The Deadlift that Ruined My Head

Ive been MIA on this forum for a while. 2 months ago, I was deadlifting really heavy and held my breath in while I hoisted it up. I immediately felt a lot of pressure in my head and sinuses. Weeks later, I got really bad neck pain and doctors diagnosed this as a muscle spasm in my neck causing me to lose my cervical curve. They guessed this was tied to my head pressure/pain. My symptoms were pressure in my head (especially when bending down), and I couldnt turn my neck to the right.

2 and a half months later, I notice the muscles in me seem to be very jumbled in my head/neck/right side of body. I now have a lot of numbness all over my body and face at random times, and if I try to exercise for even more than 10 minutes, I absolutely feel like passing out and my body becomes weak and my head feels like its being choked. I notice that I have lots of veins and now my veins have little bumps on them. My forehead has a permanent vein now right below my hairline with 3 little bumps on it. This tells me that while holding my breath on a deadlift, I popped or disfigured some sort of blood vessel and caused a lot of damage.

Ive been to neurologists, chiropracters, ER doctors, orthopedic surgeon, had MRI for a brain anyeruism, and had an MRI on my neck to check for a pinched nerve/slipped disk. Nothing. But I still have lots of head pressure, and now its periodically making me feel like I have no blood to my head! I often feel disoriented, woozy, and like somebody is choking me. Usually when this happens, I will go into the mirror and check my face to see that it is extremely red and flushed, with the same veins protruding in my forehead and I look very choked.

I do not know what to do. I am at my wits end. Where can I go and who can I see? What sort of specialist?

Or should I just start deadlifting again and see what happens when I pop the apparent vessels all the way?

dtes


Or should I just start deadlifting again and see what happens when I pop the apparent vessels all the way?

 
This is probably going to be the one and only time you ever hear me say this, but no don't deadlift anymore until this problem is 100% fixed.  I'm not sure who you could go to see though.
 
This happened to me before, but not to the extreme that you are experiencing.  I felt "pops" in my neck and back of my head before from deadlifting.  It was scary, but it wasn't an ongoing thing like you are saying.
 
If this was me, I would look for advice from powerlifters.  Try strengthmill.net, and ask Mark Rippetoe what this may be.  He is much more helpful then many doctors when it comes to weight lifting related injuries.

"True genius, in many fields of human endeavor, is often revealed in elegant simplicity."

- A smart man

Journal: http://www.wannabebigforums.com/showthread.php?t=117358

Oh yea, Im also always extremely sleepy, regardless of sleeping at least a good 12 hours a day now. I have to also withdraw from my university due to this condition. Please, if you can contact Mark for me or anybody else, it would be appreciated.

I am just at my wits end, and think that maybe I have a lot of "clogged" vessels as opposed to broken ones. I cant live my life like this anymore, I just cant.

OMG, dtes, that sounds awful and scary!  Avoid deads like the plague, imo.  Have you worked with a physical therapist at all?  Sometimes the medical profession aggravates me to no end.  I don't know whether they're clueless, cannot be bothered with novel problems, or medicine is sometimes a mystery.  Going to the doc is liking taking the car to the garage:  It seems to be a lot of guesswork.  Try this and if doesn't work we'll try that.  An empty wallet and half a life later, you might be lucky enough to be fixed.
    What kind of exercise have you been doing, if any, since this started, and has it helped?

I had a problem about 4 years ago with extremity tingling and vertigo.  Real fun stuff!  Never got a definitive answer but that it is probably a result of neck stenosis and panicked overbreathing.  I have actually found that exercise has held those feelings mostly at bay since then.

Good luck to you!  I'd say you need to keep searching for a medical answer, as futile as that may seem.  Where's Dr. House when you need him?!

Best wishes!

Yeah couldnt hurt to ask rippetoe about this, even if he doesnt know, it didnt hurt you to try.

As for whats going on, I really couldnt tell you and doubt anyone on here could considering you have already seen a fair amount of doctors. Whether this was pre-existing and the heavy deadlifting just pulled the last string, or your body just wasnt conditioned enough to be lifting the weight you were attempting to pull...

Im sorry to hear about this happening to you, hope you figure out what it is and a way to get past it.

6'3"  @213

Squat 1x20x275

press:200, Deadlift:475, Bench:300, P.clean:235, Squat:385

"The only failure that is final is to stop trying to improve"

The only hope I can find is something called like Hyperbolic Oxygen Therapy. Where they expose your head/brain to pure oxygen and thus repair broken vessels/cells. Dont know if Kaiser will cover that, though.

What kind of doc specializes in vessels, cardiovascular?  Have you seen one of those?  Is the reason for the numbness from damaged nerves or damaged vessels not servicing the area with blood?  Or is this what you don't know?

As I recall my vertigo really kicked in whenever I would bend over, sort of like in your case.  Do you get panicky fearing you're having a heart attack or stroke?  You've said you feel faint and dizzy, right?

Let me tell you what seemed to help in my case.  I don't see the harm in trying it but you might want to clear it with your docs.  A glass of red wine a night, and naproxen (Aleve) helped a ton.  In my case there were some nerves being pinched by inflammation in my neck.  I know you say they found nothing pinched, but perhaps they missed something.  The naproxen reduces the inflammation and I think the alcohol increases blood flow and relaxes muscles maybe.  You have to be careful taking naproxen and alcohol at the same time because of potential stomach damage.  I just didn't take them at the same time.  I don't know but it worked for me.  And exercise too.  I started with swimming and biking.

Again, good luck!

Are you off Keto yet... have you discussed and disclosed the diet you have been on with your doctors... I am sure you have... You must have...

I sincerely, (really and truly sincerely) hope that you get this figured out... and get back to your life as quickly as possible...

Yea, Ive been off of keto for like a month and a half. I eat at least 10 bananas a day and drink tons of water and milk.

dtes


Yea, Ive been off of keto for like a month and a half. I eat at least 10 bananas a day and drink tons of water and milk.

If this is true, you may have potassium poisoning. 
 
I was just talking to a nurse the other day that told me about a patient that had this problem that they couldn't figure out.  They did all types of tests to him, yet they couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong with him.  The doctor(s), of course, asked if he had made any changes to his diet recently.  He told them that he didn't.  "Are you sure? Absolutely no changes whatsoever?".  Jokingly, he replied, "well, I've been eating a lot of strawberries lately since my wife just brought home a few lbs. that she gets for free at work."
 
The doctor immediately knew what the problem was - potassium poisioning.  Strawberries apparently have tons of potassium in them, and poisioning from too much can actually kill you!
 
So the guy stopped eating the strawberries, and he quickly got better.
 
So just a suggestion.  Stop eating bananas (or any other thing that may be high in potassium) for a few weeks, and see what happens.

"True genius, in many fields of human endeavor, is often revealed in elegant simplicity."

- A smart man

Journal: http://www.wannabebigforums.com/showthread.php?t=117358

Why do you eat 10 bananas a day?

if you're in the san fransisco area you should consider an appointment with dr frederick kramer. he's a freakin genious. expensive though but he specializes in hyperbaric o2 therapy. assuming you do have a real problem. lay off the bananas kid.

first day with no buds, 11/17, need a new job. 1 down 13 to go.

I've ate too many bananas before, and it just made me nauseous which is one of the symptoms of too much potassium if I remember correctly.  Surprised you can even eat that many bananas.

http://www.discussbodybuilding.com/Seos-Log-2008-m442008.aspx

potassium poisoning is not very common but i can happen. more so from taking potassium supplements. yes too much potassium can cause lethal cardiac arrythmias but you would have to eat way more then 10 bananas in a day!!!!!!

it is really hard to get potassium poisoning from food alone, and i mean extremely hard. you would puke most likely before you got anywhere close.

Just think how many fries some people eat in a certain sitting, potatoes contain a lot of potassium but u dont hear about people getting potasium poisoning from them.

so in other words i highly doubt that u have potassium poisoning. 

Current: 19, 5'11", 190@7%

bench:305 squat:370(atg) deadlift:475
Goals: 4plate squat, 5plate dead

"obsessed is a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated"

Daniel265


potassium poisoning is not very common but i can happen. more so from taking potassium supplements. yes too much potassium can cause lethal cardiac arrythmias but you would have to eat way more then 10 bananas in a day!!!!!!

it is really hard to get potassium poisoning from food alone, and i mean extremely hard. you would puke most likely before you got anywhere close.

Just think how many fries some people eat in a certain sitting, potatoes contain a lot of potassium but u dont hear about people getting potasium poisoning from them.

so in other words i highly doubt that u have potassium poisoning. 

Agreed, excellent reply.

ACE-CPT, NASM-CPT, AFPA-Nutrition Consultant 

The guy that I was talking about did have potassium poisioning from eating strawberries.  I don't know how many he was eating exactly, but he was deathly ill from it.

It can't hurt to stop eating the bananas and see what happens.

"True genius, in many fields of human endeavor, is often revealed in elegant simplicity."

- A smart man

Journal: http://www.wannabebigforums.com/showthread.php?t=117358

Funny, I ate myself into an iodine deficiency by gorging on peaches 2 years ago...
I got rather sick form it... ended up having to supplement iodine, for a little while. (who ever has to supplement iodine???)You can eat yourself into toxic situations... it may seen difficult (well because it is...), but it is also very possible.. one of the reasons I am so against extreme diets for the long haul. Especially ones that do not stress a wide variety of foods, and diets that don;t teach you how to make good choices, for your life, rather than a momentary goal.


But besides the obvious, erhhem there is no reason to eat 10 bananas a day, considering his trouble started way before he ended Keto, potassium poisoning seems an unlikely cause. But seriously, 10 is too many! Eat an apple dtes!

is your blood pressure high, something similar happened to me and dr thought i had an aneurysm got the stupid mra and came out clean i havent had any problems since but they think it was a mixture of heavy lifting and high blood pressure

YOU GOTTA EAT BIG, TO BE BIG!!

NASM certified trainer
NFPT certified trainer

Winter Bulk goal:245-250 by dec 31
Current weight: 235

thehardway


Funny, I ate myself into an iodine deficiency by gorging on peaches 2 years ago...
I got rather sick form it... ended up having to supplement iodine, for a little while. (who ever has to supplement iodine???)You can eat yourself into toxic situations... it may seen difficult (well because it is...), but it is also very possible.. one of the reasons I am so against extreme diets for the long haul. Especially ones that do not stress a wide variety of foods, and diets that don;t teach you how to make good choices, for your life, rather than a momentary goal.


But besides the obvious, erhhem there is no reason to eat 10 bananas a day, considering his trouble started way before he ended Keto, potassium poisoning seems an unlikely cause. But seriously, 10 is too many! Eat an apple dtes!

Fruits and vegetables are overrated.
 
I keed!  ;)

Thanks for the reply guys. I just starting eating bananas off the hook cause I thought maybe keto was ruining me further with a potassium deficiency.

Anyway, im almost CERTAIN I now know whats wrong with me. Hours upon hours of internet research has paid off. I read up that the neck muscles are attached to the head, and if a muscle spasm is really bad in the neck, then that affects blood circulation to the head/brain and causes tightness in the sinuses and head.

That MUST explain why I have so many veins with little bubbles in them all the time, due to muscular contraction. When a muscle is pulled over time, it stops receiving blood/nutrients/oxygen as the pathways are cut off. That MUST also be why I cant now exercise for more than 10 minutes without feeling Im gonna pass out and die. And finally, it must be why my head always feels choked and I feel disoriented and my whole body is shaky, twitchy and weak all the time.

My only problem now? The muscle spasm is still here and apparently, these damn things, ESPECIALLY in the neck where support for the head is needed, takes forever to go away as the body uses it as a defense mechanism for the loss of my proper neck curve. Im currently now doing some serious acupuncture in San Francisco.

For anybody who cares, I'll keep you updated. I pray every day that I can get back into bodybuilding and be the young, glorious, ripped, pro-keto stud that I once was. As for now, Im currently eating McChickens and glued to youtube all day every day as my traps/chest shrinks and my gut expands....and avoiding mirrors to prevent even more depression.

The little bubbles are just the valves in your blood vessles. You can see them when your viens are pumped and you squeeze the area around the vein it will show you where the valves are.