Need advice from a triathlete doctor

[Zef]

Need some advice up here...I'm a triathlete and during a very intense (70 min.) bike session (stationary bike), I suffered a big and sudden blood pressure drop...first time this happen to me. Is this can be due to too much body heat (no ventilation) combined with no water intake...?...I had some more intense training session before and during some competition with high outside temp. and this never happened. What the $%?&&?% is this and what can be the root cause of that P drop...Thanks doctor.

[livi]

Not many of my patients are into triathlon for sure, but we need more info.

How do you know your BP dropped? Were you measuring simultaneously? Whats your normal pressure and to what level did it drop? How quickly?

What happened to your heart rate during this phase?

What kind of symptoms did you experience?

I am no heart doctor, not even a grown peoples doc, but sudden loss of BP (if significant) would make me a bit worried.

My advice is to see a specialist. Have a exercise test done, while simultaneously measuring BP, heart rate, O2 saturation and ECG. Possibly also a cardiac ultrasound.

[Zef]

I assumed it's a press drop after reading on the subject a bit. My normal pressure stand at 120/70. This drop happened very suddenly when I was at about 80% to 85% of my max bpm who is at 175. I feeled like the heart pump was cavitating, got nausea, I was like near fainting when I left the bike and was very tired in the day following this. During the drop phase, my heart rate continued to be high during about a minute and slowly decreased afterward. Thanks a lot for the response Livi.

[creaturecat]

I am not a doctor.
I have, however, hung out with Omar Sharif. (1997,The Thirteenth Warrior, a failed Disney attempt)
Sounds like you may have overdid it. Always point a decent fan towards yourself when on the rollers.

[Moses]

That is dangerous. No. It's incredibly dangerous.

You may have an underlying cardiac condition. You may be initiating a dangerous arrhythmia. DO NOT repeat that workout until you have had a complete evaluation by a cardiologist.

Not to scare you, but people have died from this.

[Zef]

You scare me Moses.....My little sister had a heart surgery for arhythmia at 30..I will see my doc about that...I have to say that I'm scare a bit....

[artplumber]

Hard to tell what happened. Safest thing is to at least have someone (who knows what they are doing) listen to your chest.

[Zef]

Update: Just came back from the doctor...he'd put me on a treadmill with all kind of wires connected to my chest...and here we go....he forced me to run to my capacity limit of 176 bpm....99.68 % and all was normal from my heart pump. He told me that the problem was overtraining i.e. too much time passed at 80 to 90 % of max capacity. I'm a bit less scared now.....He told me I'm going to die one day, but not from heart problems....!

[nostatic]

Originally Posted by Zef

.He told me I'm going to die one day, but not from heart problems....!

Maybe a broken heart though. How's your love life?

[livi]

Thats good news. I suppose what you experienced was not any significant drop in blood pressure, although the symptoms resembled that.

[Burnin' oil]

I would have tried to recreate the event, just to see what would happen. I also would never tell my Doctor because he would want a complete work-up, with too many tests and too much time wasted. I do not hold up my modus operandi as an example for others to follow.

Glad to hear everything is OK.

[Zef]

Originally Posted by livi

Thats good news. I suppose what you experienced was not any significant drop in blood pressure, although the symptoms resembled that.

You got it right Livi....
My training sessions are now more endurance oriented with less big intervals step at 90 %...my next tri is at Tremblant on June 7.....

http://www.triathlonmonttremblant.com/fra/accueil.html

The bike/run transition zone is on the Mont-Tremblant Circuit....the bike race is on the track too....a little slower than in the Porsche....