When most of the triathletes have arrived on Big Island for competing the Ironman race next Saturday, 2 or 3 days after their arrival many of them, especially the European guys, start to complain about symptoms that are related to an impaired immunity. Undefined sickness is so common among the athletes and endangers their participation in the race. Just today, when we have been at Captain Cook’s with Hannes’ group, we heard people complaining about common colds, sore throats, stomach problems etc.

Here an excerpt from an article I wrote for tri2b.com

Since I have been speaking to many athletes through Biestmilch about their health problems, it was alarming to find out how common it is that athletes suffer from various symptoms that point towards incompetence of and strain on the immune system. Many of the symptoms increase during the strain of intensive training or competitions, with the result that even athletes between the ages of 15 and 20 suffer from unclarified symptoms of pain or after having hardly moved out of the area of basic endurance, they develop some infection or another.
In many cases, they have consulted doctors of various specialist doctors without success. Here is a short list of the problems that indicate that one is just about to fall off the narrow ridge of balance and alarm signals are cropping up, which should prompt oneself to be careful not to fall into the valley, out of which it is difficult to get out: severe respiratory infections and infections of the sinuses, herpes infections, gastrointestinal disorders or irritable bowel disorders, sudden injuries, pains typically in the groin, knee, back or Achilles tendon that bear no relation to what the x-ray shows, for example, stress-induced asthma, spreading of an existing allergy to other organs (hay fever suddenly accompanies asthma), springing up of neurodermatitis….. the list could go on and on. (more…)