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Travis Frederick Out until further notice


Calvert28

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That sucks... Hopefully they can get the symptoms under control but if I remember correctly the disease itself is incurable. 

Should still be able to play if they can get his symptoms under control but seeing as it's something that never truly goes away I imagine it's almost guaranteed to at least have some important on his career.

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1 minute ago, rob_shadows said:

That sucks... Hopefully they can get the symptoms under control but if I remember correctly the disease itself is incurable. 

Should still be able to play if they can get his symptoms under control but seeing as it's something that never truly goes away I imagine it's almost guaranteed to at least have some important on his career.

I thought I read there was no known treatments. First I read about this thing I thought it might have been career threatening.

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23 minutes ago, Calvert28 said:

I thought I read there was no known treatments. First I read about this thing I thought it might have been career threatening.

Just read up on it a little. Its not curable. Simply treatable to try and live a normal life. It deals with nerve damage causing paralysis and I know from 1st hand experience, nerves are the one of the few things in your body that do NOT regenerate once damaged. Holy &**( that is awful news for Travis.

Im not going to pretend to be a doctor, but just reading on what this does--is there any chance he ever plays again? Cant imagine playing the physical grind of football with wear and tear on your body does anything good if the worst possible scenerio is nerve damage leading to paralysis.

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Guillain-Barre syndrome is usually a one-time thing, not a persisting or recurring problem. It's a disease where the immune system attacks the peripheral nerves (and nerve roots). That attack is thought to be triggered by a recent infection or vaccine, but in many cases there's no obvious cause for it. 

GBS usually presents as an acute or subacutely progressive (onset within a few days to a few weeks) pattern of weakness and numbness that starts in the feet/toes and/or fingers and then moves up the limbs. At its most severe, the disease can weaken the facial and throat muscles and the diaphragm, impairing swallowing and breathing, which can require intubation and a stay in ICU. That's a worst case scenario that doesn't usually happen.  

The 2 treatments Frederick has received are probably IVIG (IV immune globulin). IVIG helps stop the autoimmune attack on the nerves, which can then start to heal. It can take weeks to months for the nerves to repair themselves and/or regrow, depending on the severity of the damage. 

The fact that his weakness was subtle enough that the diagnosis wasn't made initially, that he says in the note that the disease was caught early, and that no mention is made of an ICU stay are all good signs. If the disease was mild in his case, he may recover to a normal level of function quickly. Not sure how long it would take him to play football again, he might be out anywhere from several weeks to a year or more. 

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13 minutes ago, AkronsWitness said:

Just read up on it a little. Its not curable. Simply treatable to try and live a normal life. It deals with nerve damage causing paralysis and I know from 1st hand experience, nerves are the one of the few things in your body that do NOT regenerate once damaged. Holy &**( that is awful news for Travis.

Im not going to pretend to be a doctor, but just reading on what this does--is there any chance he ever plays again? Cant imagine playing the physical grind of football with wear and tear on your body does anything good if the worst possible scenerio is nerve damage leading to paralysis.

It doesn't really actually cause long term nerve damage but more like temporarily effects the speed of the nerve signals.  It's not a chronic issue he'll have to deal with the rest of his life or anything.  Depending on how bad it gets he may end up with significant muscle atrophy and some heavy rehab but he should be able to play again by next year if not later this year.

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19 minutes ago, Stevein2012 said:

It doesn't really actually cause long term nerve damage but more like temporarily effects the speed of the nerve signals.  It's not a chronic issue he'll have to deal with the rest of his life or anything.  Depending on how bad it gets he may end up with significant muscle atrophy and some heavy rehab but he should be able to play again by next year if not later this year.

Lets hope so

 

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My mother got this in November of '07. She was in the ICU for a week and after that she received IVIG for another week. It didn't affect her lungs which this disease sometimes does nor did it affect her speech. She was then moved to a rehab facility where she stayed for three months. She had to learn how to walk all over again. She still doesn't have full strength of her hands.

All the best to Frederick in battling this rare disease.

 

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2 hours ago, Nabbs4u said:

Massive loss if he misses any extended time. Who is the back up OC?

with him and martin out, these are serious losses, I doubt they can even come close to getting players to play as good . As for the back up, if injuries keep happening , Jerry will suiting up and will be on the roster starting. 

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2 hours ago, Krauser said:

Guillain-Barre syndrome is usually a one-time thing, not a persisting or recurring problem. It's a disease where the immune system attacks the peripheral nerves (and nerve roots). That attack is thought to be triggered by a recent infection or vaccine, but in many cases there's no obvious cause for it. 

GBS usually presents as an acute or subacutely progressive (onset within a few days to a few weeks) pattern of weakness and numbness that starts in the feet/toes and/or fingers and then moves up the limbs. At its most severe, the disease can weaken the facial and throat muscles and the diaphragm, impairing swallowing and breathing, which can require intubation and a stay in ICU. That's a worst case scenario that doesn't usually happen.  

The 2 treatments Frederick has received are probably IVIG (IV immune globulin). IVIG helps stop the autoimmune attack on the nerves, which can then start to heal. It can take weeks to months for the nerves to repair themselves and/or regrow, depending on the severity of the damage. 

The fact that his weakness was subtle enough that the diagnosis wasn't made initially, that he says in the note that the disease was caught early, and that no mention is made of an ICU stay are all good signs. If the disease was mild in his case, he may recover to a normal level of function quickly. Not sure how long it would take him to play football again, he might be out anywhere from several weeks to a year or more. 

Completely agree. I do rehab for a living. This is a potentially devastating disease but he seems to be on the more mild end of the spectrum. But even mild disease can be incompatible with professional football. There is the chance this could be a chronic process but the chances are that it’s not. There’s also a chance there could be an underlying disease manifesting as AIPD...but we typically never find out the underlying cause. 

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3 hours ago, Krauser said:

Guillain-Barre syndrome is usually a one-time thing, not a persisting or recurring problem. It's a disease where the immune system attacks the peripheral nerves (and nerve roots). That attack is thought to be triggered by a recent infection or vaccine, but in many cases there's no obvious cause for it. 

GBS usually presents as an acute or subacutely progressive (onset within a few days to a few weeks) pattern of weakness and numbness that starts in the feet/toes and/or fingers and then moves up the limbs. At its most severe, the disease can weaken the facial and throat muscles and the diaphragm, impairing swallowing and breathing, which can require intubation and a stay in ICU. That's a worst case scenario that doesn't usually happen.  

The 2 treatments Frederick has received are probably IVIG (IV immune globulin). IVIG helps stop the autoimmune attack on the nerves, which can then start to heal. It can take weeks to months for the nerves to repair themselves and/or regrow, depending on the severity of the damage. 

The fact that his weakness was subtle enough that the diagnosis wasn't made initially, that he says in the note that the disease was caught early, and that no mention is made of an ICU stay are all good signs. If the disease was mild in his case, he may recover to a normal level of function quickly. Not sure how long it would take him to play football again, he might be out anywhere from several weeks to a year or more. 

 

57 minutes ago, sammymvpknight said:

Completely agree. I do rehab for a living. This is a potentially devastating disease but he seems to be on the more mild end of the spectrum. But even mild disease can be incompatible with professional football. There is the chance this could be a chronic process but the chances are that it’s not. There’s also a chance there could be an underlying disease manifesting as AIPD...but we typically never find out the underlying cause. 

The other part that argues against AIDP is the acute presentation, it really does fit more with GBS.

Those reports about paralysis and life being changed are usually because the extent of the disease causes loss of strength that people aren't fit enough to recover from - spending weeks in ICU on ventilators, you lose a TON of muscle mass.   If you are in your 20's/30's, it's a tall order to get it all back if that kind of life-threatening illness is encountered, because so much muscle loss occurs by being bedridden/etc. for so long, with no ability to prevent its loss.  It's a bigger problem as you get older.   But this is not what Frederick is suffering from, if he's still mobile, and getting treatment this early carries an excellent prognosis for recovery.   This is not a disease that's recurrent, and once it's treated, it's exceedingly rare that it ever comes back. 

And to be clear, GBS is a different disease than spinal cord trauma or other type of nerve damage - here, the sheath of the nerve is damaged (called demyelination).   In this type of injury, the nerve often does recover in re-building the sheath (remyelination) - unlike where the entire cord gets cut/severed in traumatic injuries.  But first the damage to the myelin sheath has to be stopped - that's what the IVIG does.   And then the nerve itself needs time to remyelinate.  It's estimated the nerve remyelination takes place at very slow rates (some studies quote 1mm/day).  So how injured the nerve is determines the length of recovery needed.  And then once the nerve is healed, the patient has to then rebuild the muscle strength & bulk lost as a result of nerve injury and atrophy (not using it - so that's worse if a patient is bedridden, and much milder if they can remain active and mobile).  So how injured Frederick's nerves are now with treatment and how much muscle bulk and strength are lost, are the keys to how long it takes to recover.   When the nerve is extensively damaged to the core (often called the "axonal" variant), that's when people are ventilator-dependent in the ICU (on life support) for weeks, and in hospital/rehab for months, and like some of the stories read, take up to a year or longer to get back to normal life - but not necessarily athletic capacity.  But that's not at all what's being described by Frederick, and the fact he's young, athletic, and was practicing recently, all suggest strongly this is the milder variant caught early.   Which would be great news, and far from the doom/gloom stories people read about.  The chances and expectations for a fully normal life and even elite athletic career are actually very reasonable with mild disease treated early.

Obviously we don't have all the info, but the fact Frederick has received IVIG x 2 (the other treatment is plasma exchange, but that's way more invasive line-wise, and it subjects him to long-term transufusion risks, which while small, aren't present with IVIG, so no doubt he's gone that route).  The normal protocol means he'll get 5 treatments total, and if he's recovered, then needs to wait until he's cleared to resume exercise.  He's said he's lost strength - so he's going to be out a bunch of games.  But the prospects of resuming a fully normal life, and a normal career arc, are excellent if this is GBS at the severity he's described.   

This should not be a death sentence to his career if it's as mild as he's described.   However, if he's lost a fair amount of strength, keep in mind he has to get treated, the nerves have to heal, he gets discharged from medical care, and then cleared to exercise - and THEN has to rebuild strength.   So this isn't going to be a 2-3 week recovery if he's lost strength.   It could be he only misses a few games - but if he's really lost strength, he needs to get treated to stop the inflammatory phase.  Then the recovery phase begins.  So he could miss a bunch of games, could miss the season - depends on how much he's lost, and how long it takes to get him to where he can rebuild strength.  But the hope he can resume a normal life, and a normal career arc, given what he's described, are excellent.   The normal life is obviously most important - all we can really do is see his recovery arc to forecast, so that's going to take time.   In the meantime, just wish him well, and hope he avoids any rare but more devastating complications while getting treatment (like blood clots, etc) - while rare, those would change his outlook, so hopefully we just hear all went well, and he's headed home soon.   Wishing him a speedy recovery, with a lot of hope from what we know.

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