Waylon and Willie said it best. “Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to play football.” Wait, maybe they said cowboys.
Actually, it was a soccer player who came to visit me regarding chronic pain of the knee and ankle on one side, from soccer injuries. He was only semi-pro, but so loved the game he could not and would not stop playing. I suggested marijuana balm, instead of just knocking himself out with smoking. He did have to work at his customary job as some sort of electrician on most days and could not “medicate” with marijuana until he got home. This produced some pretty painful days. Read more on When Will the Footballers Ever Learn About Concussion?…
Filed under Brain, Brain Damage, prescription drugs, Sports by on Jan 30th, 2013. Comment. 
Cutting back on football practice during excessive heat in order to diminish death can only be a good idea.
DJ Searcy, age 16, died during practice drills at a football camp.
About a year ago, scientists studied the surge in heat related deaths on the football field and noted some real problems. Problems like the tripling of the average death rate from one per football season to nearly three per football season, the need for 14 days in order to “acclimate” to heat, and the need to closely monitor obese linebackers. The American College of Sports Medicine actually came up with concrete recommendations such as practicing without full gear, using a “cooling tub”, and taking plenty of breaks. Read more on Less Football = Less Death…
Filed under Sports by on Sep 18th, 2012. Comment.
It would have been better to just say “no.”
Last week two young men died on the football field. One known epileptic; another from some kind of cardiac accident. Both had presumably passed some kind of medical clearance including a physical examination, signatures from parents, whatever.
In my day, which was not over thirty years ago, I heard about those diagnosed with epilepsy not playing football. After all, people who have an alteration of consciousness such as epilepsy are held from driving cars, as they could lose control and the car could kill others, as well as themselves. Seems to me that people who had that capacity might not be ideal candidates for a full body contact sport. How long seizure-free is long enough? What kind of seizure? There are all kinds of possible questions. Hats off to ABC Good Morning America where the questions were asked, how do things like this happen? Both parents and kids want the chance at sports and may be minimizing symptoms. Read more on Choose Life Over Football…
Filed under Brain Damage by on Oct 18th, 2010. 1 Comment.
This story found me in the headlines: “Colts’ Jim Irsay discusses addiction.” I had never heard of and would not have been able to cite the name of the owner of the Baltimore Colts. I certainly am no fan of professional football. I have reviewed recent problems in other posts. It seems to me that football — seemingly more than other sports — breaks brains, heads, bones and lives and may foster drug addiction to boot. Read more on Baltimore Colts Owner Jim Irsay – Too Rich To Need Help?…
Filed under Diagnosis, Sports, Substance Abuse by on Jun 16th, 2014. Comment.
I was in my specialty training when I read Peter D.Kramer’s “Listening to Prozac.”
I remember thinking he was articulate and observant and all kinds of wonderful things, riding the cusp of a great change in psychiatry, doubting him to be a “real” scientist who would hang out at a meeting of the Society for Biological Psychiatry as I once did.
I was wondering what to do with the result of his observation that certain character traits, such as “rejection sensitivity,” could be somehow changed for the better with psycho-pharmacology. Read more on “Listening to Prozac” and What People Really Want…
Filed under Alternative Medicine, News, Sports by on Apr 17th, 2014. Comment.
Every year, back comes the Super Bowl. It is the closest Americans get to throwing Christians to the lions in a Coliseum.
Of course, since Christians are a majority in our delightful money-worshipping theocracy, we can expurgate the violent tendencies of a beer soaked, unhealthy snack-stuffed populace by throwing two teams of highly paid professional athletes at each other.
The only alternative programming known to me in the media is the Puppy Bowl of the Animal Planet Channel. This is sufficiently important to be covered by Variety, the bible of the entertainment industry. I have an unusually high “cutesy” tolerance, but this canine phenomenon, with its attendant spin-offs and franchises (and extended parodying of professional football) is enough to generate nausea even in me. Read more on Superbowl Every Year…
Filed under Brain Damage, News, Sports by on Feb 3rd, 2014. Comment.
The Tower Hill School in Delaware is considered top of the rank of independent schools in Delaware. Maybe, some say, the best private college prep in the United States.
Their website looks a lot like the website for my old prep school — Beaver Country Day School For Young Ladies, Chestnut Hill, MA.
Yes, in the days of the class of 1969, it was girls only, and was almost a relic of bygone days, with mixers (with boys’ prep schools) where an effort was still made to keep couples a certain distance apart. I was one of the early token Jews in a system where all visible human skin was the color of a bleached aspirin tablet. Read more on School Sex Scandals Among The Rich And Powerful…
Filed under Education, Family, News by on Nov 21st, 2013. Comment.
I am an expert on this — Anti-overweight discrimination.
First, from my practice. I remember a woman in her forties I saw in Oklahoma for a routine antidepressant renewal who told me that she had a cardiac condition and had been to her primary physician (this is back in the prehistoric days when I took insurance) and he had told me it was her own fault she was overweight and she was risking her life by doing nothing about it.
She was not suicidal. She told me she would never see that doctor again. And she was not going to take any heart medicine. Read more on Anti-Obesity Discrimination and Obesity Treatment…
Filed under Diagnosis, Doctors, eating disorders, weight by on Aug 2nd, 2013. Comment.
TRADITION! It’s the Fiddler on the Roof song. TRADITION! It’s my grandfather showing up at 6AM on Sunday morning to explain to me that a really smart girl would be working on finding a man who was rich enough to keep her at home so she would not need to work at all. TRADITION! It’s my parents telling me that if medical school did not work out I could come back home to suburban Boston and quietly become a French teacher. I don’t much care for tradition, mainly because I perceive it as the opposite of change. I am in favor of empowering individuals, opening up the fan of possibilities, removing things that make people feel poorly. I guess the father and daughter dance is a great American tradition. Me, I tried to dance with my father once at a Bar Mitzvah reception when I was young. He was quite inept, spun me around in a circle and actually stepped on my little foot. I can only wonder if that hasn’t anything to do with why my feet are problematic. It matters little; I would never have sued dear old dad. Great American tradition? I think not. Read more on Tradition!…
Filed under Family, News by on Feb 13th, 2013. Comment.