|
https://www.theringer.com/nba/2018/12/4/18126446/markelle-fultz-thoracic-outlet-syndrome
TOS is a pretty serious injury in baseball, but it's also almost exclusively a baseball injury, which both adds to the curiosity over what contributed to it in Fultz, whether it's actually what's going on with him, and what kind of timeline he's looking at. I'll leave the full article behind the link but add most of the salient details below:
----------
"The “thoracic outlet” of “thoracic outlet syndrome” is the gap between the collarbone and the first rib. A lot of important stuff has to fit through that hole, specifically nerves and major blood vessels, and repetitive motion (such as throwing a baseball) can cause that gap to shrink. When that happens, the collarbone and the top rib compress all the nerves and blood vessels between them like a clamp, which can cause numbness and/or muscle weakness in the hand.
"When the TOS is neurogenic, it meansthe issue is with a compressed nerve, while vascular TOS entails a compressed blood vessel. The most famous TOS case in baseball history came in 1980, when Astros ace J.R. Richard suffered a stroke brought on by the blood vessel constriction of vascular TOS. Richard, then 30 years old and coming off back-to-back 300-strikeout seasons, nearly died and never pitched in the major leagues again.
Sometimes pitchers, even All-Stars like Chris Carpenter, Josh Beckett, and Matt Harrison, never come back from TOS at all. Others, like Harvey, get a rib taken out and come back eight months or a year later with their velocity, movement, command, or all three greatly reduced. In addition to Harvey, Jaime Garcia, Phil Hughes, and Tyson Ross all came back weakened by TOS.
The only unqualified success story that comes to mind is Braves right-hander Mike Foltynewicz, who had a rib removed to alleviate TOS in September 2015. He returned to the rotation the following May, and two years later pitched 183 innings with a 2.85 ERA, made his first All-Star team, and earned a couple of down-ballot Cy Young votes. It’s worth noting that while many of these pitchers were at or near the end of their careers anyway when they were diagnosed with TOS, Foltynewicz had his surgery when he was 23, and his recovery might bode well for the 20-year-old Fultz, if it comes to that."
~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz
|
Printer-friendly copy 
Email this topic to a friend
Okay Sports
