For the week of September 17 - 23, 2003

Western and Eastern medicine combined for rapid healing

Performance athletes pushes the envelope

---

"I have been aggressive on acupuncture and Chinese herbs. I began to learn about alternative medicine after my second ACL surgery. I use a combination of Eastern and Western medicine. Basically, I threw everything I could at it."

— CLINT LIGHTNER, Performance athlete and amateur healer

---

By MATT FURBER
Express Staff Writer

When fitness is an individual’s modus operandi, a calamitous injury can stop an active person in their tracks. Going from days spent charging through the mountains on skis, mountain bikes and on foot to forced rest on the couch can be devastating not only to a person’s lifestyle, but to their psyche as well.

On the road again. The healing power of the valley is essential to a quick recovery for performance athlete Clint Lightner.

However, in the Wood River Valley, athletes-turned-patients have many healing resources at their disposal.

Few people know this better than ten-year Ketchum resident Clint Lightner, 31, who was sent to the couch last winter after he crashed in the Skitek Cup Master’s Downhill race at Soldier Mountain. The race started late, and he caught a ski edge in some soft mushy snow.

Travelling at 55 to 60 miles per hour, the performance athlete with race stock skis broke bones in his right leg and ankle, including his tibia, the fibula in two places and his talus, a bone in the foot.

"It just exploded," Lightner said.

His doctor told him the force that caused the break was comparable to a stick of dynamite going off and that was coming from a military surgeon who has seen it all.

Thirty years ago Lightner would have lost his lower leg to a prosthetic- the break was that bad. Think Red Pollard in the recent hit film "Seabiscuit," but worse.

Fortunately for Lightner, however, he is the beneficiary of the miracles of modern orthopedic medicine, titanium plates and screws and the surgical skills of Drs. Herbert and Charlotte Alexander, who spent five and a half hours putting Lightner back together again.

"Dr. (Herbert) Alexander is very strict and said you have to follow the rules," Lightner said. The rule was no weight on the leg for three months.

Surgery was only the first part of recovery for Lightner, who has previous experience with debilitating injuries followed by long recovery periods. He has had operations on both of his anterior cruciate ligaments (ACL), the surgery frequently performed on skiers’ knees.

He also sought alternative healing powers to speed his recovery.

"I have been aggressive on acupuncture and Chinese herbs," he said, who, with all his down time, has essentially become his own health care practitioner. "I began to learn about alternative medicine after my second ACL surgery. I use a combination of Eastern and Western medicine. Basically, I threw everything I could at it."

In order to improve his healing and chances for a successful outcome, Lightner consulted Jon Paul Morse, a licensed acupuncturist, who has an office adjacent to the Sun Valley Spine Institute.

After Lightner’s surgery, he was fitted with a removable cast, another miracle of modern medicine that made the acupuncture easier and reduced muscle atrophy and loss of flexibility. He progressed quickly enough in his recovery that Dr. Alexander allowed him to apply 25 percent of his weight after six weeks.

"Clint’s treatment was aimed at expedited healing," said Morse, "If he never would have come to me he would have lived."

Lightner says it was important for him mentally to speed his healing. Embracing Eastern medicine was part of that effort. Where Western medicine is about putting people together, Eastern medicine focuses on healing, he said.

"During his therapy, Clint underwent a series of manual and electro-acupuncture treatments to reduce inflammation, improve circulation, and to promote the regeneration of bone and the surrounding tissue," Morse said.

In other words, Morse inserted acupuncture needles into Lightner’s leg and sent a low power electrical charge directly to the periosteum on the surface of the bone where bone cells are generated.

The goal of the treatment was to accelerate Lightner’s ability to bear weight. Along with muscle contraction and calcium absorption the treatment helps to promote healthy bone mass, Morse said.

The acupuncture treatments started 10 days after the surgery. Lightner received them three days a week.

Gaining a speedy recovery is in line with other aspects of Lightner’s lifestyle. He says he is officially retired from ski racing, but during the 28 years of his skiing (he started very early), he regularly gets down the mountain as fast as any in a sport where the blink of an eye is often the difference between winning and losing.

In his fateful race at Soldier Mountain, two men tied for first place and yet two more tied for ninth.

"It was definitely the most traumatic experience I have ever had with an injury," he said. "You’re programmed based on old injuries to think you will be healed in three or four months. In the four to six month range it effects you mentally. It’s tough. You think you should be healed, but you’re not."

Lightner finally feels he is well on his way to recovery. His goal is to ski this winter. He will keep the titanium hardware until spring when it will be removed in a follow-up surgery.

"It will be another year before I can run," he said.

To keep himself occupied during his down time, Lightner stayed in the loop by driving shuttles for his backcountry ski pals. He also helped a friend introduce his new son to Ketchum coffee shops and immersed himself in his treatments, which included taking a crack at building a brace that would allow a person in his condition to walk without weighting the lower leg.

"We called it the junk yard wars," Lightner said about assembling the contraption out of materials found at the Gold Mine second hand shop. "It has a corset around the thigh and allows the lower leg to hang. It lacks hamstring stability, but it works."

In addition to new inventions, Lightner also applied massage and ointments to his injury, some of which he mixed himself.

His massage lotion is a concoction of arnica gel, a Chinese herb ointment called Pearl Cream and vitamin E, among other ingredients.

"It helps get the tissue soft and promotes circulation," he said.

His healing ointment is mixture made from bentonite clay mixed with water, calcium, glucosamine, chondroitin and vitamin E.

In addition to eating lots of fruits and vegetables to get the nutrients he also takes dietary supplements and herbs in tablet form and boiled down in a tea.

Lightner doesn’t take any pharmaceuticals except Tylenol when pain is bad.

"Titanium and bone flex at different rates," Lightner said, explaining the cause of much of his residual pain. He says he doesn’t take Advil because it impedes calcification.

His saving grace, however is the stationary bike at Zenergy where he can get his heart rate up to 120 beats per minute.

"It’s the safest place (to keep in shape)," he said. "The saddle carries most of the weight."

Lightner is back out with his road bike now, and he says he will soon be buying a new pair of ski boots. He says its bad luck to wear the boots you had on at the time of your injury.

He feels alpine ski boots will provide a stabile environment for him to return to the slopes.

"I know my limits," he said. "It is the speed events that are hard on your body."

Lightner says for him the future of skiing is in the backcountry away from lift service. He hopes to join the Galena ski patrol this winter when he finishes his level II avalanche certification that was interrupted by his crash last winter.

Maturity comes in many forms. For Lightner, who married in August and wears a titanium wedding band, life is about getting the most out of it, getting off the couch as soon as possible when you are down and immersing yourself in healing.

 

 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.