Cratine causes man to lose his legs:::
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http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/sit...ry/html/160240
Last summer, the Muckleshoot Casino security guard began seriously training as a bodybuilder. The Washington State Figure Fitness and Bodybuilding Championships were scheduled for Oct. 23 in Auburn and he aimed his training at the show.
Starkovich said he never took steroids and no one ever recommended he take creatine. But he remembered from high school when he took the creatine for a month, how much it helped develop his muscles and increase his performance at cross country running.
Each morning and evening for three and half months leading up to the bodybuilding competition he took the recommended dose of 5 grams. A month's supply cost him about $50.
He trained hard: two hours each morning and then again in the evening. The regimen was working. At one point, the 5-foot 9-inch Starkovich weighed 215 pounds with 2 percent body fat. His biceps had grown by nearly three inches. When he flexed, the striations in his muscles where visible. He also was dieting hard to bring his weight down and further sculpt his body.
Then three days before the competition, his urine again turned black. He felt weak and tired. The cramping became worse. He went to Highline Community Hospital in Burien on a Thursday to find out what was wrong. No one knew, but they told him his creatine level was at 3,500; the normal level in a human body is 50 to 100. He came back for blood work the next day. His creatine level hit 9,000.
On Saturday, he went by ambulance to Harborview Medical Center. He was in a fight for his life. He would stay at Harborview for 5� weeks.
By then his legs were so cramped up, he was put on morphine. They began to swell. His heartbeat climbed to 120 and stayed there for a week. His kidney and liver began shutting down.
The only way to find out what was wrong with his legs was to look inside. What they found, he said, was decaying muscle.
``After the fourth day they wanted to amputate both legs at the hip,'' he said. ``They were afraid the decay would spread to my lower intestines.''
The surgeons began cutting out the dead muscle out of his legs. In its place, new bones began to grow. That, too, had to be cut out, he said.
Even now a second femur bone lies close to the skin in his upper left leg. Rapping it with his knuckle, it sounds like a piece of hard wood. It has to come out. There are other bone growths, too. One almost poked through his skin before it was removed.
What caused all the problems?
``The doctors (at Harborview) told me it was the creatine,'' he said. ``My body wouldn't process it.'' It ended up poisoning him.
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