Chronic Injuries for MechWarriors

[Nekoryu]

So, I've been ill for a few days and when I'm restricted to the couch for long periods, I like to work on fleshing out my main MechWarriors some more. Recently, I felt the beginnings of carpal tunnel on top of a poorly-healed ankle that I didn't know I broke back in 2010 AND a bit of a bum knee that took the brunt of all 145lbs of me at full speed on a concrete floor (non-slip shoes are apparently not immune to ice cubes and congealed grease) As I was doing my wrist stretches in between writings, I got to wondering what sorts of chronic problems long-serving MechWarriors might suffer aside from those caused by traumatic injury. I would think that chronic tendinitis would be common, but after that I sort of draw a blank. Not being stuffed into anything resembling a cockpit for any length of time, I'm at a bit of a loss. Little help?

[AldanFerrox]

Well, on the extreme end we have cancer. That is what killed Grayson Death Carlyle. To many damaged reactor cores.

And I imagine that spinal disc herniation is also pretty common. Also, the permanent extreme heat inside a Mechs cockpit could cause problems with your internal organs.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Whiplash, internal bruising... all kinds of interesting things happen when a mech falls over.

[Caedis Animus]

Nosebleeds, Concussions, Brain Aneurysms, 1st and 2nd degree burns (Or 3rd degree burns if the cockpit is breached with energy weapons), radiation sickness/poisoning, broken bones, broken teeth, migraines (I heard pilots taste purple a lot), tinnitus, internal hemorrhaging, internal bruising, internal bleeding, whiplash, organ failure (Due to damage), CES (Crap Evacuation Syndrome), Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, external bruising, blood loss, minor-major cuts, and more.

[glitterboy2098]

i'd imagine the nuerohelmet feedback from ammo explosions and the like could cause some nasty neurological conditions..

[malk2651]

Neck problems from the helmet.  Physiological reactions from being near coolant spills to often maybe?

[Maelwys]

There's fluff about MechWarrior hotfoot, where MechWarriors lose feeling in their feet over time from constant exposure to heat (Its in the fluff of one of the cooling suits, talking about how the cooling tubes reach down to the feet).

[Colt Ward]

Hemrroids . . . do not laugh.  For some military specialties that is one of the top repeating health issues . . . they sit on crappy little seats, sweating a lot, and the positioning does not change much.

Pilots who eject should face some of the same problems modern ejected pilots do- herniated discs being the least, cracked/crushed discs, and other associated problems from the blast off.  Throw on top of that the problems of landing . . . ankle/knee/hips all being sprained/torn/broken/dislocated . . . not to mention extreme lead poisioning some pilots could face depending on the era/opposition.

Fumes from weapons firing . . . if the sealing to the cockpit fails, propellant fumes can be toxic.  Also look into the known problems from DU rounds.

[SCC]

migraines (I heard pilots taste purple a lot)

How does this work?

And everyone's forgotten a few I think. Overconfidence, face slaps and groin injuries are probably some of the most common problems

[YingJanshi]

Geeeezzz....sounds like AToW isn't brutal enough on 'MechJocks....  :o

[Colt Ward]

Well . . . you only have to worry about the more extreme problems if you fall a lot or eject . . .

Which is why I pointed to hemorrhoids!

[snewsom2997]

Constant exposure to high heat and electric shocks causes neuropathy.
I would imagine, short of getting blown up in a mech, the next common way to lose you mech shorts, was TBI.
Even if you are strapped in all the jiggling gets you overtime, I would imagine more than a few punch drunk old mech jocks in the mercenary world slums.
Then you have burns, from combat, as in fire, and chemical from getting internal mech fluids splashed on you.
The above mentioned cancer from reactor breaches, and exposure to Ionizing radiation from PPCs and lasers, as well as all the time spent in space in transit, Cosmic Rays will get you overtime as well.

Everything else would be injuries from broken bones, sprains, strains, tears, compacted spinal injuries, and the occasional ruptured organ. Stuff you can recover from but will leave you pretty banged up afterward, but still able to soldier on for a while at least, with pain killers.

Beyond these types of things. You start to be instantly dead or very disabled, not injured.

[Meow Liao]

It isn't exactly an injury, but maybe the thrill of battle gets to be too much.  A few years of piloting and the warrior can't get his little urbanmech to jump unless he's in a sauna.    :-[

Meow Liao

[Nekoryu]

Ah, thanks for the help. I had the traumatic injuries all pretty well lined out (missed the herniated/ruptured discs bit...surprising, since my dad suffered multiple herniated discs AND worked on ejection seats when he was in the Navy)

Basically what I'm trying to do is add detail to a few of my characters, who are getting up in age and have been in the cockpit for an extended period of time, more than once. Just want to sprinkle in some things here and there that start showing up as the story progresses. A tingle of the hand here, a chronic back pain there...wanted to see if there was anything specific to MechWarriors that I could add in.

So far, very helpful! :D

[WONC]

Off the top of my head, I remember in Bred for War that Natasha Kerensky's internal dialogue goes on about the shooting pain in her lower back and hip, which sounds an awful lot like a pinched sciatic nerve. Makes sense as well, given the repetitive strain that'd come from years and years of twisting and bucking while riding a Mech in combat. Heaven knows it only took me a month of feeding frozen hay from the back of a truck to pinch mine. Nasty K's got more than a few years of strenuous living on me, I'm afraid.

[grimlock1]

Constant exposure to high heat and electric shocks causes neuropathy.
I would imagine, short of getting blown up in a mech, the next common way to lose you mech shorts, was TBI.
Even if you are strapped in all the jiggling gets you overtime, I would imagine more than a few punch drunk old mech jocks in the mercenary world slums.
Then you have burns, from combat, as in fire, and chemical from getting internal mech fluids splashed on you.
The above mentioned cancer from reactor breaches, and exposure to Ionizing radiation from PPCs and lasers, as well as all the time spent in space in transit, Cosmic Rays will get you overtime as well.

Everything else would be injuries from broken bones, sprains, strains, tears, compacted spinal injuries, and the occasional ruptured organ. Stuff you can recover from but will leave you pretty banged up afterward, but still able to soldier on for a while at least, with pain killers.

Beyond these types of things. You start to be instantly dead or very disabled, not injured.

The Navy's Mark V Special Operations Craft has a reputation for inflicting neck, back and other joint injuries as well as chipped teeth :o because the ride can so rough!

What about hearing damage, especially anything with head mounted weapons.  Even energy weapons could be pretty noisy.  The thunderclap as air returns to the volume of space that was ionized by the beam path, as well as the buzzing of power supplies and their associated electronics.

Oddly enough, an article in Nature discusses heat as helping to prevent or lessen traumatic brain injury. ???
http://www.nature.com/jcbfm/journal/v34/n8/full/jcbfm201493a.html

Lot of heat and sweat+combat conditions+no time to change shorts or socks could lead to fungal infections.

Cockpit heat seems to be mostly acute conditions.  Dehydration, heat stroke, burns, etc.  I can't find or think of any long term problems it could cause.  Operating in a hot environment does stress the cardiovascular system, but not in a way that would cause damage, so far as I can gather.  Since most mech pilots would have to pass periodic physicals, I doubt they would have a cardiac patient in the cockpit. Except maybe Hanse.   The fiction tells of a number of pilots 60 years or older doing quite well. 

Depending on the design of the neurohelmet, you could see cracked or stress fractured collar bones. 

Depending on the adhesives used to attach the sensor leads on the arms and legs, you could see skin irritation or even allergies.  Apparently that is not uncommon in the film industry.  Christopher Judge apparently developed an reaction to the adhesive used to affix the gold "brand" when he was Stargate SG-1.  The fix was simple enough, use a different glue, but he indicated, while speaking at a convention, that reactions like that not common, they are hardly rare.

[mbear]

How does this work?

I imagine it's a form of temporary synesthesia, where one sensory pathway in the brain is supplemented by another. So you punch out of the cockpit, get your bells rung, and suddenly you're tasting the rainbow sans Skittles.

[cold1]

Side effects from head injury (how easy is it to knock out a pilot in his game)
Back and hips.  The human body is not really designed to take a lot of jarring in a seated position.  Our legs are designed to absorb shock but seated we are not as well built to handle it.

I'd say any warrior with a long active career would see accelerated break down similar to what we see with American football players.  You ask your body to absorb 300% of normal abuse and wear and tear and it wears out faster.

[imperator]

A lot of the above is probably treatable long term with one of the "magics" of Battletech. Medicine. Most can be treated by myomer implants, black box medicine or even ST levels of gene therapy, if you have the money. If your a poor dispossessed or bum living off the street, you would have more problems than if your a retired Mechwarrior with pension/landholding. And Hemaroids where gene therapied out of the population along with the common cold!!!

[Kitsune413]

I'm not sure how you would gene therapy out chronic inflammation...

[Shin Ji]

SO what I'm getting from all this is that MechWarriors should be standing in battle - like in Pacific Rim.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I'm not sure how you would gene therapy out chronic inflammation...

There are probably things you could do to make a person less prone to inflammation.

[Greywind]

Beer drinker's elbow.

[Acolyte]

There are probably things you could do to make a person less prone to inflammation.

There are. Right now IRL they're looking at hookworms. Apparently if you have certain varieties of hookworms, you have less inflammation and less histamine reaction. Something to do with them wanting to live inside you without your immune system kicking them out.

I'll stick to Reactine, myself. :o

   - Shane

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I was actually thinking more along the lines of gene therapies that make a person less prone to chronic inflammation.

[Acolyte]

Well, ya, that'd be better by a long shot. Thing is, every medication has a specific way of working on the body, so if you can modify the body to do that on it's own, you're gold. So once they understand the mechanisms behind inflammation, Gene therapy to mitigate it becomes - at least in theory - possible.

   - Shane

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Well, we are talking about medical technology centuries from now.

[Acolyte]

Yep. I'm thinking that there are a lot of chronic injuries that we have today just won't be a problem in the BTU. They've either been Gene'd out (as it were) or are treatable fairly easily and cheaply.

Maybe in the Periphery things are different, though.

   - Shane

[mbear]

Side effects from head injury (how easy is it to knock out a pilot in his game)
Back and hips.  The human body is not really designed to take a lot of jarring in a seated position.  Our legs are designed to absorb shock but seated we are not as well built to handle it.

I'd say any warrior with a long active career would see accelerated break down similar to what we see with American football players.  You ask your body to absorb 300% of normal abuse and wear and tear and it wears out faster.

Maybe the cockpits have better chairs than we've seen before, which can absorb more shock?

[Orion]

In the 31st century, all mechs come with the beaded seat cover like you see taxi drivers sitting on.  The fuzzy dice are optional, though.