I was recently diagnosed with a Long Q Rhythm. I'm wondering if there is anyone else out there with this problem.
My Dr. recommends Beta Blocker and no more racing. He also commented that I've had this condition all my life so I'll probably be ok.
I would like to PM with anyone out there who is swimming with a similar situation. I am feeling very conflicted and would like to talk to someone in the same boat.
I read the paragraph about the sisters who swam in Nationals with a Long Q diagnosis, in fact that article motivated me to go to the electrophysicist (sp) and get this checked out by a specialist.
I have a general question that I am hoping Gull can answer. (By the way, Gull, great 800 m at your recent championships.)
The question is this:
Are serious adult athletes the same, physiologically speaking, as your typical overweight sedentary Americans with heart and other issues?
Two times I have been given very worrisome diagnoses. The first was when I was diagnosed with anemia. The second was when I was diagnosed with first degree heart block.
Both times, perhaps due to my psychiatric frailty, which alternates between a "worried well" mentality to outright clinical hypochondriasis, these conditions threw me into a major nutty (the layman's term for health-diagnosis-related spasms of anxiety and depression.)
However, in both cases, further investigation revealed that conditions that can be highly worrisome in the typical American might not be so bad in me; in fact, they might actually represent positive adaptations to exercise.
The anemia, for instance, was most likely so-called sports anemia, a pseudo anemia that results from increased blood plasma diluting the blood concentration, making it look like I had a deficiency of RBCs, etc., when in fact they were only diluted.
As far as the heart block goes, this, too, appears to be related to being in good shape and is not uncommon in trained endurance athletes. My resting heart rate is as low as 34 bpm. As one doctor explained it, when your heart beats that slowly, some intervals have to become elongated, and in my case it was the one associated with the so-called first degree block.
I guess my question is this: is it possible that Amy, Robin, and Dana all suffer a "problem" that may not be problematic at all, but rather represents some as yet unelucidated adaptation to loads of hard training over many years?
Maybe this is magical thinking on my part, but I sometimes wonder if medical science's fast-evolving ability to diagnose anomalies may identify "disorders" that are best left un-revealed. Had Amy and Bob never learned about their long q intervals, isn't it more likely than not they would have been able to exercise, as they always had, long into their dotage without any problems?
Are there areas where ignorance really is bliss?
I have a general question that I am hoping Gull can answer. (By the way, Gull, great 800 m at your recent championships.)
The question is this:
Are serious adult athletes the same, physiologically speaking, as your typical overweight sedentary Americans with heart and other issues?
Two times I have been given very worrisome diagnoses. The first was when I was diagnosed with anemia. The second was when I was diagnosed with first degree heart block.
Both times, perhaps due to my psychiatric frailty, which alternates between a "worried well" mentality to outright clinical hypochondriasis, these conditions threw me into a major nutty (the layman's term for health-diagnosis-related spasms of anxiety and depression.)
However, in both cases, further investigation revealed that conditions that can be highly worrisome in the typical American might not be so bad in me; in fact, they might actually represent positive adaptations to exercise.
The anemia, for instance, was most likely so-called sports anemia, a pseudo anemia that results from increased blood plasma diluting the blood concentration, making it look like I had a deficiency of RBCs, etc., when in fact they were only diluted.
As far as the heart block goes, this, too, appears to be related to being in good shape and is not uncommon in trained endurance athletes. My resting heart rate is as low as 34 bpm. As one doctor explained it, when your heart beats that slowly, some intervals have to become elongated, and in my case it was the one associated with the so-called first degree block.
I guess my question is this: is it possible that Amy, Robin, and Dana all suffer a "problem" that may not be problematic at all, but rather represents some as yet unelucidated adaptation to loads of hard training over many years?
Maybe this is magical thinking on my part, but I sometimes wonder if medical science's fast-evolving ability to diagnose anomalies may identify "disorders" that are best left un-revealed. Had Amy and Bob never learned about their long q intervals, isn't it more likely than not they would have been able to exercise, as they always had, long into their dotage without any problems?
Are there areas where ignorance really is bliss?
