telling me that US old guys(I'm 52) are pushing our bodies past our limits

whatever we are doing is good for our hearts

Couldn't read your post. Paragraphs are your friends.

+1

+2

If your doctor told you it was exercise induced asthma attack, that's prolly what it was.
The question arises, how commom is this and will it happen again?
You'd better do a bit of research about this before your next race

I'm old have poor vision and I could read it. If you can't get eyes checked my bet is it has something to do with being very low on the nice scale or high on the ass-hole scale get that checked

I have been hesitant to post this but there is alot of non medical opinions posted lately. I had a close call in the Heat Wave Triathlon back on June 2,2012. Heat Wave swim was a half mile in calm water but on that morning was wet suit legal. I chose not to swim in a wet suit because after 30 years of doing triathlons I still can't strip that thing off very fast. Heat Wave is now a time trial start. I signed up late and they were seeding per sign up date. That may have been lucky.

I wasn't overly excited at start but was going to do a medium to hard effort to start. I was about 4 min into swim when I felt WOW I don't feel very good. I slowed down to kinda get my composure. I was breathing really hard but heart rate wasn't sky high. I looked at my watch to see if i had gone out too hard and I was where I wanted to be at turn around. I was still near a training partner. At this point I was gasping pretty hard. I thought about quitting because i really wasn't feeling very good but thought I'll get out of the water and figure out what the heck is going on. Right after turn to head to shore kayaker hears me wheezing and ask if I'm ok. I say "NO".

I thought to my self "just finish the swim". BAD call. I started to breast stoke to be able to breath more air. I would guess with about 100 yard to go I was thrashing pretty hard. Enough that friends on shore were worried. I was cramping and lost my legs. It took a huge effort just to get to shore. I had people meeting me in the water. My head was blue and I couldn't stand without help. The race director and i swam together at the early morning Memphis State(Dick Fagen) swims so he knew I swim. Wyndell Robertson came up to me and was trying to talk to me. I couldn't talk much but was telling him I couldn't breathe and was cramping. I was really blue at this point. Wyndell later told me he thought I was having a heart attack. I was being held by my arm but things were getting really fuzzy. I was now by my bike. But that's all I remmember. I went lights out. Fell on ground.

I woke up a couple of minutes later with a Emt over me with a mask on me. I was gasping still. I could not breathe. I had really good EMT's according to all the doctors I've talked to. I'm pretty fuzzy but what ever they did had me breathing better within the hour. I was sitting up. I refused the trip to the hospital. Wyndell was worried and made me promise(as a friend) I was going to see a doctor. I had friends calling that afternoon asking what the heck that was about.

Monday morning my doctor(Dr David Wheat) sees me early just to make sure it wasn't a heart issue. I'm asking him about SIPE and he rules it out almost before I can say it. He after checking me out is pretty sure I had a exercise induced asthma attack. I have no history of anything like this. Dr Wheat tells me not to do anything till I get a stress test done. I go to Jackson Heart Clinic and Dr Flecher test me and tells me I'm in really good shape. He is happy both cholestorols are good. I have a had people in the medical community telling me that US old guys(I'm 52) are pushing our bodies past our limits. I ask him point blank if he feels that is what happened and did my heart show any damage. He told me after looking at test results that whatever we are doing is good for our hearts. He is thinking Dr Wheat is right about what happened. I'm asking everyone i can get my hands on what the heck caused this. I have talked to people at Miss Dept of Air Quality and they said that day was a good day except for some Pecan pollen(not a good one I understand).

I'm not sure if any of the recent deaths are Asthma related but the more medical people I speak to the more they have stories of well trained athletes having asthma attacks. There seems to be some connection to swimming but no one has tied these together yet. If any Asthmatics have any known trigger points(ie pecan pollen) it might help me understand what happened. I don't want to do that again. I was probably pretty close to drowning. If i had passed out in the water I might have been a triathlon death with no known reason.

I'm old have poor vision and I could read it. If you can't get eyes checked my bet is it has something to do with being very low on the nice scale or high on the ass-hole scale get that checked

Fesh water lake? I wonder if it was pollen or other allergen in the water, may not correspond to "air quality". I can't swim in lakes without getting terribly congested, though for me, it doesn't show up until hours later. I use a nose clip, i don't know if it would help in your situation. If recreational swimming is allowed at that lake could you try a quick swim and see if you get a reaction?

For Christ's sake you two, surely the subject matter is more important than your pedantic whining.

I'm the biggest grammar Nazi around, but sometimes you just have to let it go.

"It looks like he did a bike and run war up but no swim"

i'm not reading it that way. what you note is what he typically does. but not necessarily what he did for this race, because he was running late. lord knows that happens to all of us. sometimes i've raced with little or no warm up because i just ran out of time. so i'm wondering what happened on this particular day.

_____

I'm comfortable that Larry Creswell and his associates will work through all this ..... but now look at all the people who are taking beta agonist asthma inhalers before races and even on long acting beta agonists (serevent). These are known to be arrhythmogenic and associated with sudden cardiac death .... thats in addition to the breathing issues. FACTS will come out and I suspect there are a lot of cases like this persons that are available through race records and even a number like this already on ST ..... we had the neurosurgeon associated with a water save earlier. It will get interesting.

DAve

Do you remember why he ruled out swimming induced pulmonary edema?

Did he know about that condition? I hate to monday morning quarterback the thing, but you can see in the post from klauthp in a separate thread that she was with the pulmonary specialists at Johns Hopkins and they didn't put it together either.

My sinuses have gotten pretty sensitive these days. I use a nose clip almost all the time including in the pool. It was a little weird to start with. The worst for me was in between hard intervals when I find myself pulling it off because I feel like I can't get enough air. Never an issue at race pace. The nose clip does not completely eliminate the congestion but it helps. I think some of the allergens/ irritants may even be absorbed through the skin.

" . . .I am a slow swimmer at the best of times but stayed with the back of the pack for about 250m, then my breathing went to shit. Like you, couldn't catch my breath, and started wheezing."

At this point in the swim, did you worry about breathe control?

When you do take a breathe, is it short & quick or are you deep breathing?

Thank you for the detailed response to my question.

The first time wearing a wetsuit is uncomfortable. I've had similar experiences with a wetsuit.

Again, thank you and hope this never happens to you again.