Excessive perspiration during exercise

[runnertom]

I am a 58 yo male post CABG 3 1/2 years. I have been a very heavy exerciser for the last 35 doing mostly running and biking. Sometime in the summer after my Feb. surgery, I became aware of a tendency for my head and face to sweat while doing only moderate levels of exercise. I initially attributed it to one of my meds, Altace and Lipitor, but I have been on and off of these over the last three years and the tendency persists. This sweating occurs even in quite cold weather while running when sweating at all seems inappropriate.
   I am concerned about the heart connection since excessive sweating is often a sign of an MI. Stress tests 3 mo and 2 year post CABG show a small mostly irreversible perfusion defect in the antero apical area. Cardiologist is not worried since its so small. Could this be the cause of my sweating? Echos have been essentially normal. I would say that the sweating has not progressed markedly over the last three years, although it is no less annoying.
  I have also recently been diagnosed with exercise induced Afib which 25 mg of Toprol XL seems to be controlling. The Afib was not seriously impacting my exercise performance except I often had an erratic heartbeat afterwards. Sometimes the erratic HB would persist and an EKG confirmed fib. I am thinking I could be in and out of it often during exercise without knowing it. A friend that has Afib said that sweating about his head and face was his most noticable symptom. Could this have anything to do with my problem? The Toprol has not impacted the sweating.

[axg9504]

Well said. That's all that's needed. However it is irritating to see the old geezer next to you running on the treadmill at a pace you know you could double or triple, were it not for your crappy conduction system!

[dquenzer]

Does exercise reduce heart disease?  No question.  But I don't think a person has to be a marathoner.  The studies show that one hour or so of light aerobic exercise is about the best; along with weight control.  If one wants to get into shape to run marathons etc. then it's for another reason rather than heart health.

As to heart disease one can't overcome genetics completely.  Jim Fix had bad genetics.  But he probably lived longer and better if hadn't run.

But they've done studies that running probably increases average longevity by about 2 years.  Not really that much.  The real quesiton for me is quality of life.  I want to live a reasonably healthy active life.

I'd rather live 60 good years of activity than 90 years of feeling miserable.  When I see older people who can barely walk up stairs, etc. because of poor health habits I certainly don't want to live like that.

[axg]

thanks. Both my EP and interventional are now saying I need a pacemaker. The former has been saying that for some time. He has shown interest I might add, but they don't have an EP at his clinic so he has been referring me to others. My EP started with trying another med (flecainide, I've had Toprol,rythmol and Tiazac - all did not help or made things worse) but that apparently prolonged my bradycardia. As you know, there is not much research into the causes of the arrythmias that are presumed to be benign.

[axg]

Apparently you can still do a hard workout. That's great.  I can't. One question, you have had afib after exercise, is that right? I think you said it was recorded. Your ventricular rates are high aren't they with afib? I know afib means 'regularly irregular' and the rate varies but what you see on a heart rate monitor is high isn't it?

[runnertom]

Yes, I still do pretty intense workouts. This morning, we did 60 miles on bikes with numerous occasions-hills or impromptu bursts-where my heart rate would be bouncing off max (175-180). My Afib was showing up after exercise but I am fairly sure it was beginning toward the end of the workout when I started feeling like I was fading. It persists for 12 hours or so. My heartrate monitor shows ventricular rates that are not that high at rest (~110)but my normal resting pulse is about 45. In my brother's case, his rate would go to 200+ that made further exercise very difficult. His EP said he had a "slicked up" AV node that allowed the fibrillation pulses to get down to the ventricle. Sounds to me like every case is different. Big problem is finding an EP interested enough to work with you. My experience is they are used to working with people who are quite sick and are not too interested in spending a lot of time helping someone who only wants to be able to exercise more intensely.

[axg]

First, I have a regular interventional cardio that I first started with 4 years ago when I started getting dizzy spells on the treadmill. Then it was after 10-20 mts of moderate pace. Anyway their standard stress tests didn't show anything and a heart cath showed no blockages. A year later I went to an EP who saw 'sporadic afib' in 2 of 4 event monitor sessions. He put me on Toprol (disaster as have all meds since). I didn't like this EP and am glad I avoided the advice to go on Coumadin. A year later another EP saw the same charts and disagreed. Also I followed up with about 20 event monitor sessions (lifestar AF - it triggers automatically too when it senses a problem) and all of them only showed sinus pauses. No AFIB. I had an EP study with this new EP doc and he could not induce Afib. He found an atrial flutter under pacing and ablated it. If I am ever in Afib it probably is for a brief while, when exercising. My rate is fine during rest. I can run at 7 min pace for a min or two, or run upstairs without problems. I have never seen a rate in excess of 140 and that only after I have run for a few minutes, starting from rest. My problem is lowered rates after a few minutes of exercise which becomes worse after I stop and I'm just wondering why the conduction system won't work when I'm at rest, just because I exercised an hour or so earlier when it does fine the rest of the time. The docs don't have an answer.