Quote Originally Posted by SJCzar View Post
I guess I could have clarified my question more. Yes, first degree was the type that I was told was more common among athletes (but not caused by the exercise itself). So I figured if that statistic was accurate, and with the number of athletic women on these boards, there would be at least a few that had it.

I had not had any adverse effects from mine until recently when I had an incident where my rate dropped so low that I passed out. After a few days in the hospital and a repeat battery of tests I'm back to my normal routine. I learned to take the warning signs a bit more seriously next time .... before I get to the pass out stage.

Luckily I always feel my healthiest when I'm riding my bike so I don't have to stop doing that. Now I just need to convince my DH that I should probably quit my job and spend all day on my bike.
Ugh, passing out is not cool! I almost did that a few weeks ago in clinical while watching a procedure (paracentesis, where they stick a big needle into someone's abdomen to drain fluid that has accumulated usually due to liver disease)--was fine until I started thinking about how painful it looked, next thing I knew I was really lightheaded, quickly checked my pulse and found it was really slow (like probably in the 30s!) and sat down before getting to the point of losing consciousness. Very embarrassing. Gotta love those vagal reactions--sometimes they happen in situations like that, and I know other people in my class who have done it as well. With your incident, what were you doing at the time and how did you know it was from a drop in heart rate? Did you get any sort of diagnosis? Here's hoping you don't have that happen again!