Russ's Grab-Bag Of Assorted PT Forum Goodness

**TheRuss** · Posted On: 3/12/2009 11:57pm

Also, I'm making a limited-time offer here... if any of y'all have a PT-related question that you'd like me to research, the next twenty-four hours would be an opportune time to let me know. I'm feeling up to peruse some studies.

**theotherserge** · Posted On: 3/13/2009 12:20am

Originally Posted by TheRuss

Let me be clear. I expect that no one here will be able to suggest a viable solution to any of my injury problems. I want to emphasize the word problems, because there are more than one of them that I've identified.

this is a bigger issue than anyone online can possibly answer. It is very complicated and to think there is a simple answer is ridiculous. I couldn't agree more.

An aside, and this isn't directed to anyone in particular... as a rule, people are not honest with others about their training performance because they are not in touch with the truth themselves. This is particularly true when it comes to training health, because it's harder to track and quantify than your best triple score.

I have known people who would go on a rant about how their latest injury has totally screwed up their training and how much of a pain in the ass it is, and then when I tried to commiserate, they'd come back and literally in the next breath start giving me advice on injury avoidance. They'd present me with their talismans to ward off the demons and swear up and down by them, despite the fact that said charms had failed in their own n=1 study.

Again, I couldn't agree more. I have my own nagging injuries and so forth. If I had the time and the focus I could spend alot of time and effort in preventative measures and exercises.

I thought it interesting that in an interview with the Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Oakland Athletics (that's a baseball team you fa66z!) he said that he thought Yoga and pilates and such were terrific for training but "there just wasn't enough time available to focus on such details"

It is so much easier to diagnose someone else's training/relationship/career etc. It is human nature in a way. Part of what we learn is that we are learning about ourselves (sappy humanism!).

I am sorry I haven't been more present in this thread, just been real busy with work and all so most of my BS-posting is ill-composed crappery, HOWEVER, I am currently convinced that finding someone who can help you with the "body mechanique" would be a great help.

I was hobbled for a couple of days and I have my Wednesday IMA appointment with Vince and towards the end of our hour together he said "Ok, what's going on with your ankle?" I was just trying to grind it out in the old blue collar way, but I'd gotten my it jammed up somewhere/somehows. He felt both ankles, told me to lean back and relax, *POP*

A talus-metatarsal in my ankle was out of alignment. Yesterday, I could barely walk. Today I taught a Sambo class.

**A.D.D** · Posted On: 3/13/2009 7:31am

Originally Posted by TheRuss

I've been talking a bit about fish oil in this thread, and I think there's a concussion tie-in.
Sears is convinced that arachidonic acid (omega-6) is Satan in lipid form, and advocates maximizing EPA/DHA (omega-3) to balance its inflammatory effects.
Byproducts of the arachidonic acid cycle have showed up as culprits in some of the literature I've been reading about concussions.

Time for a fish-oil binge? Maybe.

http://www.menshealth.com/cda/articl...012281eac____#

It might be a complete coincidence that the man in the article made such a remarkable recovery from such a situation where it was predicted he would be "severely brain damaged". But it is an interesting set of circumstances involving large amounts of DHA and EPA.

**TheRuss** · Posted On: 3/13/2009 8:40am

Originally Posted by theotherserge

It is so much easier to diagnose someone else's training/relationship/career etc. It is human nature in a way. Part of what we learn is that we are learning about ourselves (sappy humanism!).

I am sorry I haven't been more present in this thread, just been real busy with work and all so most of my BS-posting is ill-composed crappery, HOWEVER, I am currently convinced that finding someone who can help you with the "body mechanique" would be a great help.

I may have misunderstood what you mean by "body mechanique", but if you're suggesting I find someone who knows:
-the right exercises
-the right form (and can correct mine)
-the right schedule (workouts/sets/reps/rest/load)
To optimize for training health, then I agree.

Alternatively, if you mean someone who can:
-correctly identify what's causing health (training and otherwise) problems I'm having
-recommend sound courses of action to address them
-adjust the above exercises/form/schedule based on the issues I run into
... then I also agree.

Originally Posted by theotherserge

I was hobbled for a couple of days and I have my Wednesday IMA appointment with Vince and towards the end of our hour together he said "Ok, what's going on with your ankle?" I was just trying to grind it out in the old blue collar way, but I'd gotten my it jammed up somewhere/somehows. He felt both ankles, told me to lean back and relax, *POP*

A talus-metatarsal in my ankle was out of alignment. Yesterday, I could barely walk. Today I taught a Sambo class.

I envy your guru. I can't imagine there's a whole lot that he can do for me via the Interwebs, but just so you and AeroChica know, I've made an appointment with a local physiotherapist. He's the guy all of the judo/MMA types at the YMCA recommend, has experience with treating elite-level athletes...

... and lists going to one of Mell Siff's Supertraining seminars on his resumé. So I'm optimistic. It's going to be a while before I can get in to see him, though.

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Thanks for the link, A.D.D. I'll read 'er over tonight.

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Edit: Oh, and a special shout out to Jack Rusher... there's free yoga at the Y on Monday afternoons. I've never gone because it interfered with my judo schedule, but given that I won't be doing judo again any time soon... might be an option once my head's cleared up. Subject to physio approval, of course.

**TheRuss** · Posted On: 3/14/2009 6:52pm

My doctor gave me advice surprisingly close to this AeroChica post. A few white lies and a bit of overacting, and I finally got a CT scan done.

Is anyone surprised to hear that nothing showed up? I'm sure not.

So I guess that for the foreseeable future, I get to take a page out of The Incredible Hulk's playbook and rigorously control my heart rate and blood pressure. Doable over the span of a few hours, maybe a few days. It'll be tough to maintain over a span of weeks. If it stretches for months, then I'll have to question whether this is ever going to lift.

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I'm getting some bloodwork done soon (not all of the tests I wanted done, but it's a start), and then I'm going to try the fish oil thing. I think I've already been getting quite a bit of it (two 400/200 caps a day plus two 213g cans of wild pink salmon), but... we'll see.

**TheRuss** · Posted On: 3/15/2009 12:38am

RESULTS: A significant increase in righting latency and neurological deficiency after CHI was observed in caffeine-treated rats as compared with untreated animals. Although no deaths occurred in the rats exposed to CHI after pretreatment with saline, pretreatment with caffeine caused significant mortality of animals after trauma in a dose-dependent manner. Caffeine also exacerbated neutrophil infiltration, edema, and disruption of blood-brain barrier in the traumatic cortex. Light microscopy of brain revealed more severe hemorrhage and neuronal degeneration in the injured hemisphere of caffeine-treated rats as compared with rats in the injury-alone group. A significant increase in malondialdehyde in the brain of injured rats treated with caffeine before CHI clearly indicated the role of oxidative stress.

CONCLUSION: Caffeine adversely affects outcome after CHI, possibly as a result of blockade of adenosine receptors. The findings also point toward the involvement of free radical-mediated neuronal damage in caffeine-induced exacerbation of neurotrauma.

-Al Moutaery et al., "Caffeine impairs short-term neurological outcome after concussive head injury in rats."

Granted, it's a rat study and those are some pretty hefty doses, but that's another item on the list of potential foul-ups.

**theotherserge** · Posted On: 3/15/2009 1:08am

sheeeeeiiittt! Its so hard to get information on something we just don't fully understand, i.e. the brain.

I wonder if there's a concussion and migrane crossover? I'd look but I just hate internet searches on a Saturday night! I have a few friends with serious migrane issues and it is about the most amorphous, unanswerable **** that modern medicine can flagellate over!

I'll be dammed.

xo,
serge

**TheRuss** · Posted On: 3/15/2009 12:16pm

Originally Posted by theotherserge

I wonder if there's a concussion and migrane crossover? I'd look but I just hate internet searches on a Saturday night! I have a few friends with serious migrane issues and it is about the most amorphous, unanswerable **** that modern medicine can flagellate over!

I couldn't say for sure, but if someone were to postulate that getting whacked in the head might lead to problems like nasty headaches, I probably wouldn't ask for a citation.

EDIT: Google Scholar comes up with 3,040 results for a search string of concussion migraine, including case studies like this one. Take that as you will.

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In other news, I want to get a job making stuff like this...

Researchers at NYU School of Medicine have developed a handheld device that can detect subtle brain damage immediately after concussion. The sophisticated yet simple-to-operate device, the researchers say, may prove especially useful on the battlefield or the football field, enabling brain damage to be detected almost immediately after mild head injuries. Such damage is often overlooked or misdiagnosed, even with an advanced imaging technique like computed tomography (CT), say the researchers.

The device, called BrainScope, is based on the studies of E. Roy John, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Brain Research Laboratories (BRL) at NYU School of Medicine. In the late 1970s, Dr. John discovered how to translate EEG tracings — recordings of the brain’s electrical activity on an electroencephalograph — into numbers called quantitative EEGs, or QEEGs. A significant advance, QEEGs gave scientists an objective and standardized way to assess cognitive functions. Dr. John has devoted much of his career to the study of QEEGs and their clinical applications, in the process collecting and analyzing brainwave recordings from about 20,000 patients. Using this database, the world’s largest, Dr. John established normal ranges for QEEGs across the life span and correlated deviations from these norms with a wide variety of neurological disorders, including concussions. This evidence provides the scientific basis for BrainScope.

BrainScope consists of an adhesive strip, containing six electrodes, which are connected to a mini-computer that resembles an oversized iPod. After a suspected head injury, a first responder affixes the electrode strip to the patient’s forehead. The device automatically collects a sample of the patient’s EEG and computes a large number of QEEG featureseach of which are compared to a databank of normal scores. Within minutes, BrainScope’s color display indicates whether any of the patient’s brain functions deviate from normal.

-NYU

(See also: brainscope.com)

Seriously, it's like the perfect storm of my education and interests. Where do I sign up?

**Deadmeat** · Posted On: 3/15/2009 4:59pm

^ A work colleague was telling me about that technology just recently. Huge potential in the rehabilitation sector to monitor progress and acclimatization, as well as on the spot diagnosis. Awesome stuff.

Russ, what abnormal symptoms are you experiencing currently, and to what extent have they diminished (or increased for that matter) since your injury? And how long exactly has it been since your concussion?

Specifically of interest; have your sleep cycles changed, or are you increasingly sensitive to light or sound? Any unusual mood fluctuations, or difficulty with short term memory or attention?

**Kid Miracleman** · Posted On: 3/15/2009 8:04pm

Frankly, I just hope that TheRuss's frustrations and negative experiences with the local medical establishment don't lead him towards the dark side of "alternative" treatments. I'd hate to see him go from "Hey guys, check out this properly-cited article regarding ibuprofen's effects on concussion victims!" to "Hey guys, check out this Geocities page on this totally gnarly homeopathic remedy derived from Muscovy Duck livers!"

(I was totally going to ask TheRuss about his opinion regarding the ol' Squats and Milk program for people who just want to gain solid muscle mass, but apparently there's already eleventy billion Bullshido threads and posts covering the subject, so... nevermind.)