NEED ADVICE? YOU PROBABLY NEED A DOCTOR RIGHT AWAY!
JOKER?S advice to get your blood checked will maybe save my 16-year-old runner?s life.
He ran great 3 years ago ? all the way to the Track & Field nationals where his cross-country team won second and later the first place in the nation. He was never sick and had what seemed to be an unlimited source of energy. With his long stride and endless love for running, PRs came easily and very often. Then very slowly running became harder and when his body got weaker allergies started to appear for the first time in his life and even the possibility of an exercise induced asthma. Lately his heart would beat so hard while running or going up the stairs that we started to believe that he developed a heart disease. People ridiculed him and gave him all sorts of weird advice like ?lengthen your stride?you need to have a desire to run?does you mom make you go out and run?? etc. Also, he experienced a very large growth spurt during past few years without developing his muscular structure ? now at 6?1? and 123lbs - he looks like the Nazi concentration camp survivor. His unnatural heavy pounding of the pavement for the past year just did not make any sense. After my older son alerted me about your post last night, I decided to take my son to the doctor this morning. After the blood test, his doctor totally panicked and wanted us to go immediately to the emergency room. His hemoglobin level is abnormally low at 8.1, while normal range for him is 13-17. Hemoglobin in red blood cells transports oxygen to the lungs and carbon-dioxide out of the lung ? so now everything makes sense. We are stunned and waiting for more test results to come in and to start the appropriate treatment as soon as possible. Anemia is only a symptom, so we must find out what is the underlying cause/disease. I will try to keep you young runners posted about his ordeal, because a lot of x-country and track runners experience similar problems and are wrongly treated with heart or asthma medication. Blood & heart stress tests should be required in school physicals in order to prevent the sudden death of young athletes. If any of you have similar experiences, please let me know.