Severe Pain and Immobility

[Matthew_P]

#2129

I’ve just stumbled upon this site and decided to post because there is an active forum of Bikram Yoga practitioners. I’m looking for someone who has had or knows of a similar experience as my wife and can recommend a treatment. She has been nearly immobilized for more than a week now. Here is her story:

My wife is 41 and of medium fitness. She does some aerobics, a little bit of resistance training, stretching, and has a reasonably healthy and balanced diet. She’s Japanese. Recently, she left a job she was unhappy with and took some time off. She enjoyed regular yoga and decided to pick up Bikram yoga as there is a studio a few blocks from our house. Starting from about two weeks ago, she went every morning for about 6 consecutive days. She really enjoyed it and her instructor noticed and commented on her improvement.

The sixth day, which was last Saturday May 7th, we actually did it together. I do some yoga at home on my own as advanced stretching for my active team sports lifestyle. The Bikram session ended up aggravating an existing knee injury, but I dialed it down in the end and made adjustments. Anyway, we walked home after the session. My wife immediately started saying she felt tired and wanted to lay down. We didn’t think it was severe fatigue or anything other than just resting after a yoga session. Saturday night she was tired but not terribly so. However, she started complaining about back pain. This was the first she’d ever experienced it. She acknowledged that she may have stretched too far a couple of times in the last few Bikram sessions and so spent the rest of Saturday evening stretching out and trying to get loose. She didn’t sleep that well. The next day, Sunday, her back continued to bother and she began complaining about neck pain. I was gone most of the day and when I returned Sunday evening, she told me that her entire body ached, especially the joints and especially her back and neck. I gave her fluids and a couple of Alleve. Monday morning she felt worse. I had to go to work. I checked in on her frequently and she continued to feel worse in the joints and the back. She managed to take another dose of Alleve and go out for lunch and walk around a little bit. In the evening, she complained that she felt even worse than before. She felt severe fatigue and the same aches and pains- especially in joints and aforementioned areas. She could no longer maintain homeostasis either and fluctuated between chills and sweats.

Tuesday we went in to see a doctor. I was concerned it was meningitis or something severe. She could barely move and needed my help to literally walk a few steps. The doctor took standard BP, EKG, temp, and took blood. Her BP was lower than normal. The doctor had never heard of Bikram yoga, so we had to explain it to her. The appointment ended with a promised follow-up the next morning to review blood results and check on condition. I had taken off on Tuesday but had to go in to work on Wednesday. My poor wife had somehow managed the short bus ride to the doctor’s office alone. Around noon I received a call from her. Her condition was no better. She felt worse. Blood tests did not reveal anything. The doctor recommended she go to the Emergency Room to receive urgent care. They had to send my wife in a car service car because I couldn’t get there in time. At this point, besides aforementioned condition, my wife started to have severe pain in her legs. This is why she could not walk. Her legs weren’t particularly tight and there was no discoloration. However she complained that the pain was severe.

When I arrived at the hospital, she was being fitted for an IV of electrolytes. They also drew blood. After several hours spent here, the doctor concluded my wife had suffered from dehydration. The blood tests they took at the hospital revealed no liver, kidney, nor thyroid conditions. The released her and suggested she would heal up in a few days. That was last Wednesday. We are nearly a week later and her condition has barely improved. She is nearly immobile. Her legs suffer from severe pain. We’ve switched from applying heat to icing as much as possible. We’re not sure if this helps or heals the condition, but it relieves her pain considerably. Nevertheless, she can barely move. There are moments she says that she feels worse than any other time in the last two weeks.

I’m seeking more expert medical help in NYC. But if anyone on this forum has any experience or knowledge of this condition, please provide some insight. She is literally bedridden, in severe pain, and we can’t figure out what the hell is wrong. I’m thinking nerve damage at this point, but I have no idea. She’s tried stretching a bit but it only aggravates and worsens her condition. Please, if anyone knows anything about this, let us know.

M

[edmc182]

#8630

My husband is experiencing something similar. We have been practicing bikram yoga everyday for a little over a month. Sat. he couldn’t get through the beginning breathing exercise, he was unable to do the deep breathing so he left class. Later he complained of a headache and pain in the back of his head and neck. He took a couple of advil and seemed fine throughout the day. In the evening around 7:00 his headache returned and he took two more advil and went to bed. I went for a walk with our dog and when I returned he was in the kitchen and trying to pour a glass of orange juice, spilling it all over the counter. His speech was slurred and he was very weak and needed assistance to walk. He refused to let me to take him to the ER and in the end I called 911. At the ER they gave him mega tests EKG, chest x-ray, cat scan, blood and urine tests. The doctors were unable to find a cause and he was treated with an IV for dehydration. Stroke was ruled out and they suggested it could be dehydration or some kind of viral infection. During the evening he was too weak to sit up and stand up on his own and slept throughout the time spent in the ER. At 7 in the morning he was admitted to the hospital. He slept until 12 and was seen by a neurologist. At this point he was now alert and able to walk on his own but lacked his normal energy.He suggested to the doctor that he be released since he now felt much better. There was no conclusive evidence as to what had happened to my husband so they released him with the recommendation he follow up with his primary care doc. He was low energy and slept most of the day and about 1am he got up went downstairs and he fell missing the bottom step and got up on his own poured some orange juice and sat on the couch. He was holding his glass with two hands and having trouble holding it up to drink, he was almost back to a the same state prior to the ER visit. He decided to go back to bed and was able to go back upstairs gripping the rail. He is sleeping now. I checked on him about a 1/2 hour ago and he was able to sit up on his own but is extremely tired and is sleeping again. Any thoughts? I’m thinking he may be still recovering from severe dehydration.

[Matthew_P]

#8633

My wife has since recovered, but it took more than 10 days. Our only conclusion was severe dehydration. She spent nearly every moment of the 10 days in bed and drinking a lot of fluids. Do not try to move your husband around. Let him rest and best not to move around. Also, my wife’s pain was so severe. We thought it was muscle related and she had a large heating pad on at very hot temperature as much as she could endure. However, we then switched to ice packs- large types that you put in the freezer and then wrap around body parts. These relieved her condition somewhat. My wife slept a lot too and every night I packed and wrapped her legs in ice. And she put a small pack on the back of her neck. Little by little and day by day, she got better.

[bunni]

#8634

Hello to you both–these are really scary stories for sure. The loss of mobility and motor coordination is very frightening, and I wish both of your spouses quick and complete recoveries.

I have read some threads on this forum about other people who were treated for dehydration, and I also saw a man in my class get heat cramps related to dehydration. It does seem to be extremely painful–he was writhing in pain. One thing many of the people on the forum recommend is to drink fluids with electrolytes (e.g. drinks with potassium like coconut juice or sports drinks) before and after class, to help restore the balance of ions to the cells. Others have suggested getting blood work to check for deficiencies.

But beyond that I would really be interested in hearing what Gabrielle has to say about this. I am interested as to whether she thinks this sounds like acute dehydration (like from one really bad day and tough class) or the cumulative effect of dehydration mounting over the course of several days. Gabrielle, have you seen this type of thing before, and are there early warning signs to look out for?

[fraseram]

#8635

I suffered from this and had to go to er and recover….
for me it was the accumulative effect over days and weeks. the first thing you feel is like you just had a REALLY hard work out. you feel drained drained then you start to feel sore and like you may be catching a cold and it just goes on from there

[Gabrielle (The Hot Yoga Doctor)]

#8789

Hi Matthew, Edna and Bunni

That is definitely extremely worrying to have experienced such terrible conditions with what appears to be as a result of yoga.

Have you gone back to hot yoga?

I think you’re right. With the information you have given, that’s not just dehydration it’s also got something to do with an imbalance. Electrolytes, heat exhaustion, hyponatremia all come to mind – a combination of more than one of those is likely.

These conditions didn’t happen ONE day, they were experienced after cumulative exposure to high heat conditions possibly with not enough hydration, or maybe even too much water not enough electrolyte to compensate.

I wonder what temperatures your studios were heating to. Do either of you Matthew or Edna have information about the temperatures in the studios? I would be certainly interested to find out what was going on.

Anyway, let me know if your spouses have had a complete recovery and what yoga is being practised. I am able to answer more questions now that I am back from Teacher Training and promise to be more on the ball!

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

[Author]

Posts