Sudden weakness attack while erging

[milopesl]

Hi, I am new to this forum and this is quite a long post. But I would like to share with you my recent experience, looking for opinion.
I am 55, 6' 4.5'' (195 cm), 238 lb (108kg). I used to be a regular hobby runner, finishing 1 marathon at about 3h 20 min in my early 30s.
I started using C2 in the gym about 10 years ago back in Australia where I lived at that time. My 2 km PB was 6,36.9 (230 lb then) which I did not think too much about when I did it at 47. For illustration, I had no idea about drag factor then, I did it on setting 10.
Late 2004 I moved to Germany, bought myself C2 and rowed on and off till 2009.Then I started having problems with the left elbow (golf not erging!) so I stopped until last November, overweight (256 lb), with elevated blood pressure, and borderline blood sugar heading towards Type II diabetes. I decided to get into shape with the help of my C2 and better eating. I stopped eating sweets and chocolate, and have last small meal before 7 PM.
So far I had done 33 sessions and 262,000 meters.
I had strange problems during 2 morning sessions about 1 month apart. I like morning exercise, almost all my running was done in the morning on empty stomach without major problems.
I was doing my first 1 hour row aiming at 14,000 meters on Dec 2. My average split after 54 min was on target, at about 2'08'', comfortably managing above 1400 m per 6 min. I was not pushing too hard, just wanted to do 14,000 m. However, with about 2 minutes to go, I completely lost energy within just few strokes. My stomach started feeling funny, I was suddenly having cold sweat all over my body, and dizzy head. I should have stopped but with only 2 minutes left, I wanted to finish. But only had energy to split 2'45'' - 3' min. My last 6 min was ruined at 1209 m and 2'29'' split. Although I did not try to do a big finish I could barely get off the erg.

What really surprised me, was the suddenness and the scale of the break down. I did not experienced anything similar in the past. And I do not think, this was due to me being completely out shape or trying too hard. Because on the following day Dec 3rd (evening), I did comfortable 7200 m in 30 min with last 6 minutes at 2'02''. On Dec 17, I did my new 10,000m PB - 40'12.4'' at 2'00.6''.

I had 3 weeks break from rowing being away for Xmas and skiing till 6 Jan. On Jan 7 morning, I wanted to do a 30 min before the work. Again on empty stomach. All went fine until about 20 minutes in at 2'04.5" average split. The same thing, sudden weakness in stomach, cold sweat, dizziness. I did 5 or 6 feeble strokes and stopped. This time I was spooked. I crawled into the bathroom and had to lie on the floor for a minute or two just to recover. I was worried to stand up for fear of falling in the shower.

Again, 20 minutes at 2'04.5" is a short exercise in a relatively easy pace, even if I just re-started in November!
Today, just 3 weeks later, I comfortably did my new PB 10,000 m in 39'25'' at 1.58.2.

Out of precautions, I visited my GP. EKG under stress - some irregular hear beat but OK-ish, blood pressure at 220 watts little too high at 223/95. Blood - only long sugar slightly elevated. Stress echo cardiogram planned in 4 weeks.

Questions:
Has anyone experienced anything similar?
Can this have something to do with me trying to eat less?
Sugar level in the blood depleted?
Could it not be similar to what diabetics experience when their blood sugar drops?

Milo

[kayakr]

Not an MD here but...
That sounds lots worse than the normal "bad day" kind of issue, especially occurring on an empty stomach on without other exercise overlaps in the picture.
Cold sweats and dizzy sounds like a heart incident, regardless of what the stress test showed, like my Aunt's small heart attacks.
You should get a heart rate monitor. 2'04" steady state may be easy (not for me) or it may be over your lactate threshold and causing you to spike your heart rate/stress.
Your heart muscle may be the weakest link in your chain.
How about stay within your UT2 aerobic thresholds for a while. (Search for UK concept2 interactive training guide).
Better listen to your body.

Please consider that diet is more important than working out in recovering your health:

This might be the best $4 you ever spend:

Trying vegan for a week or month is not too high a price to pay to see if you find benefits.
I did it on a lark and my foot arthritis dramatically improved.
Find your own reasons to get healtier whether they are athletic performance, better quality of life or seeking grand kids (like Bill Clinton)

My very thin father at age 45 got angina walking up 1 flight of stairs. He saw coworkers getting heart surgery and didn't want to join that club. He switched to a mostly plant based, mostly low fat diet with some exercise and heart issues resolved until his death in his 70's.

[Ergmeister]

Truer words were never spoken.

First off, you need to insist on getting a nuclear stress test. They will get your heart into a high working rate and then inject your bloodstream with thallium and your bloodstream will become the "x-ray source". A specialized x-ray imager will then spend 40 minutes imaging your heart in a 270 degree swing around your body and it will see which muscles get the blood laced thallium (and more importantly which don't) to determine the cause of your issues. Don't deny this and don't take it lightly. Paying attention to the first signs of heart trouble may save your life...it did mine. You go back a couple hours later and they image you again and see clearly any muscle areas not getting bloodflow. This is the only way to get this level of detail, and, they will have a 3D image of your heart working and can see all functions and find any deficiencies. A stress test on an EKG is only step one to see if you are having an issue right then and there.

For the record, I PASSED AN EKG STRESS TEST one week before I had my heart attack - so this is not theory. It happened to me! i was scheduled for my nuclear stress following the first non-nuclear stress but it was set up to be done what would become two days after I had the heart attack. Timing is everything and in my case, the chicken came before the egg. Get a nuclear stress test and don't be casual about this.

With regards to Kayakr's comments on Forks Over Knives, I am a beneficiary of the Forks over Knives documentary. My wife has become heavily involved in Farms to Forks movement (a spin-off of Forks over Knives) and is a local ambassador for them. She has formed a non-profit to raise money to pay for clinical trials to help prove the reality of this concept, but as you can imagine they are battling a series of monster food corporations who would be "injured" by clinical trials that prove all of this so it is still very slow going for them. Imagine how much the beef and dairy industry have to protect their markets? This concept is a direct affront at their marketplace.

It's the real deal and as a heart patient (I had a heart attack 6 yrs go) the benefits of going vegan intrigued me sufficiently to give it a little test drive. The son (Rip Esselstyn) of the cardiologist in FOK is an Austin TX firefighter, and he challenged his firehouse to go vegan and that lead to his writing a book titled "The Engine 2 Diet". In that book you will find "The 28 Day Vegan Challenge" which is where I started last August 1st. http://engine2diet.com/28-day-challenge/welcome-video/

I took the 28 day challenge and was astonished that without dieting, without denying myself any volume of food and only going plant based, I was down 22 lbs in 28 days. That benefit has continued for me. There are MANY misunderstandings, misstatements, and falsehoods floated about sources of protein and other nutritional components that are part and parcel of veganism. Read Ric's book and learn the facts and watch the F-O-K documentary film and form your own viewpoint.

Lastly, the title of the documentary is horrible; Forks over Knives is intended to imply eat your way to health instead of surgery. Spoons over scalpels would have expressed the benefit better, but hey, it is what it is.

Kayakr is spot on with his post.

[hjs]

See your docter. This is not right!

[jamesg]

Fainting fits like that are caused by lack of blood to the brain; then on the ground, our pipework operates a bit better. Your doc will have plenty of ideas as to how to have a look at your supra-aortic arteries to see any blockages, even without using his knives.

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.

[milopesl]

Update.

It has been a month since the second event I described in my post and I received a kind message from Ergmaster concerned about my situation. I was not able to answer privately (apparently, I am not active enough to have the priviledge), so I post this update.

Well, I am still waiting for my appointment with the cardiologist and the stress echo cardiogram test to start with. (My GP did not consider this to be an urgent case, hence the waiting - I live in Germany). Had another chat with the doctor and she is fairly confident this was not heart related.
- I was not short of breath
- I did not faint (I sort of fainted once in my life, after completing marathon, in the hot shower, sudden drop of the blood pressure due to muscles relaxation and consequent shortage of blood supply to the brain. I slowly collapsed to the floor and actually dreamt for a second or two, until the blood got back into my head and the other runners woke me up. I am cautious with the shower after an exercise ever since and prefer starting with colder water.)
- I did not have any chest pain, or any other pain. The stomach felt more like when you get sick in the car (I am prone to it).
- I recovered quickly after a minute or two
I know this does not guarantee anything, so will have a chat with the specialist later this month.

In meantime, I continue erging with the heart monitor.

I would be very interested in hearing from any person on the forum about their specific experience with heart attack, symptoms or warning signes they might have had but had ignored before it, but identified post event as relevant. This might have been covered already, and would apreciate pointing me to it.

I apologize for my English, which is my second language.

Milo

[kayakr]

good news. better safe than sorry. the heart rate monitor is useful for training regardless.