Pulmonary Embolism and Infarct - Plan for Returning to Training

I am 33, male, 230 pounds and six feet tall.

Recent training history: Did NLP from June to September, transitioned to the Texas Method for a month, suffered through some back tweaks, returned to training in November after a layoff and reset. My logs are in the SS and Intermediate forums.

Health: I had COVID starting on January 8th, recovering by the 21st. On the 27th, after coughing up some blood, I was admitted to the hospital with COVID-induced bilateral pulmonary embolism - several blood clots were found in both lungs. I also have a small infarct of the right lung from lack of blood flow. I spent three days in the hospital and was discharged with a prescription for blood thinners. My doctor expects to have me on blood thinners for three months. I'm improving, although any exertion at this point leaves me out of breath. My doctor's advice for returning to hard physical activity is to wait six to eight weeks and "build up slowly". I'm not in a great hurry, so I don't have a personal issue with that.

My plan:
1. After a week or so, once I'm mostly free of chest pain, start riding my Airdyne at a slow to moderate pace for ten or fifteen minutes three times a week. My intent is to keep the blood moving and try to get my lungs working a little as the infarct heals and turns to scarring.
2. Wait eight weeks and re-start NLP as if I were doing it for the first time.

My questions:
1. Does my plan seem reasonable?
2. Has anyone trained a client on blood thinners or recovering from pulmonary embolism?
3. Should I approach NLP more cautiously than normal, maybe starting with two days a week instead of three? Would it be smart to pretend like I'm an old person for a while?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by readytheharpoon

I am 33, male, 230 pounds and six feet tall.

Recent training history: Did NLP from June to September, transitioned to the Texas Method for a month, suffered through some back tweaks, returned to training in November after a layoff and reset. My logs are in the SS and Intermediate forums.

Health: I had COVID starting on January 8th, recovering by the 21st. On the 27th, after coughing up some blood, I was admitted to the hospital with COVID-induced bilateral pulmonary embolism - several blood clots were found in both lungs. I also have a small infarct of the right lung from lack of blood flow. I spent three days in the hospital and was discharged with a prescription for blood thinners. My doctor expects to have me on blood thinners for three months. I'm improving, although any exertion at this point leaves me out of breath. My doctor's advice for returning to hard physical activity is to wait six to eight weeks and "build up slowly". I'm not in a great hurry, so I don't have a personal issue with that.

My plan:
1. After a week or so, once I'm mostly free of chest pain, start riding my Airdyne at a slow to moderate pace for ten or fifteen minutes three times a week. My intent is to keep the blood moving and try to get my lungs working a little as the infarct heals and turns to scarring.
2. Wait eight weeks and re-start NLP as if I were doing it for the first time.

My questions:
1. Does my plan seem reasonable? If you have, in fact, been cleared by your physician for physical activity, then your plan seems exceptionally reasonable.
2. Has anyone trained a client on blood thinners or recovering from pulmonary embolism? Yes. Many times.
3. Should I approach NLP more cautiously than normal, maybe starting with two days a week instead of three? Would it be smart to pretend like I'm an old person for a while? Not unless you want to think of yourself as an old person. Start where you normally would, progress like you normally would. The totality of the effects of the bilateral PE won't be know in the setting of hard training until you get to the point where you are training hard.

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As above.

I had a PE about 15 years ago; doctors never could figure out why it happened. While they had me on warfarin for a while, they eventually just switched me to an aspirin a day, 325 mg, for the rest of my life. Hearing about the PEs associated with COVID made me wonder if I'd had some other virus back then.

I wasn't weight training at the time, but the first symptoms I noticed was after starting out on a run and I started gasping for breath after about 200 feet. When running on the treadmill at the doctor's office, it again took a minute or so to kick in, when the nurse freaked as my blood pressure dropped steeply and I turned white.

Weight lifting seems mostly anaerobic, so I wonder if it would be possible to get through 5 reps without fainting?

(Months after I recovered, I got up once in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and when I sat back down on the bed, I was breathing hard. My first thought was, "oh, shit, it's happening again, what am I going to do?" My plan was to get dressed and walk out into my driveway and call 911, so if I passed out, they could find my body. As I walked around the room, putting my clothes on, finding my phone, looking for my keys, five minutes had passed and I realized that while I was still breathing hard, it hadn't gotten worse. Maybe I wasn't going to die? I sat down and relaxed and my breathing slowed, and I decided that I had just had a panic attack. I had one more similar episode before I stopped being paranoid about being out-of-breath.)

Coach, thanks for the reply! I will proceed.

One more question, if you don't mind - is there anything I should know about training while on blood thinners?