Acute focal neuropathy in male weight lifters

✍ Scribed by Shawn J. Bird; Mark J. Brown

• Book ID: 101254635
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 209 KB
• Volume: 19
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0148-639X
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-4598(199607)19:7<897::aid-mus13>3.0.co;2-g

✦ Synopsis

ACUTE FOCAL NEUROPATHY IN MALE WEIGHT LIFTERS

Peripheral nerve injury, due to either trauma or entrapment, is common in many sport^.^^^ In one large orthopedic survey 5.7% of all peripheral nerve injuries were sports-related.5 Nerve injury has only rarely been reported in association with weight lifting.',*,',*

We report 6 recreational weight lifters who developed localized motor nerve injury. All had sudden and painless weakness, followed by atrophy, in a muscle supplied by a terminal motor nerve branch (Table 1).

CASEREPORTS Patient 1.

A 35-year-old man developed sudden, painless left biceps weakness. There was no swelling or ecchymosis. He was an avid weight lifter who recently had a large increase in muscle mass following 6 months of anabolic steroid use and intensive weight training. The biceps weakness did not improve with weight lifting, and he developed biceps atrophy. He had no sensory symptoms.

His neurologic examination after 4 weeks was normal, except for marked weakness (0/5) and atrophy of the left biceps muscle and the loss of the biceps reflex. He had no area of sensory loss, including the distribution of the lateral cutaneous nerve of the forearm. There was no palpable or visible abnormality of the biceps muscle or tendon.