Free magazine Grip on your health
Former top athlete Henk Olk (67) suffers from atrial fibrillation. A condition that increasingly affects him. “But you can live to be a hundred with it.”
The former professional football player and triathlete has since retired. He has been suffering from atrial fibrillation for twenty years. “I come from a stress-sensitive family and there is clearly a relationship with tension and pressure. Every nine days my heart goes out of alignment, as I call it. That can take a day, but sometimes forty hours.”
The arrhythmias flatten his system. “The heart rate fluctuates so much that you can’t climb stairs yet, because then I’m completely out of breath.” The cardiologist, who he also happens to be friends with, says he can easily live to be a hundred with it. “The fact that it can’t really hurt gives me mental peace. But certainly in the beginning I had to get used to it.”
deal with it
As an athlete, he has always been concerned with his body. He soon senses that his heart was not quite right. “But it is what it is, I have to deal with it.” In recent years he also provided training and personal coaching to athletes. “You could say: you fail because you yourself are responsible for that stress and therefore for the fibrillation. But I don’t think that way. In my guidance I have always made it clear to others: self-blame will get you nowhere.”
The symptoms have gotten worse in recent years. “It once lasted 65 hours, so that doesn’t sit well with me. But I’ve been meditating all my life and that way I can also stay calm.” Lately he has been taking extra ketones. “That is a substance produced by the body that gives the heart energy. Athletes also use it, because ketones support performance. In consultation with my doctor, I am now looking at what that has to do with it.”
Early detection of atrial fibrillation
Did you know that you can have yourself checked for atrial fibrillation as a preventive measure? If atrial fibrillation is detected earlier, you can choose to be examined and treated. It is especially important for people with a heart or vascular disease to keep a grip on their health. Would you like to know more about discovering cardiovascular diseases earlier? read the free Grip Op je health magazine.