Why does your throat taste like blood after racing??

Sunday Boody Sunday wrote:

Jekyllman wrote:

Blood pH can get down to 6.7.

A healthy person's blood pH stays in a narrow range of 7.35 to 7.45. Below 7.35 is considered acidosis. Below 7.0 you would be having serious metabolic issues. Below 6.9 you'd probably already be in a coma. 6.7 is certain death.

http://www.iovs.org/cgi/reprint/9/10/749.pdf

That's not correct. Extremely low pH levels in resting individuals would definitely be pathological, but during bouts of extreme exercise, blood pH can decrease significantly and intermuscular pH decreases even more.

So nobody knows the real answer to why some people can taste blood after hard exertions?

I've lost 30 pounds over the last 10 weeks and have been doing a lot of elliptical cardio until my weights is down so the joints will be load bearing again.

Anyway, good thing because yesterday I left my laptop on a city bus and found myself running a half mile to cut off the bus. I made it. Thank God!

But afterwards I could taste blood for maybe 2 hours and developed bronchitis of some sort. 24 hours later my lungs are still raw, I'm still coughing and the phlegm has turned nasty and sticky instead of the original clear stuff.

So, what's up with the taste?

And what's up with the the nasty phlegm?

I've asked this exact question to people knowledgable about physiology, and they blamed carbonic acid. I'd have to double check research to know for sure, but I think it has to do with your body producing carbonic acid as a waste product or something and as you train it becomes more efficient at this process, which is why you might feel this taste a lot more when you've resumed training after a layoff. Like I said, I'll have to double check this, but I KNOW it has to due with something carbon related and it is definitely NOT lactic acid.

Chloride shift?

so carbon or chloride?now i'm really curious because the taste of iron is all i got.hope you guys will report what you find. this is a two year mystery on the board and no one has yet answered it.to add to the story: when i ran indoors i would have the same experience. don't know if it makes any difference at all. i would think the key is the relationship to exertion and whatever process, carbon/chloride, etc. i do remember though this occurred every time i raced indoors. less at bu armory. more at yale and harvard.

jekyllnan wrote:

Chloride shift?

Sounds interesting. Is it true?

SMJO wrote:

There is good evidence that EIA causes mild drying and cracking of the tissues in the throat.

Those micro-tears cause enough leakage of blood to taste it even if you don't spit blood out.

The breathing tubules leading to your lungs expand and contract which makes them sensitive to this.

Not true

If It's Dense It Must Be True? wrote:

Sounds interesting. Is it true?

SMJO wrote:

There is good evidence that EIA causes mild drying and cracking of the tissues in the throat.

Those micro-tears cause enough leakage of blood to taste it even if you don't spit blood out.

The breathing tubules leading to your lungs expand and contract which makes them sensitive to this.

SMJO wrote:

There is good evidence that EIA causes mild drying and cracking of the tissues in the throat.

Those micro-tears cause enough leakage of blood to taste it even if you don't spit blood out.

The breathing tubules leading to your lungs expand and contract which makes them sensitive to this.

I've heard this explanation before and it has always struck me as the most plausible one. I have mild exercise induced asthma and I also frequently get a bloody taste in my mouth after hard efforts. It seems to happen more often when the air is dry.

Indoors I would get the "800 blood-mouth" and "miler's hack" (a dry, shallow cough). Definitely seems linked to respiration intensity/humidity for me.

Because you've been mouth breathing. The dryness and bacteria cause a condition similar to morning breath.

Has there been any new discoveries on this? I've been exercising all day and it tastes like I've gargled with a shot of blood.

I’ve heard it is because of iron leakage and red blood cells bursting due to the strained aerobic effort.

Are you all sticking your tongues down your throats or what? How does it taste like anything, unless you're hacking it up, in which case you could just look and see if it's blood.

What I get sometimes is a hollow feeling centered around the hollow under my larynx, and only during bad workouts which it invariably signals the end of. Not asthma, not burning or toxicity, but a sort of sick, anemic sensation.

I think it's when blood vessel width gets out of whack from changing levels of the blood gases that regulate them, particularly carbon dioxide and nitric oxide. If you're pushed to overbreathing to clear CO2 away from muscle, maybe you end up lowering CO2 levels below normal elsewhere than the muscle, causing the vessels to constrict and restricting blood supply.

Count Bloodcount wrote:

Has there been any new discoveries on this? I've been exercising all day and it tastes like I've gargled with a shot of blood.

I’m guessing that increased blood pressure causes a small number of blood cells to get pushed out at the capillary beds either in your lungs or the nasal mucosa. From there, it just gets mixed into mucus and moves to your mouth where you can taste it.