Short answer: She could find nothing wrong with me.
An echocardiogram, a stress test (see picture above) and bloodwork were done and everything came back normal. The cardiologist stopped the stress test at 13 minutes because that was "long enough" (I could have gone longer.) In fact, everything is very good, except that they still don't know why my performance has decreased and my resting heart rate has increased. At the very least, we eliminated any problems with my heart, and I imagine that if I'm going to have a medical problem, I'd prefer that it not be a heart problem.
So - what is it? Very mysterious. Nothing blatant stands out. Overtraining has been suggested, so I took some time off running (a couple of weeks) and saw little improvement. Cutting out caffeine had no effect. All the bloodwork (thyroid, CBC, CMP, and lipid) came out great. Weight hasn't changed significantly. Age hasn't changed significantly. No significant change in diet or work/home stress life.
Maybe something endocrinological besides the thyroid? Perhaps my hypothalamus shit the bed after the caumsett/umstead 1-2 punch? Ultrarunners sometimes overwork their endocrine system and recovery from this type of fatigue apparently takes weeks after you start resting. I didn't think to ask if the bloodwork I had would pick this up, and I'm not sure she would know the answer to that anyway. I'm just shooting into the wind here. Honestly, I have a hard time believing an endocrinologically-caused scenario, but I suppose it's possible. What else could it be?
Whatever.
Wanna know my cholesterol numbers?
Total: 170 (Healthy range: 125-200)
HDL (good): 59 (Healthy range: >=40)
LDL (bad): 99 (Healthy Range: <130)
Total Cholesterol to HDL ratio: 2.9 (Healthy Range: <= 5.0)
Tryclycerides: 59 (Healthy range: <150)
New entries for Steve's blog are published on Mondays and Thursdays at 10:00am NY time
Steve,
ReplyDeleteWould you mind emailing me your thyroid numbers? If I were you, I wouldn't trust a doctor's "Your labs are normal" with this one. Most doctors follow what they learned in med school and new guidelines came out in 2006 that are more realistic for optimal health. Also, if you suspect other endocrine problems might be at play here, don't hesitate to let me know if I can help you. I've got Addison's (adrenals don't work), hypothyroid and a few other "little" endocrine problems. I also have a forum for endocrine problems. www.addisonssupport.com.
Best!
:) Dusty
dhardman@silverstar.com
Hi Dusty,
ReplyDeleteI'll scan all the bloodwork in tonight when I get home and email it to you..
Please don't take this the wrong way but could it be psychosomatic (in your head). I am not suggesting that you are making it up but sometimes the mind can play foul. I have had some mental lapses in the past few months going back to the final miles of NY, mile 15+ of Shamrock, and the latest booty rumble 50k. I just got so far into my head that I made critical mistakes and totally lost form and concentration. The races where I didn't have this problem was Fattest Butt 50k and DE trail marathon. The fattest but was 20F with big winds and a ton of fun and the DE trail marathon was so challenging that I just had fun with it instead of letting the negatives creep in. I have since embraced the heat and kicked out a fabulous 15 mile training run yesterday in high 80s. It was mostly just plain fun trying to out run the bugs.
ReplyDeleteIn the hopes that nothing is physically wrong maybe just picking a 5k this weekend for the fun of it may work some of the kinks out. If you do, screw around with it, like PRing the first mile and trying to grit it out the next 2.1 miles. It is just a suggestion.
I'm not ruling that out. It just seems strange. The odd thing is the elevated resting heart rate for no reason. But man - running 5 miles on Friday was extremely hard. I ran a 5K two weekends ago, busted my ass and didn't even break 29. It might all be psychosomatic but why? I was doing great right up until Caumsett..
ReplyDelete