Be careful

[lklawson]

I had a bit of a looky loo.

And apparently you can cause strokes from just neck manipulation.

Chiropractic movements can do them.
Stroke Risk Associated With Aggressive Chiropractic Neck Adjustments

It's rare but it happens. A few years back now, my wife had a stroke not long after having chiro.

She is almost fully recovered now, shows no outward obvious signs of the injury, and is cleared by her doc for everything from exercise to roller coasters.

But I was scared ****less for a while.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I would expect every instructor to need a decent level first aid cert to teach and by extension that should at least give some insight into what you should and should not do. Pretty annoying never the less.

(and yes i know there are different levels and providers for first aid and they are semi tailored to the environment, ie forestry focused ones put a focus on forestry related things/spend extra time covering that along side the rest of the cirrculem you will find elsewhere at a similar level)

First-aid certification is a good idea for all instructors, but it's not going to cover this. It's designed for treatment, not avoidance.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Fellas. I’m the guy the OP wrote about. He’s my dad.

I was injured October 15th of last year. I was 38 years old at the time. I learned to walk in my dad’s TKD classes and have spent most of my life in or around martial arts. I also worked as a bouncer for several years in my early thirties. I’m no stranger to physical altercations. I had no prior medical conditions.

I took a lengthy hiatus from training through my thirties and decided to get back into martial arts last summer. I chose a local Krav school because I liked the practicality of that style.

I got hurt training Thai clinches, what that school was calling “center head control”. Something we’d done many many times before. I was working with a beginner student when an assistant instructor cut in to “show him how to do it right”. He used me to demo the clench, locking in with his forearms full strength and jerking me back and forth in aggressive 180 degree arcs to show that “where the head goes, the body follows”.

I knew that this particular guy, one of the schools TKD black belts, liked to play a little too hard. This was well known. So I took precautions and gripped his firearms tightly to take pressure off my neck, and I went with the power. However, the damage was done in seconds. We all regrouped a few minutes later to move on with the next thing in class, but I couldn’t stand up straight.

I tried to make it to a chair, but I couldn't keep from listing hard diagonally to one side. This was because I was having a stroke and the part of my brain that controls balance was dying. Puked a lot, called an ambulance, and really went down in earnest on my way to the ER.

I was in the neuro ICU for a week, the hospital for another week. I got very very lucky, and have had very few complications.

The clinch and rapid lateral movement dissected both my vertebral arteries. This cause full occlusion on both sides. The stroke hit my cerebellum. I recently talked to an ER doc before having a CT scan and she said I should be dead. She’d never seen someone survive a bilateral dissection and not end up a vegetable. She joked someone should be writing it up.

I am very very lucky. The doctors don’t really know how to talk to me about what my new normal will be because most people have a much worse outcome than I did, I took blood thinners, and neuro pain meds for 6 months. After a good CT scan, I spent a month coming off all those meds, and the withdrawals were no joke.

As of today, I have lingering mental and emotional side effects. My temper is much shorter than it was, I get tired and confused more easily. I’ve gained a bunch of weight due to the drugs and inactivity. I’ve had headaches every single day, pretty much al day since the stroke, but nothing like the first few months. My left/right coordination sucks, and I can’t shake my head without feeling out of it for a few hours.

Docs say I’ll never train martial arts again. And I agree. I have two kids. It’s not worth the risk. I’m starting to work out again, walking, light weights, but it’s slow going.

I had a lawyer look into legal action against the school for gross negligence. No one should be practicing those techniques full power. And no one there had any idea this injury was possible. There was a good case. But the owner of the school had let his ATA affiliation lapse and was running without insurance. He sold the school and moved to Europe. The lawyer dropped my cause due to no hope of recovering anything from a winning judgement.

Now I’ve got a stack of medical bills, and a life altering medical condition.

What I want you guys to take away from this, is protect your neck. It can happen in the blink of an eye. fifteen seconds permanently changed my life, my family’s lives. You are not indestructible. So much can go wrong in your head and neck. Never let anyone jerk your neck or head around at speed and with power. Don’t reply and tell me how you’re the one dude who knows how to do it and not get hurt. I was that guy too.

At any rate, that’s the whole story for those that are interested.

Thanks for sharing that. It saddens me - both the event, and the impact it has had on your life and family. This is a good cautionary tale for all of us, from both sides of the story.

 

[DocWard]

Fellas. I’m the guy the OP wrote about. He’s my dad.

I was injured October 15th of last year. I was 38 years old at the time. I learned to walk in my dad’s TKD classes and have spent most of my life in or around martial arts. I also worked as a bouncer for several years in my early thirties. I’m no stranger to physical altercations. I had no prior medical conditions.

I took a lengthy hiatus from training through my thirties and decided to get back into martial arts last summer. I chose a local Krav school because I liked the practicality of that style.

I got hurt training Thai clinches, what that school was calling “center head control”. Something we’d done many many times before. I was working with a beginner student when an assistant instructor cut in to “show him how to do it right”. He used me to demo the clench, locking in with his forearms full strength and jerking me back and forth in aggressive 180 degree arcs to show that “where the head goes, the body follows”.

I knew that this particular guy, one of the schools TKD black belts, liked to play a little too hard. This was well known. So I took precautions and gripped his firearms tightly to take pressure off my neck, and I went with the power. However, the damage was done in seconds. We all regrouped a few minutes later to move on with the next thing in class, but I couldn’t stand up straight.

I tried to make it to a chair, but I couldn't keep from listing hard diagonally to one side. This was because I was having a stroke and the part of my brain that controls balance was dying. Puked a lot, called an ambulance, and really went down in earnest on my way to the ER.

I was in the neuro ICU for a week, the hospital for another week. I got very very lucky, and have had very few complications.

The clinch and rapid lateral movement dissected both my vertebral arteries. This cause full occlusion on both sides. The stroke hit my cerebellum. I recently talked to an ER doc before having a CT scan and she said I should be dead. She’d never seen someone survive a bilateral dissection and not end up a vegetable. She joked someone should be writing it up.

I am very very lucky. The doctors don’t really know how to talk to me about what my new normal will be because most people have a much worse outcome than I did, I took blood thinners, and neuro pain meds for 6 months. After a good CT scan, I spent a month coming off all those meds, and the withdrawals were no joke.

As of today, I have lingering mental and emotional side effects. My temper is much shorter than it was, I get tired and confused more easily. I’ve gained a bunch of weight due to the drugs and inactivity. I’ve had headaches every single day, pretty much al day since the stroke, but nothing like the first few months. My left/right coordination sucks, and I can’t shake my head without feeling out of it for a few hours.

Docs say I’ll never train martial arts again. And I agree. I have two kids. It’s not worth the risk. I’m starting to work out again, walking, light weights, but it’s slow going.

I had a lawyer look into legal action against the school for gross negligence. No one should be practicing those techniques full power. And no one there had any idea this injury was possible. There was a good case. But the owner of the school had let his ATA affiliation lapse and was running without insurance. He sold the school and moved to Europe. The lawyer dropped my cause due to no hope of recovering anything from a winning judgement.

Now I’ve got a stack of medical bills, and a life altering medical condition.

What I want you guys to take away from this, is protect your neck. It can happen in the blink of an eye. fifteen seconds permanently changed my life, my family’s lives. You are not indestructible. So much can go wrong in your head and neck. Never let anyone jerk your neck or head around at speed and with power. Don’t reply and tell me how you’re the one dude who knows how to do it and not get hurt. I was that guy too.

At any rate, that’s the whole story for those that are interested.

Thank you for taking the time to come and explain the details. I will admit that even as a retired medic, it was disturbing to read. Obviously, your docs know more than I, but from everything I do know, yes, you are lucky to be alive.

Out of curiosity, you mentioned withdrawals from the neural meds being miserable. Did they feel like little "brain shocks," for lack of a better way of putting it? I was on a med for awhile, that when I was weaning off of them, was the most miserable sensation I could ever imagine.

I think consideration of Tai Chi or something of the sort might be a good choice for the future, helping with coordination and balance, while not being too aggressive and dangerous to you. Just a thought, anyway.

Thanks also for letting us learn from your experience. You're right, none of us is indestructible, and we need to act with safety in mind. I will hope your recovery continues, and is as complete as possible.

 

[Buka]

It's rare but it happens. A few years back now, my wife had a stroke not long after having chiro.

She is almost fully recovered now, shows no outward obvious signs of the injury, and is cleared by her doc for everything from exercise to roller coasters.

But I was scared ****less for a while.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

Jesus, Kirk. I'm so glad to hear she's recovering so well. Heart felt wishes to you both, brother.

Life is such a fragile thing. Easy to forget as we train so hard and feel so strong.

 

[lklawson]

Jesus, Kirk. I'm so glad to hear she's recovering so well. Heart felt wishes to you both, brother.

Life is such a fragile thing. Easy to forget as we train so hard and feel so strong.

Yup. Thanks.

The stroke affected her visual processing area and was instigated from a tear in an artery in the back of the neck. Her symptoms included a headache and very blurry vision.

During her multi-day hospital recovery the her vision slowly returned to about 75% of what it was before. During the following months of recovery, post-hospital release, her vision returned to about 80-90% but she described that places she knew she'd been to thousands of times "didn't look 'familiar'" to her, felt somehow "wrong," or there was a kind of deja vu when she darn well knew she'd been there thousands of times. Now, professionally, she's a Board Certified, State Licensed metal health counselor so she should have already know what I told her (in fact, she did but she just didn't "put it together"); Her visual processing center had been damaged and her brain was wiring new neural connections trying to reconnect to memories that still existed but connections to had be severed by the stroke.

Now, her vision is still not 100% restored to what it had been, but that may be partially due to her eyes aging. She has been cleared for exercise and roller coasters (very important to her). However, she has sworn off chiro on the theory that she's more vulnerable than most of the population.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Buka]

Yup. Thanks.

The stroke affected her visual processing area and was instigated from a tear in an artery in the back of the neck. Her symptoms included a headache and very blurry vision.

During her multi-day hospital recovery the her vision slowly returned to about 75% of what it was before. During the following months of recovery, post-hospital release, her vision returned to about 80-90% but she described that places she knew she'd been to thousands of times "didn't look 'familiar'" to her, felt somehow "wrong," or there was a kind of deja vu when she darn well knew she'd been there thousands of times. Now, professionally, she's a Board Certified, State Licensed metal health counselor so she should have already know what I told her (in fact, she did but she just didn't "put it together"); Her visual processing center had been damaged and her brain was wiring new neural connections trying to reconnect to memories that still existed but connections to had be severed by the stroke.

Now, her vision is still not 100% restored to what it had been, but that may be partially due to her eyes aging. She has been cleared for exercise and roller coasters (very important to her). However, she has sworn off chiro on the theory that she's more vulnerable than most of the population.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

I'm glad she's doing well.

I did chuckle when I read about the roller coasters. My wife had a brain aneurysm a couple years ago, obviously a mild one in the grand scheme of things, but an aneurysm none the less. We fly back to Boston every year to see the best docs in the business so they can measure it. They cleared her for all strenuous exercises, told her to push as hard as she wants, but more importantly to her, cleared her for elevation. Going to the top of our mountain is her favorite pastime. She rather be gone than not be able to go up there. It's actually why we live here.

So I chuckled at the roller coaster thing. Know just how she feels.

 

[dvcochran]

Fellas. I’m the guy the OP wrote about. He’s my dad.

I was injured October 15th of last year. I was 38 years old at the time. I learned to walk in my dad’s TKD classes and have spent most of my life in or around martial arts. I also worked as a bouncer for several years in my early thirties. I’m no stranger to physical altercations. I had no prior medical conditions.

I took a lengthy hiatus from training through my thirties and decided to get back into martial arts last summer. I chose a local Krav school because I liked the practicality of that style.

I got hurt training Thai clinches, what that school was calling “center head control”. Something we’d done many many times before. I was working with a beginner student when an assistant instructor cut in to “show him how to do it right”. He used me to demo the clench, locking in with his forearms full strength and jerking me back and forth in aggressive 180 degree arcs to show that “where the head goes, the body follows”.

I knew that this particular guy, one of the schools TKD black belts, liked to play a little too hard. This was well known. So I took precautions and gripped his firearms tightly to take pressure off my neck, and I went with the power. However, the damage was done in seconds. We all regrouped a few minutes later to move on with the next thing in class, but I couldn’t stand up straight.

I tried to make it to a chair, but I couldn't keep from listing hard diagonally to one side. This was because I was having a stroke and the part of my brain that controls balance was dying. Puked a lot, called an ambulance, and really went down in earnest on my way to the ER.

I was in the neuro ICU for a week, the hospital for another week. I got very very lucky, and have had very few complications.

The clinch and rapid lateral movement dissected both my vertebral arteries. This cause full occlusion on both sides. The stroke hit my cerebellum. I recently talked to an ER doc before having a CT scan and she said I should be dead. She’d never seen someone survive a bilateral dissection and not end up a vegetable. She joked someone should be writing it up.

I am very very lucky. The doctors don’t really know how to talk to me about what my new normal will be because most people have a much worse outcome than I did, I took blood thinners, and neuro pain meds for 6 months. After a good CT scan, I spent a month coming off all those meds, and the withdrawals were no joke.

As of today, I have lingering mental and emotional side effects. My temper is much shorter than it was, I get tired and confused more easily. I’ve gained a bunch of weight due to the drugs and inactivity. I’ve had headaches every single day, pretty much al day since the stroke, but nothing like the first few months. My left/right coordination sucks, and I can’t shake my head without feeling out of it for a few hours.

Docs say I’ll never train martial arts again. And I agree. I have two kids. It’s not worth the risk. I’m starting to work out again, walking, light weights, but it’s slow going.

I had a lawyer look into legal action against the school for gross negligence. No one should be practicing those techniques full power. And no one there had any idea this injury was possible. There was a good case. But the owner of the school had let his ATA affiliation lapse and was running without insurance. He sold the school and moved to Europe. The lawyer dropped my cause due to no hope of recovering anything from a winning judgement.

Now I’ve got a stack of medical bills, and a life altering medical condition.

What I want you guys to take away from this, is protect your neck. It can happen in the blink of an eye. fifteen seconds permanently changed my life, my family’s lives. You are not indestructible. So much can go wrong in your head and neck. Never let anyone jerk your neck or head around at speed and with power. Don’t reply and tell me how you’re the one dude who knows how to do it and not get hurt. I was that guy too.

At any rate, that’s the whole story for those that are interested.

Thank you for telling your story. I needs to be out there for others to hear. I pray things will continue to get better for you. Time is a powerful healer.

 

[KenpoMaster805]

Im sorry to hear that bad teacher

 

[ProtectYourNeck]

Yup. Thanks.

The stroke affected her visual processing area and was instigated from a tear in an artery in the back of the neck.
Kirk

Man, I’m sorry to hear that. That’s what I had, basically. Vertebral artery tears. I’m sorry it hit her so hard, but glad to hear she’s getting back to her new normal.

 

[lklawson]

Man, I’m sorry to hear that. That’s what I had, basically. Vertebral artery tears. I’m sorry it hit her so hard, but glad to hear she’s getting back to her new normal.

Thank you.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[JowGaWolf]

I posted this on the Krav Maga page but I thought it would also be relevant here.

My son was used in a demonstration of a clinching technique in a Krav Maga class. The instructor pinched off the arteries in my son's neck and proceeded to drag him around the room by the neck.

The upshot? Stroke. My son survived but he will never participate in a martial arts class, skiing, or any other rigorous activity for the rest of his life.

The club owner has since sold the business and moved to Europe.

Remember the term "trusted partner."

There will be on way to get compensation for his injury. All that is left is to say...BE CAREFUL!

My heart goes out to you and your family. As I was reading it I was hoping that this was something you read and not experienced.

How old is your son?

 

[JowGaWolf]

Students put their safety and trust in the instructor. The instructor should not take responsibility lightly..

 

[Starjumper7]

Fellas. I’m the guy the OP wrote about. He’s my dad.

I was injured October 15th of last year. I was 38 years old at the time.

I studied strokes quite a lot, and I learned that it is possible to heal damage from a stroke if the victim is put in a high pressure hyperbaric oxygen chamber as soon as possible. Hyperbaric chamber use after 24 hours recovery is not complete, but it can still help if done weeks or months later. I hope you are able to make a good recovery.

 

[Brian King]

@ProtectYourNeck and @Prostar Thanks for taking the time and posting this part of your unfinished stories. ProtectYourNeck, I do hope that you will stick around and post on those threads that interest you. Besides your lifetime of physical martial training and experience, you are now walking thru a new chapter in your life that will include explorations of rebuilding and strengthening your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual abilities and understandings. You will be facing battles with frustration, anger, guilt, and depression - the dark beast. You will also have ample opportunities to share your 'little' victories sharing those methods, medicine and therapies that work for you. You can use martial talk to air your fears, goals, and victories. You can share from your past and your current path and this sharing will help others that are currently going through or have friends and loved ones facing similar circumstances and situations and I daresay will also help you. Win win. You have a lot to share and I believe that both you and our community will grow positively by a continued relationship.

How old are your children? How are they doing with these circumstances?

@Prostar, how are you doing? To see a son going through this painful situation and to be helpless in helping/fixing has to be terrible and very frustrating. To know that his injury occurred while practicing martial arts- something both of you have a lifetime of enjoyment has to be a bit mind numbing.

Prayers lifted
Regards
Brian King

 

[geezer]

I just finally got around to reading this whole thread. I can't overstate the impression it made on me as a small-time "garage" MA instructor. Our little group also does some clinch-work drills. We typically keep it relatively light and gentle, but it has to be somewhat forceful if you are to learn how to realistically deal with that situation.

Since in my group, we are all older guys (ranging from the late thirties to mid sixties) and I'm usually the one who is on the receiving end of the harder clinch thrashing -since I'm the instructor. But, I'm also the oldest guy, the one in his mid-sixties! When I was a youngster, I wrestled and did a lot of bridging to get a reasonably strong neck. The simple truth is that I haven't had that strength since my early twenties. And my older brother, who was a much better wrestler than I, has already had a couple of strokes.

Man, this thread really makes me re-think the concept of "realistic" training. Same goes for striking. As you get older, is it worth the risk to still take even moderately hard head shots or violent grappling? At the moment, I'm having serious doubts. What do the rest of you think?

 

[Eric Damon Rapier]

Oh my goodness!!! That is terrible for someone to experience. I'm sorry for your child. Its second nature to think you can trust your instructor. What an eye opener.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I just finally got around to reading this whole thread. I can't overstate the impression it made on me as a small-time "garage" MA instructor. Our little group also does some clinch-work drills. We typically keep it relatively light and gentle, but it has to be somewhat forceful if you are to learn how to realistically deal with that situation.

Since in my group, we are all older guys (ranging from the late thirties to mid sixties) and I'm usually the one who is on the receiving end of the harder clinch thrashing -since I'm the instructor. But, I'm also the oldest guy, the one in his mid-sixties! When I was a youngster, I wrestled and did a lot of bridging to get a reasonably strong neck. The simple truth is that I haven't had that strength since my early twenties. And my older brother, who was a much better wrestler than I, has already had a couple of strokes.

Man, this thread really makes me re-think the concept of "realistic" training. Same goes for striking. As you get older, is it worth the risk to still take even moderately hard head shots or violent grappling? At the moment, I'm having serious doubts. What do the rest of you think?

I think about these things on a regular basis, Geezer. I've made some conscious choices about where I'm willing to take risks and where I'm not. I'm pretty sure some of the falls I've taken are equivalent to being punched in the head, so I'm cautious. At the same time, I still want as much realism as I can manage. So I am willing to go harder with those I trust to control (both technique and emotions). That goes for grappling and striking. When I'm messing with necks (other than chokes), it's always well controlled. We simulate brachial strikes - if we want to deliver them with some force, the recipient blocks to protect the neck. In clinch, we control with control most of the time, and only "turn it up" when there's good technique developed, and then only occasionally.

Frankly, I'm less bothered by the idea of an occasional punch to the head than someone messing with my joints without control. Make that joint a knee or neck, and my concern ratchets up an order of magnitude for each.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Man, this thread really makes me re-think the concept of "realistic" training. Same goes for striking. As you get older, is it worth the risk to still take even moderately hard head shots or violent grappling? At the moment, I'm having serious doubts. What do the rest of you think?

Definitely something to think about. Stroke from training or quality of life.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I'm sorry for your child. Its second nature to think you can trust your instructor. What an eye opener.

Some instructors can be abusive. Usually it's sexual abuse, but physical abuse happens as well. Most of the physical abuse stores I've heard of were not from the school owner but from the instructors. I don't know if I've been through that situation personally or if it was an attempt by other students to bully me and using sparring as an excuse for it. The reason of my uncertainty is because I was more than capable of defending myself and returning the favor, so for me it just appeared to be out of control sparring with ego getting in the way.

It could have also been just the wrong idea of what it means to be tough. For example, I went sparring at another school and my classmates fought harder against me than they did the Sanda Students. They told me that they went hard with me to show how tough the school is. I remember thinking. "Damn!!!. Don't beat me up to show that. Beat them up."

Some instructors are abusive out of ignorance about the right way to train. Others do it because they have behavior problems and having a bunch of students "submit to them" out of "respect" is just too much power for them to be responsible with. Either way you always have to keep your eyes open for stuff like that.