How do you train and/or stay healthy with a chronic, (possibly) mild, but undiagnosed mystery illness? This topic is probably more for myself than anyone here. More like a public journal with irregular updates. But any feedback is very much appreciated.
I’ve posted snippets on this in other topics, but rather than continue to hijack other conversations - and get better clarity and conversation - I’m going to post this here as its own topic. Both for courtesy to those whose threads I’ve sent on tangents and to provide the detail in one easy-to-find location for myself.
So for Background…
For lots of reasons (my wife and son are both allergenic asthmatics and my son has immune system issues. Before Covid, almost every time he caught a simple common cold he would end up with Croup, and invariably ended up at the ER at least once or twice every winter. His immunologist even gave us a home supply of Prednisone and Epinephrine at home “just in case”… I could go on, but this is not about him) my family has had to be more isolated and protective than most since Covid came around.
So, I mask whenever I’m out and about in groups of people. I’ve had all my Covid vaccines and my yearly flu shots. I had the most recent Covid vaccine the end of August shortly after it was released.
The situation
Sunday Sept 1 was the biggest event I’ve been to. I went to the USC-LSU football game at Allegiant Stadium. It was a sell out. Largest crowd in stadium history. This is the second football game I’ve been to. I went to a Raiders home game in Nov last year (2023) where I wore my mask and used hand sanitizer and everything was fine. Well, this time it wasn’t fine. Maybe I took my mask off to eat too many times, or didn’t use hand sanitizer enough, or just got unlucky… but somehow I caught COVID, while my brother-in-law who went with me and didn’t wear mask at all did not. Go figure.
3 days later I started showing symptoms. So I quickly masked and isolated from my family for two weeks, and fortunately nobody else caught it from me. 
My last back ride was the morning of Sept 4 when I first noticed the tightness in my chest and a fever. I stopped all exercise and focused only on getting better.
My symptoms weren’t bad. Mostly a low fever and sinus congestion. By Sept 18 I was symptom free and testing negative. Almost exactly 2 weeks after I first showed symptoms.
I decided I needed to give myself an extra week or two or rest and sleeping in to fully recover before I started exercising again. I didn’t have anything to train for other than my planned KOS in Nov (which could be moved to any date if needed) so there was no hurry to rush into anything.
So Oct 7 I finally got back to doing some light workouts with 15 minutes of yoga and 30 minutes of recovery spinning. Did this every day for the week. My HR was elevated during my workouts at first, but seemed to be getting lower and and closer to normal by Friday. But by Thursday and Friday I noticed in the afternoons my face was feeling flush and hot and I was feeling fatigued. I started taking my temperature when that happened and noticed it was elevated but not a fever (99.2-99.8). I took Saturday off to get some rest and see if I my body just needed some rest since I had just done my first full week of exercise in over a month.
On Monday I did the same yoga and recovery spinning I had the same issues. So I stopped my exercise routing and went back to sleeping in and getting rest for the rest of that week. Called my Dr on We’d and took some rapid tests but I was negative and my dr said to just monitor how I was doing and if things got worse to come in.
The next week I felt better, but rested the whole week again just to be sure I was recovering properly.
Wed Oct 30 I decided to wake up and exercise with just 15 minutes of yoga and 15 minutes of easy spinning. That day I felt chilled all day and the 31st I was again feeling feverish, this time with an actual fever of 100.8. Even had a fever overnight on Nov 4.
I went to the ER that Thursday and they ran a number of blood tests and did a CT scan. Nothing anywhere near conclusive. Blood tests showed nothing out of the ordinary. CT scan showed a possible diverticula and a benign liver lesion (blood tumor test came back negative), but I’ve had no GI symptoms at all.
I saw my GP doc who had no answers and referred me to my GI doc. I then went to my GI doc who felt it was likely Sinusitis from my bout with Covid. He prescribed me 3 weeks of mild prednisone. He said my sinuses were likely swollen and inflamed. However they aren’t, and weren’t even tender to the touch when he pressed on them. And I have no nasal drainage even with all the saline rinses and Neti pots I’ve done.
I’ve been on prednisone for almost the whole 3 weeks now and nothing has changed other than I can breathe a tad bit better. My nose still runs clear when I do need to blow it or use saline spray.
I’ve been taking my temperature when my face feels flushed or hot. And the. A couple other times every day. I usually wake up normal, but then my temp climbs into the mid or upper 99’s, sometimes to or just over 100 (100.2F). But then drops back down around 99.2-99.6 in the afternoons before dropping back to normal overnight.
I hadn’t exercised again until last week when I decided I needed to do something to keep my weight down and I could tell I was getting winded more easily.
So in the last weeks instead of exercising 6 days per week I did 4 workouts of 15-30 minutes (and one long workout last Saturday) and then just 2 days so far this week. I’ve mostly done easy low z1 rides on my bike (once in a while I’ll do a short effort, but I try to keep it easy) and/or 15 minute easy yoga sessions. My RHR is higher than it used to be. Was usually around 48. Now it’s 55-60. When pedaling at 100w my HR would usually hover around 100bpm. Now at 104w it hovers around 130bpm and I have to ride around 70-80w to keep it around 100bpm.
It’s only been 2 weeks, so maybe with time and more riding that will come down again. But I’m not looking at doing Z2 efforts any time soon. I did the 6 minute Sprinters Climb on TPV and my HR was instantly over 155, and it took 8 minutes of easy pedaling after just to get my HR back under 135.
So, I’m torn between sticking with resting and Z1 rides, or trying to slowly and tactically increasing the intensity just little bits at a time to see if that will help my fitness and lower my HR at all.
I have another dr appt with my GP this Wed, and a follow up with GI doc on Jan 2. I will be getting a referral to an ENT. Probably some anti-biotic (if they can figure out what they will be used for). But at this point I’m pretty sure my sinuses are not the problem. I know I have a pre-existing deviated septum that the ENT will look at. But this fever seems like it has to either be GI-related, or possibly some form of long-COVID. I guess more Dr visits and testing will hopefully figure it out - or at least tell me what it’s not.
Until then, I’m trying to find a balance between exercise and rest. I haven’t found that balance, yet. I’m feeling very unhealthy. And the food cravings I’m getting from being in the middle of 3 weeks of prednisone aren’t helping. But I can’t do long days and weeks of Z2 mixed with VO2 workouts.
Anyway, if you made it this far, thank you for listening to my TED talk. I don’t expect anyone to have any answers. Just feel the need to vent, and with everything going on I’m often tired and/or fatigued and frustrated, and don’t get out much.
