Emancipated Patients
Life in Motion
redemption on Caroline Street
Training the fall!
By Patrick Neustatter, MD
I’m tempted to lead with some bad joke, like Christian Zammas is exchanging hard drugs for soft. But it’s true. He has gone from using hard drugs to peddling soft one(s) - caffeine. All brought about by a sort of epiphany that has motivated him to gather up people with the same failings and help them be empowered, through the Katora Institute.
Eavesdropping on His Addiction Story I heard him telling a mutual friend his story, at his shop one day, which fit the bill of something medical and something local. But more than that this is a motivational story worth bringing to the readers of Front Porch – and all those other people who are not informed enough to be readers. Christian Zammas’ story of involvement with drugs started at the tender age of 11 he told me, when I
followed up on my idea, and we sat at one of the tables outside Katora Coffee shop at 615 Caroline Street. Him with his tattoos, scraggly short beard, restless manner, smoking cigarettes and greeting, and chatting with, every passer by. It was alcohol and marijuana at first. Then a seminal moment when he was age 14 and having a panic attack at the mall (“I didn’t want to shop”) his mum gave him a Xanax. “It calmed me down completely. I was fascinated with that.” He then proceeded to “swipe them from her” and took them pretty regularly for about 3 weeks, then went in to withdrawal.
“Progress” to Hard Drugs He then moved on to pain medicines like Vicodin or Percocet, that he stole from his father who had cancer, that his dentist prescribed him, or he bought on the street for about $5 a pill.
With further “progress” he went to shooting up Heroin, or stuff called Krocodil – a synthetic morphine/heroin compound manufactured from codeine (often in Russia where codeine can be bought over the counter) and contains ?chlorocodide – hence the name. This has many impurities and caused massive necrosis of his arm around the vein, such that he nearly lost it – now he has a ferocious looking scar instead. He had a busy job cooking in a restaurant and found taking narcotics “gave me motivation” and he liked the high of shooting up that “was like being dipped in a tub of hot chocolate and sunshine.” But I was “spending every dime” he told me, and was very afraid of the intensive flue like symptoms you get with withdrawal. His life was falling apart. He went in to treatment where he was living in North Carolina, but repeatedly relapsed – one time nearly dying of an overdose. “It took three Naloxone hits to save me” – because he didn’t realize his tolerance had changed. In desperation, he followed his ex and their two kids to Fredericksburg where he was taken in by the Thurman Brisben Shelter and got hooked up with the Family Counseling Center for Recovery, where he goes and is on maintenance methadone.
Salvation for Him and Others He has met a new lady - April Sayler – and they have opened Katora Coffee. But more than that they have founded the Katora Institue of Higher Living, providing a “lifestyle education epicenter” to help people “find and nurture their own sense of purpose” running, and working on, an organic farm, with plans for a “garden-to-table” restaurant.
By Rich Gaudio PT
Christian’s is an inspiring story. I would urge you, if you need some soft drugs, give him your support by going to Katora.
Medical Footnote: As a doctor, there are features of Christian’s story that interest me. Opiates are his “drug of choice.” They quell his discomforts and make him feel good. “I can do cocaine all day long and never get addicted” he notes. It seems people have characteristics that are soothed by a certain type of drug, and these are very specific - and thus what they are likely to get addicted to. Shooting up drugs intravenously is very dangerous. There’s no going back and there’s no filter for impurities unlike snorting, swallowing or inhaling. Tolerance to opiates is massively variable. A major downside is that you become tolerant to them and need more, the more you use them. But many people die of overdose if they’ve stopped for a while, because they don’t realize their tolerance has dropped with abstinence. Prescription drugs can be a gateway to illicit drug use – causing all kinds of problems for doctors and pain patients as the DEA, the CDC and others impose draconian regulations. But often it is not genuine patients that are diverting to the illicit market. New synthetic products like Krokodil, fentanyl and car-fentanyl are very much more potent at suppressing your respiratory center – so you are far more likely to OD and die.
These days there are all kinds of training for interested persons. There is training for various sports and in the military. Many careers now require not only an initial training, but ongoing education and training leading to the accumulation of many certificates and specialties. Recreationally, people train in all sorts of ways; people train their dogs to walk leisurely around town, some practice flipping monster-truck tires and appear on American Ninja Warrior! People train to scuba dive, others train to rock climb, some even train to train others! One area in which there appears to be a dearth of good, quality training is
in the arena of falling…yes, you read correctly, falling. Now, before you move on to the next column dear reader, please be aware that I’ve seen the eye rolls and heard from all the naysayers and smart-alecs, “Gravity still works….I don’t need to train to fall, I fall all the time, without even trying….” But, as you will find below, I believe there is something to be gained by training to fall. Falling is an incredibly common (not popular, but common) activity for Americans who are 65 years old and older. According to the most recent information from the CDC, “Each year [in the US], millions of older people—those 65 and older—fall. In fact, more than one out of four older people falls each year, but less than half tell their doctor. Falling once
doubles your chances of falling again.” Over the past 10-15 years that number has held steady at 1/4 to 1/3 of the senior population. That means we have, on average, 12-16 million of those older Americans falling each year. Those 12-16 million falls result in the United States spending over $30 billion (yes, Billion…with a ‘B!’) in healthcare costs each year. These numbers continue to grow, despite the best efforts of my colleagues and other health professionals to educate the nation on fall risk and to help folks 65 and older to improve their balance and prevent falls. In the field of physical therapy, as in other health and wellness related fields, we have spent a lot of time and resource teaching folks how to get up from a fall and on how to minimize or prevent falls. Very few clinicians spend time training folks to fall. So, what is the call to action? What am I getting at? Simply this. I believe that American adults in the middle adulthood years (40-mid-60’s) should
begin to incorporate fall training into their regular exercise routines. The falls that tend to create the most damage and greatest cost are usually those that are sudden and unanticipated, so there is little time to think. Training helps us build motor memory that responds out of habit and practice…faster than we can think. If 1/3 of seniors 65 and older fall every year regardless of how well they are trained in prevention and recovery, then maybe it is time to integrate some strategies for falling and add this skill to the set?! If you are in middle adulthood or just starting your late adulthood and you are interested in integrating fall training into your exercise program, please let me know at info@fusionpta.com and we will contact you about any future class(es) we develop to address this issue!
Rich Gaudio is the PT Clinic Operator at Fusion Physical Therapy. Rich can be reached at www.facebook.com/FusionPTSpotsy/, . (540) 710-0100
Patrick Neustatter is the Medical Director of the Moss Free Clinic. Katora Coffee Shop 615 Caroline St Katora Institue of Higher Living katoracoffee.com/katorainstitute/katora-iinstitute-o of-h higherliving-k kihl/
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