I have vasovagal syncope, also known as Neurocardiogenic Syncope (NCS). I have fainting attacks during which I get hot, dizzy, my blood pressure drops to next to nothing and I pass out. I can be sitting or even lying down when it happens. I go into jerks and spasms that look like I’m having a seizure (rest assured I have been tested and I am not having seizures).
It happens when my adrenaline kicks in too fast or slowly but too much. Crowded places, Migraines, Anxiety, Pushing myself to far, Etc and Who Knows can all cause an episode. It has been explained to me as that my heart is “allergic” to adrenaline and has an opposite than normal reaction. My blood pressure drops to next to nothing and I faint and then it corrects itself and I am myself again. After awhile.
Sometimes I can stop the fainting from happening if I get down on the ground fast enough and get my feet above my heart. The other symptoms (breaking into a sweat, nausea, jerking and spasming) still happen. Whether I faint or not it takes 20 minutes to get back myself and able to get up and around; it takes the rest of the day to get over feeling light headed, exhausted, “out of it” and able to get back to a semblance of normalcy.
I have had this since my teens and have a long list of times I’ve fainted. This is scary for my friends and loved ones to watch and they have a hard time sometimes seeing the humor even when a long time has passed. However, I wanted to compile a list of my most embarrassing episodes that have occurred in public. It happens at home and no one but me and mine know and I can handle that. The public is another thing. Sometimes it’s their reaction (sometimes caring and going for help and sometimes assuming I’m on something or drunk) and sometimes it’s just the embarrassment I feel knowing I did it AGAIN!
This post is meant to be humorous about a serious topic – sharing my most embarrassing fainting moments. But, hopefully you will find some comfort in not feeling alone if it has happened to you or you can find more information about this and other fainting conditions. Go to http://www.dinet.org/index.htm - Dysautonomia Information Network and check out @jeanneendo blog posts about Dysautonomia at http://chronichealing.com/ – it’s a multi-part series and has a lot of information in it.
I'll do this as a countdown of the top five (there are more!) most embarrassing fainting episodes.
Number 5:
16 years old at the local teen hangout – bowling alley/pool tables/arcade: I was in the pool room with friends when something swept over me and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Broke into a sweat and my only thought was to get outside where there was air. So, I say excuse me, I’ll be back, not wanting my friends to know what was wrong. As I’m leaving, weaving through the pool tables, it gets worse all of a sudden and then nothingness. (I had apparently freaked a guy out who was on the other side of the table leaning down to make his shot when he sees someone walking by and then collapse right across from him). I come to in someone’s arms and immediately expect it’s my friend Mark, who has just had surgery on his knee. I thought he shouldn’t be carrying me and start squirming and saying “put me down, you’ll hurt your leg.” Turns out I was ignored and carried into the women’s restroom by the guy that was playing pool and watched me collapse and my friends following him. I get nauseous and start going into spasms and vomiting. The guy waited outside the restroom for me and gave me and a friend a ride back to my house so everyone else could stay out. I thought that guy was my hero, but then he kept calling and annoying me and I had to tell him to go away.
Number 4:
In my thirties at an outside theater watching Chicago the Musical: I had driven that night (my mom and some friends) to the play. We had stood in a lot of lines, including bathroom lines being the most recent and the bathroom was hot inside. All those people around me. I had had a glass of wine at the beginning of the show and we were in intermission. People were standing up all around me and talking and it was crowded and I thought, I just need to go sit down in the back area by the food area at a table and get away from all these people for a minute. I was feeling hot and a little nauseous and shaky. So, I told those around me I was going to go buy a water so they didn’t follow me and see that I was going to go lie down for a minute on a park bench. But, they thought, great idea “I’ll go with you.” Probably stressed me out more cause I didn’t want them to see what I knew was about to happen. So, I get up there and say I’m just going to sit down for a minute and they said I thought you wanted water. Water sounded like a good idea so I went and stood in line for water. Bad idea. Soon, I was shuffling and trying to stay conscious until I had to get away and stepped out of line and got nearly away to a wall and then nothing. Came to with my mom, best friend and health workers at the event surrounding me and them telling me I had gone into spasms and fell to the ground. Had to calm everyone down and tell them I would be fine and no, I didn’t need to go to the hospital. A crowd had gathered murmuring about “is she drunk?” No, just need air.
Number 3:
In my late twenties at a restaurant having dinner with a friend: We had to wait awhile in the waiting area for a table, was a busy night I guess, and I don’t know if that’s what did it but is when I started feeling it coming on, I tried to just think to myself, if I can just get to the table and sit down and drink some water I’ll be fine and my friend, Laura, will never know I had a close call. Well, I did make it to the table and sat down, ordered water and our dinners but before our salad’s showed up I knew I wasn’t going to make it. In order to not have an episode in front of the whole restaurant and be embarrassed with Laura, who had only seen me pass out two other times at work, and not to ruin her evening with me, I excused myself to the bathroom. There was a line but not too long and inside the door. I fell onto the bathroom floor and went into spasms and jerks but if I did pass out it was only a matter of seconds because I remember the fall and the “seizure” like symptoms. Freaked out all the women in the bathroom and the manager was asked to come in and check on me. I said I’m fine if I can just be next in line for an open stall and no, I didn't need an ambulance. Was able to get up and crawl on the dirty restaurant bathroom floor (a nice restaurant, but still, bathroom floor) into a stall and lied down and put my legs on the stool and took my time. My friend didn’t know why I had spent 20 or so minutes in the bathroom but I was finally able to go back to her and barely touch my salad and none of my meal claiming I just wasn’t hungry after all.
Number 2:
In 2005 at a midnight play: Friends and I thought it would be fun after the April 15th rush (I’m a CPA as are some friends) to get together and go see a midnight play in Lawrence KS – about a half hour from KC. The first time my later to be husband experienced an episode which scared him a lot and embarrassed me him having to see me like that. So, we are about halfway through the play, "Hedwig and the Angry Inch", and I had been standing up in the back because I asked my boyfriend if we could get out of the crowded seats since the chairs were so close together and it felt stuffy and constricted. After a little while of standing there and starting to shuffle from leg to leg, I told him I think I needed to sit down. He found me a chair at the back and we sat down. After 15 minutes, I said to him, “this isn’t going to be good, I’m sorry,” and then nothing. I had fallen out of the chair and gone into spasms on the floor, ripping my skirt and terrifying my boyfriend. I came to on a couch outside the theater, just inside the doors with people all around me and my boyfriend yelling at people that I hadn’t been drinking, it wasn’t funny and to shut the h#ll up. That was a fun ride back to KC – the friends I went with didn’t know until after the play when they couldn’t find us until they got out of the theater and I was lying there. I needed to use the restroom, throw up possibly, but it was up two flights of stairs and my later to be husband couldn’t carry me – he too has bad knees. But, I lost that battle too but a girlfriend followed and helped me in the bathroom. She had witnessed this before but told me my boyfriend was terrified for me and was really shaken up. Took me a while to stop shaking myself. The ride back to KC, I reminded my boyfriend that I had told him I had these episodes in the past but he was not comforted. I had to go to the doctor and have an EEG and wear a heart monitor for a month to ensure him I was okay. Thank God he still married me!
And the most embarrassing public fainting episode at number one:
In my early twenties, around 22, at an Improv Comedy Club: Was with friends and the only open seats were at the top level of a set of bleachers. All the tables were full by the time we had gotten there. Was sitting next to Holly and things went okay for half the show. I had started feeling nervous and anxious about I can’t remember what and then started thinking what would happen if I passed out at the top of the bleachers and fell down that far? Just before the break was over and the comedians were coming back on stage, I turned to Holly and said, “it’s going to happen, get me out of here.” Because I couldn’t fall down all that way and thought I could make it outside and lie down until it went away. We got to the middle of the stage walking in front of it and then nothing. Holly apparently begged the people at the front table to help her with me but they assumed I was part of the act and wouldn’t help. So, I come to outside lying down with all the comedians standing over me. They were apparently the only ones willing to help Holly with me and knew that I was not part of their act. So, I disrupted the show for everyone. Even once I felt better, I was too embarrassed to walk back in there through that crowd that hadn’t helped and face the comedians again or become part of the act – I’m sure I was but I didn’t stick around for it. The comedians gave me a free pass for another show and I said nice to meet you all and goodnight.
So, if you have any form of Dysautonomia, I hope this shows you that you are not alone out there. Hang in there and This Too Shall Pass.
Elizabeth
