WAG Discussion of abuse in USAG - Nassar

[sewgood]

I think it’s hard for people outside the U.S. to understand how expensive healthcare is here, and why Americans wait until they can’t to seek care.

 

[BachFlyer]

Money is also why so many might have gladly allowed a free team “Doctor” to treat their kids!

 

[Flippin'A]

What stuck out to me as a real eye opener was the fact that Nassar diagnosed one of the gymnasts with Mono. This was an environment where the team doctor, an osteopath who specialized in sports injuries, was used to diagnose a child's illness. How did that make sense to anyone? No surprise that he didn't tell her to take time off gym while she recovered.

I agree that the whole article made me queasy. Just thinking about the level of manipulation and grooming that must have been going on there... those poor kids.

 

[sce]

Just wanted to say - In my own personal experience... coaches can be quite convincing that the kids are just fine and that gymnasts are faking their injury or exaggerating it. Plus, despite in-house medical professionals, there isn’t always actual transparency.

It took a phone call from an athletic trainer once behind the gym’s back for us to realize we needed to have my kid seen by a physician. I was sadly that parent. But from them on, I trusted my kids more.

Anyway. While I obviously have no idea how accurate the claims are or the actual situation, it’s plausible to me.

There is a major problem in gymnastics if it is prevalent that coaches in many gyms have that sort of power. They are not doctor's and should not be diagnosing a child's injury. Parents need to pay attention to what is going on with their kids and listen to their kids about their pain. There should be no gym that requires a secretive call from a trainer to a parent for a kid to be seen by a doctor. I am more and more elated that my kids is a at a kid first gym and baffled that so many gyms are not that way.

 

[amiandjim]

This is something that I just don't understand. What is there to avoid about making sure that your child is all right? Doctors are there to help ( except in the case of Nassar ). We have families in our gym like this and it makes me so sad to see the girls struggling and in pain and the parents refusing to take them to the doctor.

I’m a medical person, and I think by nature we just don’t go to the doctor unless we really find it necessary. She came down wrong on a landing and kept insisting she was fine. There was no swelling or bruising until day 3-4. She went to practice and told me “it was fine.”! I was actually completely shocked when her coach called me and told me she cried through her floor rotation so she had her sit out and ice!

I wasn’t trying to make her keep training/not miss time (she is a level 3 go heaven’s sake), I just genuinely thought it was s tweak! I put zero pressure on the child (she does that enough for herself) so I don’t know why she kept saying she was fine. I was very greatful her coach called me! I still had to drag her to the doctor against her will!

 

[sce]

I’m a medical person, and I think by nature we just don’t go to the doctor unless we really find it necessary. She came down wrong on a landing and kept insisting she was fine. There was no swelling or bruising until day 3-4. She went to practice and told me “it was fine.”! I was actually completely shocked when her coach called me and told me she cried through her floor rotation so she had her sit out and ice!

I wasn’t trying to make her keep training/not miss time (she is a level 3 go heaven’s sake), I just genuinely thought it was s tweak! I put zero pressure on the child (she does that enough for herself) so I don’t know why she kept saying she was fine. I was very greatful her coach called me! I still had to drag her to the doctor against her will!

But kudos to her coach for alerting you. That is how it should be. The discussion above is about certain aches deciding whether a kid is injured and pushing kids to workout in pain, or even belittling them when they express pain. None of that is okay. Kids do not want to miss gym, so may say they are fine when they are not. Good cia he’s can spot that as your dd’s coach did.

 

[l.c.o]

@sce Yeah. I agree.

 

[sce]

But kudos to her coach for alerting you. That is how it should be. The discussion above is about certain aches deciding whether a kid is injured and pushing kids to workout in pain, or even belittling them when they express pain. None of that is okay. Kids do not want to miss gym, so may say they are fine when they are not. Good cia he’s can spot that as your dd’s coach did.

I answered that on my phone and clearly it did not like the word coach, sorry i did not notice and fix it!
aches=coaches
cia he's=coaches

 

[gymdoc]

What stuck out to me as a real eye opener was the fact that Nassar diagnosed one of the gymnasts with Mono. This was an environment where the team doctor, an osteopath who specialized in sports injuries, was used to diagnose a child's illness. How did that make sense to anyone? No surprise that he didn't tell her to take time off gym while she recovered

He is a sports medicine specialist, not an orthopedist. This means he did his residency in family medicine first, then did a fellowship in sports medicine after that. So he is trained as a family doc, and qualified to diagnose mono. We have a blood test that we run for mono (2 actually), which I am not sure he would have had in his little back of the gym office, so that's a little interesting. . .

 

[amiandjim]

I answered that on my phone and clearly it did not like the word coach, sorry i did not notice and fix it!
aches=coaches
cia he's=coaches

Haha..no worries. I realized I had some typos in my post as well, darn phones! Yes, I was very grateful she called me!

 

[bogwoppit]

He is a sports medicine specialist, not an orthopedist. This means he did his residency in family medicine first, then did a fellowship in sports medicine after that. So he is trained as a family doc, and qualified to diagnose mono. We have a blood test that we run for mono (2 actually), which I am not sure he would have had in his little back of the gym office, so that's a little interesting. . .

Yeah without an actual test he was just spitting in the wind.

 

[profmom]

He is a sports medicine specialist, not an orthopedist. This means he did his residency in family medicine first, then did a fellowship in sports medicine after that. So he is trained as a family doc, and qualified to diagnose mono. We have a blood test that we run for mono (2 actually), which I am not sure he would have had in his little back of the gym office, so that's a little interesting. . .

Uh, yeah. No way on this one. If you suspect mono, you get the the blood test and do an ultrasound to see if there is any enlargement of the spleen. A direct blow (i.e., a crash on uneven bars) to an enlarged spleen could be life-threatening.

 

[gymgal93]

Uh, yeah. No way on this one. If you suspect mono, you get the the blood test and do an ultrasound to see if there is any enlargement of the spleen. A direct blow (i.e., a crash on uneven bars) to an enlarged spleen could be life-threatening.

Yes, yes, yes. Even if he was somehow able to give a correct diagnosis (which seems unlikely), any doctor who clears an athlete to do high-level gymnastics with mono is either completely ill-informed about the risks or does not care about the athlete's well-being. Like you said, it is super dangerous! I had a teammate in college who had mono and our athletic trainers were so cautious with easing her back in to training for this very reason.

However, this completely lines up with what other survivors have said about Nassar. He allowed athletes to train and compete while injured (presumably one of the reasons Marta & co kept him around) and may have even not given athletes proper care in order to continue his abuse. Sickening on so many levels.

 

[Flippin'A]

Uh, yeah. No way on this one. If you suspect mono, you get the the blood test and do an ultrasound to see if there is any enlargement of the spleen. A direct blow (i.e., a crash on uneven bars) to an enlarged spleen could be life-threatening.

Yeah, this was what I was getting at. It's not that I didn't think he was capable of running a blood test for mono, it's that these families were treating him like a primary care physician or pediatrician so he became the final say in whether or not they were allowed to do gymnastics even when it was clearly incredibly dangerous. Geddert obviously wanted as little input as possible from any doctor who wasn't him.

 

[sce]

He is a sports medicine specialist, not an orthopedist. This means he did his residency in family medicine first, then did a fellowship in sports medicine after that. So he is trained as a family doc, and qualified to diagnose mono. We have a blood test that we run for mono (2 actually), which I am not sure he would have had in his little back of the gym office, so that's a little interesting. . .

Regardless, if a girl had Mono and he allowed her to practice that is egregious and dangerous

 

[skschlag]

Regardless, if a girl had Mono and he allowed her to practice that is egregious and dangerous

I agree. Even with the suspicion of mono, D's doctor held him out of practice until he could get an ultrasound and have an enlarged spleen ruled out. It was a total of 5 days with no practice.

 

[gymbeam]

Regardless, if a girl had Mono and he allowed her to practice that is egregious and dangerous

Not all agree that it is always dangerous. Mine practiced and competed level 7 state meet with full blown mono- with drs approval -because there was no spleen enlargement (as determined by palpating only, though.) She was on day 10 of fever at that meet but the day after she did go on bed rest for the following week before returning to gym.

*Not defending the monster at all though. Just saying mono can affect people very differently.

 

[skschlag]

Not all agree that it is always dangerous. Mine practiced and competed level 7 state meet with full blown mono- with drs approval -because there was no spleen enlargement (as determined by palpating only, though.) She was on day 10 of fever at that meet but the day after she did go on bed rest for the following week before returning to gym.

*Not defending the monster at all though. Just saying mono can affect people very differently.

Yeah, D never had a fever, had no apparent spleen enlargement via palpation, but no way the doc would have let him practice or compete, as the spleen could be come enlarged at any time with mono. He said not worth the risk. And competing with fever...no.

 

[TumbleTimes4]

However, this completely lines up with what other survivors have said about Nassar. He allowed athletes to train and compete while injured (presumably one of the reasons Marta & co kept him around) and may have even not given athletes proper care in order to continue his abuse. Sickening on so many levels.

I remember Jordyn’s haunting testimony about she wondered if he kept her injured on purpose and if that could have possibly affected her performance at London and cost her a shot at the All Around.

 

[GymFan96]

I remember Jordyn’s haunting testimony about she wondered if he kept her injured on purpose and if that could have possibly affected her performance at London and cost her a shot at the All Around.

That’s terrible!

It was definitely somewhat on John as well for screwing up her beam and allowing her to compete those “connections” which people tried to warn him wouldn’t be counted. Which just shows his arrogance and stubbornness.