#148
Post
by Pandemonium » Tue Sep 20, 2011 8:57 pm
Today started out about as bad as a day could possibly go wrong.
I had an early morning doctor's appointment for my annual physical. My plan was take my son to school which is about 25 miles down south in Lake Forest, drop him off and go to my physical. I woke up this morning, I was feeling a bit "off" - a little light headed, almost nauseous and shaky. Despite that, I got the boy ready for school and took a shower as I progressively felt worse. As soon as we left and we were on the freeway, I had a "prickly feeling" on the back of my neck and I knew something was really not right. By the time I got to school and dropped my son off, I honestly felt I was going to pass out and sat in the parking lot for a few minutes trying to pull it together and decide what I was going to do. At that point I seriously thought I was having a possible heart attack as I was getting worse and worse and I couldn't think of any other explanation.
I figured I could make it to the doctor's office a few more miles back up the 405 freeway It was stupid of me to drive, but I didn't want to get stuck on the freeway with my kid in the car and once I dropped him off, I just toughed it out to get to the doctor as I didn't want to deal with an ambulance to an ER if I could avoid it.
I got to the doctor right as the office was opening about an hour earlier than my appointment. The girl at the desk saw I was white as a sheet, sweating like a pig and shaking badly and I leaned close to her and said I thought I might be having a heart attack and I needed to lay down right away or I was going to pass out. They got me in a room, hooked up on a EKG and oxygen, everything was fine although my heart rate was pretty low (for me) at around 60bpm. She said it looked very much like I was having a vaso vagal episode despite the lack of typical triggers (usually exercise stress for people so disposed).
Now I had been diagnosed with this issue about a decade ago after a few incidents during heavy workouts with a trainer at a gym and one incident in a pit at a Nine Inch Nails show. Basically as it's explained to me, the vasovagal episode is due to some sort of short circuit in the nerve that leads to and controls the heart and blood pressure. For whatever reasons, when an episode is triggered, the person's heart rate drops as does the BP big time which basically makes the person feel like they're gonna die and they usually pass out for a short time at which point everything returns to normal. I had what is called a Tilt Table test where you basically are standing/laying on a long table angled so you're at about 45 degrees and usually this somehow provokes an episode if you have this problem. I took beta blockers for a couple years and it seemed to go away.
After about an hour, I was fine and good to go home. The rest of the day, I've was totally wiped out. I'll be seeing a cardiologist for further tests. Getting old sucks.