After my own (minor) run in with Rhabdomyolysis at IM Lou I am still seeking medical advice and consultations. I ran across this site in my research. HOLY Sh#T what a story.
"They made two incisions along the length of both his quads – wounds that would stay open for two weeks. They also had to investigate fluid that showed up on his CT scan on the Psoas muscle that is located in the Abdomen, by cutting through his abdominal wall and removing a muscle sample for further testing and closing him up with 19 staples. For the following nine days, Lines was placed in a drug-induced coma. Dialysis to help his failing kidneys lasted for three weeks. During that period alone, the doctors thought he was going to die on three occasions. To counter the litre of fluid he was losing each hour, he received 23 separate blood transfusions. Then he contracted pneumonia and had to have two injections of the hormone EPO to further support his kidneys and bring his haemoglobin levels back into the normal range. "
As you probably read, the break down of the muscles is not necessarily the big deal - but the waste products take out the kidneys and then all hell breaks loose in a hurry. This is actually how many severe burn patients die.
Wow, that is intense! How are you doing after your bout w/ rhabdo? I hope all is well. I had rhabdo after my double IM last fall and it was pretty scary. I went to the ER and was, unfortunately, on various IVs for 96 continuous hours. My muscles were really sore but I didn’t feel any worse for the wear during my hospital stay. But, as rroof said, the waste products were of great concern for my doctor. He told me he was worried about my kidneys failing…a bit scary for me. I guess my CPK enzyme levels were extremely high and that is what he was concerned about. But all ended up ok. Best of luck to you in your recover!
Rhabdo has been seen in several instances in the crossfit community. If you are looking to do more research on the subject you may want to ask around on the crossfit boards. There are several coaches and trainers who have some expertise on the subject as well as anectdotal experiences.
That’s a terrible story, but it’s not garden-variety exertional rhabdomyolysis by any stretch of the imagination. He had no risk factors except a touch of dehydration, and his massive injuries are a lot more consistent with an ischemia / reperfusion event than exertional rhabdo. This is more likely an acute type B aortic dissection (which heals on its own in 75% cases with the kind of ICU care he got) or a big thrombus from an intramural hematoma. Even the GI bug is a red herring I’ll bet, and was more likely due to mesenteric ischemia. I’d love to see a CT scan of his aorta.
Hopefully your experience was not on anything close to the scale of this guy’s situation.
That is a scary story… Rhabdomyolysis seems to be linked to many different causes and all of the information out there is still very vague.
I have had my own experiences with it ever since I started training for ironman distance races almost 4 years ago. I think my run in’s may be very unique to yours but here’s my story for what it’s worth. Because it’s taken me so long to find out what I know so far maybe this will help as you seek medical advice as well.
What I have is somewhat minor and I’ve never ended up in the hospital however I’ve been warned. I have regularly (once 1-1.5months) had extreme debilitating muscle pain that lasts about 7-10days when I’m in my highest volume of training. It always starts at the beginning of a rest week. During one of these episodes I had blood work done and I was diagnosed with Rhadbomyolysis since my CPK levels were elevated. I had that checked every day until the pain was gone, the CPK levels were direcly correlated to the amount of pain I felt but they were never above 15,000. I was advised that if they got above 15,000 then I should worry about kidney failure.
Last December I had a muscle biopsy to investigate possible myopathies and only recently there were some definciencies found in recent lab tests. Here’s a quote from that report:
“A >3-fold increase in both citrate synthase and succinate dehydrogenase activities is a strong indicator of increased mitochondrial content. These findings are somewhat corroborated by histochemical findings, however, frank ragged-red fibers would have been expected with such elevations of marker enzymes. Normalization of respiratory chain enzyme activities reveals important reductions across the board with particularly significant deficiencies of NADH cytochrome c reductase and succinate cytochrome c reductase. Analysis of Coenzyme Q10 is strongly recommended.” They are still waiting for more muscle tissue for the Coenzyme Q10 analysis. So that’s as far as I’ve gotten. For me this has been a long path. It sounds like it is fairly common for athletes to experience Rhabdo after a marathon or Ironman, but I haven’t heard much about chronic problems in athletes. I would be interested if this is somewhat common as well? (I have read about it with horses??). Good luck w/ your medical advice and consultations search. I do think my experience is unique to yours, but maybe there’s some value in sharing stories.