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I almost drown-my search for what happened.
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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 of 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 composer. 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 quiting 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 at was trying to talk to me. I couldn't talk much but was telling him I couldn't breath and was crampimg. 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 getty really fuzzy. I was now by my bike. But thats 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 swimmimg 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.
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [rustyproject] [ In reply to ]
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Couldn't read your post. Paragraphs are your friends.






Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [rustyproject] [ In reply to ]
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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?
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [rustyproject] [ In reply to ]
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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

res, non verba
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [rustyproject] [ In reply to ]
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Thank you for the post. Did your Doctor prescribe anything for the exercise induced asthma?

I believe many competitive swimmers have this issue.
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [rustyproject] [ In reply to ]
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Sorry to hear of your episode, must have been scary for sure. Like the other poster I have to use a nose-clip when swimming in one particular lake, (but not others) due to the symptoms I will suffer post swim, but not during. The only time I have come close to passing out was due to a combination of de-hydration, swimming in that lake and also having completely blocked sinuses, which they thought could have led to an increased blood pressure. Could that have been a contributing factor also?

I realize these statements were from different people, but you might want to clarify with the doctor:

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

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whatever we are doing is good for our hearts

Hope you find resolution.
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [rustyproject] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks for your post ... maybe it will encourage others to share similar experiences. You had an episode that could have been fatal easily enough with a drowning .... but you were resuscitated and evaluated and a presumed diagnosis made.
I personally think events like you had are the key to understanding why others died .... they obviously can't tell us what exactly happened to them and their autopsy may not be conclusive either.
Hopefully Slowman is keeping these survived episodes for his data base about swim deaths.

Dave
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [rustyproject] [ In reply to ]
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i have been recently plagued with asthma since the age of 40. I can swim at the pool and occasionally my asthma will flare up within the first 500 yds or so. I get a panicky/shortness of breath/cold sweat. Treated with a inhaler, it usually subsides within a few minutes. Thanks for the post, I am scheduled for another IM this year, I think I need to come up with a way to carry my inhaler on the swim! Your post is pretty spot on, when the wheezing truly starts your aerobic ability is probably 10% and you could get into trouble very quickly. Think I will have a inhaler with me and start my swim way wide so I can get assistance from boat if my asthma starts up.
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [rustyproject] [ In reply to ]
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Welcome to the club, exercised induced asthma is pretty common, you were lucky that your 1st episode(you may have had others and not realized them) did not kill you. Asthma is one of those things that is really not understood as to causes, but there are a lot of them and it varies with individuals. I got my 1st attack in my early 30's, and it continued until i moved to a desert environment. Mine got really bad at times, and i was on 2 different medications. At times i could not sleep at nite as it progressed into more than exercise induced. At 46 i moved to a dry clean climate and it all went away. I have since been drug free and the only episodes are when i stay in old hotel rooms for more than a few days. I suspect it is the carpets, so my entire houses are all tiled these days.

I have heard that some factors in adult onset asthma are where you grew up as a kid. Smoggy areas and household smokers were the two big ones, and i had both of those in spades. LA in my younger days used to close down due to smog, and you could barley breath outside and it hurt. Both my parents smoked until i was 8 too, so double whammy for me..

I suggest you get a rescue medication and carry it with you at all times during races. Slowman's ex wife was a top pro that won iron mans, and more than once she was pulled from swims just like you were. She then attached the medication to her wrist in the water just in case. Once you lungs start to close down, it can get ugly very quickly, especially like in your situation where you don't know it is an asthma attack. Now you know, make some changes. Don't assume this was a one off.
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [rustyproject] [ In reply to ]
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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.
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [rustyproject] [ In reply to ]
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just, for my own edification and as a data point, can you describe what sort of warm up you might have done prior to the start of the swim?

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [rustyproject] [ In reply to ]
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I live in Jackson and missed the Heatwave race this year because I had to work.

I'm a heart surgeon at UMC, I have an interest in the broad issue of triathlon race-related safety, and I've been involved with USAT recently in its effort to understand the causes of swimmer distress during races. I'd love to learn more about what happened to you.

I'd buy lunch if we could get together to talk about it. Send me a private message or email me at lcreswell@umc.edu.

Larry Creswell
http://www.athletesheart.org, @athletesheart
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [Tri-Banter] [ In reply to ]
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Tri-Banter wrote:
Couldn't read your post. Paragraphs are your friends.


+1
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [Carl L] [ In reply to ]
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Carl L wrote:
Tri-Banter wrote:
Couldn't read your post. Paragraphs are your friends.


+1

+2
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [matto] [ In reply to ]
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matto wrote:
Carl L wrote:
Tri-Banter wrote:
Couldn't read your post. Paragraphs are your friends.


+1


+2

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.
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [rustyproject] [ In reply to ]
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That post sounds familiar. Except in my case it didn't go quit that far. I had entered the water for a Sprint Tri, only 650m or so. Did real fast 1 minute warm up, dunked my head etc. the klaxon went off and I started swimming. 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. This was my first wet suit swim so I wasn't sure what was going on. I finished the swim DFL. I walked to T1, left on my bike but still couldn't get air in. Finally, 2nd from DFL, I get to T2, change and start to run. Have to stop and walk. As soon as my HR hits about 130 I am gasping for air and have to go back to a slow walk. I finished the Tri.

Went to the doc and they were concerned about Heart. But, I figured Asthma (I've had some experience with the disease before). So, got an inhaler which I now use before wetsuit swimming and at start of all Tris.

I now also warm up for 5 minutes or so with a gentle jog ro "wake up" my Heart and body before the Tri starts.

I'm not sure what my trigger points are for the attack at this time though.

Good luck.

BC Don
Pain is temporary, not giving it your all lasts all Winter.
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [TNFeDad] [ In reply to ]
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I think I need to come up with a way to carry my inhaler on the swim!

I always take a shot or two of my inhaler before the race starts.

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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [Tri-Banter] [ In reply to ]
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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
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [RoYe] [ In reply to ]
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RoYe wrote:
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 have been diagnosed with exercise induced asthma also.

At first, my doc gave me a Ventolin inhaler to use when exercising. A couple of weeks ago, I went back to report that Ventolin was primo and could I get more, as I'd run out. She was aghast! She said, only use it when you're exercising. I explained that I'm a trigeek and I cycle commute to work, so was taking it 3-4 times a day! She immediately reached for her prescription pad and prescribed a preventer and told me only to use the ventolin sparingly.

I use Seretide twice a day, and ventolin sparingly (ie hardly ever), and I can now breathe when I excercise, and focus on the suffering, not the all encompassing need to get just one more breath before I die! :-)

TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [dennis] [ In reply to ]
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dennis wrote:
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

Possibly a little bit of both. Or, that I just didn't have the patience to plunder line by line of the post. I read most every post on ST involving swimming and tri-deaths (for some reason, I'm interested). I couldn't get through this one. I admit that many people are better than me, yourself including. However, I suspect that had the OP done some better formatting, there would be a higher level of interest in people in terms of both reading and responding to the issue.






Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [rustyproject] [ In reply to ]
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Quote:
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 threw in some random paragraphs to appease the clowns who can't read without them. OP, thanks for posting this. It is an interesting insight and I'm glad you are still around to post it.
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [bazilbrush] [ In reply to ]
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Well it looks like the punctuation police busted me. I just banged my story out really quickly this morning. i don't know about some of you but if I don't tell stories like this it starts to look like a sales report. I think Dan had ask about my warm up. I have always warmed up pretty much the same way for years. I get the bike out of the car and go for about a twenty minute ride with two hard sixty second efforts to get heart rate up. I let my heart rate come down while I'm putting everything in transition. I then try to go for about a twenty minute run. I try to get my heart rate up for about five minutes of the twenty. The morning of Heat Wave I was cutting it pretty close since I knew I was going late due to signing up late. I wasn't nervous and was pretty excited because it was a cool morning. Looking back maybe if I had swam some the day may have been uneventful.
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [rustyproject] [ In reply to ]
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Wow glad you are okay. I've not had anything like this happen but I do have a post exercise annoying wheezy cough - usually after running. Numerous trips to the doctor and yes exercise induced asthma - l have Ventolin which I take after a long run to stop the coughing but I don't think the dr realised the extent of my exercise regime - I think I need to go back for a preventer.

This has never happened to me in a swim nor on the bike seems to be run related and I wonder if it is also pollen or pollutants that contribute too. I'll probably never know but reading this has inspired me to get back to the doc for the preventer before the ows season starts here in Melbourne
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [rustyproject] [ In reply to ]
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After reading your post I would suggest you see another doctor - if possible a specialist. IMHO, this doesn't sound like exercise induced asthma to me. See if you can find a good cardiologist.

The only other thing I could think of is perhaps something heat related (heat exhaustion)? Even if the swim was under 78 degrees, a warm and muggy morning can make swimming hard with a swim cap very difficult.
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Re: I almost drown-my search for what happened. [rustyproject] [ In reply to ]
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oh cool ... did you type out the rosetta stone ?
Last edited by: lacticturkey: Aug 23, 12 5:34
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