[Apparelyzed]

Paralympians Cheating By Triggering Autonomic Dysreflexia

A gruesome performance-boosting technique amongst disabled athletes, which can involve deliberately breaking bones or sabotaging personal medical equipment, is being probed at the Paralympics.

As with the Winter Olympics in February, a record number of competitors are being screened for use of banned performance-enhancing drugs such as steroids and blood enhancers, said Doug MacQuarrie of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport.

In addition, some 50 Paralympians with spinal cord injuries are being assessed for “boosting” blood pressure.

The pressure spike, called autonomic dysreflexia, can improve an athlete’s performance by as much as 15 per cent.

Such athletes feel no pain below their injury, and have been known to break a toe, wear pressure stockings, compress their testicles by sitting on ball bearings, or block a urinary catheter to over-fill bladder.

The distress is painless but triggers a physical rise in blood pressure, said physician-scientist Dr. Andrei Krassioukov, leader of the “boosting” research team.

He said boosting can also be lethal, by triggering a stroke or heart attack - and it has been banned by world sports bodies since 1994.

“But we cannot crucify Paralympic athletes for the boosting phenomenon,” warned Krassioukov, who works with the GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre here and at the University of British Columbia’s medical school.

“It’s totally different in comparison to ... use of drugs by perfectly healthy people. People with disabilities are at a horrible disadvantage, and they’re trying to normalize their body function.”

Spinal cord injuries cause people to lose the ability to naturally adjust their arterial blood pressure and heart rate, said Krassioukov.

“They are at disadvantage, to have at resting state a low blood pressure ... this is one of the horrific results of spinal cord injury.”

Able-bodied people who feel sluggish “will have a coffee. People with spinal cord injury will do something more outrageous -- they want to feel better and they want to perform better. They’re using this abnormal response to increase blood pressure,” Krassioukov told AFP.

Many sit-sports pit athletes with spinal cord injuries against athletes with intact central nervous systems but with amputated legs, for example. With normal blood pressure amputees can “perform better than in a person with spinal cord injury,” said Krassioukov.

“This is one of the horrific results of spinal cord injury. I believe they could still compete against one another,” he said, but with more research, “spinal cord injuries will have to be categorized differently”.

The World Anti-Doping Agency website lists substances or methods, linked with enhancing performance that “violate the spirit of sport,” that are prohibited worldwide.

Despite one more doping case from the Olympic games now being investigated, experts agreed there have been fewer cases of doping during the Vancouver Olympics, and so far at the Paralympics, than at previous games.

During the Olympics Slovak ice hockey player Lubomir Visnovsky and Russian ice hockey player Svetlana Terenteva received reprimands, but not bans.

Don Catlin, an American a member of the IOC medical commission told AFP one more doping investigation is now underway.

Source: http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/p...e-cheating.aspx

[ADP-10-08-63]

so what do london have in place to ensure good clean olympic games of which are drug free
it is about time ioc set out to ban atheletes for life for cheating
and that ramdom unanounced testing can take place at any time with no restriction
if london sets out the bar to be raised higher
for cleanest tested games ever
then may be every body else will take notice
keep sport drug free
as sport has no time for drug offending cheats
sport is for those who train the hardest to achieve there goals
are those on podium proud to clean of drugs
proud to represent there country, by honouring that country with a medal
through pure hard graft
and not cheating

[hurbshankin]

painles my ass! AD kicks my ass!

[Tetracyclone]

At first I thought this post was a joke- but no, the competitive urge takes SCI athletes where no human has willingly gone before. Ball bearings under the nuts is especially attractive... is this ball enhancement?

[gordonr]

Apparelyzed, on Mar 18 2010, 09:10 AM, said:

Such athletes feel no pain below their injury, and have been known to break a toe, wear pressure stockings, compress their testicles by sitting on ball bearings, or block a urinary catheter to over-fill bladder.

It seems to me that pressure stockings should be placed in a different category. The stockings do mechanically increase blood pressure in the legs, which should send more blood to the brain and upper muscles, but they do not produce Dysreflexia, do they?

Best,

Gordon

[Ratticis]

Don't feel like it? I sure as hell felt it when the PT broke my femer

[Apparelyzed]

gordonr, on Mar 18 2010, 01:43 PM, said:

It seems to me that pressure stockings should be placed in a different category. The stockings do mechanically increase blood pressure in the legs, which should send more blood to the brain and upper muscles, but they do not produce Dysreflexia, do they?

Best,

Gordon

If the stockings are too tight, and of the open toe variety, then yes, they can trigger Autonomic Dysreflexia.

The fact that they are open toed stockings, means the edge of the stocking near the toes digs into the foot.

Regards

Simon.

[animadversor]

Holy dramatic language: "one of the horrific results of spinal cord injury" (twice!) and "horrible disadvantage"

oooh I can feel the love.

Here's an awesome site w/ better info: http://wordpress.verticalchallenge.org/pro...mance-boosting/

[Scribbler]

After reading that I'll never have 'crushed nuts' sprinkled on my icecream again.....

[Quad65]

Y'know, I'm as competitive as the next guy, but I've never understood the 'win at all costs' mentality. To intentionally jack myself over for some prize or to 'prove' I'm better than someone else doesn't compute with me.

If that's what makes you feel like a man, knock yourself out. I'll just sit on the sidelines, shake my head, and laugh.

[spot]

Ouch. AD HURTS! I may short myself on meds, proving I like pain, but to try for AD? No way. You can kill yourself that way. (In my specific case, doubly likely, since I have bleeding angiomas in my brain.) I doubt if risking a stroke is worth the extra chance of winning a race. I would think having a SCI would be sufficiently messed up for anyone.

[HiltonP]

As someone who has completed at an international level in disabled sport I can tell you that the desire to win, often at all costs, is very much alive and well, and has been for more than 30 years.

In the case of disabled sport we have the added dimension of athletes being categorised according to their levels of disability. It is not unknown for competitors, their coaching staff, and management to try and have competing athletes disqualified based on possible incorrect assessments. Disabled athletes have been tampering with "additives" for decades, both to increase performance, and sometimes to decrease performance (i.e. to calm one down).

Whilst this may appear to be extreme to some people we have to accept that the desire to compete and win is strong amongst many. Some are competitive in business, and others are competitive in sport. In many cases disabled athletes have exhibited tremendous drive to overcome their disability, and it is therefore a natural extension to continue this into their choice of sport.

I am not well disposed to this phenomenon, but I do believe that one has to recognise that fact before you can deal with it. In many cases this is why sporting authorities are struggling to deal with this matter, since they wish to put a lid on it rather than seeking out why athletes are prepared to go to such extremes to win.

This post has been edited by HiltonP: 02 August 2011 - 05:21 PM

[wheelzoffortune]

This is disgusting.