Hey Doc, thank you so much. Thanks for having me, JR. And yes, I know it's pro football, Doc, but I've worked with the Bulls and Timberwolves and the NBA as well, too. Yeah, you know about these seven-foot guys who jump and fly around.
We haven't had one like Wen Binyama. Correct me if I'm wrong. Deep vein thrombosis. It's a blood clot, no?
It is, and we most hear about it in legs, right? In our everyday mundane lives, it's usually a leg clot. Blood clots in upper extremity and arms are less common than legs after an activity and whatever, but they do happen, and you mentioned some examples in sports already. When you think about the placement of this, of the clotting in his arm versus leg, is one better than the other if there is such a thing?
Well, you never want to have a blood clot. In theory, the ones that potentially are more life-threatening are the bigger ones that sometimes come from the bigger veins in the legs, but it's not to be taken lightly, but in addition to blood clot that can then travel to the lungs, the issue then is also the symptoms in the upper extremities, numbness, tingling, and sometimes more in circulation issues. Well, it was reported that Victor Wen Binyama, after coming back from the All-Star Game, reportedly, you know, he felt a little lighter, a little lighter breath, shorter breath getting up and down the court, and he was evaluated, and this is what they found. For someone who's 21 years old, hasn't even reached his athletic peak or his physical peak as a human being, what could be some of the causes of such a thing?
Is it his size? Well, by that report, the blood clot from his arm seems to have maybe in some small way traveled to his lungs, which is what made him short of breath. The lung filters out the blood from the venous side before oxygenation, and the blood clot obviously is symptomatic. The number one key here now is to figure out why the blood clot happened. Is there some sort of clotting disorder? Is there, in the case of Brandon Ingram, a thoracic outlet syndrome where the rib, one of the top ribs is pressing on the veins and causing this DVT, deep vein thrombosis? You got to get to the cause of it, but the reason why his season is over is clearly the blood clot traveled somewhat to his lungs, and he's going to need to get anticoagulated blood thinned for at least 90 days, and then that's already the end of the season. Dr. David Chow is here with us, the JR Sportbreeze Show, Coast to Coastal and the Infinity Sports Network, and so he'll go on blood thinners to help relieve the clot, if I'm understanding.
What does that mean? Does he have to just wait three months, and then there's another three months to evaluate how his blood is moving? What's the next steps for Wenbin Yama? Well, if this were very early in the season, it wouldn't necessarily be season ending. It's the fact that it's late February, right, in terms of the season and the timeline, and blood thinners, you're not supposed to do contact sports on blood thinners.
Basketball is a contact sport. It's not the collision sport of football, but there's still lots of contact, and in addition to that, the workup to get his lungs clear again, but also to prevent it from happening again will take several months, which is why his season is over. But the good news is, unless there's some weird cause that we're not knowing about, these things are usually treatable slash preventable and should go on to a fairly normal career, fingers crossed.
Thank you, doctor. Now, having said that, you feel optimistic about his future. No real concern. It was a big scare earlier today when the news came out about this.
Relatively optimistic. Of course, I haven't treated Wembe for this, and I'm an orthopedist anyways, but as a head team physician, we know about all the specialty stuff, so we'd be sort of the ombudsman for the team to coordinate it. I would be surprised if this was the end of his, well, surprised, borderline shocked if this were the end of his career.
It would have to be something pretty unusual for that to be the case. And relatively optimistic he can return to play safely next season, but of course he's got to go through all the workup and also get his lung treated so that he's not short of breath, etc. And Dr. David Chow is here with us on the JR Sport Brief Show. What was the issue that ended Chris Bosh's career? My understanding was that he needed to be on the blood thinners and he wasn't able to compete. No team wanted to put him on. What happened in that case?
Well, every case is different. This is why we talk about Brandon Ingram. It was for a thoracic outlet that caused it. Chris Bosh obviously had some sort of blood clotting cascade disorder that had to be treated with formal blood thinners.
Don't see that right now on Wimby and we hope that remains not the case on him. Like when he went into the draft at Sports Injury Central, we said, well, given his frame and his athletic ability, I'm sure everyone wants to draft him. But he does have some higher injury risk, but we certainly didn't factor in the potential of a blood clot, which is higher on these slim, long, tall, slender athletes. Yeah, there was certainly, just by looking at his body and hearing about an injury today, my first thought was what happened to his leg, his knee, his foot? And it was none of the above. Given his age, is that a positive factor in his recovery as well?
He's only 21. Yeah, it should be a positive factor. Like I said, barring something unique or special, thankfully, most people are able to get this managed in some way in return and that's what we're certainly hoping for here for Wimby. Great. Well, doctor, thank you so much for your time and your expertise. Where can people follow you and all of your work?
SportsInjuryCentralSICScore.com or I am at ProFootballDoc on X slash Twitter. Hey, we appreciate the time and one day we're going to talk to you about something positive, doctor, OK? Well, I think this is positive, a good outlook on Wimby. Give me that. You know what? You're right.
This is not career ending. We got some positivity and we got some clarity. Hey, appreciate you. We'll talk to you on down the line, OK? All right. Thank you.
