David Duval and Nick Esasky - Vertigo and Steroids?

A year ago today – I wrote a column on David Duval and his affliction of vertigo. I was amazed at the time that no major sportswriter seemed to care about Duval’s crippling condition. I used the occasion to remind the readers about the case of baseball player Nick Esasky who seemed to have the world at his fingertips until his career was suddenly ended by vertigo in 1990.

You can read the column mentioned above here.

A year has past and David Duval seems to have completely disappeared from the collective sports consciousness. In 2003 after his initial bout of vertigo, Duval entered 15 more PGA events. He only finished under par once in that time and made the cut in only 2 events. In 2002 Duval won $838,045 in prize money. In 2003 he won $84,708 (only $39,832 after his vertigo). In 2004 – Duval has yet to enter a PGA event or make a dime on the PGA Tour.

Now the reason I’m bringing this up is because I’m still surprised that a world-class competitor like Duval could disappear from the sporting radar so completely. I have also become intrigued by another similarity between the situation involving Duval and the situation involving Esasky.

Not long before Duval came down with vertigo – he was the talk of the Tour because of his new body. No longer was Duval pudgy and soft. He was now slimmed down and muscular. If Duval were a baseball player – the whispers would have been about off-season steroid use.

Looking back at Nick Esasky’s career through the prism of possible steroid use – it is hard not to raise an eyebrow at the fact that in 1988 Esasky had just 15 HR and 62 RBI and then suddenly in 1989 he hits 30 HR with 108 RBI. The jump in productivity was chalked up to Esasky getting a fresh start in Boston, getting to play full time (even though he played in 122 games the year before with almost 400 AB), and getting to play half his games at Friendly Fenway Park. Now, however, the question should be asked if possibly Nick’s jump in numbers was due in part to steroid use.

The question should be asked of both Duval and Esasky not as part of some witch-hunt but because if there is a connection between a prior steroid use and their vertigo – then getting that information out may make possible a study of the matter that could save others from the same pain and certain hell that they have experienced.

Everyone agrees that steroids have not really been given the proper medical study. Long-term consequences and side effects are basically unknown. Ignorance about steroids is rampant today. All most lay people know is that steroids can make you faster and stronger and that they are illegal to use in professional sports.

Steroids may in fact allow people to live longer and happier lives but until we study steroids and what they actually do to our bodies then we will continue to live in ignorance.

It is not like a link between steroid use and vertigo doesn’t already exist. In an FDA test of Testim (a cream that contains testosterone - a Schedule III controlled substance as defined by the Anabolic Steroids Act) involving 205 test subjects – at least one test subject had to be removed from the study because of an onset of vertigo. In 1999 a case was reported in Poland where “vertigo appeared twice just after introducing doping and persisted in spite of a 1.5 year break in taking anabolics.” I am sure that many other such examples exist.

It is true that steroids happen to be a common prescription for patients who suffer from vertigo. It is also true that small pox in small doses actually allows the immune system to develop protection against the true small pox disease. This might not be the best analogy but I’m sorry – because we don’t know if there is a possible link between vertigo and steroid use and the extent of it – this analogy is the best I can do.

If steroid use did play a role in the vertigo that has plagued both David Duval and Nick Esasky – isn’t the least we can do is allow them to come forward without fear or shame to tell their story? Shouldn’t we be treating the side effects of a medicine as a medical issue instead of a political football or personality witch-hunt?

Please send any thoughts or comments to of4dad@hotmail.com