Pulled top runner from the race today after one mile today....need help diagnosing...

Runningisbadforyou wrote:

seen wrote:

have you considered that you are posting medical information of a kid, student-athlete, for which you have responsibility as a coach? Did the kid or his family really share with you the medical info from their physician with the idea that you could then post to the internet to seek a solution?

let doctors be doctors, let coaches be coaches, and let kids be kids

stay off the internet bro

Actually they did. Thank you for your insight!

As a coach you told them I got this, I will post your medical info and some training info on let'srun and random people will respond with the solution to make you healthy and faster?!

Wow. But if you got their permission then fire away.

Be careful you do not get cut out as the middleman of coaching bro - they may realize they can do this sort of coaching on their own.

I think you truly care which is commendable but I think you care too much and are overthinking and overreaching.

Good luck.

Enough with the blood analysis. It is a high school kid. Next you'll be getting him TUEs all you Salazar wannabes.

Just get out and run and enjoy it.

Make running fun again

on the other hand wrote:

slowpokie wrote:You are way over thinking this. Too much micromanagement.

Strongly disagree. There may be a medical issue that is serious to the health of this kid beyond running.

As I said, let his family do the work on this. Medical is not the coach's responsibility. Send him home with a note if that worries you.

If he thinks he's sick, and the parents confirm it through the right channels, then he has performed his duties admirably.

'point pointing a finger doesn't fix things) to the point'

Can I point out something to you

Whoever can get him diagnosed quickest should be responsible.

High school wrote:

Runningisbadforyou wrote:

Actually they did. Thank you for your insight!

As a coach you told them I got this, I will post your medical info and some training info on let'srun and random people will respond with the solution to make you healthy and faster?!

Wow. But if you got their permission then fire away.

Be careful you do not get cut out as the middleman of coaching bro - they may realize they can do this sort of coaching on their own.

I think you truly care which is commendable but I think you care too much and are overthinking and overreaching.

Good luck.

Haha yeah that's exactly how the conversation went.. anyway, thank you for your contribution!

To the people who mentioned diabetes and magnesium above. I will mention it as another thing for him to ask his doctor. Thanks guys.

We're waiting on a biopsy currently to rule out a couple things the doctor wanted to look at. I'm not sure exactly what things, but it's driving me crazy since I'm such a micro manager!

Just to clear some things up, I am not asking him to take any tests. He has listened to the doctor for everything and I have not tried to interject my own opinion as I am no doctor. The doctor mentioned it could potentially be a few different things but no test he has taken has pointed to an answer.

I just figured, after looking up causes to symptoms he has, that somebody on letsrun might know better from experience. I think the way this thread is going, it has painted a picture of me showing up at the doctors office and barking for things to be checked. That is not the case haha. I've been mostly just a support system for the kid (as I should be) and offer my advice when asked. In this case I've exhausted my medical knowledge for any sort.

Not sure if this will help, but his last four races have been 16:50, 16:30, 18:20, then the race we pulled him from. That's just a small sample size, as the 16:30 was one of maybe 2 or 3 bright spots over the last year.

For now, I'm going with that he's just not recovered enough from overtraining last year.

would you have been so insistent helping the slowest kid back to form on the team as well? perhaps a question to ask if you're pushing the athlete to much, even unintentionally.

have you asked the kid why he runs? that's an important question.

it's probably still overtraining if he really went into the hole. overtraining takes a very long time to recover from, and if the well was dug to deep, one may never fully recover. i've seen it personally and there are some sad treads on this board on true overtraining.

so the thing about overtraining, besides time off, the best way to recover is to gain weight. hormones need fat to be made and overtraining really throws them for a loop. look at serious weight lifters; they gain a lot of fat during their "base", which helps with increasing hormone production to gain muscle mass, then they "cut" and go to get lean for competition. you can also look at the heavier olympic lifters, they carry fat and for good reason. you also mentioned Lagat in your 1st post, if you read about him you should have noticed he gains a good deal of weight during that off period to help recover.

did your runner gain any weight? like 10-15lbs and hold that weight for at least 6-9 months? yes, that's a long time, but he seems to be in a big hole. that may be what he ultimately needs to come back. he's young and probably can come back from this if he wants to.

brj wrote:

would you have been so insistent helping the slowest kid back to form on the team as well?

I stopped reading right here after you insulted me. Of course I am willing to help my slower athletes just as much as the faster ones. My goal as a high school coach is to help EVERYBODY improve.

Just wanted to post one last time on here and tell everyone that my runner checked and was diagnosed with celiac's.

Thanks for everybody's help on here. Hopefully this is the answer we've been looking for and we can move on from this. Hope everybody has a wonderful rest of their seasons!

One of the most beautiful things about this board is having the ability to ask experienced runners for help and their advice actually being worth something. Everyone has had so many different paths to success and failure and it definitely is great to see so much perspective and willingness to help diagnose a stranger's running issues. Thanks again.

I've seen this more times than I can count with high school runners.

Sometimes it's iron, sometimes it's illness like mono...but many many times we've been unable to figure it out. I think it's related to growth patterns or hormonal changes that come with that age.

It is heartbreaking, I've seen some good runners go through it.

good luck

Runningisbadforyou wrote:

Just wanted to post one last time on here and tell everyone that my runner checked and was diagnosed with celiac's.

thanks for following up. these kinds of threads are really valuable when there is an answer in the end. you have probably helped at least one person if not now, in the future when someone starts looking for a reason that their performance has dropped for no explanation.

ha, thought so.

Shouldn't need to change his training at all.

Give him a multivit. for a month + iron if he needs it.

Also make sure he gets enough rest.

Remember gf diet is essential, not one single bread crumb!

Did he get a blood test for Epstein Barr Virus? (mono). It's a two level test to show acute and chronic levels of EBV. If, for example, your athlete is a bit better now, but was worse a couple months ago, that should show up on the test.

EBV does not affect everyone the same. Once you get EBV, you have the virus hiding in your cells permanently. For some, they get immunity. For others, they get a long term chronic fatigue. For others, like me, it flares up every few months when stress circumstances combine to allow the virus to temporarily overcome the immune system. Even this level varies in severity.

In my case, the symptoms are *dramatically* reduced athletic performance accompanied by very mild flu symptoms that I wouldn't even notice except I'm now hyper conscious of them... slightly more muscle aches and pains, sniffles, slightly increased sinus drainage, and sometimes a scratchy throat.

In fact, I just went through a bout this past week. Once I went on my EBV routine, it went away in a couple of days.

[/quote]

thanks for following up. these kinds of threads are really valuable when there is an answer in the end. you have probably helped at least one person if not now, in the future when someone starts looking for a reason that their performance has dropped for no explanation.[/quote]

I second the thanks for posting, thanks to the people who responded, and thanks for the follow-up. Coincidentally, I was puzzled about similar performance drops in my child and had blood tests done that showed very low serum ferritin. Some of the answers here were very helpful in thinking about the problem.

I also agree that you should have his levels checked and find out what they are. Some physicians will tell you 20 is normal. Maybe for a kid walking around but not for an athlete that breaks 16.

It's important to note that when he was tested in the past they said he was in the normal range and had some fluctuating race results but now he is crashing and burning. In my experience you check the Serum Iron and the results from the CBC. Then you move on to Mono and Lyme Disease. It does you no good to analyze test results from months ago when he was running solid races.

OP not sure if you are posting anymore, but if anyone knows this let me know: was the celiacs diagnosis a result of a biopsy? Biopsy and blood test? I ask bc have family history of this, have some symptoms but have tested negative with a blood test (no biopsy) recently. Wondering if that's enough to know.

JJ88 wrote:

OP not sure if you are posting anymore, but if anyone knows this let me know: was the celiacs diagnosis a result of a biopsy? Biopsy and blood test? I ask bc have family history of this, have some symptoms but have tested negative with a blood test (no biopsy) recently. Wondering if that's enough to know.

I do not believe he had his biopsy yet, I think it was blood test only. His sister has it as well, so I don't know why they took so long to test for it... thank goodness for this thread!

Seeing my runner go through what he's been through, having celiac's makes it virtually impossible to run well after training hard. I'll ask him when I see him next to make sure he didn't have the biopsy yet.