On the 2015 world championships in Kazan, Russia, Katie Ledecky began feeling a little bit bizarre after dinner one night time—scorching and lightheaded. When she returned to coaching, she’d have a day or two of feeling okay, then a pair with zero power. Generally, as she detailed in her new memoir Simply Add Water: My Swimming Life, she’d get dizzy simply strolling round.
These signs led to a shocking analysis, as Ledecky revealed in her e-book: She had postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or POTS. POTS is a sort of dysautonomia, a dysfunction of your autonomic nervous system, which controls physique features you don’t have to consider (like your blood strain and coronary heart fee).
With POTS, signs happen while you change place, significantly while you go from mendacity or sitting to standing. As Ledecky describes it in her e-book, “I pool blood within the vessels beneath my coronary heart after I stand. My physique then releases further norepinephrine or epinephrine, which provides further stressors on my coronary heart, making it beat quicker. Which, in flip, brings on dizziness, fainting, and exhaustion.”
9 years later, she continues to reside with the situation, however she doesn’t let it cease her from enormous objectives. Right here’s how the four-time Olympian—she’s already gained bronze on the Paris Video games within the 400 meter freestyle, and is slated to compete in 800 meter freestyle, 1500 meter freestyle, and 4×200 meter freestyle relay as nicely—has managed the situation whereas persevering with to rack up the {hardware}.
Ledecky retains constant along with her exercises.
Although it could possibly generally really feel crappy, particularly at first, train usually—and swimming particularly—is definitely one of the vital efficient remedies for POTS, as SELF beforehand reported. With swimming, you don’t change positions a lot, and water acts like a compression swimsuit to manage blood strain. That’s excellent news for Ledecky, who writes: “What are the percentages that the prescriptive train for my explicit illness can be…extra swimming?”
It’s probably that her constant coaching advantages her a ton, since cardio train boosts circulation and leads your physique to create extra blood over time, stabilizing blood strain. All that swimming additionally builds a stronger coronary heart and all-over muscle, which might extra successfully pump that blood by means of her physique.
She stays on prime of her hydration.
The title of Ledecky’s e-book may additionally double as considered one of her remedy methods. Consuming loads of water retains her blood strain and blood quantity excessive sufficient, which helps scale back POTS signs. In line with Johns Hopkins Drugs, people with POTS are usually suggested to drink a minimum of 2 to 2.5 liters of water a day.
Ledecky has additionally by no means had a drink of alcohol, she writes. That’s largely as a result of she doesn’t need it to intrude along with her coaching, nevertheless it’s good for POTS too—alcohol is dehydrating and in addition causes blood to circulate to your pores and skin as a substitute of the remainder of your physique.
And provides further salt to her weight-reduction plan.
Salt helps you keep fluids and offsets all that further norepinephrine. The truth is, people with POTS may want between 3,000 and 10,000 milligrams (mg) of the mineral each day, which is far more than the everyday government-recommended 2,300 mg guideline for the overall inhabitants.
