Thanks for all your insights on this subject. Here's my story. It parallels some experiences and symptoms that I've read in all the stories above.
I’m a 48 year old male (47 when my symptoms first came on) and I overtrained for an Olympic Distance Triathlon. I was overtrained when I did it, I knew that much. I thought I could recover afterwards – I was obviously very wrong. After the event I took two weeks off and then went for a morning swim. I wasn’t 100% OK but I thought I could push through it. The morning after, I awoke to my heart racing away uncontrollably. I thought, well, I can’t do that for a while and I decided to just stick to my second favourite sport of table tennis, once a week at my son’s club. Roll forward five days and after a very intense game of table tennis my heart let out a giant thud that felt like it exploded. I stopped all physical activity immediately. The date was 1/07/2014.
Here follows a summary of the months between July and December.
July
I almost checked into A&E a dozen times. Sometimes, I could hardly walk across the room. My sleep was highly disturbed and blood pressure (as confirmed by a doctor) was dangerously high. My resting heart rate was up in the 70’s and sometimes in the 80’s. I had brain fog and couldn’t concentrate for my work as a computer programmer. But I managed to keep my head above water so no-one really noticed. I also had a few times the very worrying symptoms of groups of large raised goose bumps appearing on my arms. They were fleeting i.e. they would last one or two seconds and go. Dr Google seems to suggest that they are down to poor nuero-transmitters. But general medical practice doesn’t know much about them due to their fleeting nature. Thankfully, I have not experienced that again.
August
I had two holidays both lasting a week. I slept loads and was on my feet all day outside. I improved so much that I almost got better. I still had brain-fog or a slight change in perception that wouldn’t go away. Heart rate was a down to 63 BPM (but still not my normal resting heart rate of 57) even in the morning.
September
Was a pretty much up and down month where I was tired and lacking energy practically all the time. Sleep was slightly below average but was disturbed just a few nights.
October
This is where my sleep problems started. I would manage 5-6 hours sleep most nights and sometimes even less at 4-5. I was always lacking energy and being out of sorts. My circadian rhythm was out of whack. I would wake up at 4:00am with a terrible hunger and I would need to defecate and for the life of me I couldn’t get back to sleep.
November
This was much the same as October only sometimes it was worse. So bad in fact, that after one night of 4 hours sleep I had a nervous break-down. It was weird, because I’m a very mentally stable person. My son said something to me in the morning and I just couldn’t process it - or anything - and the only thing I knew how to do was to burst out crying. I actually contemplated suicide that day.
December
Thankfully sleep has improved. I manage 6-7 most nights and sometimes even more. There was the occasional blip of 5-6; but, isn’t there always? I’ve managed some light walking of 5 miles and felt pretty good on my feet for most of the time.
Now that sleep has improved the myriad of symptoms have improved.
Looking forward
Dr. Maffeton (who seems to be the only one that knows what’s going on) mentions that my 3rd stage of overtraining should take 6-12 months to heal. And it looks like it’s going to be the full course.
I have an appointment with the endocrinologist on 15th January. From what I can glean from my symptoms my HPA axis is dysfunctioning (thanks to MarkyV for that). Try to mention this to a doctor (they call it the hypothalamic pituitary axis or HP axis) and they think (to themselves) I’ve got a real hypochondriac on my hands here. I’ve also discovered - and I have it on good authority from a friend who used to teach at Medical school - that 95% of doctors currently in practice have not heard of overtraining syndrome.
I’ll keep this forum posted as to my progress…
I’m a 48 year old male (47 when my symptoms first came on) and I overtrained for an Olympic Distance Triathlon. I was overtrained when I did it, I knew that much. I thought I could recover afterwards – I was obviously very wrong. After the event I took two weeks off and then went for a morning swim. I wasn’t 100% OK but I thought I could push through it. The morning after, I awoke to my heart racing away uncontrollably. I thought, well, I can’t do that for a while and I decided to just stick to my second favourite sport of table tennis, once a week at my son’s club. Roll forward five days and after a very intense game of table tennis my heart let out a giant thud that felt like it exploded. I stopped all physical activity immediately. The date was 1/07/2014.
Here follows a summary of the months between July and December.
July
I almost checked into A&E a dozen times. Sometimes, I could hardly walk across the room. My sleep was highly disturbed and blood pressure (as confirmed by a doctor) was dangerously high. My resting heart rate was up in the 70’s and sometimes in the 80’s. I had brain fog and couldn’t concentrate for my work as a computer programmer. But I managed to keep my head above water so no-one really noticed. I also had a few times the very worrying symptoms of groups of large raised goose bumps appearing on my arms. They were fleeting i.e. they would last one or two seconds and go. Dr Google seems to suggest that they are down to poor nuero-transmitters. But general medical practice doesn’t know much about them due to their fleeting nature. Thankfully, I have not experienced that again.
August
I had two holidays both lasting a week. I slept loads and was on my feet all day outside. I improved so much that I almost got better. I still had brain-fog or a slight change in perception that wouldn’t go away. Heart rate was a down to 63 BPM (but still not my normal resting heart rate of 57) even in the morning.
September
Was a pretty much up and down month where I was tired and lacking energy practically all the time. Sleep was slightly below average but was disturbed just a few nights.
October
This is where my sleep problems started. I would manage 5-6 hours sleep most nights and sometimes even less at 4-5. I was always lacking energy and being out of sorts. My circadian rhythm was out of whack. I would wake up at 4:00am with a terrible hunger and I would need to defecate and for the life of me I couldn’t get back to sleep.
November
This was much the same as October only sometimes it was worse. So bad in fact, that after one night of 4 hours sleep I had a nervous break-down. It was weird, because I’m a very mentally stable person. My son said something to me in the morning and I just couldn’t process it - or anything - and the only thing I knew how to do was to burst out crying. I actually contemplated suicide that day.
December
Thankfully sleep has improved. I manage 6-7 most nights and sometimes even more. There was the occasional blip of 5-6; but, isn’t there always? I’ve managed some light walking of 5 miles and felt pretty good on my feet for most of the time.
Now that sleep has improved the myriad of symptoms have improved.
Looking forward
Dr. Maffeton (who seems to be the only one that knows what’s going on) mentions that my 3rd stage of overtraining should take 6-12 months to heal. And it looks like it’s going to be the full course.
I have an appointment with the endocrinologist on 15th January. From what I can glean from my symptoms my HPA axis is dysfunctioning (thanks to MarkyV for that). Try to mention this to a doctor (they call it the hypothalamic pituitary axis or HP axis) and they think (to themselves) I’ve got a real hypochondriac on my hands here. I’ve also discovered - and I have it on good authority from a friend who used to teach at Medical school - that 95% of doctors currently in practice have not heard of overtraining syndrome.
I’ll keep this forum posted as to my progress…