Lung Wars

Triathlon Forum
1

Dan,

I hear ya’. I get the same thing, multiple times now every winter.

Back when I was training hard, really pushing the body to the max every week, I never got sick. I would get the odd head cold every now and then, but nothing like now. Now a BIG week of training is a couple of half hour stints on the indoor bike trainer, maybe an xc-ski or outdoor bike for an hour or two on the weekend and daily ball-tossing walks with the dog. That’s it. In relative terms - I have become a couch potato. The difference now on a health front is that I am hacking, coughing and gurggling all winter long( people hearing me cough for the first time likly think that I am an ex-smoker!). My voice has changed somewhat as well becoming permanantly “gravelly” To sum up, I feel crap from late October until April!!

It all started with me with a wicked bout of bacterial pneumonia 4 years ago that did some permanant damge to my lungs - 30% of my lung capacity went bye bye with scare tissue all over the place. My lungs have become a petrie dish for just about every bug that passes my way. The key vector is my dear son. I love the boy emmensly, but 6 year old kids bring every germ in the world home with them from school everyday and they seem to go directly into my lungs where they set up camp for a very long time. By some mircle I avoided the SARS scare last winter - but I have been told that I am a prime candidate for it.

I have been checked out from head to toe by one of the top respirologists in the Toronto area and he says that I am “healthy” and that their is not much that he can do for me.

Fleck

2

Man, that’s gotta suck big time. I thought my problem was bad because of a bum right knee that acts up every once in awhile if running on it too much.

The Canadian winter must be objectional to your lungs. Just wondering if a warmer non humid climate might be better for you. Rural Arizona, Aussie outback or somewhere.

3

I went through this over about 5 years or so before I went back to running and biking. Each winter was worse than the one before, with the last event being viral pneumonia. At 44 I was convinced it was time to be old and fat. Then someone got me on a bike and I left almost all of that behind.

Until a year ago the only thing I had to manage was exercise-induced asthma - just a matter of an inhaler. Last year, sick building syndrome put me in the tank lung-wise. I went the round of docs as well, finally finding the right one (after visiting several wrong ones.)

He hypothsized that the lung problem was actually a response to sinus issues. Rhinocort in the morning, Singulair at night, no inhaler and I’m doing great. During heavy allergy season the Rhinocort is doubled. So far, so good.

Good luck, Fleck!!!