Fitness Issues – Try a blood test?

My wife is a keen runner and cyclist, pretty fit generally, eats healthily. She’s ran a tough trail marathon this year and done some decent rides too. But the whole of this year (pre and post marathon) she’s been feeling off. Struggling to breathe (especially when running), tiring really quickly, heavy legs despite taking time out to recover. Despite putting the time in to train and recover, she’s way off how she felt and performed last year.

Which is a long preamble to my question: can you ask your GP for a blood test? I feel like there could be an underlying issue. She’s been ill a couple of times this year, and is often tired/exhausted. So would a blood test help, and can you just ask for one? Is there anything she should be looking out for? Is it worth doing a mail order test? Any recommendations?

If she goes to see the GP and describes her symptoms the GP will determine whether it’s required. But it’s a common port of call especially for something like you describe.

You can ask your GP this same question and they will run a load of tests, probably blood maybe other things. That’s why we have GPs after all.

Have a Google of b12 deficiency, I had similar symptoms but no breathing issues, just general fatigue.  Blood tests proved it, now have injections to keep levels up.  Doc also tests for white blood cell count to eradicate other nasty things.

What Poolman says. Lookup B12 deficiency. Mrs SSS gets them regularly due to general fatigue.

I had similar symptoms and I thought it was just age and stuff that had been going on as I was grieving the loss of my dad. GP was really keen to do blood test and it turns out I was really anaemic. It felt like I’d had a magic potion when the iron kicked it!

iron deficiency?

I pretty much had this – different sport but similar symptoms.  As did Mrs OD a few years earlier.  Both sent by GP for full bloods and I also had a chest x-ray

Mrs OD – vitamin D deficiency (also same issue for a couple of our friends) and I think low iron as well.  Huge vitamin D supplements to start then just normal vitamin supps on going

For me everything came back ok and we concluded it was probably a combination of overtraining and impact of stress/anxiety.  I’m fine now my main stressors are much reduced – work and dealing with my mother’s death/estate.  Reading around this and listening to lots of climbing sports science podcasts the term for this is allostatic load.

So yes – get the bloods done

Thanks all. Really helpful and some things to research. Will definitely get to the GP, though could take 2 or 3 weeks based on prior experience.

It will take another couple of weeks for the full results to come back.

It may not give you the answers that you are looking for though.

I had one done in April after suffering from excessive fatigue for a couple of years.

The results came back okay apart from slightly high cholesterol.

I am pleased that I am not suffering from the things they tested for, but it has not explained why I feel so fatigued at times.

@Hohum, did they test Testosterone ?

Similar happened to me over 10 years ago. Work commute always gave the same times going into work and coming home, but started to notice coming home felt harder and harder. A bit of work looking through my Garmin logs, showed a steady reduction in speed over a number of months.  It co-incided with surgery (the snip) and more so with some major repair work in the same area, a year after – I’d started feeling rubbish soon after the second surgery – got a full set of bloods and my T was down to about 5-6 n/mol – should be 15/20 plus. Been on replacement since, and feel much better, but it’s a bit hit and miss applying gel – do it too quickly and don’t let it absorb into the skin for 10 minutes, it comes off into your clothing – recently had follow up tests and was really low again – I’d got lazy in application.

OP does your partner log her runs etc ? It can come in quite handy when talking to the GP about feeling run down and tired.

@fossy no they didn’t.

I am 53 now and I was hoping that they would have.

I have to go back in August for another blood test and I am going to ask/push them to test for it then.

@Hohum make sure they test it – 54 here but issues started at 43 following surgeries.

Is your wife vegetarian/vegan/taking antacids/metformin? B12 deficiency causes anaemia (it is used to make red blood cells) and b12 has to be consumed in the diet (from meat/fish and diary). It can cause all of the symptoms you describe. It would be a good idea for her to be eating some meat/fish/dairy every day and to avoid alcohol/tea/coffee/mouldy stuff/excessive carb consumption.

She’s probably pescatarian in that she’s mostly vegetarian but does eat some fish. And working from home full time she does drink a lot of tea/coffee (not always caffeinated, but the majority is). Alcohol is next to nothing. Will definitely look into B12.

Most fatigue is just modern life/stress.

If it’s been going on for longer than six weeks, then often it’s worth doing a few simple blood tests looking for diabetes/anaemia/kidney function/thyroid function/iron, B12 levels.

Fatigue, breathlessness, poor recovery in endurance athletes can sometimes be mild asthma, or rarely a form of cardiomyopathy.

I had full bloods done recently.  I had a well man check up a couple of months ago and got a clean bill of health with a weight loss of 20kg from about 5 years ago. I was feeling a bit run down and not getting the kind of response i was hoping for from the gym work i was doing.  Nothing particularly wrong with me though.

But i wasnt content with this so asked for a more thorough check including testosterone and free testosterone.

Got them all back recently and all good (other than kidney function which was effected by using creatine) but nice to have them checked.  I use the NHS app which gives me access to my full results which is helpful to correlate what they actually mean.

Just be honest and ask is my advice.

Has she had covid recently? Could be a mild version of long covid.

Pescatarians should be getting enough B12 but I’ll add fungus to Jamz’s list of places to get it, that’s what most vegans would use, it is in animal products but no need to have them to get it if she’s eating enough mushrooms/marmite/etc. It’s the only one your body can’t make or get from plants so it’s fungus if you want to avoid animal products. And there’s no harm in eating more of them anyway.

I’ve had the same symptoms for some time.  Had a raft of tests (not sure about Testosterone need to check that)

GP said its basically the after effects of covid, and to give it time

I find the breathing is related to how tense my muscles are – I just seem to randomly cramp up over night and the time I used to spend riding is now spent trying to release off via yoga.  If I stop doing yoga I definitely see a regression in my breathing issues

For me its hip / stomach / back / shoulder / neck and jaw – likely all related to posture, which cycling does not help with.

I had similar and a bloody test revealed glandular fever

B12 deficiency can be genetic, in my case my body cant process b12 rich food, so even if I ate spinach all day it would just pass through.  It has to be injected and the levels just ramp up.  I remember just general fatigue, I could sleep anywhere.  A weekly then monthly shot of b12 I was buzzing.

Timely. I had blood tests about a month or so ago and the GP called me and recommended I take B12 and she’d arrange follow up tests a month later

So, I’ve been taking B12 and did more thorough blood tests and just looked at the results (lab put results up online)

Anyway, the B12 is now ok but a whole load of other items have been flagged as outside of normal levels, inc Cholesterol.

Thing is, I don’t feel ill. Original blood tests were only triggered by routine colon cancer screening.

So now I’ve got a few days worrying about all my out-of-range results until I talk to my GP next week 🫣

Lol – I shouldn’t have looked at the results and then went Googling. Doh

pretty much had this – different sport but similar symptoms.

Same, nothing from the blood tests until someone suggested pushed to be tested for Epstein.Barr which isn’t included in the normal Blood tests.   Turns out I tested positive, and despite nearly 7 months of training and my fitness improving I’m still 20% down on performance and have very fatigued times indeed.  Might be worth asking for that test.