This past week, I got 4 workouts in (finally!). Two of those workouts were before I started the new medication and two of them were after. And those workouts were like night and day!
I was finally back to my normal schedule for workouts, so that made me happy. Monday was fine but Wednesday was a bit tough. My hips were killing me after being positioned so strangely for my x-rays. I don’t remember having so much pain after my last set of x-rays, but I just tried to not focus on the pain and to listen to my body when I might need to take breaks.
Even though on my post on Friday, I didn’t know exactly when I would start the new medication, I actually was able to start on Friday morning (I take the medicine once a day and in the morning only). I’ll go more into how my first week on the new medicine goes towards the end of this week, but it really did change my workouts.
I have no idea if it was a smart thing to do a workout on the first day of a new medication, but I did it and I can’t change that. My heart was racing like crazy all day, even if I was just sitting at my desk. With my heart racing so much, it was almost causing a panic attack as well! But I just tried to take deep breaths and remind myself that an increased heart rate is a very common (and almost expected) side effect of the medication.
I warned my coach on Friday that my heart rate was racing and that I wasn’t sure how I would do in the workout. He told me to just listen to my body and to take any extra breaks that I might need. And I really needed those extra breaks!
I have been struggling a lot lately to get my heart rate up into the orange zone. But when you compare a workout from the beginning of the week to one at the end of the week, you can see how much higher my heart rate was the entire time.
The top one is from the beginning of the week and the bottom is from the end of the week. And the zones that the app has is different from the zones at Orangetheory, so it doesn’t really show how much time I spent in the orange and red zone (I was there for 33 minutes of a 55 minute workout).
There were a couple of scary moments where my heart was racing so hard that I was getting dizzy and nauseous. That pretty much only happened on the treadmill so when I felt like that I just stepped onto the side rails and caught my breath. I had that feeling once doing floor work, and when that happened I just held onto the wall until the feeling went away (it was gone in about 30 seconds).
The other thing I noticed is that my heart rate is not dropping back to a “normal” rate as quickly as it used to. I expected my normal to be higher, but I thought that all the cardio work that I have done would continue to show (the stronger you are in cardio, the quicker your heart rate goes from a high zone to a regular rate). But I was staying high much longer than before.
I have no idea if the heart rate thing will be a forever thing while I’m on this medication or if it will get better as my body gets used to taking it. I’m taking notes and will be bringing all of these things up with my doctor next month when we discuss how I’m doing on the medicine as well as if I need to increase the dosage.
But while I’m doing all this adjusting to the heart rate changes, I’m more grateful than ever that I have to wear a heart rate monitor at Orangetheory. Even though I would wear a heart rate monitor at SoulCycle, I never looked at what my heart rate was during the class. I mainly used it to track my calorie burn. But now, I’m really paying attention to what my heart rate is doing and trying to make sure that I stay safe in my workouts.
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