Has anyone else here experienced this?

[taniaaust1]

Hi all, Im wondering if the following has happened to anyone else here and if so what did your specialist say about it? I posted about this in my journal which is in the private area but I want to make sure more see this post as Im hoping someone has had same experienced which they were able to see a doctor who know about it for.

I was hot (very warm day and i was perfusely sweating after almost 2 litres IV saline night before) so went and got a cold drink. On taking one mouthful of icey soda water I went into instant bad chest pain and about 20-30 seconds later (it was before a minute) I was unconscious without warning. I was not even aware of the fall and just woke up on the floor.

Hospital is said they didnt know what caused this collapse as my heart test was fine and I was well hydrated and had my blood volume boosted so it wasnt low.

It wasnt one of my POTS flare collapses, it wasnt one of my chemical hit collapses and it didnt seem to be one of my heat collapses as I didnt get any of the symptoms I get when Im heat affected before I collapse. I was feeling well right before this till I got the chest pain to swallowing something cold and then suddenly collapsed. My BP would of being stable due to the previous nights IV (and at the hospital they did test it and it wasnt reacting to standing so was fine exactly as I thought it would of been).

So all I was really relate that unconscious collapse to is the cold water triggering something to occur.

Research online is showing me chest pain to icey cold things can happen with dysautonomia (which I do have severely) as the coldness can cause the veins to start spasming eg putting ones hand into icey water can cause chest pain... but I cant find anyone online who has had a passout due to this kind of thing.

Please let me know if you have had this happen and if you saw a good autonomic specilaist and what he had to say about this. Im wanting to know if going unconscious from blood vessel spams could be dangerous.

tania

(and Im wanting to know how I can change this heading?)

 

[Cheesus]

Sorry to hear you haven't been feeling well. If I recall correctly, you edit your post then look to the top right of the page I think you will find the option to edit the heading.

I'm afraid I haven't heard of this specifically, however my mum sometimes passes out if she has a bad stomach. And when I say she passes out, I mean she just collapses wherever she is and when she comes around can't remember anything, it is very scary. Last time she hit her head on a doorframe.

The doctor she saw said all of the blood rushes to her gut and her blood pressure drops like a lead balloon. It literally goes from normal to dangerously low in the space of around 3 seconds, so boosting your blood volume might not prevent something like that.

Is it possible that drinking a cold drink could do that? I have no idea, but it sounds similar to my mum's blood pressure drop anyway.

 

[Apple]

I haven't had this myself, but something similar was featured on a medical drama over here. I believe it was a rare form of vasovagal syncope that was specifically caused by the man drinking ice cold fizzy drinks (he was a manual worker and it was during the summer). I can't remember the name but I will try and google for you.

Edit: I found the episode - it's on youtube! Give me 15 minutes to skip through it and i'll have the name

Edit 2: Swallow syncope! Go to 44 mins

 

[Cheesus]

@Apple

Wow great call! Who would have thought that your Holby City knowledge would come in useful?

 

[kangaSue]

@taniaaust1 Sorry to be so vague on details but I recall an online conversation I had a few months back with someone who would often pass out just from eating food but also would do so from time to time with cold liquids whom I'm pretty sure had vasovagal dysfunction along with some very mild cardiac issue too which wasn't considered to be part of the problem.

However, the last time she fell and struck her head, she experienced a major increase in syncope events which was believed to be from the fall impacting on her vagus nerve, to the extent that they resorted to experimenting with a cardiac pacemaker which actually stopped her ten year history of debilitating syncope events.