I finally found out what this condition is called. I’ve had it nearly my entire life and I think it gets worse when I’m in shape. I’m assuming that this is because being in good shape causes your blood pressure to be low. Now, my normal blood pressure is about 105/65. Anyways, orthostatic hypotension is a condition where your blood pressure drops significantly when you go from a lying down or seated position to a standing position. I pretty much experience all the symptoms with the most common ones being dizziness, lightheadedness, and blurred vision and temporary blindness. I don’t experience headaches and I have never fainted from this. Usually, when this happens, I have to stop for a minute and hold onto something until these sensations pass. It doesn’t cause me any problems in my life, but it’s annoying as hell because it seems to happen at least 50% of the time that I stand up to some degree. Sometimes it is worse than others though. I’ve only experienced near complete blindness a few times but it is freaky when it happens.
Does anyone else suffer from this? If so, how long have you had this? Is there any treatment for this or should I just not worry about it unless it does something harmful?
Oh, to keep this on topic, I did a triathlon once.
I have it too. Similar blood pressure - mine is usually around 100/65 -90/60. Low resting HR as well. I’ve had the dizziness, etc. for years when standing. A couple years ago I fainted a couple times. That was a bit scary as I could have hurt myself when falling to the ground. I went to the doctor. Had a whole battery of tests performed, everything normal. The doctor ended up by telling me to just get up more slowly. I do and the problem has gone away. It takes a bit of adjustment to remember to always get up slowly, but it can be done.
Just to be on the safe side you may want to get checked out by your doctor.
I posted about this when I was having the fainting a few years ago and as I recall this is a fairly common problem with enduranace athletes who have low blood pressure and low resting HR.
I also remember about 6 years ago where I went for about a year where I would have sudden dizzy spells. This would strike without warning and I was usually sitting down. They eventually went away on their own but the doc at the university had no clue what was causing it and he didn’t really feel like trying to dig into it further.
Also, getting up more slowly is kind of difficult because I tend to be somewhat energetic and move quickly. I had an EKG done about a year ago because I had a heart murmur when I was younger and I was having pain in my chest what was either heart palpitations of just muscle spasms in my chest. EKG came back clean except for the fact that I had a low heart rate. I guess I have to learn to stand up more slowly like you did.
I had a relative, age about 30, that fell over dead. He mountain biked, ran, and had no symptoms except dizziness on quickly standing (which is probably normal in very fit individuals).
Autopsy showed an enlarged heart (almost twice mass of normal) and the heart muscle had wrapped around (enclosed) one of the feed arteries, closing it off on some contractions.
Sometimes an X-Ray is warranted in addition to ECG and other heart tests.
I have similarly low blood pressure, and I often get dizzy when I stand. I faint really easily, especially when I have blood drawn. I’ve discovered that increasing my salt intake helps a lot, both with preventing the dizziness and with recovery from exercise.
Yes, the increased salt may be helpful. Now that I recall, when I was having the fainting I had been dieting and had a reduced sodium intake. I’ve always had an almost absurdly high amount of sodium in my diet and the lack of it may have helped push me from just the dizziness to the fainting. I take in way more salt than normal, drink 4-6 cups of coffee daily, and my blood pressure is still low. I wonder how I would function if I took those things away?
The OP definitely should get checked out medically though. Self diagnosis doesn’t always turn out to be accurate.
Very common condition. I’m not a doc, but more salt and staying very hydrated may help. You can add extra salt to your food, use electrolytes during training etc. Obviously ask your doc, I just like to sound like I know what I’m talking about…
If you really want to have some fun, read about a similar but more extreme condition called neurocardiogenic syncope.