Swimming Makes Me Feel Blah

[artluvr09]

It's so frustrating!! Swimming is so fun but then after it takes a toll on you!!! Today I had a pool party with a few friends and I went to her house and I went in the pool for like an hour. I didn't swim much just hang out and talk with them and I did do the doggy paddle back and forth in the shallow end because I don't know how to swim lol and we sat around for a hwile after but it was so hot out. I have been feeling blah ever since swimming. Just very very tired and brain fog. I have no energy!! I always get like this after swimming. I even didn't swim as much as I would lhave liked to because I knew on how I would feel after. Any tips on how to swim and not feel blah afterwards?

[rgny]

I don't know what it is about swimming but the day POTS started for me was after a trip to the pool. I walked into the pool my usual, healthy self, spent an hour or so playing with my son in the lazy river and as I was leaving I fainted in the zero-entry section. Never really been the same since and haven't tried going back in the water. I hope you get some good advice!

[sue1234]

I have had that issue, even prePOTS. All I could think of now, years down the road, pertaining to it happening to me, was maybe I don't handle the pool chemicals well. That could've been either the chlorine and/or the copper fungicides. I have become so sensitive(not allergic) to all kinds of things, like scented soaps, etc., so who knows. The only other thing for me is I have a history of low blood sugar, and it may be that being in the pool used a lot of energy and made my glucose go lower without me understanding what was going on.

So, I have no real answers, just two of my own theories.

[Jan]

Is there a chance it was the heat that made you feel bad. It is unusual for me to be able to spend any time in the heat unless I am at a pool. And then I don't notice how the heat is effecting me until I get home and am exhausted.

When I go to the indoor pool, i sit on one of those floating noodles and paddle and exercise and then leave. It is air conditioned. I might feel a little tired out but generally feel much better.

I think it is important for me to be moving around in the water not being in the heat for too long.

[blueskies]

Getting out of the water at the beach is when it gets hard for me - I feel a bit like I imagine an astronaut would on return to gravity. I can't bear heated pools, i get red and hot and I have read that the few inches above the water is a cloud of gasses emanating from the water that aren't particularly healthy for us. Try washing the smell off your body afterwards and it continues too linger quite strongly. Plus it dries the heck out of my skin.

It has been noted that many of our Aussie Olympic swimmers have asthma suggesting the pools cause it. I'm not sure about this as the reason my kids did swim training was because they had asthma and the idea was to build up their lungs. And perhaps that's why kids who go onto swimming at international level have high rates of asthma - their parents took them to swimming because of their asthma.

Blue

[Finalcntdwn]

It depends on the kind of swimming you are looking to do artluvr. Anything you do with POTS is going to initially make you feel like garbage. Fact. But over time you may find a window that will work for you. Steady paced, concentrating on even strokes and relaxing your breathing more than sprints is better than hypoxicly-geared workouts made to build lung capacity and strength of fast twitch muscles.

I swam competitively growing up and for cross training prior to having POTS, and it is the first thing I worked to get back when diagnosed and the hardest to continue. I now can swim anywhere from 10-40 minutes before any symptom becomes too much for me to bear.

I recommend a few laps and treading water with exercises to start. Work on breathing evenly. Find your max then the next time don't come close to it and go from there.