Progress
I saw the cardiologist and he did some tests which included reproducing the symptoms and it allowed them to see what the problem was, or at least what a deeper symptom was.
When most people exercise, their heartrate goes up and their blood pressure does too. When I exercise, the same thing happens but then the blood pressure suddenly drops which causes all those symptoms. He called the condition exercise-induced vasovagal syncope. The heart arrhythmia that I have is within normal boundaries (apparently most people have it to some degree) so he doesn’t think it is part of this.
Unfortunately for me, although it’s not an uncommon condition, not a lot is known about it. There aren’t any pills or operations, although I am still having a heart echo on Monday so they can rule out heart-irregularities as the cause.
The only thing he could recommend was “fluid-loading”, basically meaning to drink a whole lot of water 30 mins before a workout. I’ve been doing that for the last week and haven’t had any symptoms so that seems really promising!
The other things I found when I looked it up is that it has helped athletes to work hard on their legs, which makes sense because my job (like most people these days) involved a lot of sitting so my legs do need work.
So hopefully now I can stop making these depressing posts and get back to writing about what I started this blog for, the good stuff!
