myocarditis recovery

I would recommend precise load 57-65% of HRmax (zone 1, low end zone 2)=100 hours, and all should disappear. Good diet with a lot of potassium (dry grape, dry apricot, etc.). My friend (cyclist) had thickened heart wall, D-hypertrophy, almost out of limit. A sports cardiologist advised him to ride a bicycle at a pulse of 110-130 no more. So he managed to recover after 2000km at a pulse of 120.

Me personally, when I was young had noises in the heart, it was abnormal third chord of the heart valves, which gave a noise. Everything went away after long Cycling sessions at a pulse of 110-130.

I’m sorry you’re going through this. Viral myocarditis is very poorly understood by most doctors. LetsRun really should not be your source of info on this. Can you go to see a cardiologist and get an EKG to assess what you should be doing? Depending on where the scarring is you may be advised to get a pacemaker to prevent chance of sudden death. Better safe than sorry. Unfortunately I’m very familiar with this situation.

Odds are you had COVID and are experiencing some long-term effects.

If it were I, I would use ascorbic acid and melatonin to get yourself back to normal. Very inexpensive and it can only help.

Pure ascorbic acid - do 1 gram per hour mixed in water or juice.

Melatonin - 5 mg's per day after sunset.

You'll be back to normal in no time.

https://www.evolutamente.it/new-guidelines-for-melatonin-and-ascorbic-acid-supplementation-during-covid-19-maintenance-and-infection-stages/?fbclid=IwAR2PRfl3SxXptvB8q6tlhV4ncuB--5JvNvacSNnQ6R1sbKmZVMTYd_7qzPI

https://www.melatonin-research.net/index.php/MR/article/view/86?fbclid=IwAR3iUbXv7uurWuyTRHA-RxYbrfFk6sOx2XwOYG4Hz8x_6NbizfNowlOVsMs

I had viral pericarditis in the Winter of 2007 while I was in my junior year of college. I had 1" of fluid built up around the medial side of my heart from continually running / racing on it for several weeks due to misdiagnosis. Inflamed bronchioles from running in the cold is what I was told I had, although I should have known better as I literally thought I was going to die most of the day, I didn't have good sense and at that time not running didn't seem like an option.

I took six months off and afterward was cleared to start running again. I started back VERY slowly and kept my heart rate under 130bpm and had success staying healthy during the summer months. However, once joined back with the team and started pushing it again the pericarditis returned almost immediately. This pattern reoccurred several times before the cardiologist convinced me to hang up my running shoes.

It is now 13 years after my first pericarditis attack and I am still plagued by it. While it wasn't active, my MRI showed latent myocarditis that was caused by a bad recurrent pericarditis episode at some point. With a wife and four active kids I want to be around and in decent shape for them as long as possible, so I started going to Cleveland Clinic to see Dr. Klien who is a world-leading expert in pericarditis / myocarditis.

In short, what I gleaned from Dr. Klien was that I should have taken 3+ years off of major (130+ bpm) cardio exercise with the amount of inflammation present to create 1" of fluid. Cardiac inflammation is extremely hard to calm down and can easily get agitated. It took out my personal favorite athlete Steve Ovett from high level running, it is no joke. (I wonder if Matt Centro has any lingering issues with his bout of pericarditis?)

In a nutshell, I had one of the best cardiologists in my whole region advising me in 2007 but he didn't have any experience with a healthy, very fit 22 year old with this condition who planned on returning to high-level competition.

Make sure you see someone who deals with this all the time. That will probably take going to a Mayo Clinic or Cleveland Clinic type of place. Myocarditis is more life-threatening than pericarditis and if you are just starting this journey you need experienced advice, I sure wish I would have had some of that...

If you choose to run, keep it super low key and sub 130bpm for a long long while!

Thanks for the replies

It wasn't covid, the country where i live(nz) its pretty much non existent.

Ive noticed recently the dull pain i get is brought on by exercise over 150HR, think im going to try my best to keep it under 120 for the next few months, hard when it seems to get high so quickly now, and being unfit, my job is also quite physical.

The cardiologist actually seemed quite clueless and struggled to answer my questions, so im going to fork out to see a more specialized guy soon.

The MRI said the scarring was, the mid myocardial layer of the basal thrid of the inferior surface, extending a little laterally into the posterior OM surface.

whatever that means

hamstringinjury wrote:

The cardiologist actually seemed quite clueless and struggled to answer my questions, so im going to fork out to see a more specialized guy soon.

Huh? Boy...that sure gives me a lot of confidence with the medical system. Lol. I think I'll stick to my own research and figure out things for myself.

I read somewhere that it took over 2 years for SARS caused myocarditis to heal. Don't know if you have to stop running, or if you can just jog.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-19-can-wreck-your-heart-even-if-you-havent-had-any-symptoms/

Just a reminder for all those who are covid weary, it's not just "deaths" from covid that matters. The latest surge in covid cases apparently means young people are catching it. They can still develop long term issues from it.

Canefis wrote:

I would recommend precise load 57-65% of HRmax (zone 1, low end zone 2)=100 hours, and all should disappear. Good diet with a lot of potassium (dry grape, dry apricot, etc.). My friend (cyclist) had thickened heart wall, D-hypertrophy, almost out of limit. A sports cardiologist advised him to ride a bicycle at a pulse of 110-130 no more. So he managed to recover after 2000km at a pulse of 120.

Me personally, when I was young had noises in the heart, it was abnormal third chord of the heart valves, which gave a noise. Everything went away after long Cycling sessions at a pulse of 110-130.

In the nearly 3 weeks since this post, i have been doing zone 1 running/jogging/swimming everyday not letting my heartrate go over 135bmp mainly trying to keep it in the 110-125 zone and i am feeling so much better, and my fitness is actually beginning to improve again.

Thanks for your post

Will continue with this over the next few months and see what happens.

oh and the pain from my heart that i was feeling has gone from 3-4/10 to barely noticeable anymore