Is Creatine REALLY to Blame? Doctor Explains Darryn Peterson’s Severe Cramping Claim

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]Darrin Peterson says high doses of creatine caused the condition that led to his cramping this season. But is there more to the story? To discuss, it's Dr. Brian Sutterer. Hi Brian, how's it going?

[00:00:11]I'm doing great, Kevin. It It was just saying we talked offline so many times.

[00:00:14]It's really nice to finally be talking to you here virtually in person.

[00:00:18]Hopefully talk a little about this story because it's it's a a very interesting story that I think, right? That the time is relevant with the NBA draft upon us.

[00:00:26]And so I'm glad we had a chance to talk about this story and hopefully learn a little bit. Well, I mean they dropped it at the perfect moment, right before the NBA draft combine after Peterson missed 11 games this season, played under 25 minutes in seven of the games, pulled himself a bunch of times. He says it's creatine that he began taking when he arrived at campus at Kansas that caused these issues that he had throughout the season. What was your initial reaction when you first saw this report?

[00:00:55]My initial reaction to this was there has to be more to the story. It's It's too simple of a of an explanation that honestly the science doesn't really make that much sense.

[00:01:06]I think it's We have to start just understanding like what creatine is, right? You probably remember back in high school, college, like creatine is probably the most common like basic bread and butter supplement that people will start to take when they're into kind of fitness, exercise, etc. So point number one with it was it was really hard to believe that him coming to Kansas was the first time that he had had any exposure or you know, fitness coach that was telling him about taking what's probably the most consumed and used and studied and safe and efficacious performance supplement that we have. So So right from the start there were I would say not necessarily red flags, but some yellow flags we'll call it that that kind of went up about the the timeline and what exactly they were claiming had happened.

[00:01:52]I I think that was my first thought as well. It's like creatine. I I about creatine. I'm not even an athlete. So this is my first time taking it. Kind of a bit of a surprise there. And And then it's the type of thing where we know he has a a full body cramp. He said there was the legs, the stomach, the back, the arms, the hands, and then the full body.

[00:02:12]And the cramping was so severe. He said they couldn't find a vein. They needed multiple IV bags, hours in the ER, sore for days. And he said, quote, "I thought I was going to die on the training table that day."

[00:02:25]I I I'm sure cramp cramping can be a result of creatine. However, this would seem to me like something a bit more extreme. Was Was he eating the Was he ingesting the whole tub of creatine, not just the 5-g dose? Like what What could cause something so extreme here, Brian?

[00:02:43]Well, the first thing too when I heard about how severe the symptoms were, right? I'm I'm a sports medicine doctor.

[00:02:47]I take care of Division I college athletes on a daily basis. And we're all taught we're all very familiar with the idea of an athlete who has whole body cramps. And the key there is whole body cramps. Because we've all seen athletes pull up, right? A calf cramp, a hamstring cramp, some sort of, you know, focal muscle cramp in a limb whenever they're competing or playing. But the idea of having like full body cramps puts it in a whole 'nother level of severity. Because there are life-threatening conditions that will cause whole body cramps. And so this is, you know, kind of bread and butter of our athletic trainers and our docs. And those are conditions like rhabdomyolysis, something that you might have heard about in athletes that can be fatal. Where such extreme exertion, hardcore exercise, typically worse in the summer in the heat outside, causes such severe muscle breakdown that you get whole body cramps. That muscle breakdown, which we'll get into because the marker of it is something called creatine kinase. And so there might be some confusion with where he's describing creatine.

[00:03:47]But you get this build up of this enzyme creatine kinase in your bloodstream. It can plug up and kill your kidneys. And that is fatal potentially if not treated and requires hospitalization, high doses of IV fluids. And And absolutely, I've seen athletes with this. They feel like they're going to die. And so, there are much more real life-threatening situations that absolutely can cause whole body cramps. And when I hear first heard the story, I thought, "Well, it sounds more like rhabdomyolysis, sickle cell crisis in individuals who have sickle cell trait where the hemoglobin, a protein in their blood that carries oxygen, is abnormal in a way that causes their blood cells to sickle.

[00:04:25]African-American individuals are more likely to be carriers of this. Sickle cell crises, when that happens, can cause whole body cramping. And so, for that medical staff that's going through that in the moment, creatine supplementation is like dead last on the list of what you're going to be evaluating for after these life-threatening, real scary conditions.

[00:04:46]Now, you mentioned rhabdo uh back in like January, February when I was toying around with Claude and Gemini and plugging in everything I knew. Like like it like people do. They you know, before they go to the doctor and they're they're plugging in all their symptoms.

[00:05:02]Rhabdo was mentioned as like, "Well, maybe he suffered rhabdo. Maybe this is what happened." Do you think that is likely?

[00:05:10]I mean, it seems like this is could be what had happened, right? Could it have been something else?

[00:05:14]>> The hard part that you have to be careful of there is And part of it, right? I mean, we're we're all reading between the lines here. the timeline of the reporting, etc. What you have to be wary of is anytime uh an athlete goes into rhabdomyolysis, there it it makes the training staff reflect on like what they did. Because typically, there were signs. There could have been things that the training staff did that they shouldn't have done. And so, it can very very quickly cross the line. It's almost like negligence on the part of the medical staff and the training staff.

[00:05:46]Now, there are athletes that are certainly predisposed to it. You can take certain medications. If you have athletes that are pounding energy drinks and they're taking stimulants, that puts you at higher risk of it. And so, it's not like it's a situation that's entirely on the medical staff, but I can absolutely understand why this happening to a medical staff, they would not want it to be public. They would not want to be advertising and putting it out there that they had a high-profile athlete that suffered rhabdomyolysis, because it it it can be a poor reflection on the school. And so, while yes, it certainly on surface sounds like this could have been rhabdo, like 100%.

[00:06:22]I don't think we should go as far as to start, you know, laying the groundwork that might put some blame on the medical staff when there truly could have been other factors out of their control. But absolutely, it's something that I guarantee is on the mind of every NBA medical staff who heard the story. Now, when I talk to NBA people, they say, "Okay, so the story here is that he started taking creatine at at Kansas. It caused this major episode and some of the episodes throughout the year. He stopped taking it and now he's good.

[00:06:52]That's the story." But they say, "But why were why was there at least one known cramping episode at Prolific Prep a year ago then, which required him to eat a whole mustard packet on the bench?

[00:07:03]It was the the game against A.J.

[00:07:05]Dybantsa, where he scored 61 points, an amazing performance. I believe there may have been a few other cramping incidences as well from the people I talked to around the league, minor ones, nothing major, but okay, so let's say that's true.

[00:07:19]Clearly, it wasn't the creatine then.

[00:07:20]There could be something underlying here. And I guess my, you know, uneducated, you know, thought here is the full body cramp seems like the event, but what was actually the cause if it's not creatine?

[00:07:34]>> Sure.

[00:07:35]Yeah, that's a great way to think of it.

[00:07:36]And when we think about what causes cramps, it helps to understand like the two main reasons why cramps occur.

[00:07:44]The typical bread and butter cramps that you see on the football field are going to be more neuromuscular fatigue related cramps. So that idea of how your brain, your spinal cord is causing the muscle to fire, that process that's trying to run efficiently in the background can become fatigued, so to speak. And all this stuff about, you know, slamming salt packets, mustard packets, it's a little bit of a a misunderstanding because you're not actually changing the electrolytes of your cells and blood in a quick enough timeline for the cramp to resolve. That just kind of became the the like old school way to deal with it. Ironically, there's some some thought that it's actually the bitterness of that mustard like on your receptors and like the throat that suppress the spinal cord reflex that's causing the cramping, but whole other physiology discussion. But essentially, it can be that fatigue component, or you can have a true underlying physiologic problem with the way that your muscles are working, right? Your muscles are this very finely tuned process of calcium, sodium ions crossing cell membranes, proteins firing, enzymes like creatine kinase, the role of creatine in how your muscles fire. This is a finely tuned process that has a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong. And part of the manifestations of those conditions that can be true like metabolic disorders can be that you are more predisposed to cramping. Now, I I think it would be very hard for an individual with one of those underlying conditions to get to the level he did and be as successful as he is because usually these are pretty debilitating conditions. But but absolutely, I I don't think it's safe to or fair to put blame on creatine. That just simply taking high doses of creatine will cause full body cramps. Now, that might be the gasoline on the fire, so to speak, of something that's underlying in the background with hydration, with other supplements, with an underlying medical issue, but I don't think people should be afraid of creatine in isolation causing whole body cramps.

[00:09:39]Now, let's just say creatine was a factor here and that, you know, there's some truth to that. Wouldn't he be at risk for his entire career with any supplement that's introduced? If something is as safe as creatine, uh proven over decades is causing issues like this?

[00:09:57]Yeah, you could. And and I think the unique part of creatine, and this is where, you know, as somebody who covers like sports injuries and tries to educate the media, I always get really hung up on nomenclature because I think Petersen even had a quote where he talked about the levels of creatine in my blood were high. But like there's no blood test. Like you don't go >> tough.

[00:10:17]>> Yeah, like you don't go to the doctor and get a blood test that measures creatine. Like that doesn't That's That's not a thing. But what you can measure on a blood test is something called creatinine, which is a byproduct of the biochemical reactions in your body, commonly used as a marker of kidney function. So, you can measure your creatinine, or you can measure the creatine kinase. That's the enzyme that goes really high when you have rhabdo. And so, right? Like Like there's so many layers of telephone here where like maybe they were measuring his creatine kinase, and he just said, "Well, they measured my creatine."

[00:10:50]Because certainly like muscular individuals, African-American individuals, people who are very active will generally have higher baseline levels of creatine kinase. But creatine kinase is not creatine. Like creatine kinase is the enzyme that allows creatine to do its thing, but it's they're not one-to-one. And so, that whole fact of like they measured my creatine level, and my creatine level was high, like isn't isn't a thing. And so, that part of it right away makes you wonder, well, were they measuring creatine kinase? The creatine kinase was high, therefore you were closer to being tipped over the edge if you went through a hard workout, had some dehydration, had supplements on board that just compounded the problem.

[00:11:31]Now, let's say you were worked on a medical staff for the Wizards or the Jazz or the Grizzlies or the or the Bulls, one of the top four teams.

[00:11:41]What would be the things you'd be investigating here with Peterson? Either medical tests or questions for him, digging for intel. What would What would you want to find out to know if you can feel confident drafting Peterson to your team?

[00:11:56]I think honestly having the medical records of when he supposedly went to the hospital that time would would answer almost all of this because they would have checked the creatine kinase levels. They would have checked all of these blood levels at that time and made a diagnosis. And and I I would be very surprised if, you know, when they went to the emergency department to get those IV fluids, right? Because I believe he said he was at the hospital, correct?

[00:12:22]>> Yes. The ER I went to.

[00:12:24]>> yeah, the ER, right? So, there So, I mean, there there would have been a diagnosis given of like, "What are we treating here?" And I I I don't think they would have put in, you know, creatine overdose.

[00:12:35]And they would have had blood tests and those blood tests would have explained what the underlying physiologic damage was and that would help the medical staff understand what actually happened.

[00:12:45]I think whether or not they're able to get those records, I don't know, but that would be the main thing if I'm on the medical staff is, okay, what actually happened at the emergency room that day? What labs were run? What subsequent testing was done? Because you theoretically would have your athlete if one of my athletes had something like this happen, I I mean, we would be having them see specialists to undergo additional genetic testing and so you would want the results of those tests. I don't think this is a situation where you can simply talk to the athlete and rely on what the athlete says. And that's not a knock against the athlete.

[00:13:18]That's more a testament to how complex these situations can be and so having the direct medical records of what evaluation was done, what testing was done, what was the diagnosis given, would answer that question for you to understand, "Hey, is this going to be an ongoing issue or not?" The one part of the story that stuck out to me, and you know, first time I read it I was like, "Huh, that that kind of makes sense here." Uh Ramona Shelburne wrote, "The full body cramp was so intense, Peterson said that he struggled to shake the fear that it could happen again." And then Peterson himself was quoted in the story and said, "Whenever I felt anything like that come on, my initial thought was that it might get to that again, and I can't let that happen and be embarrassed and have that on TV and all that. It kind of put me in a tizzy because I didn't know what was causing it. Nothing has ever been wrong with me before.

[00:14:04]Basketball is my life, what I love to do, but something was going on, and I couldn't figure it out. And I've talked to a ton of different people across the NBA, across college basketball about this, and you have people in one camp saying, you know, it's something physical.

[00:14:20]And then you have people in another camp saying, it's something mental. That there's a history with him, even going back to high school, in certain situations. Uh and with this in Kansas, that he's the type that like anytime he feels something, he's pulling himself out.

[00:14:37]He's basically saying that with that quote. He's saying, "Whenever I felt anything like that come on, my initial thought was that I can't let it get to that again." But that's a lot of That's a lot of incidences over the course of the year where you put miss play under 25 minutes seven times and miss 11 games. That's a lot of times over a college basketball season.

[00:14:55]Yeah, I think it's got to be both. I mean, I think it can absolutely be both mental and physical. I mean, any athlete dealing with one of the biggest things in ACL recovery nowadays is the mental readiness of an athlete getting back to sport, almost being just as important as their physical readiness.

[00:15:09]>> Tatum, with the Achilles. And that was a big part of it.

[00:15:11]>> Yeah, exactly. Huge part of it. And so, I think we're we're getting better as a sports medicine field of recognizing that mental side of things, and I'm glad because absolutely true. And and and again, that's not a knock on Peterson. I'm glad he's expressing that honesty because I I think that's an important thing then for for staffs that work with him to be aware of and give him that support because absolutely, something that sounds like might have truly been like a potentially life-threatening instance.

[00:15:35]I I've had health issues myself where you feel kind of something come on and you're like, "Oh no, here we go again."

[00:15:39]And the brain starts to spiral and then you can't perform at that level you've got to perform. So, I I think it's fair that it could be both, but I will say time heals all in a sense and I think hopefully that diagnosis is correct, right? I think at some point we have to sort of take it for their word of what we're being told is going on in these situations and if that's the case, then okay, avoid creatine and you're going to be just fine.

[00:16:03]If that's not the case, then making sure the individual understands all the information about what happened so that they're not confused about why it may happen again is all you can do. You try to educate him. You give him the mental health support along the way and just be there with the continuous counseling, understanding, and encouragement to help him get through that and eventually with time, the less it's going to happen, things tend to be better.

[00:16:26]Now, you mentioned earlier, Brian, getting the medical report from the time he was in the hospital.

[00:16:33]Would that medical report lead you down certain directions if it is something underlying like neuromuscular issues, something like that? Or would do would further testing be required from an NBA team?

[00:16:45]Yeah, it depends on on the circumstances. So, if you have a an athlete who presents to the emergency department and their picture fits with, for example, something like rhabdo, there's going to be a clear kind of sequence of events that led up to it where you can say, "Okay, this this clearly happened because of what transpired in the hours or days before."

[00:17:02]It's when you don't have a clear explanation that you have to go down that pathway of doing more workup, right? So, something happens and and there was no workout associated with it and somebody has whole body cramps. Um that's what would send you down the pathway and you would have to give Kansas the benefit of the doubt to assume that they had done that. I mean, this is a This is an elite college institution that's got resources for any medical specialist around the country.

[00:17:24]And so, if there was a clear explanation for why it happened in the moment, you're not going to need to go down further workup and do all this crazy testing. If there's no explanation for it, then the proper thing to do, which I'm sure they would have at the time, is to go down and have all that testing.

[00:17:40]And this was presumably months ago, right? So, that was another kind of odd piece of the story, right? Is that you don't really look back necessarily 2 months later and say, "Well, it must have been the creatine like that day back, you know, 2 months ago."

[00:17:52]And so, either they did a bunch of testing, found nothing, and said, "Well, okay, maybe we chalk it up to the creatine."

[00:17:59]Or, right, the things that we're all kind of speculating and and postulating on might have come up because of the timing, etc., of what it was going on. I mean, I I I hope that for his sake he has the true answer of like whatever it was. I hope that nobody in his camp is trying to, you know, like sugarcoat the problem or sugarcoat the issue. And And like when athletes have rhabdo, if they do, I mean, it's not like a career-threatening thing. I mean, it's something that you generally recover from just fine. You learn from it, and you move on. It's not like you're necessarily at risk of it happening again as long as you understood the things that caused it and control for the things that caused it.

[00:18:37]On that note, Brian, like what what is something like that would cause it? I mean, if it's if it's exertion, you're playing 82 games, you have back-to-backs, three games in four nights, travels, lack of sleep in certain situations. All these factors, double overtime, playing, you know, 40 40 45 minutes some nights.

[00:18:56]Are those things that could cause those types of episodes?

[00:19:00]>> Conditioning's a big part of it, too.

[00:19:01]So, usually when we see this in athletes, it's it's the summer. It's when football camp first starts. It's when it's really hot outside. It's typically not a situation like at the very end of the season when the conditioning is to a level that it needs to be at. When this typically happens, I mean the the unfortunate common story you'll see is somebody who is pushed too hard in a workout. Somebody who was starting to develop symptoms, was starting to develop some cramps, was you know, complaining about not feeling well, not you know, feeling nauseous.

[00:19:31]And a a coach or somebody who pushed them, pushed them, pushed them and just said, you know, suck it up and and toughen it out. And then the process spirals. And so when you get to these higher levels, there's more awareness of it.

[00:19:42]Conditioning staffs are more familiar, comfortable with like proper principles of loading and ramping up activity. And so the higher you get, you tend to see this less and less than like a youth, a high school, you know, a junior college level.

[00:19:56]Well, Brian, I'm hoping Peterson can get back to what he was in high school cuz the dude in high school at 6'6 with fluidity and athleticism, I mean, he just it's it's really such a cliche, but he moves like water. That's what he was at the high school level, just the flow and the the explosiveness and the burst, the ability to get to a second, third, and fourth gear, changing pace. He's He's like he's genuinely a beautiful basketball player when he's fully healthy.

[00:20:22]>> And I'll say I think he can. You know, to that point, like I don't think I've seen anything with the reporting that's like, oh my goodness, this is going to be a disaster of a career. I mean, I when teams want their player to succeed, they have the resources to help make their player succeed. And certainly there's always going to be a mental component with any athlete, right? That that you can't predict. But from just a pure medical perspective, I don't think you get to the level he did with some underlying scary thing that team should be worried about. I think when you get to this level, you only get more and more resources to help you get there. And so yeah, I I I agree 100% and I don't think there'd be a reason to doubt that he couldn't. It's just important you understand the truth of why it happened so that you can hopefully prevent it from happening again.

[00:21:07]Brian, thank you so much for joining me, man. Keep up the amazing, amazing, amazing work with your channel. You do the best the best stuff out there. Keep it up, man. I I appreciate that. And I got to quickly just to to publicly put this out there.

[00:21:19]For those that probably don't know, Kevin was one of the first people that gave my YouTube any real credibility. So so I got to give you a shout out for that. I still remember cuz I loved following your stuff back over with the Ringer. And I remember sending a message and and seeing that you had seen I think it was my Victor Oladipo Pacers video when he was with the Pacers.

[00:21:39]And it was a long time ago, yeah. And and you responded to it and I thought, "Holy cow, like legitimate like NBA reporters and like podcasters and all this are seeing my stuff and you're I think you sent a little message of like, 'Hey, keep up the great work.' So you probably don't remember that. I remember that. I was very thankful for it and so I was very happy to to finally be able to come on and help contribute a little bit to your side of things here. Thank you so much, Brian. That means that means a lot. Keep keep it up, man. We're both both of us will. I I I know both of us aren't going to stop hustling.

[00:22:08]That's right. Yeah. Thanks, Kevin.