Sorry I should have said "if recovering from post vaccine adverse reaction". Better to take down time. While there may be no data, we have several centuries of common sense to say that if you are coming off a fever better back off. Maybe the data will catch up, maybe it won't. The data may never be there because there may not be enough people reporting back adverse affects and even then you have to define "adverse affect" which could be a very wide continuum.

Anyway, its a personal choice if we hammer hard after a fever whether illness generated or vaccine generated.

Just to be clear, there was no apparent adverse reaction to the vaccine booster for either my husband or I... we didn't feel great the afternoon/day after the booster but thereafter we were both back to feeling 100%. He felt great for the 12 days leading up to the event and the 10-11 days after the event.

Just wanted to check in to see how your husband is doing (more on the morale side than anything). All the best.

After my 3rd shot in early 2022, I've had issues with leg muscle pain and my ankles were dysfunctional (pain, swelling).
I worked on the ankles over a recent 10 day vacation and they are OK now, I can run on them without pain.

I raced a sprint in May and felt something in my chest final few K's of the run, also my jaw went a bit numb.

Yesterday's sprint race after I used a gel with caffeine I felt the chest thing again, so backed off my pace to near walking at times (29min 5k). My muscles aren't working right either, felt really tight.

I had Moderna.

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Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
FM Sports: http://fluidmotionsports.com

Physically, he's stable and jumped back into working from home today. Mentally and emotionally, he's hanging in there... it's a game of patience for the next few weeks and months to see if the heart recovers.

I was hanging out with a friend yesterday at 70.3 Tremblant who I have raced with since 1985. The guy is a former pro, raced all over the world. We shared a room together at Kona 2013. He had a horrible race (for him) and 5 months after coming back from Kona, they got to the bottom of it, and he got his pacemaker. He has been living the last 7 years with it and has been racing pretty normally, but is not super interested in doing pointy end stuff. He rode the 250km up to Tremblant to cheer on friends but if you go ride with him you would never know he's "limited" to any degree. He's not particularly interested in racing, but he probably trains 20 hrs per week most weeks anyway and is enjoying the lifestyle.

Hi,
Very sorry to hear this happened to your husband.

My heart situation is different, I had a heart attack May, 2020 - - this after about 25 Ironman's, 8 Kona qualifications and 2 Kona podiums.

I am very glad I sought a sports cardiologist as her recommendations on what I could do were dramatically different from the cardiologist who did my stent placement. One year post heart attack, I raced an Ironman in May, June, and Oct. and lining up again this August.

Pro triathlete, Tim O'Donnell is also coming back from a heart attack (google on youtube). His sports cardiologist is Aaron Baggish at Mass General Hospital and Baggish is probably the most highly regarded in this area. His protege is at Cleveland Clinic and that is who I see. There are also probably other good ones. Yes, the psychological fear is real and they get that.

As an aside, I am female. More women die of heart disease every year than all cancers combined. I hope you take this as an opportunity to get checked as well.

All the very best and don't hesitate to reach out to any of us if we can be of some help.

Thanks so much for sharing your story. It's great to hear that you're back racing already and doing well.

I know Tim really well and so am very aware of his story. I plan to reach out to Tim at some point about his recovery but have been trying to do more research and really understand what happened with my husband first. Tim's case seems more similar to your case, both of which is distinct from my husband's case, at least from a causation perspective.

We're trying to do the genetic testing first (one thesis is demosplakin cardiomyopathy) so we know exactly the specific cardiology expertise we're seeking... if it's not genetic, we may need a cardiomyopathy expert or a sports cardiologist depending on what his next echocardiogram looks like.

I'm just trying to learn and understand as much as possible at this stage so I really appreciate you reaching out and sharing your experience.

I am also 54 and had a cardiac episode during a bike race in early May.

I felt chest discomfort and pulled out 120km into a 228km race...at the time I was second guessing myself that I was taking the easy option because the discomfort was not THAT bad (but it was constant). The pain got a LOT worse on the way to the hospital.

My cardiac troponin results were about 200x the upper limit so good thing I stopped racing!

I was airlifted from the regional hospital to one with a dedicated cardiac facility where I stayed for 4 days.

Angiogram and echocardiographs were clear...but MRI showed an area of scarring (which could not have been from the acute episode).

The scarring is still being investigated but my ECG returned to normal within days and has remained so.

I have had a tele-consult with a sports cardiologist who I am travelling interstate to see for more testing.

Essentially, the scarring (epicardial fibrosis) may be from prior (unknown) episode (in which case it is unlikely to progress) or may be the beginning of a genetic problem (which means it is more likely to progress, but slowly)....sarcoid ruled out by PET scan.

I still have an aim to get back to competing (not soon!)....but will be following doctors' orders.

I wish your husband (and you!) well.

None of this is fun but knowing we're not alone with these surprises certainly helps my perspective.

Like your husband I had won a my AG in several IMs and while in great shape and training suffered VT and almost croaked. I got an ICD. It was rt venticle for me, ARVD, and anything above mild short exercise is contraindicated. I was 50 at the time and had been competing since 6th grade, but giving it up cold turkey was way easier than you would think when you know the consequences.
Ignore all the advice on here except from the actual doctors and just listen to and obey to the doctor you trust. They know what they are doing.

I hope your husband is doing better, that's definitely scary for sure! I came across this video 5-6 months ago, and just wanted to share this with you. Very high level cyclist that ended up having some issues after his second vaccination. He's posted a handful of videos about his road to recovery if you search his youtube channel. You and your husband may want to watch this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7inaTiDKaU

did you register to post only your vax denialism? if so, please moonwalk back out of this community. however, if you have other topics on which to post accretive to the collective knowledge of folks who read here, you're welcome to remain and i look forward to your inclusions.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

A bit aggressive response to my post, but ok. I've been browsing the forum for well over a decade (maybe since 2008ish?), for mostly cycling related info. I actually made an account recently because I planning on doing my first tri (at the young age of 41 lol) this spring, and had some tri specific questions. I'm a competitive cyclist and used to compete in swim events as well, just never got into running or multi-sport races.

If you watch the video I linked to, and you go back to their channel and watch some of their videos, you'll see that those two are not anti-vax at all, quite the opposite. They are simply curious as to how he developed a heart condition two weeks post-vaccination. You'll also see updates to this on this channel that offer hope to the OP's husband, as Kyle has been making steps to recovery and is back to riding again, which honestly is all I want for the OP's husband.

If my post was taken in any other way, it was not my intention.

Edit: The entire reason I even opened this post was because a family member recently had an ablation done (early 2020, pre-covid) likely from being a world class endurance athlete for 30+ years and still competing in his 50's, and I've had a few weird arrhythmia type symptoms myself that my cardiologist said likely were benign, but to keep an eye on. I had zero reason to believe this topic was in any way covid related until I read the post...

i had an ablation this year. after 4 covid vaccinations. i also have had afib for the past 15 years and it really started to get nasty immediately pre-covid. my ablation was pre-ordained in advance of my first covid vax. this is why i tend to question the nexus of an ablation and a vaccination. as you put it, having the pedal to the floor for 30 years as an endurance athlete is the proximate cause of a lot of afib.

this forum is 20+ years old, as you may know, so i have 20+ years of hearing about the moderation quality. the very first, very best, indicator of what a user's agenda is is his or her first post. had this been, say, your 150th post you wouldn't heard a peep out of me. that's why you got the "welcome" you did.

i will take you at your word, and again extend a welcome to you. my aggressive moderation (which is considered not nearly aggressive enough to a lot of users here - you can't win for losing) works in your favor as well, once you are a regular user here. i hope this community helps you achieve success in your first tri and i hope to see you out onthe race course. i look forward to your contributions and i'm at your service if i can help.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

It's been just over 5 months since I posted about my husband's VT event and we may finally have a diagnosis. After getting frustrated with the cardiology team in San Francisco, we sought out a second opinion from the cardiology team at Stanford. The Stanford team have been much more intellectually curious about why this happened to my husband as well as giving him more rigorous (data-driven) parameters around activity going forward (eg stress EKG).

As part of their testing, he underwent a PET scan last week which showed that there was still inflammation in the heart, The diagnosis is cardiac sarcoidosis and he is now starting a treatment course (prednisone/methotrexate) to get the inflammation under control. He will have another scan in mid-January.

While, the diagnosis isn't great, there is at least a treatment plan which we hope will help. In addition, he's been feeling fine and was back to swimming and riding his bike (sub-120bpm heart rate) until he crashed and broke his collarbone (right before the PET scan)!

I'm guessing the answer is "no" but let me know if anyone else out there has been diagnosed with cardiac sarcoidosis and what level of activity you've been able to resume post-treatment.

Thanks!

Hey Dan, I am not anti vax as I just had my 4th 22.5 hrs ago. But I don't think we have enough data out there to really know if extreme endurance exercise in the proximity of vaccines has no impact on heart health. My common sense filter suggest that any time the immune system is in fight is not a particularly good time for hard exercise. I think putting vaccines aside we all have enough sample points from 40 something years of various extreme endurance racing in the proximity to sicknesses to know it generally is not an awesome idea. I don't think we have a full correlation established yet for C19 vaccines, simply because the number of people doing really hard endurance feats close to vaccines was not measured by the pharma companies. Maybe there is zero impact

So for myself at a personal level, what I do if I have some levels of sickness or fever is back it off for a while. At least the intensity and certain intensity x volume.

Whether there is hard quantitative evidence that vaccines coupled with hard endurance coupled with heart issues are all co related or not, I am not personally willing to find out on myself, but eventually I hope that we are willing to all see if there is or not in a quantified manner. I don't think we are in the clear data wise to know if you can take vaccines and hammer out hard 70.3's a few weeks later with no additional risk than if you hadn't taken one.

For the record, cardiac sarcoidosis, although a type of ‘inflammatory disease, has nothing whatsoever to do with vaccines/Covid

Ironic that my final patient follow up Wednesday was someone I met earlier this year with complete heart block and ultimately we were able to figure out she had cardiac and pulmonary sarcoidosis

Now perfectly protected with her icd and steroids