We often view wrestlers as indestructible as they put on show after show seemingly without pause, but things are rarely what they seem.
We usually hear about health problems, drug or alcohol abuse, or CTE from all the physical abuse their bodies go through, but it was a shock when Chris Jericho said he suffered a pulmonary embolism in December of 2021.
The event was a frightening one and led to Jericho getting the treatment he needs, was put on blood thinners, and lost weight to be able to get back into the ring.
Rocking in the UK
Jericho talked about it in a recent Talk is Jericho podcast, and he said it happened in the UK during a Fozzy tour. After a series of shows, he was having move and more trouble breathing until he had no choice but to seek help.
Special thanks to wrestlingnews.co for the transcript.
“So I got to the hospital and I can barely walk. I mean walking across the lobby to get to the car to go to the hospital was a real task. It was terrifying. Like after three steps, I was just huffing and puffing and my heart was pounding. You know something is really, really wrong here. Then the walk from that car to the hospital, same thing. It might as well have been 1000 miles when it was 100 feet, if it was even 50 feet.
“The doctor said, ‘You have a pulmonary embolism. It means that your lungs are filled with blood clots, and you are now staying in the hospital.’ They did an ultrasound and found that there was evidence of a clot in my throat. Now if a clot gets in your throat, that’s getting into stroke territory. The reason why these are so dangerous is if the blood clot breaks free and gets into your lungs you can have some serious issues. If it breaks free and gets into your heart, you can have serious issues. If it breaks free and gets into your brain, you can have serious issues. So they gave me a blood thinner.”
He had to stay there until his oxygen level got back to a level they were comfortable with before letting him fly home.
Losing weight
After he returned home, he had more tests done, and he was told he had to lose visceral fat (fat gathered around organs), so he had to lose weight in general.
He had gained weight when working in Japan and then the pandemic hit, so he was kinda stuck. But after learning he needed to lose, he went to a weight loss clinic. After losing 11 pounds in the first week, he stuck with it and went from weighing 241 pounds to 209.
The problem he was then presented with was he couldn’t wrestle due to the blood thinners, so he did some research.
“I wasn’t able to wrestle because I was on blood thinners, and after a few weeks, I went down to five milligrams twice a day. So that’s good. I also did some very extensive research on athletes who are on blood thinners. I found a couple guys in the NBA and a couple guys in the NFL, and found these guys are able to play and coexist on blood thinners. What they do is they just don’t take a blood thinner 36 hours before the event because it’s not a matter of getting cut open and bleeding, it’s a matter of your blood being thinner. If you hit your head or something, you could hemorrhage. So I was very cognizant of that. After talking to Doc Sampson with AEW, who’s our team doctor, and just keeping an eye on everything, and once again, now all of these exams that I’m going for, they’re all coming up great. So then it’s just a matter of when I can go back to the ring.
“I also found something very interesting as well. When I went to the hematologist who once again checks to see what could be causing these blood clots, she came back and said that I had a factor V gene in my blood and that basically contributes to blood clots. You could have a two sided factor V, which means that both parents have it. But mine is a half gene and not a full one, which means I may not have to take blood thinners forever.”
As we’ve seen in AEW, Jericho’s back in the ring and is wiser on taking care of himself. The news that he might not need to keep taking blood thinners is great news, and we wish him all the health and luck in the world.
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