Female, 47years young, and diagnosed with Inappropriate Sinus Tachycardia last year. Treated with Bisoprolol, which taken twice a day has calmed symptoms right down...mostly.
Although, I do still get symptoms sometimes, usually not for long periods.
However, a few months ago, I took part in Dragon Boat racing with work colleagues (just after diagnosis, and totally forgot I had a problem), and nearly passed out. It was quite frightening actually. My heart went crazy.
I have other health problems as well, and have found that I have had a real intolerance to exercise for a few years now. Total and utter prolonged exhaustion after exertion, and obviously a very raised heartbeat.
I assumed it was Endometriosis or thyroid related, but now wonder if it's more to do with the IST.
Does anyone have experience of exercise intolerance? How do you exercise but keep heart rate under control?
I'm feeling eager to start short runs again..
Any advice is appreciated. Thank you.
Nicky x
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nickym1
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Hi Nicky, I think it would be wise for you to exercise slowly. You talk about getting back into short runs. This would be best attempted by walking the route at a normal pace a few times and then over a period of time gradually increasing your speed. Any sudden movement or straining of your body can trigger an AF attack, so always start slowly. Boring but necessary! It's really important to keep up, at the very least, a gentle exercise routine to build stamina and keep supple. However dragon boat racing requires a lot of straining and may not be a good idea right now. Jean
To add to what Jean has written, unless you are a trained athlete the best advice is that you should be able to exercise and talk at the same time. It is very important to listen to your body and act accordingly.
Hi yes I have exercise intolerance from several conditions, one neuro muscular so my muscles just stop working.
Dragon Boat racing is upper body strength and stamina and twisting so I can quite see how that put a huge strain on your heart which was unable to cope with and that I think is the key - we need to exercise within our tolerance range - which as we age will often decrease.
Exercise in moderation, wear a heart monitor and take advice from cardiac rehab as to what HR you should work within. I know I can’t exercise with HR above 120 and I also know that rest and recuperation is AS important as exercise. Another rule of thumb is to always be able to exercise and talk - if you can’t talk - 🛑- rest and recuperate.
It’s really hard when you have been an active person, able to do anything you wanted to do, to restrict yourself - but it is required. I know of only one person who died from AF and that was because they continued to push themselves into hard exercise to break through the ‘pain’ barrier.
We must learn to respect our limitations so as Jean says - slow and steady to build stamina - but yes - do keep exercising. My EP says 30 mins of daily brisk walking - even broken into 2 x 15 mins which I often need to do - is enough to improve cardiac health.
I actually don't have a heart monitor, but use an app on my phone when I'm aware that my HR is up. I think I will invest in one before starting my new regime. Dragon boat racing was an absolute killer! Totally unexpected..😟 (silly me!)
Hello Nicky sorry to hear about your many health problems . It must be horrible for you.
In addition to Jeannies walking if you are unable to tollerate some forms of exercise have you tried gentle stretching exercise some of which you can do laying down. There are many videos of this on the internet.
Last year I damaged my knee and also developed pains in my back and legs which made walking difficult ( the latter turned out to be a deficiency of vitamin D) I was so disappointed having worked hard since being diagnosed with P-AF to do some excercise each day and to maintain a level of stamina.
The gentle stretching exercise helped to keep my muscles supple.
Another thing to consider is Tia Chi which again is gentle stretching .
Hopefull gentle regular excercise will help to keep you body ready for when you are able to do short runs again.
I've never had much patience for gentle stretching type exercise, although I hope to change this mind set. As a child I was a pretty good gymnast, and trained for 7 years. Unfortunately I still feel that exercise should hurt, but am obviously worried about the IST. I guess I just need to start slow, and monitor myself.
I would advise using a heart rate monitor if not doing so already. This would give you an early indication of any unusual elevation of HR before you may feel it as exhaustion.
Take it easy, maybe use a treadmill to increase your pace steadily over time (ie days/ weeks/ months). The reason i suggest treadmill is to have more control over your pace & also if you suddenly don't feel great then at least you won't be a great distance from your starting point and you can just stop.
Maybe try some light weight training instead or a rowing machine (again same process as above)
It is difficult to accept restrictions when one has been used to being active. But on a general note I think there is too much of what often amounts to hysteria round "exercise " these days. We did not evolve to "exercise" . We evolved to move. Our grandmothers did not "exercise" . They were active doing their housework, gardening and walking to the shops. They maybe played tennis or bowls in the summer (if they had time!). They went dancing or cycling -for fun. They would not have dreamt of pounding the pavements running, or traipsing down the gym 2 or 3 times a week . I saw a programme some time ago -it was one of those with Michael Mosely - that compared metabolic markers in peopke with varying degrees of exercise. The person who came out on top was a waitress who never took any "exercise" but who moved around all day relatively slowly.
Auriclaire, the problem is for a lot of people is that they don’t get the opportunity to move regularly throughout the day.
Many people, myself included, have desk jobs and rarely take more than 1000 steps during the day. Coupled with other commitments outside of work, “exercise” is something that we have to squeeze into the day. Without it there would be very little physical activity to move joints, muscles to compensate for the time spent sitting on our ar5es 😉
Luckily (?) for me, my job is pretty active - and a fair portion of my day is spent rushing about after adults with special needs at our local college.
In fact, I only work three days a week, and on those three days I need an hours sleep on my return home. 😂
At 47 you are entering the danger zone where the effects of your lifestyle choices, too much activity of the wrong sort or lack of activity, diet choices and steady accumulation of weight, all start to get together to cause you problems.
Give yourself an MOT. All the usual things, Blood pressure, height, weight, sugar levels, cholesterol ratios and triglycerides. waist / height ratio and BMI. If you don't want to go down your local surgery, (cough/sneeze) try your local chemist or Tesco chemist (cost £10). This will give you a base line.
Think back to when you were at your fittest. What was your weight then?
As other have said earlier nice and easy does it. You will need to rebuild your stamina and fitness. When you can consistently go for a six mile walk in about an hour and a half, or less, you may be ready to run, Summer is coming.
I am 75. One of my friends used to get up and blast in an hours exercise at 5 am, regardless of where he was, and then go work. I always thought he was over the top, but he is still doing it.
In actual fact I began falling apart before my 40's, just when I was expecting to enter my prime!!!
I agree that an MOT is probably a good idea. My weight has remained fairly stable (despite having my thyroid removed in 2013, but it would be good to see what cholesterol etc is up to.
I know that I will never be up at 5am to exercise either. High five to your friend who can. (Nutter!)
Oh my. Vigorous paddling?? I know when I worked for a life assurance company, serious rowers were rated due to the effect on the heart. Think you should chat about it with your cardiologist.
This afternoon I had to have a ECG from Nurse at the surgery for the first time ever since my 1st episode end of May. Got read the riot act, no alcohol, lose weight and why aren’t you on anticoagulant 😳 Err because my consultant cardiologist thought I didn’t need it. The rant I got. No one can give you answers to your questions.
Bear in mind I had to initiate the medical checks! They’d just been dishing the meds without any recalls.
You probably red a cardiologist who’s into sports themselves
Sanjay might be able to help with the exercise thing, I’d be interested too. I swim for 20 minutes and do aquarobics 20 minutes 3 x a week. Use steam AND freezing plunge pool 😜 To my mind, it jump starts my heart 😂 Not doing the exercises as it’s been 7 wks since partial knee replacement, but hope to get back to it plus.
I can relate to this. Not that I exactly trained..but I was pretty fit, and able to go for a run a couple of times a week.
Am thinking that if I don't pick myself up soon and start exercising, it's never going to happen. Am just so tired all the time, and exercise exacerbates this significantly.. ho hum
Hi Nicky, Ive found that when I try to exercise or even walk much I am getting a delayed reaction and going into an AF attack that can last up to a day, its seriously getting me down, I am also type 2 diabetic and so need to try and get my wieght down, i seem to be fighting two foes at the moment and im losing the battle, im eating less and less, my stomach is bloated (two Drs tell me its not water but it doesnt look like fat) so its getting me down, ts frustrating in the extreme when you are willing to try and help sort your body out but prevented from doing so at the same time...I feel for you
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sorry to hear about your many health problems . It must be horrible for you. 
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