A Texas bodybuilder has been hospitalized over 20 times due to a rare heart condition that’s brought on by drinking a cold glass of water.
“I’d take a gulp of cold water. As I’m settling back down, I feel the double thud,” Franklin Aribeana, 35, told ABC News of his apparent heart-related hydrophobia.
The Houston native, who’s part of the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation, first noticed the alarming symptom at age 18 while at the gym.
“It’s a day I’ll never forget,” recalled the gym shark, who said he felt a “noticeable thud” while drinking water.
Shortly, thereafter he passed out.
However, it wasn’t until 15 years and 25 doctor’s appointments that Aribeana put two and two together and discovered the seemingly innocuous trigger for his condition — ice-cold H20.
The fitness coach said he realized the truth one day after taking a swig of water at the gym, after which he noticed his heart was beating out of control.
Alarmed by his paradoxical-seeming reaction to life’s elixir, Aribeana had himself checked out by medical examiners.
Subsequent genetic tests revealed some surprising results: The muscleman suffers from a genetic aberration that caused him to suffer from atrial fibrillation, a disruption in electrical signals that causes the ticker to beat out of sync.
Doctors felt that Aribeana’s arrhythmia was triggered by cold water touching the vagus nerve, the part of the nervous system that regulates heart rate, among other things.
This was due to an irregular and exceedingly rare reaction to the “diving reflex,” in which cold water exposure causes the heart rate to slow in order to conserve oxygen and energy, the Daily Mail reported. This response normally resolves when the person is no longer subjected to the cold.
However, due to Aribeana’s preexisting condition, the reflex caused his heart to beat erratically and his blood pressure to plummet, resulting in the aforementioned fainting spells.
Unfortunately, this H20 allergy is reportedly exacerbated by high-intensity workouts such as weightlifting. Aribeana even recalled one instance where he lost consciousness while on a golf course on a hot summer day.
“I took a sip of cold water, and the next thing you know, literally palpitations out of my chest,” he recalled. “They took off my shirt, and you could see my heart literally pounding out of my chest, and then I passed out.”
The one silver lining is that Aribeana’s unusual reaction allowed doctors to diagnose his condition fairly early in life, according to his doctor Khashayar Hematpour.
He explained that this is not the case with many sufferers, who experience far subtler symptoms, including slight fatigue, shortness of breath and generalized chest pain.
Doctors were able to remedy the patient’s H20-induced heart problems with an ablation, which cauterized the connection between the vagus nerve and the heart.
Since the operation, Aribeana has made a full recovery with no hospital stays, even though he still takes medication to manage his Afib.
“Franklin is a phenomenal individual!” gushed Dr. Hematpour. “He’s got a lot of drive! He was very much on top of his treatment.”
Best of all, the bodybuilder no longer faints at the taste of water.
