Injured throat

N

Nbl

White Belt
@White
Joined
Aug 11, 2023
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
I’ve been training bjj for a few years now and been injured several times, but never a freaky injury like this one.
So 3 weeks ago during the last sparring of an open mat, I got myself stuck in a 10 finger guillotine, tapped as fast as i could but his forearm was directly applied on my adam apple. I felt immediate pain in that area, no trouble breathing tho so i continued to spar but it was pretty inconfortable especially when he pressured my neck/throat so i stopped. My main symptoms were pain when i swallow and a hoarse voice.
3 days later my voice is not back so decide to see a doctor about it (ENT), they scoped my larynx and found a hematoma in my left vocal chord, asked me to do a ct which i did and that showed a fractured left thyroid cartilage pushed a little bit inwards (one of the pieces that forms the voicebox or larynx).
No surgery was needed and it all went away in a little more than a week.
I have seen 3 ENT’s, one of them didn’t know about the sport and didn’t like it at all when i explained it to him, so he said no more of this, too dangerous. The other two said no contact sports for 4 to 6 weeks then you can come back to training.
I’ve spent this hall time doing research about this ect it messed up a little bit with my head but i’m very passionate about this sport and I’m coming back after the 6 weeks despite the doubt.
Did you guys ever experienced this specific injury and if so how did come back to bjj/contact sports afterwards ? Did you experienced the same symptoms ?
 
Nbl said:
No surgery was needed and it all went away in a little more than a week.

I have seen 3 ENT’s, one of them didn’t know about the sport and didn’t like it at all when i explained it to him, so he said no more of this, too dangerous. The other two said no contact sports for 4 to 6 weeks then you can come back to training.
Click to expand...

That seems like a reasonable recommendation from 2/3 of your doctors.

You could probably drill anything that isn't more chokes during the 4-6 weeks with no live rolling if the goal is to honor their recommendations and give the area time to heal.

Never experienced that personally but throat injuries can occur with the cartilage, hyoid bone, and other structures.

The moral of the story is protect your neck during training, know when you're caught, and tap early (including to tracheal compression and neck cranks as well as blood chokes). If you think you tapped early, tap earlier.
 
I have this weird poking pain right by my thyroid when I talk loudly. I had it checked out by an ent and he said I have basically what you said. I never stopped and get an ultrasound on my thyroid twice a year since mine shit the bed years ago, my endo has never said a word about anything weird in my neck though. Should be fine
 
Smato_rules said:
I have this weird poking pain right by my thyroid when I talk loudly. I had it checked out by an ent and he said I have basically what you said. I never stopped and get an ultrasound on my thyroid twice a year since mine shit the bed years ago, my endo has never said a word about anything weird in my neck though. Should be fine
Click to expand...
Did you injure your thyroid gland or your voicebox ?
 
I actually did my masters in speech/language pathology so I know a lot about this.

I ALSO had a similar injury
Broken hyoid bone. I was showing a big dude that didn't know any jiujitsu how to do an RNC. He was strong as hell but not applying it correctly so I didn't tap when I should have and felt a weird crunch. My voice actually changed a bit for a few months, and for about a year sometimes water would go down the wrong way.

I self diagnosed and read up on it, and since this injury self resolves 90 percent of the time I let it be, and it DID heal up.

Cartilage has less vascularization than bone so it may take a while to heal.

It's a freak injury so I wouldn't worry about it too much. If you're feeling OK you're probably good to go, but it's not a bad idea to get a follow up exam first, especially if the six weeks aren't up yet.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nbl
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,280,840
Messages
58,321,226
Members
175,999
Latest member
xande.fight

Share this page

Back
Top