No, but I'm happy for you that you're able to go so far. Keep it up!!! Pauline

Hi Rod, I was just diagnosed with Exercise Induced Pulmonary Hypertension (EIPH) via a Right Heart Cath (RHC) at rest and with exercise. Is that how you got diagnosed? I can't imagine doing an IronMan course. There seem to be no dates on this site, so I hope you did great. And in Hawaii, how cool!

After my RHC, the doctor told me to get a trainer and have him push me as hard as possible. I just did my 14th session since early March. At first, it was extremely difficult...I was resting trying to get air 80% of the time. Now, it is probably 30% of the time....It is slow and can be very frustrating the days I can't do much, but I am getting stronger and feel like I can move better. Some days I can exercise a total of 35-45 min and other days, I am lucky to do 20 min. My recovery time between exercises is so much better.

My cardiologist tells me that there is not much they can do for this, but I have a stress test and a pulmonary testing next 2 weeks so that will tell them more. Sounds like after that they might try Viagra type drug to see if that helps my breathing. She tells me to keep exercising as much as possible as it will keep me better longer. One of my cardiologist told me that some of the new test studies may come out with drugs that help with this.

A bunch of us in my family are in a genetic study for cardiomyopathy out of Northwestern in Chicago. They say that my cardiomyopathy (diagnosed in 2001) was caused by a specific mutated gene. They said that they are not sure that the mutated gene has caused my EIPH but they are going to watch for that in the study group. It sounded like the diagnosis of EIPH is fairly new and many of the study participants may not have been tested for that.

Best of luck to you and please keep us informed of what works for you and what doesn't.