I had dinner with Karin Buettner-Janz, the co inventor of the Charite’ ADR) at a party in New York a few years ago. She was a world class gymnast to competed in 68 and 72 Olympics. (Much to her chagrin, those will be remembered as the Olga Korbut and Nadia Comăneci Olympics.) She has (I think) 6 medals, including gold. She also has the very important European All-Around Champion’s title. I asked her about the damage that Gymnastics had done. She has none. That isn’t to say that others have not suffered severe damage.
I know the ravages of the NFL, especially when compounded with high steroid use, leads to a horribly painful middle age and older years.
We make the best decisions with the information we have at the time. Kicking yourself for that is pointless. Having said that, if I could go skydiving tomorrow, I would. I will skydive again. (Shhhh…. Don’t tell Diane.) I do not believe that skydiving played a part in my spine problems. I have no injuries other than a sprained knee and never had a hard fall or impact. I know people with 20,000 skydives with no back problems. Consider the camera jumpers. Until the mid-90’s, they wore heavy SLR’s (often multiple) and old video and movie cameras on their helmets when they jumped. I know many with many thousands of camera jumps without problems. I don’t think that skydivers as a cross section of society will have more back problems than whuffo’s (non-skydivers for the uninformed.) They may possibly have less problems because of the general fitness level and hearty life. . (Nightly applications of liquid anesthetics may help!)
I am certain that if I was playing basketball every weekend instead of skydiving for most of the 90’s, I would have had many more injuries and be in much worse shape.
Most people who have cervical problems will also have lumbar, and vice versa. T-spine problems are more rare and are less of a problem because of the lack of motion there. I don’t know why I’m so lucky. I was the kid who liked to jump off the roof and would swing on the rope or jump or climb over things that nobody else would. I don’t know if I may have injured myself as a child??? Remember that I was happy and healthy until a car accident in 1997.
Looking back, I don’t know that I’d change anything. I miss my life. I miss opening my trunk and seeing it filled with my rock-climbing gear, soccer gear, skydiving rigs and more. I miss playing soccer 6 days a week.
The premise of Dale’s question is false. If I knew what I was doing would cause me to be a chronic patient more than a decade (and maybe more to come), would I have done it? If the premise were correct, the answer would be “no”. But, the premise is not correct. I don’t believe my problems stem from soccer or skydiving. It’s just life. Some of us wear glasses from childhood. Some get them when they turn 40. Dr. Reul told me this morning that he doesn’t wear ‘goggles’ and he’s older than I am. (Older than dirt.)
Skydiving…. Soccer… SCUBA…. Count me in. I’d go now if I could.
Mark
PS, Dr. Reul told me and Lauren about a study he did on amateur divers (who go deep enough to do ‘decompression dives’) having disc problems related to the nitrogen bubbles that cannot be eliminated fast enough and cause damage to the annulus. Interesting stuff.
PPS… I’ve never been deeper than about 90 feet… never done a decompression dive.
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