Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jacobzweig 1203 days ago
Fellow BJJ player here – there have been numerous references to the increased risk of vascular injuries and stroke resulting from the high number of chokes that we routinely practice. One study, for instance, found that even brief interruptions in blood flow to the brain during a choke can result in cognitive deficits and other negative health outcomes (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5678212/).

I'm very glad to hear you recovered quickly, and encouraged by the potential for new treatments to help save more lives.
1 comments
stouset 1203 days ago
There was no evidence of a vascular dissection in my case. It was either a clot or other piece of debris that made its way to my brain, potentially via a PFO.
link
wswope 1203 days ago
I suspect the person you're responding to was just throwing that out carotid dissection as an example; the general risk factor with BJJ is vessel wall injury (which dissection is a subset of). Blood clots from vessel trauma in peripheral parts of the body can migrate to cause thrombosis elsewhere.

Chokes are a big cause of vessel trauma, but hard takedowns, pressure passes, accidental strikes from spazzy white-belts, etc. all count too. Anything that can cause major bruising, really.

To be clear, I'm not trying to argue that anyone should avoid BJJ due to cardiovascular risk, and the sport is probably a large net benefit to cardiovascular health on the whole - but it can certainly be a proximate cause of a stroke if you get unlucky.

link
stouset 1202 days ago
Interesting, I hadn't heard about the bit about clots from vessel trauma in peripheral areas.

Thankfully I'm getting my PFO closed in two weeks. The left and right sides of the heart should be isolated systems, and a PFO is a hole that potentially allows a clot to travel from the body side to the brain side. Hopefully if this was related to that, closing the hole will prevent such a thing from happening in the future. Apparently if the hole is closed, a clot would likely travel to the lungs, which are significantly better at coping with it than the brain is.

link