4th run in 6 days

Like the title says, 4th in 6. Feels pretty good with some oddities. I wasn’t sure I was going to get the run in today as I was feeling a bit run down and sore from working in the yard yesterday and having a desperate food need forcing me to go grocery shopping this morning. But after getting back from the store I decided I should really do this, so off I went. Pretty typical run in that I did my normal 5+ mile route with a sub 10 min mile pace.

Now for the oddities. My awesome excuse for not running on Thursday was that I just didn’t feel like doing anything after my visit to the urologist for a cystometrogram. Basically the test fills your bladder up with saline as well as your rectum (to offset the pressure on the bladder), when full the pressure is checked on the plumbing and how well it deals with the full bladder. I was under the impression that this was going to reveal some insight into some of the bladder issues I have been having over the years (both frequency and incontinence issues, which was confusing to the doc as usually it is one or the other, but ms works in mysterious ways). So the first step is a catheter is inserted into the urinary track to empty the bladder with the help of some numbing gel. Off we go. The PA inserts this first catheter without issue. Now comes the fun, after the first one is removed a second catheter is then inserted into the bladder. It was smaller (thank you) and flimsier. Well she tried and tried and tried without success and asked me if I could feel it kinking up. Well I was feeling something, but kinking wasn’t it. So she stopped and called the doc. She came back and asked me how bad my symptoms were to which I said “well bad enough so that I am here!” to which she replied that the test was just to establish a baseline to test against in the future to track any further complications. She said it was a really good sign that I was able to completely empty my bladder via the first catheter and that I could come back in three months to try again. Ugh. Or, (and usually the “or” is a worse situation, but not this time) I could blow it off and she would give me a prescription for whatever symptom direction I felt was worse (frequency or difficulty urinating). Finally, this is what I was hoping for in the first place four months ago when I first saw the urologist. She gave me two weeks of samples of a med called Rapaflo. I was told to not expect to see anything for a week or so while I built the med up inside my system. If I see positive results and want to continue, then she would write a prescription.

So off I go, hopefully “going” in more ways than just that. I looked onto the side effects and see that there are a few somewhat rare side effects. One of the more common ones is dizziness due to lowered blood pressure, one of the odder and less frequently mentioned (I wonder why) symptoms is what is known as retrograde ejaculation. Wtf? Basically it means when a male orgasms the semen doesn’t leave the penis and instead goes into the bladder. Supposedly the person still orgasms, just not outwardly. It is not a huge deal and you just urinate it out. Great. Something to look forward to. Well I didn’t have to wait long and it happened the next day after I took the first pill. It didn’t have quite the same feeling either. Not a fan, but I will give it a week and some more research to see if this is temporary or permanent before I say no to rapaflo.

Another thing I noticed after a couple of days is that it seems to be effecting my running as my HR is elevated and I feel quite a bit more tired once I hit about 40 minutes of running. I have had to stop and walk these last several runs at times. I am not sure if this is due to the lowered BP, but I suspect it is. Looking at my Garmin numbers I see that my avg HR is a bit higher, but not nearly as high as I thought it would be. Today my HR hit 182 at one point before a walking stretch. The effort to get there didn’t seem that crazy, so again I suspect the low BP. Something to watch out for for sure. Yesterday working in the yard I experienced a similar bout of tired as well. I am going to make an appointment with my GP and see if there are some different solutions. I am sure there are.