I think that's great advice. My limited experience of doctors (GPs) is that they are not really interested if you don't have an obvious medical issue that they can throw some pills at. I also find that "Dr Google" is actually pretty effective. Last year I got this really strange and dramatic rash all over my body. It looked like I'd been whipped as the rash was in distinct streaks across my arms, chest, back and legs. So I went straight to my GP and he didn't have the faintest clue what it was. The best he could come up with was a "viral rash". I wasn't convinced as it was nothing like any viral rash I've ever seen before. 30 mins research on Google later and bingo!

https://imj.ie/shiitake-flagellate-d...ed-in-ireland/

I had indeed under-cooked some ****ake mushrooms a couple of days earlier. Thankfully the rash faded away after a few days.

This is not me in the above link btw!

I would def see a good Doctor.

In my early 40's, I could barely ride a few blocks without immediate lactic acid build up. I went to the Doc and said, "my mitochondria are broken" and he tested me for lead and it was sky high. Doc treated me over some months and I eventually got better. Fortunately, he had had an olympian shotgunner who had this problem and he connected the dots for me. Possibly luck that he recognized it. OTOH, it is not normal for a young man of 53 to have such a drastic change like that. Unfortunately, OP probably will not get help easily but should pursue. Not normal. It isn't like the intensity and volume are huge or that he ramped up quickly. If a week of rest does not resolve the intense tiredness, something is wrong.

I've had similar episodes in my 50s, though maybe not as severe. And batteries of tests never found anything. Partly, I think, it WAS that I was undertrained. Maybe that isn't the case for the OP.

If you've had the fulll battery of tests and the docs find nothing, try not to overhting it or worry about it too much. First take a break and reset, and then come back to it gradually. Do a ton of base miles before you ride hard. And when you ride hard, also do a ton of base miles.

Good luck

Your described riding and relative effort is hardly overdone. Unless every ride is an intense 'Intervals' ride, your week is a light week for many at that age, and even older.
Could be anything or nothing more than a 'phase'... But I'm sayin - CHECK FOR EVERYTHING! , COVID, low or high something in the chemistry, whatever. Get as many tests done as possible to help define.
Not to scare you... but
I went thru the same chronic fatigue thing starting 7 yrs back. I had tests done, all showed normal body chemistry, no malfunctioning organs, nervous system ok, lymph system a little active but not unusual. All my various docs had little knowledge of sport and it's training affects, so they were always thrown off by my results - low resting heart rate (42), other things like CPK highs, etc.
But what wasn't done, after all other tests showed nothing, was either CT or PET Scan (which would have found the problem instantly)...
Went on like this for 3 years... I would complain at every post hammerfest ride coffee session... I'm not a complainer... I can suffer with the best.
Finally came to a head, 3 1/2 yrs later... I had massive blood in Urine. Immediately to ER, all tests still showed normal - CT Scan done - massive tumor found in the bladder...
Tests come back, it's Stage 3 Bladder cancer, the bladder fully enveloped...
Won;t go into all the detail.... BUT, I'm still here, AND my oncologist happens to be a riding/racing buddy, although he's quite a bit younger. He remembers my pissing and moaning and now appreciates. The struggle against this is proving successful to an amazing degree - I'm blessed.
I'm back riding regular, long road back to where I was before all this ensued... But good with that, coming back takes time.
Get Tests started NOW. Keep riding, but throttle back to recovery pace for every ride, small ring spin, Ride every ride easy.Stay very well hydrated !!!
Get a Heart monitor if you don;t have one. Look at it, as you ride, get to know what seems normal and what isn't.
Again, my message is extreme - I get it. Your issue may be nothing like this
Don't accept a 'non answer', don;t let the MDs shine you on, like my Primary did.Find a Primary MD who has an appreciation and knowledge of athletic conditioning.
You're young! Ok to expect to be able to be and do intense...
My very best to you!
Thx
Yuri

Lots of good advice here.

Not too long ago I had convinced myself that I was slipping into heart failure, so I got a stress echo, which I passed.

I’m just a fat lazy hypochondriac.

A word about the Big T, and this is personal opinion which I’ve made no effort to validate: I think falling testosterone in aging is normal and may be a protective adaptation.

As Scott Peck had said, the thing about falling testosterone is that you get your brain back.

It didn’t work for me, but perhaps YMMV.

Diabetes?

Wow, this one hits home. I am 75 and fatigue is an issue I have been dealing with since the 1980's. Back then I was a fast competitor in foot races, 10 kilometer and 10 mile. Fast meaning that If i cherry picked a race, I could get a podium in my age group. I as also Dipsea invitational and raced the Double Dipsea, extremely difficult races. Long story short, I simply overtrained and over competed and ended up completely exhausted for weeks at a time. I had to stop everything and rest for months, and never went back to competing. forty years later, I still get tired if I over train, lol. Point of fact, back in the eighties, the long hard bike rides that I did really wore me out. I believe that it's possible to overtax yourself on a bike much more easily than running.

So I want to ride 20-30 miles daily and do 2000 foot vertical climbs quickly. Nope. That just puts me on my back. I ride one day out of three, and that usually works as long as I don't string a bunch of hard rides one after the other. Kinda sucks, that's life. I did go through a period of atrial flutter that severely curtailed my activity, that was taken care of by ablation.

Now, I just accept, for the most part, that I get tired easily. I still do rides that most guys my age won't do. I just quit riding motorcycles on the track. I'm in pretty good physical shape, and I just try to accept that I am not thirty, forty, fifty, or sixty anymore.

Do you take any Meds for the Afib?

As others have said, get a GOOD doctor and don't give up till you find out what it is. It could be a long journey. I had similar issues. Turns out I had thyroid cancer. Now I am free of it and I feel great. I also had Lyme disease. It can easily be more than one thing.
For me (at 60) having a good marriage and having a positive mental attitude is what got me through. So much of tiredness in people is emotional/psychological. Stress and depression are incredible sappers of energy.

I saw where some replies slammed the idea that it couldn’t be related to hydration, but I’ve had similar symptoms as yours this summer and it was dehydration. Mine could have been both lack of fluids and electrolytes but after I made sure to take care of those two things my issues were resolved.

I hope you’re able to get a resolution and get back to normal. Just curious, do you drink or take much caffeine? I know it can do a number on me.

I do have one thing to add.

I just went through spine surgery, about a year ago, and a long painful recovery of my strength, literally unable to do one pushup or ride a stationary bike more than ten minutes before my neck hurt too much. Lots of workouts and lots of discipline, I'm close to bench pressing my body weight, and 20 pushups are easy, took a lot of work to get there, and lots of fatigue. I decided to back on a statin, though I had had problems with them. What a mistake that was. In six weeks I lost conditioning, became easily fatigued, and again suffered the muscle and joint pain that I had encountered in the previous attempt. That's it. No more statins. I am back to 25-30 mile rides a couple times a week at age 75, and while I do get tired, it's a good tired, I just like to take a long nap after a ride. And the next day I'm not fatigued.

Always consult with your doctor. In my case the fatigue and headaches (and occasional leg cramping) were all due to low magnesium levels.

I have been a Type 2 for nearly a quarter of a century. Those do not sound like diabetes related symptoms, however.

Something's up. Protein? It's now accepted that as we age our protein requirements increase because we get worse at doing protein synthesis in our muscles. That was always my first go-to when I didn't recover well. My solution in my early 50s was chocolate flavored whey protein, starting at 45g/day. At 76 I've increased it to 120 g/day to keep my recovery rate reasonable. I started that a couple months ago and it made a huge difference. It's a relatively cheap experiment with no downside.

Add me to the list of people who think a thorough medical work up is in order, and keep it up until you have a good answer.

Your doc scheduled a stress test. I would not rely on that, as they do not detect blockages until they are very serious.

You might want to consider a CT angiogram. Ask your doc.

Hi OP,
any further updates ? any changes in the past 6 wks?
we're all curious, but also learning how things can manifest themselves is important to all - aging is such a 'blackbox' thing...
AT our post-ride coffee session, we were discussing the general state of health care (2 of our group are MDs, one is my oncologist... LOL!).
One MD came up with: " Medical progress in the most recent decades has been driven by the very sick and unhealthy - as being very obvious and often a large population which are seen by doctors - on the other hand, people who are generally healthy and fit but develop issues are much harder to diagnose and treat, because their make-up in the medical service stream is low and infrequent - it's an area which just hasn't received the attention, because fit people don't 'linger' with ongoing problems - they just up and die quickly..."
Crazy idea, but prolly not far off-base...
ANy way - if you're still around - an update would be very appreciated.
Ride On
Yuri

Hi everyone

I wanted to respond to a few comments and give an update to my latest tests and health status

• While I don't count the amount of protein I get each day, I do add protein supplement to my daily bowl of oatmeal. In addition, I get at least 4-5 servings a week of some form of meat or fish.
• I have always and continue to ensure that I am hydrated when I ride or exercise in the gym
• As I stated in my original post I have been exercising my whole life. When I started to experience my issues, I had been following the same general workout routine that I have been doing for the last 10 years.
• I have recently had both a stress test and a CT scan. Both test came back in the normal range.
• I don't have and have not had covid
• I took 2 weeks off from exercising and experienced some the worst days of headache and fatigue
• In the last month I have returned to riding and working out in the gym. I keep everything to about 50% from what I used to do. I am still experiencing mild headaches.
• This morning my doctor informed me he has ordered some additional blood work tests to look for generalized signs of inflammation which may suggest an underlying autoimmune vascular condition. In addition, he wants me to get an ultrasound of my carotid arteries to look at blood flow. Lastly, he has placed a referral to a neurologists who specialize in headaches.

Thanks everyone for their input and concern. I will provide more updates when I can.

Ask your doctor: polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) with temporal arteritis. Fits your symptoms. I had PMR in '18 and think I might have it again. Going to see my doc this afternoon about it. Temporal arteritis, also known as giant cell arteritis, is a serious disease which TG I didn't have. I had to go to a rheumatologist to get the correct blood tests to enable diagnosis.

Hi Everyone,

I believe that I have identified the root cause of my on-going headaches and fatigue. I looked back at any new supplements that I started this year and identified that I had started to take l-theanine in February and Apigenin in March to help with my sleep. While taking them I was able to achieve a more consistent sleep pattern. I decided to stop taking both of them on December 16. Since then I have not experienced headaches or fatigue. Furthermore, I have been able to increase the intensity and duration of my workouts without any negative side effects. I haven't gone on any serious bike rides since the weather has been crappy where I live, but I have gone to the gym multiple times with positive outcomes. I don't know if one of them, or the combination, or the duration of taking them was the root cause, but I feel very confident that I am back to my old self since stopping them.

I truly appreciate everyone's help in trying to get to the bottom of my symptoms.

Happy and Safe New Year!

Thanks,

John

That's really interesting. The literature I've found mentions headache as being a possible side effect of l-theanine. I don't find anything relating to your symptoms for Apigenin.

For a sleep aid, I've found 100mg of melatonin to work very well. In fact I try to take it about an hour before bedtime because by the end of that time I'm fairly useless. That's another hormone which normally declines with age. Note that melatonin is reported to have similar side effects to l-theanine, though I've been taking it daily for a couple of years with no issues. But everyone's different.

Glad that you got that fixed and thanks for posting the fix.

Carbonfiberboy You bring up a good point. It is possible the main culprit is l-theanine. Since I started to take both at the the same time, I decided to go cold turkey on both. I might re-introduce one at a time some time in the future, but I am happy to have eliminated the deleterious side effects. I do take ~300-500 mcg of melatonin, which helps most nights. Thanks for the reply.

Thanks. I misremembered my melatonin dose - it's 5mg!

I was a little surprised when you stated 100mg. However I held my tongue fingers and figured I wait to see if any other questioned it or you realized it was an error.

My wife takes a 10 mg dose of melatonin. Apparently it does well for her. I tried it for several months at both 5 mg and 10 mg but for me, while I went to sleep faster, I woke up about 3 or 4 o'clock and had trouble getting back to sleep. Without it I sleep more continuously and almost till the alarm goes off.

A doctor takes a single class in nutrition to graduate from a medical school in the USA and so they are the least knowledgeable professionals you will encounter. As we age our bodies process nutrient less well and so it is not unusual to need supplements like zinc, magnesium, potassium, vitamins C, D, E, and CoQ10. My first blood serum test for Vitamin D put be in the low 20% and it takes 5000 IU a day to get me into the 40% range. The 5000 IU is much higher than is recommended as the studies look at levels needed to prevent bone fractures and ignore how Vitamin D is used by the body's organs and how low levels are correlated to increased heart disease and cancers and to the complication from people infected with Covid. Same applies to Vitamin C where the focus was on preventing scurvy and ignoring all the other areas where it is critical for human health. Iron is another factor that can be too low or too high and not part of a regular blood workup.

Food allergies are worth exploring as well. For years I suffered from nasal congestion and asthma and noticed that when I traveled out of town my symptoms would clear up completely. Took a long while for me to realize the problem was eating food containing wheat. No wheat and no nasal congestion and no asthma and no need for corticosteroid to treat the asthma or decongestants to minimize nasal congestion. No GP or specialist even mentioned food allergy as a problem and only focused on treating the symptoms.

There are doctors that have done additional education and are licensed as "functional medicine" practitioners. These doctors are far more aware of the complexity of the human body and how nutrition and various allergies or lack of key nutrients can affect their patients' health. With all the factory food the micro nutrients in food have diminished while the toxic content from herbicides and pesticides and antibiotics has increase tremendously in the past 40 years. We have all been unwitting volunteers in the mass experiments by the chemical companies.