About cycotec.com

This site is dedicated to the supply of information and products for triathletes with arthritic problems. The idea is to provide and exchange information to and between triathletes with arthritis or any other permanent or debilitating injury with a view to reducing or overcoming its effects. Initially the focus will be on osteoarthritis because that is my own personal experience.

I was diagnosed with severe osteoarthritis of my right hip at the age of 36 in 1994. I was a developing triathlete. I had been in the sport for perhaps a couple of years and was making improvements and heading towards my first ironman having completed a long course triathlon (Sri Chinmoy 1993 2km/80km/20km) in 05:08 on 2 hours sleep after attending a wedding and driving 5 hours to get there. I figured I probably would have come in around 4:40 had my preparation been a little better. Anyway, the chance to prove it would never come. Later that year I had a bad cycling crash heading down Waterfall Hill in the Royal National Park which is on the southern outskirts of Sydney. This was in early morning darkness, I was flying down the hill as I was very familiar with all its bends. I could ride it with my eyes closed. Unfortunately the wind had left a thick tree branch on the road and I hit it.

The fall was pretty hard but I managed to get up and walk, or limp away, feeling a bit battered and sore but otherwise not too bad. It wasn't until a couple of months later I started to notice a kind of grinding feeling in my right hip joint when I was running or perhaps after I'd been running. I'd also noticed what seemed to be a strained muscle in the groin. I thought it might have been an old muscle or ligament tear I'd suffered once playing touch football. Anyway, this pain in the groin wasn't too bad and it was the end of the season and I laid off and it all seemed to go away. It came back when I started training again next season, so I went to the local physiotherapist who had some x-rays of the joint taken. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then an x-ray is when it is time to pay for the story.

My physiotherapist recommended an orthopaedic surgeon and after a referral from my local GP I was off to see him. His diagnosis pretty much concurred with the radioligist's and physiotherapist's assessment. I had pretty bad osteoarthritis in my right hip. The options laid before by this orthopod were to stop doing triathlons and wait ten years or so for a hip replacement, after which time I could return to not doing triathlons. Not very enticing. Not very happy. He mentioned the option of doing a procedure known as a high femoral osteotomy but he was not in favour of this because of the difficult recovery. I sought a second opinion and saw a second orthopod, whose recommendations were the exact opposite of the first. I then went to a third to try and make sense of it all. We finally came to the analysis that, if I were to have any chance of staying in the sport of triathlon, a high femoral osteotomy was the only and best chance I had, but it was by no means a guarantee (warrantee for the lawyers).

I went ahead with the high femoral osteotomy and was on crutches for six months. This was a long time on crutches, by the end of it my arms were twice their original size. The recovery was indeed long and slow, heartbreakingly slow. I reckon all up, the better part of three years. After the first operation I regained strength on the bike fairly rapidly, but with all the metal in my leg I obviously couldn't run. For the most part I didn't. The second operation, about twelve months later removed all the hardware in my leg, but it left it quite flexible and I never seemed to get my cycling strength back again. In time it improved, and even now, some five years later, seems to improve but only slowly. It seemed that the bone had to harden for a couple of years before I could develop any cycling strength again. A little disheartening to say the least.

All in all though, I would have to say the high femoral osteotomy gave me the chance to fulfill the dream of becoming an ironman, and from that point of view I would have to say it has been a success. However, if I hadn't made it, what would I think?

While the operation did help it wasn't the only thing that I had to do to get to Forster (the location of Australia's Ironman race). I needed to understand my injury in order to accommodate it so that I wouldn't aggravate it. This learning process is one that had to be done first hand, as there is nothing I could find that forwarned me of the pitfalls. Happily I can say that I learnt quickly and and soon recognised in training the things that aggravated the injury and things that helped. Maybe I can help others by documenting what I did and what I found useful. Maybe some others can avoid some of the pain that I experienced using trial and error. I also want to hear of what others have done too, or even feedback on any of the methods I used if you choose to try them.

The main reason for this site is to provide information on all things that help athletes with arthritic changes to keep on doing what they love. Mind you, this is all do at your own risk. I am not warranting in any way that what worked for me will work for you or that it won't cause you problems later on. If your arthritic condition is really acute then maybe nothing will help and it is time to assess whether there are not other challenges that you should consider. So while I think this is important information this really only represents a single case study. Use whatever information I provide at your own risk.

The operation alone, as I mentioned, I don't think got me to the start of the ironman. There were many set backs along the way and it was only through perseverence and maybe insanity that I eventually arrived at the start. My own orthopaedic surgeon suggested that I give it all away and warned me that I had a limited number of cycles in my hip. Giving up would have been easy. I have never done anything easy in my life so I don't think I would start now. First I had to learn to accept that pain would be part of the deal. On good days there was none and on bad days there was more than I would like. I had to learn two things, what caused me pain, and then, how I could manage it. I found a number of glucosamine type products that offered assistance in reducing the pain. The best I found was a brand called "Joint Food" by Nutra Life, which combined glucosamine sulphate and chondroitin sulphate with vitamin C, managanese, zinc and other cofactors. This seemed to be the most effective for me. Next, I found that riding on bumpy surfaces aggravated the pain and so I reverted to using my Softride for my training bike and I added a suspension seat post to my Trek OCLV bike which was the race machine. I only found out all this when I bought a new aluminium frame that I used for training and within a couple of months I was in severe pain every time I got out of the saddle to climb. It was excrutiating and I remember thinking it was all over red rover. Either that or I was going to have to learn to ride with just one leg. Fortunately, I remembered I'd suffered similarly before on an aluminium frame and I put two and two together.

With suspension literally under my belt, I found a new lease of pain free cycling life. By using the glucosamine products I could also run and stay out of too much trouble. Too much alcohol seems to aggrevate the pain too, but then the training required for events like this precluded large intakes anyway so it wasn't a problem. It was around the Christmas period (1999) when consumption rates of alcohol often rise that I realised its negative effect. I am still learning about effective ways of training my run and bike without pain. For the bike suspension seems to be the key for running there is also other methods like pool running too which I have found really strengthens the run without any of the problems that all the impact of running can cause. This is good for a host of conditions not just arthritis, even injury free athletes can benefit too. A variety of running sessions can be completed in the pool for a lesser price than what pounding on the pavement exacts on your body.

I now spend off season doing no running whatsoever. The lay off doesn't hurt at all. Apparently water running gives you about a 90% correlation to actual running. This is what the pool running instructor once mentioned to me, she was actually doing a research masters on the subject (her name was Wendy Richmond if you want to go searching, her research thesis should be published by now). I think if you account for the injury and normal breakdown of muscle tissue that actually running does itself I think that even though the correlation is only 90% it may still in, actuality, be a more effective way of training. Certainly as your interval training sessions. Trying to run for three hours in the pool is asking a lot of the mind. Of course if you can do it, I take my hat off to you, and you will reap the benefits.

Of course it is all very well to talk about training and so on, but you need to understand why you want to do it. You need to set goals. I think this is essential and no different to any injury free athlete's approach to setting out a training plan. Why train for an ironman if you have no intention of doing one? Long kilometres increases the risk of injury, one way or another, especially on the roads.

Anyway, that is a little of my story and the main reason I wanted to set this site up. Of course it is not all altristic, I want to sell things too. Not necessarily to make a fortune but to at least pay for the running costs and make a living. At some point the two goals may become mutually exclusive, but this is the beginning, the germanation of a number of ideas. If indeed that becomes the case then perhaps there will need to be a more distinct separation of these functions, but for the moment it seems they can coexist.

Thanks to Fleur for these photographs, especially this last one as I cross the line. I imagine it makes me look very fast! Yes, I am dreaming but I do hope you find this site useful and even enjoy some of the articles and links.

Craig Anthony Vernon B.App.Sc. LL.B. 15th December 2000
PS. please contact me using email if you have any questions or wish to share any experiences, treatments or even cures!