Exertional Rhabdomyolysis
By Matt Trudo on November 24th, 2009
Before researching the topic, I knew about rhabdomyolysis from a clinical standpoint. I had experienced caring for patients in the ICU (most of which were crush patients) who developed “rhabdo”, but was unaware of its prevalence in the non-clinical setting. Rhabdomyolysis comes from the Latin roots rhabdo meaning striated, myo refers to muscle, and lysis which means to breakdown or rupture. Put together, rhabdomyolysis is a dissolution of skeletal muscle producing a clinical syndrome that causes extravasation of toxic intracellular contents from the myocytes into the circulatory system.1 Rhabdomyolysis comes in several forms. Nonexertional rhabdomyolysis occurs after traumatic events such crush injuries, while exertional rhabdomyolysis occurs after high volumes of intense physical activity.2 Exertional rhabdomyolysis develops more frequently in athletes under heat stress and in the presence of dehydration. Read more.