Learned one of the most important lessons of my life today! Sorry if this is TMI, but I want to remember the details of today...
Went out for a ride in the hottest part of the day, climbed
a good 4000 feet part of it on a newly black topped road radiating heat like
you wouldn’t believe, essentially pushed myself harder than I have in nearly a
year plus I sweat like an obese man, and drank about 32 ounces of water over
the course of 4 hours. I know I needed to drink more and it was kind of
freaking me out, but there wasn’t anywhere to refill and I felt okay.
Got home, felt fine, yet tired, drank a bunch of water, an
emergen-C, ate some toast with almond butter, stretched, and laid on the couch
for about an hour talking on the phone. Stood up and BAM, vertigo like I
haven’t experienced in a long time. Then came the nausea, vomit,
tunnel vision, crazy wavy lines, imbalance, more vertigo, and sheer and utter
panic. Thought I was going to die for sure!
Long story short, I used to have a huge problem with vertigo
and crazy, weird visual aura stuff. After seeing a ton of ENTs and neurologists
I was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease, Vestibular Migraines, and recurrent BPPV.
Tests showed that my right inner ear was not responding to any stimulus so I
was pretty much screwed and there wasn’t a whole lot that could be done. My
symptoms seemed random, but I started paying attention to them and started
noticing that they would happen after long runs or after I drank a lot of wine.
I started thinking my symptoms were related to dehydration, but of course my
docs thought that was a bunch of shizzle.
As a personal experiment I started being super conscious
about water and electrolytes pretty much to the point of obsession. Anyone who
knows me knows that I can be seldom seen without a water bottle and I typically
freak out if I go somewhere without water :) And guess what? I have been nearly symptom free for a couple of years now so
much that I almost forgot I have ever had these problems. That is until
today! As much as this sucked and
I seriously thought I was dying, now I am almost 100% sure all these crazy
things can be linked to dehydration, which feels pretty empowering actually.
Granted water is not going to make my right inner ear work so I will always
have weird issues with that, but I believe that adequate hydration can prevent
attacks like this.
I will now be carrying a camel back on my road bike. I don’t
care if it is so totally uncool, because what is really uncool is vomiting all
over yourself because your vision is so wonky and your head is spinning so bad
you can’t seem to find your own bathroom.
Ride: Home to Big Mountain and back. 44 miles, 4031 feet of
elevation gain. Anyone want to buy a road bike?
| 
