Coughing away my strength…
It is hot as hell in S£o Paulo and it rains every single day … my picture of Hell itself. My workout buddy and I train at noon because of our work schedules and our Gym has no air conditioning. To make things worse, my normal blood pressure is 60/100, sometimes 50/90 … real low. This is definitely not my best time of the year for a meet preparation, but this is exactly what we are doing. I am on week-4 of a 8 week preparation for the first meet of the year, with low expectations. S£o Paulo is particularly polluted these days in spite of the rain. I can’t figure why. This may be the reason why my allergic cough has improved, disappeared and then returned. I have been to the ER twice because of this cough last month. It is a pretty good and fancy hospital, they did a number of tests, took a chest X-ray and concluded it was just allergy. I have a hard time with anti-histaminics. Promethazine knocks me out completely, even in pediatric dosage. Fexofenadine does not, but in association with pseudoephedrine, it keeps me from sleeping. At all. What really helps me sleep by controlling the coughing at a reasonable level is a Boehringer medication with Clobutinol (an anti-tussive) and Doxylamine (an anti-histaminic). Doxylamine is VERY sedating … even more than some hypnotics. I am still coughing, I see no improvement and what I DO see is that my strength has been affected.
Clobutinol has been shown to be an ion channel blocker in a K+ pump heart system. I found nothing concerning skeletal muscle effects. Doxylamine may cause muscle injury in high doses, has smooth muscle relaxant activity, which makes me think it is not so innocuous for ANY muscle in ANY dose. I am not very enthusiastic about all this:
