2012/2013 NHL Injury Thread

[Heroic Shrimp]

but LK is a medical student no?

???

That was sort of implicitly part of the joke.

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

I really honestly would love for this to be legitimate.  We don't have drugs to fix the symptoms of concussion.  We don't have a way to accurately predict the recovery time.  And despite interesting guidelines we really don't have good strategies to minimize the risk of concussions overall aside from "just don't do stuff".

That being said, there are ZERO published articles to suggest that sensory integration therapy is an effective modality for concussion treatment.  But hey, if you want to know the origin of the machine. 

When they got to the church, a still skeptical Kevin entered a room off the main hallway. He recalls seeing a beautiful, warm light illuminate paintings of Christ hanging on the walls. After years of taking a no-nonsense approach to his daughter's impairment, his emotions unfurled. He dropped to the floor sobbing, praying for God's intervention. Please, please, Lord, help MacKenzie.
[...]
?I saw MacKenzie in a spinning machine, strapped in securely. She was getting her brain stimulated in a controlled environment. I saw that machine and the blueprint right in front of me, clear as day,? he recalls.

It's both amazing and sad how such a statement is both a huge message of hope for some patients desperate for help and a huge red flag for clinicians.

I assume you know you don't need to persuade me to be skeptical.  I just threw the article out there for discussion.

 

[hockeyfan1]

From the article:
A functional neurologist there, Dr. Ted Carrick, noticed immediate results in patients with various brain injuries. Carrick practices chiropractic neurology, a field that uses no drugs or surgery. Carrick has since been recognized as the first to effectively use the GyroStim for brain injuries, and his profile became much bigger after he treated Crosby in 2011. The Pittsburgh Penguins star suffered a concussion in January of that year and saw little improvement for several months before seeing Carrick and undergoing treatment in the GyroStim.

Having read an article on Dr. Ted Carrick in McLean's magazine a while back, Carrick is called a "charlatan" (or quack) by neurologists.  A very typical reaction by those who either fear repercussions of  going out-of-line or because of professional jealousy.

The FDA has hardly approved of ANY device nor natural product that has proven itself over time.  Of course, what would one expect from an executive body stacked with former pharmaceutical executives.  Does anyone really believe they would approve of something that "uses no drugs" that would actually be anathema to their peer's profitable windfall? 

Ever heard of photo-dynamic cancer therapy (Roswell Park Cancer institute; Cancer Treatment Center of America), irreversible electroporation (better known as the "nano-knife" used in an Ottawa hospital); PAP IMI device (used by athletes/teams such as the San Francisco 49ers, Lazio soccer team in Italy, Austrian skiers, available in Europe & Canada only), etc.

If the FDA doesn't approve of something, it must be good!

 

[hockeyfan1]

Habs forward Blake Geoffrion bids adieu to hockey...

http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/52845-Montreal-Canadiens-forward-Blake-Geoffrion-steps-away-from-hockey-at-age-25.html

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

If the FDA doesn't approve of something, it must be good!

Or possibly ineffective or harmful.

 

[hockeyfan1]

If the FDA doesn't approve of something, it must be good!

Or possibly ineffective or harmful.

Such as...

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

If the FDA doesn't approve of something, it must be good!

Or possibly ineffective or harmful.

Such as...

Such as, I don't know, foods, medications and procedures that are ineffective or harmful...?  Do you think every single one of the millions of food products and medical innovations proposed to the FDA is effective and/or harmless?

Nobody's claiming the FDA, like any government bureaucracy, doesn't have inefficiencies, red tape or corruption.  But that hardly means that if the FDA disapproves of something, it automatically must be good.

 

[WhatIfGodWasALeaf]

I wonder if there is a stem cell treatment around the corner for these types of injuries. I know a lot of the rich and pro athletes have been going to Europe and having ailments treated with various forms of stem cell therapy.

The government in the U.S. really screwed the pooch by making so much of the research illegal, the whole field is so much more advanced in Europe now.

 

[hockeyfan1]

If the FDA doesn't approve of something, it must be good!

Or possibly ineffective or harmful.

Such as...

Such as, I don't know, foods, medications and procedures that are ineffective or harmful...?  Do you think every single one of the millions of food products and medical innovations proposed to the FDA is effective and/or harmless?

Nobody's claiming the FDA, like any government bureaucracy, doesn't have inefficiencies, red tape or corruption.  But that hardly means that if the FDA disapproves of something, it automatically must be good.

I understand your point.  The problem with the FDA is that it's far too corrupted to disapprove or even eliminate certain drugs/medications with a history of "harmfulness" -- they would never go against the grain, so to speak, or even reprimand a big Pharmacy company.  Witness the countless deaths caused by a single drug in U.S. hospitals (as reported by Life Extension) by not one but two pharmaceutical giants well-known to us.  Why were those drugs approved in the first place?  Did big Pharma not report all of the potential lethal side effects unbeknownst to doctors? Could one say there is collusion on the part of the FDA & the powerful Pharma companies?

The above is just one example.  There are countless others that never get reported  through regular media.  Natural products, even those containing herbals have rarely killed anyone, yet to the FDA, one would think they are more harmful than drugs.  Incredible how things revolve around corrupted bureaucratic organizations designed to protect our health in the best way possible.