monty wrote:
I had at least a dozen "good" EKG's before I had a near heart death. They are pretty useless unless you are actually having some episode during those 10 to 20 seconds you are hooked up. Best bet is a stress echo if you are really worried, you get a lot more information there, but even then it could be clear and not showing an underlying problem.Hey monty, would you care to talk more about your experience? Totally understand if it's personal and you'd rather not share. I'm going through some issues that I'm trying to track down. Hopefully I'm not hijacking this thread.
Backstory: Currently 31 years old and healthy, 6'-0" and 155 lbs; been training since age 23. I did my second IM in July 2016 and took the following fall mostly off. In hindsight I likely dug a bit of a hole during the lead up. I started training more consistently at the end of winter.
Mid April 2017 I was out for a short run after a long-ish ride and I had an episode of sorts. I felt like a rubber band was painfully wrapped around my heart. Immediately after I watched my HR spike to 206 after holding steady at 165-170 for some time. For reference, I tend to hit the mid 190s for a 5k; 400m intervals in the dead of Houston summer has only gotten me to 203 once before. This episode occurred during a brick run where I was talking with a friend, in other words, not terribly taxing.
Unfortunately I had 2 more episodes in the following weeks so I went to a cardiologist. Blood work, echo, EKG, and a stress echo turned up nothing, though they limited me to 160 bpm during the stress echo (not sure why). $1500 later and the verdict was to drink less coffee. I was drinking 3-4 cups/day but have since dropped to 1 cup in the morning. My cardiologist was adamant about limiting caffeine intake, but otherwise not worried about the situation.
My training was sporadic throughout the rest of the year and I didn't have any issues. I started to resume consistent training at the end of last year. I had another episode last month where I experienced the constricting feeling followed by a HR spike to 209, only for it to settle back down.
I also experience potentially related symptoms - my HR occasionally feels heavy, like it's thumping harder than normal, though not accelerated. This occurs both during exercise or at rest, sometimes associated with acute pain. However, standing up after bending over for a period can trigger it, though perhaps that's just mind games.
Below are links to my Garmin files if you're curious. This is not an issue with the HR monitor.
Episode 1: https://connect.garmin.com/.../activity/1679449522
Episode 2: https://connect.garmin.com/.../activity/2458512220
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Last edited by:
santino314: Feb 22, 18 16:17