I’m getting over a case of bronchitis and I’m not sure if it’s the antibiotics or the malaise from the effects of the bronchitis, but I’m still feeling worked after almost two weeks of being sick.
Question I have is, like a cold of flu, does moderate exercise help relieve bronchitis? Anyone have any experience with this? If so, how long did it take you to bounce back?
Ugh …
I had it, and it kicked my ass for >6mos. My #1 piece of advice is to go and see a doctor who can get you on some antibiotics and hopefully sort it out quickly. 7mos after I first noticed it I still feel like I have reduced lung capacity, and am prone to occasional coughing/gagging fits. I think that if I had seen a doc WAY sooner than I did, I would be “normal” by now,and have been able to train long ago. Stupid/stubborn/lazy/whatever, don’t be me.
As for training, I wasn’t able to breathe properly when I had it - so it didn’t work for me. I’d try and see how it goes.
I trained 5 or 6 days a week all winter and haven’t done a thing for 2 weeks (cough, sniff, cough, harumph, hawk, blatt, snuck). It’s the lingering 2 week crud. Took a bunch of naps and am going to re-start training maybe Sunday. I tried to sneak over to Island Lake this morning at 10:00 for an open water swim but my wife vetoed the idea. I think training through the illness would have made things worse. The only good thing that may come of it is that it will give me a chance to recover from some nagging hip issues. I guess it doesn’t really matter because my A race isn’t until late Sept.
Richard
I tried to get back to training too soon and woke up with my head on the handlebars after I passed out on the trainer. Bronchitis can take a while. I took me 8 weeks to get better.
Yep, still fighting through the lingering effects…had some consolidation (pneumonia) in two lobes, too. I have had to resort to low effort training…because if I breathe to rapidly, the “normal noxious” effects of doing so causes me to cough. Well, I need to do some 140 HR rides and runs anyway…that’s probably about what I’ll be doing in my Ironman this fall…it sure isn’t the way I normally train.
You really need to be careful, though, it can be a serious thing to mess around with.
I am suffering with it right now. Havent worked out for 2 weeks. Starting to get nervous since I had planned some big weeks right around now to get ready for Lake Placid. Am I better off continuing to rest or can I try doing some riding at least?
Any doctors out there with advice?
I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so, here’s my advice:
Fever? Don’t work out. Colored sputum? Don’t work out. Pain in your chest when you cough (other than sore intercostal muscles from coughing too much recently), don’t work out. Otherwise, work out gently, staying under the cough-trigger radar…it’s a great intensity limiter for a while…you can tell when you’re going too hard because you are stimulated to cough.
Take PLENTY of fluids. If your symptoms have really cleared up, but, you have nagging tickling, coughing stuff going on and it feels so thick you just can’t get rid of it, sometimes guafenesin thins the secretions out enough to allow you to have a more productive cough less often.
It’s better to show up undertrained than sick.