Anyone lifting with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy?

[kx250rider]

I just got the bad news yesterday, and my cardiologist says "NO lifting of anything greater than your body weight", and NO exertion whatsoever as to make me hold my breath, or bear down as to starting a rep on the bench, etc.

I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling like this is the end of my sport, my livelihood and my life. I'm 44, and was (until yesterday) in perfect health. This came out of nowhere, but it is true that my family has it. Evidently, this is the condition that has been known to kill athletes, such as Jim Fixx, and so many high school football players lately in the news. So I'm lucky and blessed in that I'm here writing this, but I'm angry, frustrated, and depressed. I'm thinking of what life would be like, if I let my body go to hell, and I'm just another old guy with handicapped plates, and need the bagger to carry my groceries out for me, at age 45.

I don't want this lifestyle, and if it weren't for my love for my wife, and my feeling of responsibilities, I'd probably just ignore the diagnosis and die suddenly some day sooner or later, happy and with a good body. I didn't spend decades working out, eating right while friends ate at Fatburger, and I was drinking water at parties where the other bros were having a Corona, just to wind up being told to let it all go.

I'm going back to the cardiologist on the 5th, and will get a 24-hr monitor put on, and I'm on a cocktail of new meds, and hopefully there will be more facts after that.

I don't know where to go with this, and I'm hoping that maybe someone else here has been in a similar spot, and maybe figured a way to stay in the sport of lifting, without totally worsening the heart problem.

Charles

 

[bignickel]

I have read up on this disease. Did the doc do a echo to diagnose you? My septum is a little thick at like 1.3 they say normal is 1.1 max, mine was from having uncontrolled high bp. What was your septum measurement?

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[jjtt]

I just got the bad news yesterday, and my cardiologist says "NO lifting of anything greater than your body weight", and NO exertion whatsoever as to make me hold my breath, or bear down as to starting a rep on the bench, etc.

I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling like this is the end of my sport, my livelihood and my life. I'm 44, and was (until yesterday) in perfect health. This came out of nowhere, but it is true that my family has it. Evidently, this is the condition that has been known to kill athletes, such as Jim Fixx, and so many high school football players lately in the news. So I'm lucky and blessed in that I'm here writing this, but I'm angry, frustrated, and depressed. I'm thinking of what life would be like, if I let my body go to hell, and I'm just another old guy with handicapped plates, and need the bagger to carry my groceries out for me, at age 45.

I don't want this lifestyle, and if it weren't for my love for my wife, and my feeling of responsibilities, I'd probably just ignore the diagnosis and die suddenly some day sooner or later, happy and with a good body. I didn't spend decades working out, eating right while friends ate at Fatburger, and I was drinking water at parties where the other bros were having a Corona, just to wind up being told to let it all go.

I'm going back to the cardiologist on the 5th, and will get a 24-hr monitor put on, and I'm on a cocktail of new meds, and hopefully there will be more facts after that.

I don't know where to go with this, and I'm hoping that maybe someone else here has been in a similar spot, and maybe figured a way to stay in the sport of lifting, without totally worsening the heart problem.

Charles

Check your pms

 

[kx250rider]

I have read up on this disease. Did the doc do a echo to diagnose you? My septum is a little thick at like 1.3 they say normal is 1.1 max, mine was from having uncontrolled high bp. What was your septum measurement?

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I'll have the report Wednesday. The tech did the echo at 5:00 (end of day), and the cardiologist came in the room and just took a quick look, so I'm not sure of "how thick" as of now. All I know, is she's supposed to have one of the best reps in SoCal, and she said it looks NOT GOOD. Evidently, the whole heart muscle is thickened, and two of the valves won't close correctly anymore (two murmurs). I'm hoping (and praying) that she's being conservative, and that maybe she's erring on the side of caution, and might moderate her findings when she has all the rest of the facts, and knows me and my lifestyle better.

Charles

 

[brittneyleigh79]

Good luck with everything!! I am actually getting and echo done on Monday testing for the same thing. Just keeping my fingers crossed!! Did you have any symptoms?

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[stevesmi]

I wouldn't care what any doctor said. I would continue the lifestyle.. if I am gonna die then so be it. there is no way i will get reduced to be a beer drinking couch potato for the rest of my life.. nope, i would rather die doing what i love then spend my life looking like Homer Simpson.

but then again i have no wife or kids so i can choose to be selfish.

and looking at the brightside okay so you cannot lift your bodyweight.. but can't you just do light reps and not go hard and work around this problem?

and I will tell you this, I was a competitive endurance athlete for 3 years and have a room full of awards and trophies.. i was good. then the injury bug hit me hard. i developed shin splints which became chronic, it felt like i was getting stabbed in my legs with a 150 degree knife.. so i had to quit running. it ended up being the best thing though cause now I am bodybuilding and loving it.

 

[kx250rider]

Good luck with everything!! I am actually getting and echo done on Monday testing for the same thing. Just keeping my fingers crossed!! Did you have any symptoms?

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Good luck and God bless, with your echo.

The scary part is that I didn't have any symptoms of the enlarged heart developing, but I had been told in the past, to watch it, and I have always had bad high blood pressure due to the underlying hormonal condition of hypoaldosteronism. The only real symptom of the HCM, was the arrhythmia which began with a bad flu bug/high fever 4 weeks ago. I blamed the whole thing on the lung congestion, and assumed that my body was doing something to recover from the injured lung tissue. But when it continued long after the bug was gone, I finally got scared and went to the regular doctor a week ago today, and he ordered me to go to the cardiologist immediately. He didn't hear the two murmurs at the time, so that goes to show how important it is to see a specialist and have the echocardiogram done. The EKG I had done last Friday night, only showed that there was an electrical problem going on, and absolutely no further information.

If you have a family history of enlarged heart, that seems to be the #1 thing leading to the cause. What really frightens me most, is that all the reading I've done in the past 40 hours, says that "sudden death" is most often the first symptom of this. . It also said that the younger the patient, the more likely that is. So I guess this is one case where being mid-40s is a plus.

I wouldn't care what any doctor said. I would continue the lifestyle.. if I am gonna die then so be it. there is no way i will get reduced to be a beer drinking couch potato for the rest of my life.. nope, i would rather die doing what i love then spend my life looking like Homer Simpson.

but then again i have no wife or kids so i can choose to be selfish.

and looking at the brightside okay so you cannot lift your bodyweight.. but can't you just do light reps and not go hard and work around this problem?

and I will tell you this, I was a competitive endurance athlete for 3 years and have a room full of awards and trophies.. i was good. then the injury bug hit me hard. i developed shin splints which became chronic, it felt like i was getting stabbed in my legs with a 150 degree knife.. so i had to quit running. it ended up being the best thing though cause now I am bodybuilding and loving it.

I hear you... I've had my share of injuries (worst being a damaged and persistently inflamed tendon in my shoulder, which kept me out of the gym for a year). And I have degenerative disk disease, which is a constant back pain preventing me from doing any squats, true deadlifts, or other lifts involving stooping while bearing weight. But this heart crap is a whole different ballgame. I'm a big guy, and very emotionally stable as a rule, and honestly I had to hide tears when I got a phone call from an old friend that his garage door springs were busted, and he hoped I'd come by and help him lift the door open to put new springs. And last night, my wife and I brought home a big CRT TV, and I realized that it's going to sit in the truck 'til I can get two people over here to help lift it, when I used to pop those in & out of the truck all day everyday for a living as a TV repairman in the 90s. And I just got a personalized license place for my motorcycle that says "I LIFFT". I don't want to be a big liar, so I probably should take it off if I can't get around this problem soon.

My instinct is to ignore the problem, and maybe I owe it to my mother that I don't ignore it. She ignored diabetes, and I wound up being an orphaned teenager.

Charles

 

[brittneyleigh79]

Thanks so much I need it!! I will keep you posted and make sure you let me know how your doing!! At this point if they give me bad news I think I would still continue doing all of my normal activities, but all that could change in a second for me. Being a woman that is pretty emotionally stable, I know I wouldn't do good with this information. God bless!!

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[kx250rider]

I'm counting the minutes 'til Wednesday, when I have my next appt with the cardiologist, and get some test results. My BP is still very high with the new meds, but the skipped beats/arrhythmia seem to have subsided and either aren't there anymore, or are too small for me to feel. I didn't want to wait a week for the 24-hr monitor, so I did it by hand yesterday (BP, pulse, and blood o2 levels). I kept a log starting at 6AM, and ending when I went to bed, and including repeated checks during my light-lifting workout. I didn't see any spiking of BP after any sets, or after the whole workout was finished, and I checked every few minutes for the hour after. I hope this is a good sign, because the main threat to my heart, as I understood, is that my BP could spike and blow something out AFTER a hard, heavy workout. The only bad spike I had, was when I had mental stress thinking about a business issue, but no spikes on any physical stress.

Charles

 

[stevesmi]

^^^just a wild theory.. but is this doctor aware that since you are on HRT that testosterone can speed up the HR and raise bp?

i wonder if you lowered your hrt dose if that would help your heart issues. if you've been at too high a dose for a while that can strain the organs over time obviously, but a lot of docs are incompetent when it comes to TRT

 

[kx250rider]

^^^just a wild theory.. but is this doctor aware that since you are on HRT that testosterone can speed up the HR and raise bp?

i wonder if you lowered your hrt dose if that would help your heart issues. if you've been at too high a dose for a while that can strain the organs over time obviously, but a lot of docs are incompetent when it comes to TRT

Yes... In fact, she has all my bloodwork from the past 3 years. Nobody better use what I'm about to say as a copout to use more joose, but the cardiologist along with my endocrinologist, say that if I weren't on HRT, the BP would be much worse. Before I got on HRT, I was rushed in with an uncontrolled nose bleed at BP of 240/160... EEEEK! Triglycerides were off the scale at the time, and are now down to 570-some. No plaque in the arteries though, at least, and the renal artery flow rate is perfect. It's just this doggone thickened heart muscle. Just for the record, I've never been more than 10 or 12 lbs overweight, and was that only for a short time, and I hate fried foods and junk snacks, no drugs, so there's no "old sh*t" catching up with me now.

As far as the HRT these seemingly high doses and weird levels are because of my hypoaldosteronism. With 600mg/week of T-cyp, and all the other hormone suppressors and stuff, I'm at 450 free T and 775 peak syrum T. Estrogen still high. If anything, they're going to up the dose of T-cyp and Arimidex. I'm always having to defend it when talking with trainers and fellow BBers, but the fact that I've never had backne, and never get angry, and still barely have any chest hair, proves that I'm not the typical jooser.

Believe me, I value my life a lot, and I'd NEVER NEVER take anything in wild abandon or without careful investigation first. I had a good friend, and fellow lifter, who joosed and then dropped dead suddenly when he got up from his desk in the office. He was 29, and in "perfect health", and had just come back from Australia with a surfing championship trophy. That was enough for me to see, to make me never want to experiment around with stuff.

Charles

 

[brittneyleigh79]

I hope all is well with you!! I'm in the the clear but they still don't know what is wrong. They just know its not my heart. Stay strong and I will keep checking back with you. God bless!!

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[kx250rider]

Going in today to get the 24-hr monitor at my cardiologist in Burbank, CA, then I'll hopefully know more. Then I 'm going to what I think is the best place in the world for heart problems; the Cooper Clinic in Dallas on Monday. I don't yet have an appt., but I have a contact that should be able to sneak me in Monday morning. Only issue I didn't think about, is that I might be told I can't get on a plane. If that happens, I'll have to put the pedal to the metal since it takes 21 hours to get back to Dallas from LA by highway, and I hate doing it nonstop, and I can't leave 'til Friday night.

If it means anything, the skipped heartbeats and banging have stopped (at least as much as I can feel), with the new medications (Toprol and Amlodopine).


Charles

 

[kx250rider]

I have read up on this disease. Did the doc do a echo to diagnose you? My septum is a little thick at like 1.3 they say normal is 1.1 max, mine was from having uncontrolled high bp. What was your septum measurement?

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Mine's 1.4, and they say has thickened just since February .

Now they found out that my aorta is calcified (stenosis), and is ready to break off, or rupture somehow. I'm on my way in 30 mins for a CT scan of the aortic stem, and then back to the cardiologist. I'm getting more & more scared as I go along.

I found out about this yesterday when I went to get the 24-hr monitor put on, and they didn't do it because they said the arrhythmia is "the least of my problems".

I don't want to get a bad rep here for being a doom sayer, and for being negative, and I hope my fellow EF members know me well enough to know that. And I don't want any pity, or anything... Just sharing the updates. I have plenty of self-confidence, and I will get through it one way or the other, and it's nobody's fault: Not any doctors', not my parents, nor even my own. It's just the way it is.

Charles

 

[kx250rider]

CT scan done... More questions than answers. I'm more confused and scared than I was before, and none of this is making sense. I still don't know if it's safe to fly, so I might go pack a back tonight and head for Hwy 10 East, and be waiting on the doorsteps of the Cooper Clinic Monday morning. F* all these lawyer-fed California doctors! Again, totally confused, and need to clear head before doing anything further. BP is now 161/116, after upping the dose of meds this morning. Dr says "impossible". When I went to school, "IMPOSSIBLE" was defined as something that cannot be. I don't like to be told something is "impossible" when it's sitting right in front of my face.

Charles

 

[stevesmi]

yeah bro its frustrating dealing with doctors. they are more worried about their golf game or their bratty kids getting into Yale than they are about their patients. and a lot of times their diagnosis are wrong.. trust me you aren't the only one dealing with idiot doctors. in FL docs won't even see you unless you have insurance, the first question they ask is "who is your insurance company?" not "what is wrong?"

just a few months back i was dealing with bronchitis, the doc refused to give me anti-biotics for it even though i told the bitch that i get bronchitis every spring and the only thing that helps is anti-biotics. she instead gives me some cough medicine and then says i've gotta come in again and pay another $300 for an appointment if they are gonna give me more meds..

thank goodness for online pharmacies where i can order what i want.. got me a whole drawer of anti-biotics for next spring. and thank goodness for online forums and websites that i can study to diagnose myself. only reason to ever visit a doc for me is to either cut something out of me or if i need urgent care, otherwise i have no reason to see them

 

[kx250rider]

No more waiting for the runaround from the cardioligist in Burbank, CA... Very disappointed in her, and she was supposed to have an excellent reputation for good communications as well as good skills. No call when promised, and my blood pressure rocketed up during the night with new meds, and I woke up with it at 161/90, which is a stupidly high reading for lying in bed in the morning. Something's not right, and not returning a patient's call about an alarming change in condition, is not cool; especially when the doctor looked me in the eye the day before and promised to call "right away when the CT scan was done", and I had the CT scan on her desk at 1:15PM yesterday.

Just got a priority appt booked for 0800 Monday with an excellent cardiac surgeon in Dallas at the Cooper Clinic. The doctor in Dallas is going to look over my records this morning, and if she forbids me from flying, I can still make it if I leave by tomorrow early by car, and I'll go Hwy 10 so as to keep as low altitude as possible. If I don't drop dead up on Chiriaco Summit outside of Palm Springs, I think I'll make it all the way.

Charles

 

[bignickel]

What did the cardiologist have to say?

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[kx250rider]

What did the cardiologist have to say?

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It's good new & bad news... First, I suggest that NOBODY ever go to a doctor in the state of California. The lawsuit-happy environment dictates what doctors can& can't say, and what they will & won't do, in fear of being sued.

I don't have HCM. That was either a blatant mistake by the cardiologist in Burbank, or it was said in order to protect her from a lawsuit later, if I died suddenly.

The bad news first: I have a rare birth defect called a bicuspid aortic valve, which has caused the heart to enlarge as it is, and the valve is also damaged by a ball of calcium stuck on it. It needs to be replaced, and the aorta needs to be "replanted", which the doctor says cannot be done without sawing my ribs & sternum all apart .

The good news is that I can live with it carefully for 10 to 20 years if it doesn't get worse, and with meds and no more heavy lifts, she thinks it won't get worse. I hope that by the time it needs immediate replacement, there might be a way to do it without sawing me all apart.

As far as my 25 or 30 years in lifting, I can keep on, but with only very light weight and many reps. Specifically, I am allowed to bench ONLY a weight that I can do 3 or more sets of 10 reps in a row, and still not lose my breath or in her words "be able to talk in full sentences while actually doing reps" . Basically it sounds like aerobic lifting only, but I'm going to see a trainer who is a licened rehab trainer, and I hope I can get a program to let me keep some bulk. If not, at least I'm going to be alive, and I can work more on a 365-day shred and sixpack. That's not my goal, but I'll learn to lilve with it and I sure appreciate being here still!!!

Charles

 

[bignickel]

Yeah that is better than having hcm, i was going to say that most people diagnosed with hcm dont have high bp. I was also surprised that they would diagnose you with a septum of only 1.4 ive heard some as thick as 3.0! Thanks for keeping us updated, and get that bp under control.

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