[Friedman] Islanders Mike Reilly's Concussion Leads to Unrelated Heart Condition Diagnosis and Procedure

[Honkin Hronek]

 

 

Wow. Lucky for him. Figured this deserved it's own thread based on the severity.

[DrJockitch]

I am sorry, how does any athlete in one of the big professional sports leagues not get a serious physical including significant cardiopulmonary testing.

Just from an insurance perspective you would think they would need to. Not just pass on a few forms to their local family docs who rarely ever saw them growing up.
We have had some NHL players grow up in our clinics and they really don’t require that much considering what they do and the money involved.
I always assumed it was because they got extensive intake physicals at the start of training camp. If they aren’t WTH is wrong with you NHL and NHLPA. 

Edited November 18 by DrJockitch

[Phil_314]

You'd be surprised.  Players with heart conditions have literally passed away or black out on benches.  I'm not a doctor but if the condition is in the heart I'm not entirely surprised it doesn't get spotted.  Alexei Cherepanov (RIP, former Rangers prospect), Rich Peverley, Jay Bouwmeester and Ondrej Pavelec all had near-death incidents in games, and Hank Lundqvist had his career shortened by heart issues too.  If they were fit enough to suit up, maybe they presumed they were fine?  Not at all saying your comments aren't valid but that's what probably makes it unforeseen circumstances when there's so many healthy athletes that these are unfortunately the needles in the haystack.

6 hours ago, DrJockitch said:

I am sorry, how does any athlete in one of the big professional sports leagues not get a serious physical including significant cardiopulmonary testing.

Just from an insurance perspective you would think they would need to. Not just pass on a few forms to their local family docs who rarely ever saw them growing up.
We have had some NHL players grow up in our clinics and they really don’t require that much considering what they do and the money involved.
I always assumed it was because they got extensive intake physicals at the start of training camp. If they aren’t WTH is wrong with you NHL and NHLPA. 

 

[DrJockitch]

7 hours ago, Phil_314 said:

You'd be surprised.  Players with heart conditions have literally passed away or black out on benches.  I'm not a doctor but if the condition is in the heart I'm not entirely surprised it doesn't get spotted.  Alexei Cherepanov (RIP, former Rangers prospect), Rich Peverley, Jay Bouwmeester and Ondrej Pavelec all had near-death incidents in games, and Hank Lundqvist had his career shortened by heart issues too.  If they were fit enough to suit up, maybe they presumed they were fine?  Not at all saying your comments aren't valid but that's what probably makes it unforeseen circumstances when there's so many healthy athletes that these are unfortunately the needles in the haystack.

 

That is the exact reason this should be done and if the league or PA haven’t said it yet, the insurance companies should have. 
We should learn and prevent.  There are some situations that you can’t foresee certainly and some that develop in athletes as they train and over stress the heart, especially with the frequent use of PEDs at all levels of sports. 
It is unconscionable that the teams don’t do extensive physicals at the start of camp and at the end of the season.   Should absolutely include at a minimum an ECG but I would think echocardiograms at a reasonable interval are a good idea as well. 

[Phil_314]

14 hours ago, DrJockitch said:

That is the exact reason this should be done and if the league or PA haven’t said it yet, the insurance companies should have. 
We should learn and prevent.  There are some situations that you can’t foresee certainly and some that develop in athletes as they train and over stress the heart, especially with the frequent use of PEDs at all levels of sports. 
It is unconscionable that the teams don’t do extensive physicals at the start of camp and at the end of the season.   Should absolutely include at a minimum an ECG but I would think echocardiograms at a reasonable interval are a good idea as well. 

Might just be the darker side of the sport -- it's just like the enforcer era.  When it's such a norm that players would crash and bang (or throw hands in the enforcer era) it's expected that there would be tolls taken on the players' hearts and brains, but unfortunately if every risky contract was voided, player sat and staged fight cancelled before anything happened, I wonder how many athletes would be out of the league and how much less profitable the league would be.  That is the nature of the extreme exhaustion of playing a spectacle sport night in, night out.  I'd love if we could have players whose bodies didn't break down but not sure how soon we should expect that, and if they don't try so hard they won't get paydays so players might even risk it and play through it instead of reporting it and potentially losing a contract.  Wise players in that case would step away if they knew they had something, of course.

[DrJockitch]

9 hours ago, Phil_314 said:

Might just be the darker side of the sport -- it's just like the enforcer era.  When it's such a norm that players would crash and bang (or throw hands in the enforcer era) it's expected that there would be tolls taken on the players' hearts and brains, but unfortunately if every risky contract was voided, player sat and staged fight cancelled before anything happened, I wonder how many athletes would be out of the league and how much less profitable the league would be.  That is the nature of the extreme exhaustion of playing a spectacle sport night in, night out.  I'd love if we could have players whose bodies didn't break down but not sure how soon we should expect that, and if they don't try so hard they won't get paydays so players might even risk it and play through it instead of reporting it and potentially losing a contract.  Wise players in that case would step away if they knew they had something, of course.

Okay but those are the intrinsic risks of the sport and the exact reason the athletes need high level physiological testing and frankly should have fairly high level psychological testing.  
I know they do some testing, I am just questioning the degree because of the recurrence of certain issues and the prevelance of many conditions in athletes. As discussed above there are risks that develop but again, because something is very risky you need to mitigate what you can by assuring a basic baseline of health and correcting what you can, that is just good preventative medicine. 
It is not just the athletics. Throw in the PEDs and the recreational drug use.  Cocaine and hypertrophic cardiomyopathies from steroid use are a fatal mix, just ask about every professional wrestler who passed early or Marco Pantani for those cyclists out there. 
We know dilated cardiomyopathys happen frequently in endurance athletes and frequently lead to sometimes fatal arrhythmias.  Running a marathon over the age of 40 is a big risk for heart disease interestingly. 
That sport is risky but pays well for those risks is not a good reason to not do extensive testing it is the reason to do it. These guys will push themselves past the point of safety, they will take PEDs to help them make millions of dollars and when all the pressure comes crashing around them they don’t usually take a leave of absconded they blow off steam like most rich young people with booze, drugs and women. 
‘Need to protect the player and the product in what ways you can.