Former NFL QB Erik Kramer Suicide Attempt

[eiu1999]

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/25275258/report-ex-nfl-qb-erik-kramer-wounded-in-apparent-suicide-attempt

Scary if this is concussion related. He was depressed and not acting like himself.

[mvemjsunpx]

Kramer's older son died of an overdose a few years ago (as the article notes), so his ex-wife's blaming of NFL injuries seems incomplete at best.

[TTUEagles]

There has been no link (as far as I know) between concussions and suicide. The rate of suicide among former NFL players parallels the rate among the general population. If and "average Joe" takes his own life, that rarely gets reported. If a celebrity loses the battle with mental illness, it's on the front page...

[FormerPokeCenter]

Losing a child to an overdose can wreak havoc on a person. The parent generally takes this hard, as a personal failing.

They eat themsleves up with "What could I have done differently"...

I had a friend who went through that process and ended up taking his own life as a consequence.

[Bisonoline]

There are how many people playing football in America? Hundreds of thousands between high school, college and the pros? Out of all those players how many will ever have a significant brain injury?

[clenz]

There are how many people playing football in America? Hundreds of thousands between high school, college and the pros? Out of all those players how many will ever have a significant brain injury?
Having suffered multiple concussions I can promise you the brain never really heals and there can be some pretty damn strong emotional side effects.

Everything is run by chemicals in the brain, of certain synaptic connections are never able to heal the potential outcome is serious and long lasting. Mood swings, depression, memory loss, anger issues, dizziness, etc.. aren't made up long lasting side effects. I speak from extreme personal experience


Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[Bisonoline]

Having suffered multiple concussions I can promise you the brain never really heals and there can be some pretty damn strong emotional side effects.

Everything is run by chemicals in the brain, of certain synaptic connections are never able to heal the potential outcome is serious and long lasting. Mood swings, depression, memory loss, anger issues, dizziness, etc.. aren't made up long lasting side effects. I speak from extreme personal experience


Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

I understand your situation as you have shared your story before. My question is or point is how many are actually effected by a significant brain injury considering the number of people playing the game. It seems any time a former player has a negative news event you hear somebody come up with a possible explanation of a football brain injury. Its a catch all like climate change.

[clenz]

I understand your situation as you have shared your story before. My question is or point is how many are actually effected by a significant brain injury considering the number of people playing the game. It seems any time a former player has a negative news event you hear somebody come up with a possible explanation of a football brain injury. Its a catch all like climate change.Chances are the number of players is a lot higher than you think.

I'll relate it to the massive spike in peanut allergy diagnosis, ADHD diagnosis or being or autism rates.

There is a very slim chance that the number of kids, proportionally speaking, with peanut allergies, ADHD, or autism is growing, especially at the rate it's being diagnosed. The amount of research and knowledge of those things has increased 10-40 fold over the last 15 to 20 years. It's caused greater awareness in the medical field, and in the home/school life. This means schools and parents are more aware of what potential symptoms to look for, are more aware of questions to ask, and have a better idea of "normal" development of a very young child. Medical professionals now have access to millions of research articles and case studies at the touch of their fingers, where as 20 years ago they had to wait for the latest medical book to be published, which by publish date was already out of date with new research that was happening. Doctors are significantly better able to diagnose now than they were.

Hell, we only need to go back to when I was a kid. I'm 27 years old. That means I graduated high school in 2006, started middle school in 1999 and preschool in 1992. There was only kid in my class that was diagnosed with ADHD growing up (a small class since it was only 40 but the general sample size works.). That means only 2.5% of my class would have been diagnosed. Carry that out and my elementary (pre-5th grade) would have had 240 kids and only 6 kids in the entire elementary had ADHD. That number is SIGNIFICANTLY too low. At that point, remember this was still the 90s, kids were just acting out, labeled as bad apples, punished for not being able to focus through a 2 hour math lesson, etc... Was some of it young kids just being antsy because they were young kids? Absolutely. However, in my class of 40 (with the knowledge I have now...remember I'm married to a licensed therapist, was accepted into a therapy masters program, and worked in the social service field with youth who have been diagnosed/in the process of being diagnosed) there was probably another 3 or 4 kids who very well may have been diagnosed with today's medical knowledge. Shockingly that gets us to about 11-15% of my class...or exactly what the national % is thought to be at this point. Now, are there parents and doctors who over diagnosed, over medicate, don't treat the true root cause of issues, etc...? You freaking bet. There is also a very focused effort to get those medical professionals (therapists and doctors who prescribe the medications) out of the field.


On the peanut allergy side, I can't name one person that was allergic to peanuts growing up. Not a single one. Does that mean no one was allergic to peanuts? OR, does it mean that issues were blamed on other allergies or factors? Turns out, I did know a kid who was allergic to peanuts. He went through the strongest set of allergy shots he could get during elementary school and didn't help. No one could figure out why. He found out 4 years ago he was allergic to peanuts. Since he cut them out of his diet guess what's happened....his issues stopped. Again, is the published rate of this allergy sky rocketing and causing alarm well beyond what it should? Yep. Why? It was hardly known about 20 years ago and now that doctors know what to look for they are diagnosing. Numbers are going to look scary when the the baseline it's being compared too is from an era it wasn't known about.

Autism rates are blamed on shots by anti-vaxxers. I don't want to get into this argument here, but just like the last two there was almost no diagnosing of it 20-30 years ago. The kid was diagnosed as "mentally retarded"...sorry for the use of the word for those offended by it, but that was the diagnosis...in sever cases, and in minor cases the kid was put in special education classes and was called slow or stupid. Vaccines have nothing to do with the rate, it's all about awareness.


Right now the amount we actually know about the long term effects of concussions is where we were 15 years ago on these issues. We are at the very baseline bottom with research starting. I have no idea what the "final rate" or "final numbers" will look like, but the reality is there are likely tens of thousands of former football players (and likely hundreds of thousands of "general population") who've suffered concussions or "minor" brain traumas during their lives who struggle with issues directly related to it. Some are more severe than others, clearly. We will likely see an overreaction to "startling new data" (we already are) and by the time my son graduates high school (will be born in the next 6 weeks and graduate high school in 2033) we will have a significantly better understanding of the effects of brain trauma.


I know the typical push back right now is "back in my day it was called getting you bell rung. We just got back up and kept on going". Well, maybe that's why many guys that played in the NFL in the 60s, 70s, and 80s are left with mush for brains at this point. Maybe "getting your bell rung" or just "blacking out for a second" is your body trying to tell you to slow the **** down because something bad just happened to the most important part of the body. We don't understand how the brain heals and we likely never will, because every single brain is different. The chemicals that run the brain are different in every single person. We can predict how a cut or wound will heal because white and red blood cells react in the same way in everyone. Turns out glutamate, serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, noradrenaline, etc... react differently in every single person. Turns out every single person has a different "amount" in their system. That amount changes daily within a person. The synapse in every single person is a little bit different. There has been almost no research on how well those heal when they are damanged. We have no idea how those injuries affect how chemicals travel the brain. It doesn't take a therapist, or doctor, to know that even a little bit of a chemical shift of serotonin can have a MAJOR shift in "personality".

Couple that with the "machoness" that is genetically left over in males from the caveman days and the pride of not wanting to let anyone see your weaknesses and you have a very dangerous situation just waiting to explode in some way or another within that person.

Mabe this case isn't "majority" caused by head injuries. Judging from what he went through a couple years ago it's safe to say that was the main driving factor but that further proves how little we know about the brain at times, no matter what we think we know. That even didn't cause any "tangible" brain trauma, but there is a 100% chance his chemical balance was thrown all to hell by that. Couple that with the potential issues caused by a head injury and...well...not hard to see how we got where we are.



OR...


We can keep ignoring the risks and issues and blame a money grab. Remember, it wasn't all the long ago people with cancer, tumors, lupus, etc... just died from being sick. I'm sure if we look at the trajectory of learning of those diseases and the spread of knowledge we'd see the same push back that we see now

[Bisonoline]

Chances are the number of players is a lot higher than you think.

I'll relate it to the massive spike in peanut allergy diagnosis, ADHD diagnosis or being or autism rates.

There is a very slim chance that the number of kids, proportionally speaking, with peanut allergies, ADHD, or autism is growing, especially at the rate it's being diagnosed. The amount of research and knowledge of those things has increased 10-40 fold over the last 15 to 20 years. It's caused greater awareness in the medical field, and in the home/school life. This means schools and parents are more aware of what potential symptoms to look for, are more aware of questions to ask, and have a better idea of "normal" development of a very young child. Medical professionals now have access to millions of research articles and case studies at the touch of their fingers, where as 20 years ago they had to wait for the latest medical book to be published, which by publish date was already out of date with new research that was happening. Doctors are significantly better able to diagnose now than they were.

Hell, we only need to go back to when I was a kid. I'm 27 years old. That means I graduated high school in 2006, started middle school in 1999 and preschool in 1992. There was only kid in my class that was diagnosed with ADHD growing up (a small class since it was only 40 but the general sample size works.). That means only 2.5% of my class would have been diagnosed. Carry that out and my elementary (pre-5th grade) would have had 240 kids and only 6 kids in the entire elementary had ADHD. That number is SIGNIFICANTLY too low. At that point, remember this was still the 90s, kids were just acting out, labeled as bad apples, punished for not being able to focus through a 2 hour math lesson, etc... Was some of it young kids just being antsy because they were young kids? Absolutely. However, in my class of 40 (with the knowledge I have now...remember I'm married to a licensed therapist, was accepted into a therapy masters program, and worked in the social service field with youth who have been diagnosed/in the process of being diagnosed) there was probably another 3 or 4 kids who very well may have been diagnosed with today's medical knowledge. Shockingly that gets us to about 11-15% of my class...or exactly what the national % is thought to be at this point. Now, are there parents and doctors who over diagnosed, over medicate, don't treat the true root cause of issues, etc...? You freaking bet. There is also a very focused effort to get those medical professionals (therapists and doctors who prescribe the medications) out of the field.


On the peanut allergy side, I can't name one person that was allergic to peanuts growing up. Not a single one. Does that mean no one was allergic to peanuts? OR, does it mean that issues were blamed on other allergies or factors? Turns out, I did know a kid who was allergic to peanuts. He went through the strongest set of allergy shots he could get during elementary school and didn't help. No one could figure out why. He found out 4 years ago he was allergic to peanuts. Since he cut them out of his diet guess what's happened....his issues stopped. Again, is the published rate of this allergy sky rocketing and causing alarm well beyond what it should? Yep. Why? It was hardly known about 20 years ago and now that doctors know what to look for they are diagnosing. Numbers are going to look scary when the the baseline it's being compared too is from an era it wasn't known about.

Autism rates are blamed on shots by anti-vaxxers. I don't want to get into this argument here, but just like the last two there was almost no diagnosing of it 20-30 years ago. The kid was diagnosed as "mentally retarded"...sorry for the use of the word for those offended by it, but that was the diagnosis...in sever cases, and in minor cases the kid was put in special education classes and was called slow or stupid. Vaccines have nothing to do with the rate, it's all about awareness.


Right now the amount we actually know about the long term effects of concussions is where we were 15 years ago on these issues. We are at the very baseline bottom with research starting. I have no idea what the "final rate" or "final numbers" will look like, but the reality is there are likely tens of thousands of former football players (and likely hundreds of thousands of "general population") who've suffered concussions or "minor" brain traumas during their lives who struggle with issues directly related to it. Some are more severe than others, clearly. We will likely see an overreaction to "startling new data" (we already are) and by the time my son graduates high school (will be born in the next 6 weeks and graduate high school in 2033) we will have a significantly better understanding of the effects of brain trauma.


I know the typical push back right now is "back in my day it was called getting you bell rung. We just got back up and kept on going". Well, maybe that's why many guys that played in the NFL in the 60s, 70s, and 80s are left with mush for brains at this point. Maybe "getting your bell rung" or just "blacking out for a second" is your body trying to tell you to slow the **** down because something bad just happened to the most important part of the body. We don't understand how the brain heals and we likely never will, because every single brain is different. The chemicals that run the brain are different in every single person. We can predict how a cut or wound will heal because white and red blood cells react in the same way in everyone. Turns out glutamate, serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, noradrenaline, etc... react differently in every single person. Turns out every single person has a different "amount" in their system. That amount changes daily within a person. The synapse in every single person is a little bit different. There has been almost no research on how well those heal when they are damanged. We have no idea how those injuries affect how chemicals travel the brain. It doesn't take a therapist, or doctor, to know that even a little bit of a chemical shift of serotonin can have a MAJOR shift in "personality".

Couple that with the "machoness" that is genetically left over in males from the caveman days and the pride of not wanting to let anyone see your weaknesses and you have a very dangerous situation just waiting to explode in some way or another within that person.

Mabe this case isn't "majority" caused by head injuries. Judging from what he went through a couple years ago it's safe to say that was the main driving factor but that further proves how little we know about the brain at times, no matter what we think we know. That even didn't cause any "tangible" brain trauma, but there is a 100% chance his chemical balance was thrown all to hell by that. Couple that with the potential issues caused by a head injury and...well...not hard to see how we got where we are.



OR...


We can keep ignoring the risks and issues and blame a money grab. Remember, it wasn't all the long ago people with cancer, tumors, lupus, etc... just died from being sick. I'm sure if we look at the trajectory of learning of those diseases and the spread of knowledge we'd see the same push back that we see now

What?