Latest news with #Indocin
Los Angeles Times
6 days ago
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
Shaquille O'Neal talks about abusing painkillers, his regrets and his fragile kidneys
Shaquille O'Neal was never suspended for drug use of any kind during his decorated 19-year NBA career. The rugged 7-foot-1, 325-pound Hall of Famer center freely acknowledged playing through pain and openly worried about damage to his kidneys and liver from his prolonged use of legal anti-inflammatory medications. He also recently recounted on 'Inside the NBA' a bizarre story about testing positive for cocaine ahead of the 1996 Olympics. The result was thrown out — and never publicized — because O'Neal told officials he'd eaten a poppy seed muffin shortly before the test. Never mind that while poppy seeds can trigger a false positive test for opioids such as morphine or codeine, they can't do the same for cocaine, which is identified in drug tests by the presence of its major metabolite, benzoylecgonine. So in his recounting of an episode from nearly 30 years ago, O'Neal was wrong either about the illegal substance for which he tested positive or about what he ingested that caused the false positive. Perhaps he just meant to say codeine rather than cocaine. Point being, recollections can be fuzzy, and O'Neal isn't immune to such fuzziness, something to keep in mind when listening to the four-time NBA champion 'fess up to his use of painkillers on this week's 'Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard' podcast. O'Neal toggled between referring to opioid painkillers such as oxycodone and powerful, non-steroidal anti-inflammatories such as Indocin. He said he used opioids when recovering from injuries and took NSAIDs throughout his career. But he also said his doctor told him he was addicted to painkillers, leading to 'a heated discussion.' O'Neal didn't feel high, he said, even when he would take more than the prescribed dose 'I would do homeboy math,' he said. 'If it said take one, I'm taking three.' 'It was a club sandwich, fries and two pills for 19 years.' O'Neal first discussed painkillers during his four-part HBO documentary 'Shaq,' which debuted in 2022, and on the podcast Shepard mostly asked him to expand on what he'd said then about the potential damage to internal organs, the warnings from doctors and his current regrets. In the documentary, O'Neal had this to say: 'Sometimes I couldn't play if I didn't take it. All it did was mask the pain. ... Had a lot of painkillers. I got limited kidney stuff now, going on. I don't have the full range, but I took so many painkillers that [doctors are] saying, 'Hey, man, we don't need you taking that stuff now. You got to be careful.' 'My kidneys are kind of just chilling out right now,' he continued. 'I don't want to flare 'em back up.' Both opioids and NSAIDs can cause kidney and liver damage, and O'Neal didn't specify on the podcast which substances caused him the most concern. He said he struggled with accepting that he might have an addiction, eventually concluding, 'I had to have them. So, is that addiction?' And he hid the use of painkillers from his wife and kids, although he said 'the trainers knew.' As far back as 2000 — a year when O'Neal was the NBA's most valuable player and led the Lakers to the first of three consecutive championships — he expressed concern about the dangers of anti-inflammatories. O'Neal suspected that the kidney disease that threatened the life of fellow NBA star Alonzo Mourning might be the result of anti-inflammatories and said he would stop taking them. Two years later, however, O'Neal had resumed NSAID use. After a stomach ailment he originally believed was an ulcer, diagnostic tests were done on his kidneys and liver. He described the results to The Times thusly: 'I'm not great, but I'm cool.' O'Neal was playing with a badly aching arthritic big toe, a sprained wrist and a handful of unlisted bangs and bruises. He needed the pills, although it was unclear whether he was referring to painkillers, anti-inflammatories or both. 'I tried to stay off of them, but if I don't take them I can't move or play,' he said in 2002. 'I was taking them. When my stomach was giving me problems I had to get the test.' O'Neal has long championed non-prescription means of addressing pain. He's been the spokesperson for the topical analgesic Icy Hot since 2003 and he spoke on Capitol Hill in 2016, plugging efforts to give police better tools to recognize when drivers are under the influence of drugs. He pledged two years of funding for officers to become drug recognition experts. O'Neal's comments on Shepard's podcast are a clear indication that his use of painkillers and NSAIDs continues to weigh heavily on his mind. He added that these days he relaxes with a different vice: a hookah. 'I've never been into weed,' he said. 'Hookah, it enables me to follow the routine of sit your ass down.'
7NEWS
07-06-2025
- Health
- 7NEWS
Hawthorn legend Dermott Brereton makes deeply personal admission about AFL life
Hawthorn champion and premiership hero Dermott Brereton has made a sad and disturbing admission about the deteriorating state of his body. The former glamour forward, who played in five flags for Hawthorn during a glittering career throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, says he is often in crippling pain and sometimes in tears. 'Some mornings my beautiful partner Julie has to put on my shoes and socks for me,' Brereton said during a function at the MCG. 'With the pain in my spine, where they put in a cage inserted there, I can't reach. I just can't put on socks and shoes. 'Some days I have to walk down the stairs sideways because I haven't any cartilage — bone on bone, that is — for 40 years. 'Some days I can't shake hands with other men, and if they do so, I fear they'll re-open some of the broken bones in my hands from defenders' spoils and from when (a rival player) jumped on my hand deliberately. 'Some days I have to crab my way down the stairs because my often half-a-dozen times reconstructed ankle will not flex any more.' The pain Brereton detailed belies his often happy-go-lucky exterior and jovial commentating style. It's also taken a heavy mental on the former AFL wrecking ball. 'Some days I double up from rancid heartburn from the endless dosages of (painkillers and anti-inflammatories),' he said. He said indomethacin or Indocin 'used to rip the guts out of you' and he had also poured into his body large quantities of Brufen and Voltaren over the past 40 years. 'Some nights I sleep very little because of the arthritis in my shoulder joints. That's from decades of lifting as heavy weights as I could, purely because the position I played required it,' Brereton said. 'Some mornings, I pathetically allow myself to become melancholy and even teary over the degeneration and the physical toll that football has taken on my body. 'I often ask myself, in that moment of true misery, when I can't move, that moment of weakness, I'll ask myself, 'Was it worth it?'. 'And the answer's always the same. I'd do it all over again, exactly the same again. 'Maybe next time, though in the next lifetime, I might go a little harder.' At the end of 1993, Brereton joined the Sydney Swans for the 1994 season and then played 15 games for Collingwood in 1995. He finished his career with 211 games but will always be remembered as a Hawthorn great. In 1999 he was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame and he has since become a highly regarded football commentator.
The Age
06-06-2025
- Health
- The Age
‘I just can't put on socks and shoes': Dermott Brereton's crippling legacy
'To be honest with you, Tim, Essendon and our [mid-'80s] battles took you to the edge of safety, and, for me, that is always where you get the best view of life,' Brereton said. The Hawks legend explained his use of anti-inflammatory medications thus: 'Some days I double up from rancid heartburn from the endless dosages of – remember [Indocin]... Timmy, that used to rip the guts out of you, Brufen, Voltaren, all taken for over 40 years,' Brereton said. 'Some nights I sleep very little because of the arthritis in my shoulder joints. That's from decades of lifting as heavy weights as I could, purely because the position I played required it. 'Some mornings, I pathetically allow myself to become melancholy and even teary over the degeneration and the physical toll that football has taken on my body.' Brereton said he had often questioned himself on whether, given the toll on his body, if his career had been worth the price. 'I often ask myself, in that moment of true misery, when I can't move, that moment of weakness, I'll ask myself – was it worth it? 'And the answer's always the same. I'd do it all over again, exactly the same again. Maybe next time, though in the next lifetime, I might go a little harder.' Brereton told of how he had regularly been treated with epidurals at the height of his playing career. '[In the years] '86-87, '88-89, those 22-game seasons, three times a year, on average, after a game on a Saturday, on a Sunday morning I'd go to Vimy House, I'd have an epidural at 8am and lie in bed until four, then the cab would come and pick me up and take me home. And I kept doing it.' Loading Brereton had said that football had given him so much – discipline, 'A lifetime of employment, it's given me a small dose of fame, occasionally given me romance. It's given me a small amount of wealth – that's gone, I know where it went, actually. 'It has given me great friendships. It's given me my life's greatest mentor – Allan [Jeans, his Hawthorn coach]. And it has given me a purpose. 'But it's also taken away something very dear to me.' Watson's speech drew constant laughter, as when the Bomber great recounted how he left Dimboola for Melbourne, aged 15, after Essendon officials assured his mother that he would be housed by a church-going, non-drinking, non-smoking family in Niddrie. 'We went about two miles, [chairman of selectors] Teddy Fordham went to the boot, got an Esky out, each of them had a can, [and] Teddy lit up a cigar. Then, I heard [official] Kevin Egan say to the other two, 'Where's the little prick going to stay?'' Brereton's revelations about his physical struggles are in line with La Trobe University research – cited by the AFL Players' Association – that 76 per cent of past players had experienced serious injuries in football while 64 per cent of those who reported serious injuries are still affected in daily life. Since 2017, more than 1150 past V/AFL and AFLW players have been reimbursed for costs from joint surgeries and dental injuries.
