This past Monday was our first track practice. I do long jump and short sprints, and this week we’ve mainly been working on longer sprinting and drills. I am so impressed with those who can run long distances. That doesn’t work for me. I wish I could say that the last few practices were great, but to be honest, they’ve been really hard. I have a condition called Vocal Cord Dysfunction or VCD. For a long time, we thought I had exercise-induced asthma since the symptoms are so similar. Basically, when I run for longer distances, even just two laps around the track, my vocal cords close up, restricting airflow. It sounds so pathetic, but after two laps, I’ll be hyperventilating and wheezing with bad chest pain. After three laps (our warm-up), I’m choking and gagging. For the 30 minutes after, I’m still choking and coughing badly. I don’t have any problems sprinting the 100m or running for the long jump. I just struggle with our warm-ups and drills.
The problem with VCD is there isn’t an easy treatment. For asthma, an inhaler can be used to open the air tube and allow airflow. However, with VCD, the only treatment is training your vocal cords to work properly. What’s even more frustrating is when I try these exercises or “rescue breaths,” it only seems to get worse. To be honest, the first couple of practices have been really discouraging. I’ve been looking forward to track ever since our season was cut short last year. I love to sprint and jump with the burst of energy and rush of adrenaline. It’s dumb that I can’t do an easy warm-up. What is especially frustrating is my inability to fix the problem. I’m someone who believes that improvement comes from hard work and pushing through pain. I did competitive gymnastics for seven years and pushed through pain every day. While teammates would slack off, I would work harder. During these VCD attacks, as I try to push harder, it just seems to get worse. The harder I try to take in more air, the tighter my vocal cords become. Everything I’ve tried doesn’t seem to help. And that lack of control is more frustrating than you can imagine. I’ve been to the doctor and trainer before but never saw any significant improvements. I’m probably going back in the next week or so to see if they suggest anything else. Hopefully, this can get better soon.
Update: I wrote the above on Tuesday but had a much better practice on Wednesday and Thursday. On Thursday (today), I even had the farthest distance on long jump!!
Sports conditions are always really tough mentally. Sports are supposed to be our get away but it is very frustrating when we do not perform at the best level, especially when it is something out of our control. Stay positive! It can only get better from there.
ReplyDeleteDon't be frustrated with yourself over this. If you just keep working on it, I'm sure you'll get better! One thing you might consider is that the exercises that you are doing that seem to make everything worse could just be increasing your endurance, but I don't know anything about the medical field :). One thing I do know though is that you shouldn't give up on something because you have trouble with it (not that you were planning on it). Keep pushing through and I'm sure you'll do great.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds terrible! And I'm sure running with masks on isn't helping either :(. I'm glad you had better practices on Wednesday and Thursday though! Maybe that's a sign that things will be looking up soon.
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