heat and slight tightness in the muscles are the things that make me stop.
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Another thing that can lead to joint pain is beginning a new physical activity, like training in a new dance style after years of perfecting your chosen dancing "major"...
Ballet training is considered to be the mother of so many current dance styles, however not all of those styles actively incorporate elements of Ballet training as part of learning process.
HOW DOES
A LATIN/BALLROOM DANCER SURVIVE A BALLET CLASS
Does it look like the same thing?
However, the way you get there through your average International Latin training is worlds apart from the way an average ballet dancer gets there.
The glorious International Latin "opposition" (or rotation) of the thigh bone against the calve bone, and consequent foot pronation (rolling in),
In International Latin the hips have to be turned-in and knees brush against one another:
Well, yes and no.. Yes - because it's the same dancer, the same leg, the same upper body orientation. NO-because it looks like a different action which requires a different technique.
The truth is, Ballroom (or International) Latin dance style takes ductile and sensual Latin-American moves and mixes them with rigid and precise geometrical shapes of Ballet.
If an International Latin dancer fails to present this perfect geometry, they most certainly would be considered not yet professional enough, or even maybe not that talented.
In Ballroom/Latin, you do have to have the "wing" in your ankle, you do have to elongate your legs and straighten your knees, and you do have to point your feet and show off those insane arches of yours.
However, the way you get there through your average International Latin training is worlds apart from the way an average ballet dancer gets there.
Dancing is an illusive world and what you see is not what you get. That's where the injury problems might start.
While Ballet training demands AND makes happen those sculpted bodies with amazingly developed legs and feet, International Latin training only demands all those things, without offering any specifically targeted routines incorporated into the lessons to help achieve them.
So, to get ahead of your competition you just might go (back?) to Ballet class, after so many years, to fix those sickled feet, muscle-bound thighs and calves and zero extension - the ballet part of your technique, that is. If you do, beware of the following pitfalls:
1. Perfectly turned-out feet... - just DON'T!
I mean, don't repeat after those ^^^ veteran ballet aficionados whose hips turn out 180 degrees to achieve this position.
Because you most probably will be automatically applying the Latin "opposition technique" ingrained in your muscle memory and (unfortunately) in your joint structure, too.
The glorious International Latin "opposition" (or rotation) of the thigh bone against the calve bone, and consequent foot pronation (rolling in), 
while making us look cool while wearing heels on the dance-floor and enabling us to zip around our partners and across that slippery as ice parquet floor with the speed of light, IS a recipe for torn cartilages, ripped tendons, damaged muscles, if mixed with ballet slippers and ballet moves.
The type of alignment which enables ballet dancers to use their extremely turned out feet safely starts at the hip joints and is technically incorrect for International Latin.
In International Latin the hips have to be turned-in and knees brush against one another:
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