Basketball is already a demanding sport, but imagine if your entire body feels like it is one giant muscle spasm. That’s what this high school senior was experiencing.
He took the court for the game relatively fine, but as the game went on, his body became tenser and tenser. Everybody thought it was muscle cramps, so he was drinking sports drinks and using a muscle massage gun to try to get loose.
He would come in and out of the game trying to figure out what was going on, but nothing was making any sense.
His whole body felt extremely tight. He said his facial bones even felt really painful and tight.
At one point in the second half he was driving to the basket with the ball when his legs just gave out. He ended up in a heap on the floor. His coached asked him what happened?
He said, I don’t know what’s going on, but I can’t feel my legs, I’m shaky, really tight and it feels like my heart has palpitations.
Fast forward to his visit and I asked him what he ate before the game. Eggs and sausage was the answer. Okay….what else?
A chocolate bar. Not a crummy chocolate bar, but a really good dark chocolate bar.
How much? The entire bar.
Bingo. That was it.
Methylxanthine’s were the problem. I had him take some chocolate and it locked all his muscles up. Normally, a practitioner with muscle testing know-how can tone down a muscle by manipulating the muscle spindle cells. The muscle should shut off temporarily.
Not when somebody has a problem with methylxanthine though. It’s as if the entire body goes into rigor mortis.
Methylxanthine is a category of chemicals in certain foods such as coffee, chocolate, cola, guarana, and yerba mate.
I find it a problem from time to time in my patients. It goes to show how different we can be.
One more note. This is not really a food allergy. It’s a problem with the chemical. The body’s inability to break down and excrete it efficiently.
In this case it’s a simple fix. No more chocolate before games!