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!

[Angie O Plasty]

I don't blame you for finding that irritating.  It's even more irritating when you know your conduction system is perfectly fine and you're still slower than 90% of the other runners, even the so-called "geezers"!!

[axg9504]

Hi angie! I have to admit I'm old but hopefully not yet a geezer. If you really care and want to, I think you can improve your pace by training. I don't keep up with running anymore, but I bet 'Runners World' has a program for this. I believe that the limiting factor is the type of muscle fibers in your leg muscles. There's a 'slow twitch' and a 'fast twitch' I seem to remember which genetically predisposes you to be either a slow-er runner suited for long distance or one for sprints.

[Bromley]

Hi, these ablations change things.

Am runner had low rates and numerous annoyances for several months after my "successful" ablation for left wall WPW in April 2004.

The effects of the ablation set me back mentally and physically.  It took a while before I could take my heart rate back up into my "performance" region, even without any TOPROL.  For a while I could feel every heart beat when I laid down at night - they were slow and huge - I could literally count everyone of them without taking my pulse, and using my timex the rate frequently was around 40, at times less.

I gave considerable thought to all of this and continued with fairly moderate running program. Eventually, my heart rate returned to something that I would consider a lot more normal. I rarely experience such heavy heart beats at night, unless on that day I have really brutlize myself on an all out run over miles or in snow. I would say that running has helped my recovery immensely.  

Good luck.

http://pages.prodigy.net/edc3/imusa/heart_rates.html

[axg9504]

I don't think my ablation (for atrial flutter they found on pacing) had any negative impact. My symptoms have been consistent for 4 years but have slowly gotten worse or occurred earlier in my exercise routine. Right now @ 7:30 am my bpm is sub 40 while I sit and type this. If I get up and walk around it will go to 60-70 (with SOB). How did this happen? Last night I walked 1.2 miles in about 20 minutes and then worked out for another 15 mts with weights. After I got home my bpm dipped to 50, recovered to normal after about an hour. Last night I woke up at 2:00 am with brady. again and the pounding of every beat as you described. I suspect it will last another hour or two this morning and I'll be fine. Funny thing is if I had started exercising early in the day, I would have recovered and not relapsed.

[axg]

Hope you see this. What was your symptom before the ablation? Did the WPW (Wolf-Parkinson?) produce tachycardia? What's interesting is that you have lower rates after you run (or used to have) like me. Is it confirmed that they were due to the ablation or due to lack of fitness? Did this cause you to get dizzy while running? BTW I use a Timex too.