Heavy cycling and coppery taste

Ransaka

Hi,

I noticed today that after pushing myself hard up a hill on my way home from work that I had a coppery/blood like taste in my mouth. When I got home and spat into the sink there was a tiny fleck of blood in my thick saliva.
Having just recovered from flu (real flu rather than man flu) in the last week or so and still being a bit bunged up in the nose/sinus department and with a vague cough still I'm assuming it's a by product of very cold air/very heavy (gasping) breathing due to the hill climb and having quite blocked sinuses. I assume that the inflamation in the sinus has resulted in a micro nose bleed type affair due to the exertion.

My breathing returns to normal easily enough once I'm on the downward slope and slogging along normally.

Anyone able to confirm similar things or know anything about it.

Having looked around online there are mixed thoughts so I thought I'd ask here to see if any of the fitness gurus here have any idea.

Does it sound fairly normal or is it off to the docs (again) for me?

Garr69

Hi, you dont say if you ended up on anti biotics? but what is more liely than the blood coming from the nose is that you ended up with a chest infection and thats where the metalic taste is coming from. Having had pnemonia a couple of years ago i,d go straight back to the Doc and get them to check your chest. Hope this helps.

Ransaka

I didn't end up on anti biotics but when I was at the docs he had a thorough listen to my chest and seemed satisfied with it. My cough/chest has improved over the last couple of weeks for certain, wondering if the sharp drop in temperature might have had an effect though.

Garr69

Still sounds like your chest and the reminents of an infection but if your happy thats been checked then maybe you need to just take it a bit easier for a while ... I do get that metal taste when its really cold. Just put it down to the asthma I ended up with after the pnemonia... just spoke to a mate and he too gets the taste when its really cold and u are really pushin it.
I now stop exercising if the symptoms drop onto my chest...i hate doing it but better to lose a week than months!
May also be worth using a heart rate moniter just to give u a better idea of how hard you really are working.

Hope it all clears up soon.

muddylegs

There is quite a lot of stuff on the net about a bloody taste after excersing don’t read too much into it though. If you are not happy go back to the doctors you may still have a bit of a chest infection which came out when you pushed yourself hard.
I was always told if you have a cold in the head you can continue to train if it goes onto the chest then stop you can do a lot of damage.

ride_whenever

you shouldn't really be training at all when ill, if you do you need to keep it light.

The coppery taste can be completely normal, jsut from pushing yourslef hard, however you're ill.

trekmtb1081

Are you asthmatic?

Do you always get short of breath or is there a wheeze?

If you wheeze and cough a lot you may have airway inflammation. PM me if you need to.

Ransaka

Hey Trek,

I'm not asthmatic and I don't wheeze or get particularly short of breath other than pushing hard up hills. When I stop my breathing returns to normal quickly, more quickly it seems as I get slightly fitter.

The remnants of the flu and cough have pretty much vanished now so will see what happens on the way home from work tonight when I push up the hill.

Thinking back I'm fairly sure I've had the taste before after/during heavy exertion but not the flecks of blood. I hammered a bit yesterday and seemed okay so I'm going to assume it was to do with the tail end of the flu/chesty cough. We'll see