Surfer's Myelopathy

[islandgalrc]

I'm doing a case study on surfer's myelopathy. Has anyone experienced this rare condition? Any info would be helpful. Thanks!

[billie_morini]

What is it?
Why do people study it?
Why are you studying it?
Is your study OK with getting info from largely casual, unknown, and unverifiable sources?

[jaffa1949]

I'm doing a case study on surfer's myelopathy. Has anyone experienced this rare condition? Any info would be helpful. Thanks!

Hi islandgalrc, I've been a surfer for over fifty years and chiropractor for 30. I have been aware of Surfer's Myelopathy in that time but I have never seen a case in that time. I have worked with all the local doctors and orthopedic surgeons here as I have advised the medical school about Chiropractic as alternative therapies.

For Billie Surfer's Myelopathy is like a spinal stroke where the vascular supply to the core of the lumbar thoraco spinal cord is compromised. The particular occurrence is almost peculiar in new surfers and seems to come from the arching of the back in paddling and popping up usually in early prolonged or intense sessions.
Where a chiropractor might initially see a patient presenting with low back pain and some loss of function and perhaps sensation or pain in the legs ( sounds like a minor problem) it needs to be diagnosed more fully as what we are describing is much more serious with hopefully only temporary paralysis, loss of bladder control, and worse it can be permanent.
Clear diagnosis is needed, urgent medical treatment, and intensive specific physiotherapy directed to recovery.
The problem is as I said quite rare, it is increasing as originally surfers developed strong physical skills and core muscle strength often as swimmers before taking to the boards.
Now people at much lesser levels of physical preparation are having a go at surfing and they appear to be the ones who are copping the problem.
How aware of it and how they address it the surf schools are might be good elements to research in your paper.
good luck

[budjessee]

My son has surfers myelopathy. He had it happen to him May 23 2008 at Wakiki. He was 19 when it happen and he is currently paralyzed from waist down with no bladder or bowel control. He was a three sport athlete and had participated in water sports since the age of 8. When we went to Queens hospital we were told that this was very rare and there were only 20 documented cases of this ever happening. We thought how lucky can we be that this rare situation happen to us. Little did we know that there was a case on Wakiki that happen three days before ours and that young man was in Straub hospital. We have found 25 cases that have happen since 2007 in Hawaii. There have been four cases that we know about since Thanksgiving 2010. It is not as rare as we were told or as rare as some people believe like the chiropractor. The nurse that accompany my son on his flight from Hawaii to Denver rehab hospital told us that they had been invloved with about 9 patients per year with surfers myelopathy. There should be some type of education of the instructors to detect the symptoms of SM. Instead they continue to ignore the problem. Yes native Hawaiians may be immune to SM due to their upbringing, but this does not excuse the stick their head in the sand when it comes to mainlanders wanting to test their skills on the board. It is devastating especially when you have a 19 year old son that had never caused any problems, honor roll student, three sport athlete never drank and never had an accident. He did not deserve this and if the surfing company and instructor would have told us what was wrong, because we were still there at the place he took the lesson, early intervention might have helped and he might be walking today instead of confined to a wheelchair. You can go to www.peterjessee.com and read his story. Feel free to contact me. Bud Jessee

[jaffa1949]

Hi Budjessee, you certainly have my best wishes for your son. SM is a profoundly devastating condition to strike a young healthy person. I certainly suggest that you keep up the good work to make the condition more known. Given the numbers of surfers world wide it still is uncommon if not rare, and that doesn't address the effects that happen to the entire family through this.

Hi too islandgalrc
Surfers' Myelopathy needs to be more thoroughly researched and I believe that evidence of more cases would be found if different diagnostic measures were used.
You mention Pete was a 3 sport athlete.
Speculation is that the surf specific spinal stress may not be accommodated in the musculature of new surfers and the the para spinal blood supply is somehow compromised, and like a stroke or TIA causes death or transient damage to the spinal cord. There is no information yet that there are any pre-existing unknown problems that cause this failure.

Uncommon situations need more education and I would certainly recommend recognition of symptoms of SM be learned by surf school and beach lifeguards.
It is a little problematical ( tragically so) when so little is known and what may be a clinically defining sign may also be missed.
There is also Cervical Myelopathy that can be a consequence of non traumatic circumstance in surfing.
I did a little research after finding the initial post, and there is next to nothing on SM in peer journals in Australia.
If you pm me I will send a bibliography of articles but most of them are re-appraisals of Hawaiian incidents with which you are all too familiar.
I will keep a tail on this and if anything pertinent comes from our side of the world i will send it to you.

I applaud your fundraising and the network you are building for SM hopefully the pressure you can bring to bear across the whole community of surfing may change things so SM is indeed truly rare.

I recommend that you both communicate about this and there maybe something that comes of it.

Lots of love and best wishes from Australia, please feel free to use what I have written if it helps.