The large shock on spine from short groundfalls?

[Jens]

Does anyone have any experience with shock loading the spine by taking short groundfalls or jumping off boulder problems with no pad? Can the spine compress, create stress fractures,or blow discs from realatively short jumps? Is it possible to just bruise the spine and be sore for a month and then get better?

[summitchaserCJB]

I'm not a M.D. but ya it is possible to bruise the spine. You could have a stress fracture though. I've bruised bones many times and they heal.

Edited January 19, 2010 by summitchaserCJB

[genepires]

I took a good sized fall and broke my back. It was just a chipped part and I was able to walk out of the hospital. It is possible to fuck it up and still walk around and eventually heal.

 

It is reasonable that repeated jarring motions like you mention could cause small traumas that accumilate to a full blown problem. Best to steer clear of such nonsense. You don't have this problem do you? Hope not

 

[eldiente]

I do find that jumping from tall problems gives me sore knees and a stiff back when done repeatedly.

[Dan_Miller]

Jens,

 

A little scare tactics here!

 

 

Bail off from boulder problems with extreme caution even for a young'un such as yourself. Compressing/herniating interverterbral discs, particularily cervical discs may well result tin as much pain as you could nearly imagine. In many years of climbing I've had numerous orthopedic injuries (too much rigorous training). None of them conpare to the blown disc with its serious neurological effects. That excruciating pain will also include significant loss of function in your hands, arms and a ton of other vital area, even your pectoral muscles perhaps

It sll depends on the impacted vertebral level. All of this, is just as, or perhaps more so true for your lumbar spine discs because being at the base of your truncal skeleton, they take even a greater load.

 

How do I know this? Last July, I blew the cervical disk at the C-7 L-1 (base of the neck) vertebral junction. Untill I had neurosurgery on August 31st. I suffered unlike I ever have, this included very significant loss of function in my right arm, especially the hand, along with continual pain in my right pectoral muscle. Thankfully the serious surgery was pain relieving. However who knows when full function will return to the ulnar nerve in my dominant right hand. Nerve repair is undeniably pokey. Climbing with something less than two fully operative hands is increasing climbing difficulty more than I need!

 

Take home point: Do not frequently bail on boulder problems without one or two serious pads, even then who knows. Your spine and it's discs, and equally important nerve roots will really thank you, both now and in the long run. Just ask any sports med physician or Neurosurgeon. Best of luck!

[Mtguide]

Years ago I was bucked off a horse in Wyoming and landed right on my butt. Didn't notice anything right away, but a few weeks later began to have lower back pain, which continued for about 6 months, then went away. I was 28 at the time.

 

5 years later I suffered a hip injury. When the orthopedist came into the exam room with the x-rays, he said,"Did you know you broke your back one time?" Looking at the films , he showed me a dark line across the middle of the 4th lumbar vertebra. It was an old compression fracture, and he said it could only be caused by a fall from some height, at least 6 or 8 feet, landing just right on the base of the spine, to do it. I told him about being bucked off,(and I know I was over ten feet off the ground when the horse pitched me) and he said that sounded about right. It knocked about a half inch off my overall height.

 

Those bones are pretty stout, but not unbreakable. Either rope up or use plenty of crash pads if you don't want to be crippled up as you age.

[el jefe]

bruising the spine would result in significant neurological deficits. a bruise on the spinal cord is a very serious injury.

[toproper]

neurological symptoms would include: muscle weakness, pain shooting down your legs, numbness and tingling in a 'saddle like distribution' or changes to bowel or bladder function. If you have any of these it's a good idea to get it checked out.

 

Frequent icing, antiinflammatories (ibuprofin, bromelain and turmeric) and rest are likely indicated regardless of the extent of the injury. Good luck!