canklecat

Check with a doctor. But pulmonary edema usually won't clear up that quickly.

Sounds more like asthma. Or it might be complications from the ever-mutating SARS virus. While SARS has diminished in ferocity in most regions, some variants are far more infectious, with symptoms sorta like the flu. For better or worse we'll have to live with it for awhile. I'm at the point where I regard the vaccines more as immune system boosters rather than lifetime insurance policies. But recently I found my childhood shot record from the 1950s-'60s, and it turns out we got four or more immunizations for polio and other diseases back then too. And I got another dozen or more in military service in the 1970s, including immune globulin (then called gamma globulin) for hepatitis exposure -- I was a Navy Corpsman working in a high risk environment with patients who had kidney failure, hepatitis, etc. I realized decades ago viruses often carry complications beyond the face value. So the SARS virus isn't just a "respiratory bug." The lungs are just the entry point.

Recently I had to switch from albuterol (not a true rescue inhaler, no matter what the makers claim) to Primatene Mist with epinephrine for my worst asthma attacks. And I have Asmanex, a preventive inhaler that I often forget to use.

When I resumed cycling in 2015 after a 30+ year hiatus it seemed to take forever to regain my aerobic fitness. I wheezed and gasped on every hillette in my part of Texas. We don't have any mountains but the terrain in my area has lots of short, steep climbs, typically 5%-12% for 100 yards, then downhill, flat, up, down, lather, rinse, repeat until passed out. I was 57 then but after about a year was doing pretty well.

Unfortunately I've been mostly off the bike since last autumn when I caught the Super Cooties despite the vaccines (although at least the jab kept me out of the ER and ICU, unlike some friends). No lower respiratory complications, but I'm still having intermittent upper respiratory inflammation, vertigo, joint and muscle pain and fatigue. I was worried about crashing -- my dizziness really was that bad -- so I switched to mostly running on good days, jogging slowly on meh days, walking even on bad days. I figure if I get dizzy and fall it'll hurt less.

And I've experienced the metallic taste and odor thing. In my case it's from blood due to an upper respiratory inflammation that was so bad I had frequent nose bleeds and had blood clots in my nasal drainage for weeks. I had to use saline water nasal irrigation to avoid straining the mucosa and making it worse. The bloody drainage persisted from October until just a few weeks ago, late February or early March. And I needed a couple of courses of oral Prednisone to knock down the inflammation.

TBH, by September 2021 I was getting careless with with whole tiresome pandemic hoohah and didn't always mask up in places like grocery stores since I usually shop late at night when the stores are nearly empty. And I had to take the city bus or Uber often to medical appointments. So it's possible I let my guard down and caught the Super Cooties. Although to be realistic, there's no way to avoid it. We'll just have to live with it and do the best we can to avoid severe complications.

I put in the same hours per week, but a fraction of the mileage, and I'm still at only about one-third of my former workout intensity. Per Strava's gauge for workout intensity, I'm down from about 1,000 per week to around 350 on a good week, often lower. That's still better than most guys my age. I'm just fortunate that I was in exceptionally good shape from around 2016-2019, but it took a lot of hard work and tackling our roller coaster terrain hills over and over until my chest burned.

I've used the indoor trainer a couple of times and can tell it'll take me awhile to regain my cycling legs and lungs. And I have to disagree with the young Greg LeMond's statement "It doesn't get easier, you just go faster." I'm sure nowadays he'd agree that it doesn't get easier and you just get slower.