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A while ago, I read this article awhile ago and at the time thought, "hmm, that's interesting."
Then, the other night, I was watching something on tv (Can't for the life of me remember what) and they said something about when you are dropping off to sleep and how sometimes you suddenly jerk awake. I believe the reason they gave for it was that the heart rate or blood pressure dropped too quickly and the central nervous system thought the body was dying and the jerk to wake the body was the side effect.
Tonight, my husband and I were talking about something (again, even though it was less than two hours ago, I have no idea what it was) and somehow we got to talking about fainting. I was telling him what leads up to fainting. For me, it's a cold sweat, nausea, then blindness and the ground.
As I was saying it, all three stories seemed to gel in my mind for some bizarre reason.
Anyway, I think my question is, could a sudden drop in blood pressure or heart rate make a person feel nauseous and break out into a cold sweat? Since the gall-bladder-ectomy my husband has still had the same symptoms. His blood pressure is normally well within the normal range and his heart rate is usually around 60, but when he was in the hospital the first time (when they were checking him for a possible heart attack) they asked what his heart rate normally was because it kept dropping to between 40-45. They said that under stress, the heart rate will drop, so they weren't too worried about it, but the little beeper thingy kept going off every time it dropped too low.
Anyway, I just wondered if it was something worth looking into, or if I just connected three unrelated things. Or maybe, the autonomic response that is causing the symptoms is being caused by something else and we'd still be no closer to figuring out what the heck is wrong with him.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
My co-worker used to get dizzy nauseous spells accompanying severe hot flashes when she was going through menopause. And she fainted once...
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Sara, you must be a really busy person in real life... I mean, just on Hatrack, about 25% of the threads are dedicated to asking you questions. Posts: 7877 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Raia, it just looks like that some days. *grin I have a very narrow range of skills, but sometimes they come in handy.
Kayla, absolutely. All fainting is secondary to decreased blood flow to the brain for one reason or another. The body is pretty smart -- it senses decreased blood flow, and so it drops you to the ground in order to put the brain at the same level as the heart. Voila! Blood flow increases again. Pretty cool, when you think about it.
I'll try to write more detail on the physiology and possible causes later today, but you definitely could have pinpointed an issue.
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
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He doesn't faint, but he will suddenly break out in a cold sweat and get nauseous. However, when I was telling him about that thing I saw about falling asleep and jerking awake he said that used to happen to him all the time and he was so glad he finally seems to have grown out of that.
But that is what made me wonder about his blood pressure or heart rate. If the jerk is the body's way of making sure you aren't dead, it seems like either his blood pressure or heart rate was dropping too fast as he was going sleep when he was younger. And if hot flashes might be caused by a drop in blood pressure and nausea and a cold sweat are the first signs of fainting, I just wondered if something could be going on. It's not bad enough that he passes out, though. Then again, he usually sits/lays down because he thinks he's going to puck. Maybe if he didn't, he'd pass out.
On a side note, we were talking about fainting and I asked him if he ever had, and he said that he'd passed out a lot, but it wasn't really fainting. You see, he got a cold and lost his voice. Then after the cold was completely gone, he had this weird tickle in the back of his throat and he'd cough and cough and cough and would get going so hard he couldn't breathe and he'd pass out. The first few times it happened, I was really concerned, but knew as soon as he passed out he'd start breathing again. Usually, he'd sit down quickly and then he'd just fall over sideways or we'd catch him. But one time he was walking through the room and just stopped breathing and there was nothing I could do for him. I knew it was coming, but he outweighs me by a hundred pounds. He had the funniest rug burn on his forehead. That whole incident was the only time we ever fired a doctor. When he went in and told the doctor he'd had laryngitis for 3 months and keep passing out, the doctor told him to stop smoking and lose weight. I was so pissed, I drove over there and yelled at him. I then found another doctor and he said the my husband had really bad acid reflux and that was what was causing the laryngitis. He started taking meds and his voice was back in less than two weeks.
As a matter of fact, it wasn't too long after that that I had him go in for a sleep test and they said they'd rarely seen anyone who stopped breathing more often than he did and that the severity of it was really dangerous and he was lucky he came in.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
You know, that really is cool! I hadn't thought of fainting that way before.
When I was a kid my friends and I would pass each other out by hyperventilating, and then holding our breath while someone pressed on our chests. Why would doing that cause a lack of blood to the brain?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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And thanks Sara. I appreciate your info. He is really resistant to going back to any of his doctors at this point because after two years, they haven't helped him. I keep hoping if I can think of something that might be causing it, I could convince him to go back to have that checked out.
Noemon, that explains so much. Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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The whole purpose of having blood is to carry oxyegyn to the various parts of the body. You would have had plenty of blood, but no Oxy for it to carry.....not the brightest thing I have ever heard of Noeman...
The faintness and disiyness could (not is, but could be) be cause by the same thing....a lack of Oxy to the brain, caused my inproper blood flow. In that case the body does what it has to do, increase blood flow by making the head be at the same level or lower than the heart, which makes it a lot easier for the heart to pump more blood to it.
That is why you are NEVER suppose to raise the feet of someone who has any type of head wound...it would increase the flow of blood to the parts that are leaking...
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Interesting. For the longest time, my body spasmed every time I fell asleep. It virtually never woke me up, though. In fact, I was not aware of it until there was someone in the bed to point in out to me. I never worried about it at all, but now you have me wondering if my brain thinks I'm dying . . . Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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my husband has still had the same symptoms. His blood pressure is normally well within the normal range and his heart rate is usually around 60, but when he was in the hospital the first time (when they were checking him for a possible heart attack) they asked what his heart rate normally was because it kept dropping to between 40-45. They said that under stress, the heart rate will drop, so they weren't too worried about it, but the little beeper thingy kept going off every time it dropped too low. 
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That whole incident was the only time we ever fired a doctor. When he went in and told the doctor he'd had laryngitis for 3 months and keep passing out, the doctor told him to stop smoking and lose weight. I was so pissed, I drove over there and yelled at him. I then found another doctor and he said the my husband had really bad acid reflux and that was what was causing the laryngitis. He started taking meds and his voice was back in less than two weeks.![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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