Cape Falcon Kayak's video: Spinal Injury Kayak Sailing Whitewater and a Pedal Drive Canoe 2023 Cape Falcon Kayak Update

In this video update we talk about progress on the kayak sailing system, the river kayak design, the Greenland kayak design, our skin on frame canoes, and our new pedal drive canoe prototype! I also talk a bit about the health challenges I've been facing. Specifically I've been having very high spikes in blood pressure triggered by twisting my thoracic spine. In addition to what I said in the video, I also live with mild mitochondrial disease, and a connective tissue disorder, dysautonomia, and ME/CFS. Most of my dysautonomia symptoms began following a rock climbing fall in my early 20's. I was wearing an upright harness which transferred the shock of the fall to my thoracic spine. I did not have back pain and did not suspect an injury. My dysautonomia symptoms gradually got better until I wrenched my back whitewater kayaking in my mid 30's, the mild dysautonomia returned, then became acute following a snowboarding fall in my late 30's. I've been mostly disabled for the last 7 years and can only paddle 5-10 minutes at a time to avoid exacerbating the dysautonomia. Last year while testing a new Greenland kayak design, I was doing a lot of kayak rolling and padding more than normal when I began to have a lot of pain in my chest and thoracic spine. It had been suggested by a previous physical therapist that I may have a previous thoracic injury so I went to see my current PT to discuss my symptoms. She agreed that it sounded like an old injury being mobilized and did some massage on the area while I was laying down. When I got up I felt fantastic. The pain was gone, my posture was more upright than it had been in a decade, and I felt a little dizzy. I thought I was cured! Then that night while laying on the couch, completely relaxed, at 6pm I felt the sensations of nausea that I've learned to associate with high blood pressure. I checked my BP and it was 150/90 and I had a MASSIVE sensation of pressure in my head (NOT like a headache and my vision was blurry) over the next hour my BP reached 190/105 when I began shaking uncontrollably. The high BP lasted until 2pm and gradually reduced. This pattern occurred every day after for the next month and I felt lightheaded all the time. Beta blockers exacerbated the problem and calcium channel blockers and klonopin only helped a little. Eventually the daily symptom stopped, but will now return with thoracic twisting exercise. Although I do not have papilledema I do have other symptoms and a few findings associated with intracranial hypertension: presyncope and intense sensation of pressure accompanied by a sensation of spreading wetness inside the skull, also partially empty sella on MRI. All symptoms become much worse if I eat foods high in Vitamin A (a stimulant of CSF production). So the working hypothesis is that I am having intermittent episodes of very high intracranial pressure, although it is not clear whether that is due to increased cerebrospinal fluid or increased venous pressure, because each of those can cause the other. Some doctors agree that this is a possible scenario. What is not clear is how this could be tied to a twisting motion in the thoracic spine? Thoracic x-ray shows a right mediolateral disk bulge at T8 that does not contact the cord and partially narrows the foramen space (the space around the spinal nerve at that height), some anterior osteophytes, and end plate edema. MRI resolution is not sufficient to rule out a bone spur inside the spinal column but a Myelogram was deemed to risky. I do get a very strange sensation that almost feels like something is both itching and "burping" inside my chest at about the T5 level if I lay flat when my blood pressure is higher than 90 diastolic, sometimes it feels like a can't breathe all of the sudden or like my heart misses a beat. MRA and CAT scan show no obvious venous abnormalities in the head and neck, although I have not had venous imaging of my thorax. I have been working with a PT to stabilize my spine and the only exercises that trigger symptoms are those that specifically twist the T-spine with resistance (like a band) or manual massage of the area. So that's the mystery. How can we connect thoracic twisting motions to delayed massive sensations of head pressure and extreme spikes in blood pressure lasting 8 hours and recurring for several days following mild twisting exercise. (I have not repeated the major twisting exercise since the first episode which lasted over a month.). I have thought that perhaps the motion is causing inflammation at the site of an old injury, and that could account for the delay to symptom onset and the slow return to baseline, but other than that, neither myself or my doctors understand how these things could be connected. If you have any ideas of what this might be or any doctors who might be able to diagnose this, please let me know! Thanks for reading this. My email and phone number are on my website.