Don’t rule out anxiety. Stress feed-back loops can effect you on a very deep level, if you think something is wrong, you’re prone to dwell on that and it actually makes matters worse… As athlete’s we are much more in tune with our bodies, it’s likely a GP will rule out anything pretty quickly but go get checked out. My GP is an endurance runner, so that helps, but he still treats me like an average American most of the time which is frustrating.
I had a 5-day halter monitor come back with no findings.
Ultrasound - no findings.
Bloodwork X2 - no findings.
Then I finally pushed to “get a look at my coronary arteries” and low and behold we found some minor calcification and plaquing. Probably not the cause of my symptoms, but I’m sure glad I advocated for my own health. Trust yourself, go get checked out, but be prepared to ask questions and push for any test you see fit.
I had a cycling RTA 10 years ago which resulted in cardiac arrest (and subsequent live saving action by a cycling surgeon who luckily rode the same way) I live with an implanted ICD as a result, ridden over 50000 miles, race TT’s and maintain a decent enough FTP for a 53 year old ‘cardiac’ patient, I was originally put on beta blockers and a throttled heart rate wasn’t cutting it for me (as I knew my heart was strong pre accident and the CA was not due to disease) a conversation with my cardiologist and subsequent stress test had him changing his mind on my medication, I no longer have any restrictions on what I do physically, which was a relief.
Yeah, my foot pain. I was able to run through the pain, until I couldn’t. Turns out I had the biggest Morton’s neuroma the surgeon had ever seen. He was obviously used to athletes as he sneered at ‘runners’ that, like me, run through the pain, rather than getting it looked at/taken care of sooner. He also read me the riot act over my recovery and not even thinking of running until I was given the okay. Believe me, I did NOT want to go through that surgery again, or risk rupturing something. But obviously I waited way too long to get that looked at and resolved. WAY TOO LONG…
Yes, go get checked out. I had a very similar response to my first covid infection. I had heart and lung scans and I didn’t have any scarring or inflammation, but just walking up stairs or lifting something light weight would send my HR to the moon. Covid can damage red blood cells, so I bet that is what happened to me, and possibly to you.
