Yesterday morning, while everything felt perfect normal, my heart suddenly raced up. I first thought it was temporary, but it ended up a full 12 hours with rapid heart beating (120 - 130 per minute). I struggle cooked simple lunch, later evening a friend came to helped with dinner (how grateful! This was actually the first time someone came over taking care of me for all these years).
Even during my heart fast beating hours, I knew it was "temporary", because beside my heart, all other parts or function of my body felt normal. All my previous crash or relapse, even though my heart did not race so rapidly, my overall body function was "tangibly" weakened, and I could felt that it would not recover for a certain period of time. So, that why after last night sleep, I now feel quite normal again, except a little weakness overall.
However, the "attack" was serious, I was not able to stand up for over several seconds, because if I did so, my heart would rush to high rate which my body could not sustain. So all those 12 hours yesterday, I was kept horizontal, except when I had to get up, and whatever I had to do, I have to finish quick.
So because of the seriousness, I wonder what caused this heart-raid. I guess again, my improved condition probably made me a little careless. I remember previous day (Sunday) I had two classes, biked about 25 minutes, also, I did some lifting - I tried again to put my bike into my SUV. Plus, my diet was not good enough on Sunday. So probably all these added up, caused my Monday problem. Or my recently reading and writing also increase my energy use, which my body could not support without difficulty?
Anyway, I got to slow down again. It looks like, there still is a long way to go, for myself to be perfectly healthy.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Thursday, October 11, 2012
An Update and A Brief Review On My Past
I have been doing steadily well for several months. No major crashes, and if I over exercised, the "consequence" usually last only for hours, or maximum couple of days, during which I could still take care of myself. I give myself a score about 80% (which is better than my last year 80% at the same time, because I started to score my energy more reservedly).
All my treatments are still diet, rest and exercise. I equipped with some multivitamin, which seems helpful, but overall, I know foods are the most essential.
Looking back, here is a list of the symptoms I had (or still have) for all past years, start from the most severe ones:
1. Heart malfunction (include beating too fast or too slow, or irregularly. Sometime they came slowly, sometime suddenly. One type of symptoms seems like heart muscle spasm, but I was not "scientifically" sure);
2. Shortness of breath (asthma like);
3. Stomach upset (extreme hunger/heartburn);
4. Extreme fatigue;
5. Constipation,
5. Arthritis;
6. Muscle sore and pain;
7. Brain fog and headache.
The heart problem exists since my early teen years and had been ignored by myself until my middle 30s - when it was too serious to be overlooked. Doctors could not find any solutions so I had to work on it on my own. Even though I found treatment: exercise (walking), but at the time (between about my age of 35-45) my tough fate didn't allow me to have full care which I desperately needed. These tough life experience worsened this heart problem, also brought me all the extra different symptoms, and together with my heart problem, they made negative circles, or chain reactions frequently by triggering each other, especially during the past a few years.
The negative circle is like this: my heart is desperately in need of exercise., and exercise needs energy, so, the less energy I have, the less I could exercise; and the less I exercise, the weaker my heart functions; the weaker my heart functions, the less I am capable of exercising. so on and on...
The positive circle is this: the better energy I have, the more exercise I could do, so my heart would function better; and the better my heart functions, the more exercise I could do, so the more energetic I feel.
The cause of the bad circle looks like my heart, as most doctors would suggest. But I know it is not (at least at this stage), because I had the heart problem since I was very young. I would say it is a "genetic" problem. If heart was my only problem, exercise would simply solve it. But as we can tell from the circle I describe above, in order to exercise, I need energy. So, the real cause is lack of ENERGY.
How can I get energy? Foods. We humans are not like plants who can MAKE energy by themselves, we need foods from which our energy transfer. All these years I had been doing terribly on my diet, so not only my body lacked energy, but also in huge "debt". No doubt I had stomach problem (hunger) too. So during the past two years I was pretty much working on diet. I also realized that, not all foods are right for our body - different people, or people in different health condition need different type of foods. So what would be the right foods for me? This is another big lesson I learned during the years with huge price! The right answer is "listen to my body", instead of listen to doctors or nutrition professionals*. This, is a simple policy that I followed for these couple of years (I also found, that my body would send out clearer signal what it needs when my health condition is better. So when health is bad, it's also harder for me to know what I want to eat). And finally, I found I am closed to the positive circle.
Of course, I am not really there yet, but I see the light.
*Of course, I am not saying that we cannot take their words as suggestions. But strictly follow their advices is not the way I would recommend. I also understand that many people who have no ideas about what their bodies need will have to listen to experts.
All my treatments are still diet, rest and exercise. I equipped with some multivitamin, which seems helpful, but overall, I know foods are the most essential.
Looking back, here is a list of the symptoms I had (or still have) for all past years, start from the most severe ones:
1. Heart malfunction (include beating too fast or too slow, or irregularly. Sometime they came slowly, sometime suddenly. One type of symptoms seems like heart muscle spasm, but I was not "scientifically" sure);
2. Shortness of breath (asthma like);
3. Stomach upset (extreme hunger/heartburn);
4. Extreme fatigue;
5. Constipation,
5. Arthritis;
6. Muscle sore and pain;
7. Brain fog and headache.
The heart problem exists since my early teen years and had been ignored by myself until my middle 30s - when it was too serious to be overlooked. Doctors could not find any solutions so I had to work on it on my own. Even though I found treatment: exercise (walking), but at the time (between about my age of 35-45) my tough fate didn't allow me to have full care which I desperately needed. These tough life experience worsened this heart problem, also brought me all the extra different symptoms, and together with my heart problem, they made negative circles, or chain reactions frequently by triggering each other, especially during the past a few years.
The negative circle is like this: my heart is desperately in need of exercise., and exercise needs energy, so, the less energy I have, the less I could exercise; and the less I exercise, the weaker my heart functions; the weaker my heart functions, the less I am capable of exercising. so on and on...
The positive circle is this: the better energy I have, the more exercise I could do, so my heart would function better; and the better my heart functions, the more exercise I could do, so the more energetic I feel.
The cause of the bad circle looks like my heart, as most doctors would suggest. But I know it is not (at least at this stage), because I had the heart problem since I was very young. I would say it is a "genetic" problem. If heart was my only problem, exercise would simply solve it. But as we can tell from the circle I describe above, in order to exercise, I need energy. So, the real cause is lack of ENERGY.
How can I get energy? Foods. We humans are not like plants who can MAKE energy by themselves, we need foods from which our energy transfer. All these years I had been doing terribly on my diet, so not only my body lacked energy, but also in huge "debt". No doubt I had stomach problem (hunger) too. So during the past two years I was pretty much working on diet. I also realized that, not all foods are right for our body - different people, or people in different health condition need different type of foods. So what would be the right foods for me? This is another big lesson I learned during the years with huge price! The right answer is "listen to my body", instead of listen to doctors or nutrition professionals*. This, is a simple policy that I followed for these couple of years (I also found, that my body would send out clearer signal what it needs when my health condition is better. So when health is bad, it's also harder for me to know what I want to eat). And finally, I found I am closed to the positive circle.
Of course, I am not really there yet, but I see the light.
*Of course, I am not saying that we cannot take their words as suggestions. But strictly follow their advices is not the way I would recommend. I also understand that many people who have no ideas about what their bodies need will have to listen to experts.
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