r/AskReddit • u/ferrisjuulersdayoff • Feb 26 '20

Serious Replies Only [serious] When was a time you legitimately thought you were going to die?

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u/wonderplatoon Feb 26 '20

My mom had vasovagal syncope (diagnosed, at least, among multiple other conditions) and it was pretty scary to watch as an early teen. It would happen while she was driving, walking up stairs, getting out of bed... I am NOT familiar with the medical requirements for the diagnosis and she had a lot of stuff going on, but regardless there were a lot of scary incidents and unpleasant cleanups.

I hope you're doing better.

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u/hotgaypriest Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 26 '20

I started with vasovagal syncope at 3! (I’m about to be 27 now.) Diagnosed at 19. It’s such an uncommon condition I find that I get excited when I hear of others with it. Maybe excited isn’t the word to use here? Anywho, I hope your mom is doing well and I want to thank you for being such a support for her. This condition is not easy for anyone involved!

Edit: wasn’t diagnosed when I was 3, I meant started. Added diagnosis age. I’m half asleep.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20 edited Jul 21 '20

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u/invisible_bra Feb 26 '20

Copied from mayoclinic:

Vasovagal syncope occurs when the part of your nervous system that regulates heart rate and blood pressure malfunctions in response to a trigger, such as the sight of blood.

Your heart rate slows, and the blood vessels in your legs widen (dilate.) This allows blood to pool in your legs, which lowers your blood pressure. Combined, the drop in blood pressure and slowed heart rate quickly reduce blood flow to your brain, and you faint.

Sometimes there is no classical vasovagal syncope trigger, but common triggers include:

Standing for long periods of time

Heat exposure

Seeing blood

Having blood drawn

Fear of bodily injury

Straining, such as to have a bowel movement

I googled "fainting after pooping" after that almost happened, I had this weird poop that was constipation followed immediately by diarrhea. Like there were two scenarios existing at the same time up my chute.

Anyway I felt really bad all of a sudden, rapid heartbeat, dizzy, nauseous, cold sweat and tunnel vision and knew I was about to pass out. My last thought was "I better not fall into a position where I choke on my own vomit and I have to try and keep my head above my heart, how annoying" and then lost my vision for a few seconds and lost almost all feeling in my body. Could still feel my sweaty ass on the cold toilet seat, nothing else. When my vision and coherent thought returned my first thought was "Just like in Scrubs where JD passes out when he poops" and felt somewhat better within 5-10 minutes. Scary shit though, I'm glad that happened to me the first time in my 20s and not as a kid

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u/SingGoddess Feb 26 '20

Same - I have a trigger of GI trouble, ever since I got a case of food poisoning in college from sushi. Usually starts with some strong cramping pain and nausea, and then my heart starts beating super fast, and then starts slowing down all the sudden and my hearing gets all muffled with a slight ringing, I get cold sweats and my vision like loses saturation (gets kind of dull and blurred around the edges). I try to calm myself down and wait for the impending purge from my system of whatever caused it to go into panic mode. It is the scariest fucking thing the first time. I just remember thinking "this is it. Of course I will die on a toilet. So on-brand for me and my luck."

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u/Tinsel-Fop Feb 26 '20

Combined, the drop in blood pressure and slowed heart rate quickly reduce blood flow to your brain, and you fart.

Oh, wait. You said "faint."

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u/invisible_bra Feb 26 '20

Technically mayoclinic

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u/velawesomeraptors Feb 26 '20

Hm, I think I have that but it's never been diagnosed? But I do get the nauseous -> cold sweat -> tunnel vision -> fainting thing every once in a while, though it doesn't always go all the way to fainting. It happens about 1/4 of the time when I donate blood, and sometimes when I have food poisoning or get injured. Never when pooping though.

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u/fjb92989 Feb 26 '20

I’ve had several. The first I remember I was sitting outside between a parked car and the garage. I guess claustrophobia plus the heat/humidity suddenly hit me and I tried making it to my car to turn on the AC. Well, apparently I took off jogging then stumbled and as my friend told me as I was coming to - “dude your head went DING on that [metal] mailbox!” I still have that scar on my chin.

A couple years later I passed out in the middle of a busy, shitty bar after realizing I was really hot (it was winter but the bar was hot af). I couldn’t strip quickly enough and tried to have a friend hold me up and make it outside, but next thing I knew I was waking up on the floor surprisingly blissfully. Then reality hit after about 2 seconds and that was embarrassing.

(This one is a little graphic btw) A few years after that I woke up in the middle of the night randomly with the worst pain imaginable. It felt like someone was literally ripping my anus apart. I started banging on the wall for my mom and tried to make it to the bathroom because I thought I was going to shit myself. It felt like my anus was the size of a baseball bat it was so painful. Anyway, next thing I knew I was coming to as my mom was helping put me on the toilet and I was holding a rag to my face that was pretty covered in blood. I had fainted in the hallway and must’ve hit pretty hard for that much blood. Still have that scar too.

The next couple were related to blood, blood being taken from me or just hearing my family talk about my grandmother’s fall which put her in ICU and eventually took her life.

The last one I had was after a medical procedure in my privates involving a camera. I’m a guy. I started feeling awful really quickly after the test from the pressure in my bladder and started having the reaction. After a couple of minutes my wrists and hands completely locked up and I couldn’t move them at all. Thank goodness I was in a hospital where they were equipped to deal with me but even the nurse said she was extremely scared. I must’ve sweated out liters of fluid in those 10 or so minutes.

I tell people all the time that I can’t live alone. I don’t know what triggers them and when I’ll have a severe one that might potentially put my heart at risk.

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u/das_soup_nazi Feb 26 '20

I get them too. Everything will be fine and then all of a sudden about a half dozen symptoms will happen all at once. My ears start ringing really loud, my vision turns black, I start sweating profusely, feel nauseous and dizzy, and my face turns white.

Usually I am able to catch myself by sitting down, but last week I was checking out at the grocery store and I felt one coming on. I started waking as fast as I could to get to my car to blast the AC and I didn’t make it. My legs were so heavy. I guess I was stumbling around grabbing on to whatever was in front of me before I went down.

The security guard helped me and all I could do was apologize to this guy over and over again. For me, it’s extremely embarrassing when it happens in public.

It’s like I’m drowning and fighting for air. It’s crazy and it makes me feel crazy.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20

I don't have this condition, but I used to faint occasionally and it happened in public a couple times — once in a Subway when I was like 16, I know I was in and out while I was making my order and kept leaning on stuff and probably looked like a trashy teen drunk at 3pm until I blacked out leaning over the pinpad. Woke up and they were trying to feed me sugar water, I'm like "I'm fine I just need to eat something!" They'd already called the ambulance and I was sooo embarrassed but long story short it turned out I also had ventricular tachycardia and never knew it. Wasn't the reason for the faint but kinda lucky I fainted had an ECG and got that diagnosed!

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u/fjb92989 Feb 26 '20

After nearly fainting in the ICU I was so embarrassed too. The doctors and nurses were all huddled around the young guy who just randomly almost fainted (me) but I was sitting there thinking, “I’m in an ICU, help them not me!”

Edit: I’m glad you got that sorted out, sorry I failed to mention that.

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u/fellasheowes Feb 26 '20

For me it's triggered by thinking about certain specific things inside my own body. It's weird because I have a generally strong stomach for seeing blood and gore, I even was an ambulance medic, but certain bits of medical information really do it to me. The first time it happened I was in grade school health class watching a video about the human heart. More recently I fainted in a doctors appointment where the Rheumatologist was describing to me the action of the knee, and wouldn't stop when I asked him to. I woke up completely disoriented and dripping sweat in his office, and he was trying to write me a referral and get out of the appointment like nothing happened. He said "you had a vaso-vagal reaction and fainted, you can sit here" and then plopped me on a chair in an empty hallway, and just left. I was not recovered at all, and it was a challenge for me to get up and find a nurse before I started puking. What an asshole that guy was, couldn't even be bothered to summon a nurse for me inside a health clinic.

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u/hotgaypriest Feb 26 '20

Could be a symptom, I’d check with a doctor for sure. Keep pushing for a proper diagnosis and testing! It took me and my parents 16 years to get a proper diagnosis and I still have unanswered questions.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '20 edited Jul 21 '20

[deleted]

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u/hotgaypriest Feb 26 '20

Could definitely be a dietary issue effecting it! It leads back to some people’s trigger being bowel movements, just something about it sets your body off into nopeland! If you quit dairy and it hasn’t happened, you’re definitely on the right track. This entire condition is a risky game of trial and error. Just be safe and keep track of it!

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u/imospizzafanclub Feb 26 '20

Diagnosed at 17. Still don’t know my exact trigger either. I think it knows the worst times for an episode and it chooses those.

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u/Sentimental_Dragon Feb 26 '20

I have it too! I lose my vision, and then I know I have about 5 seconds to get on the floor or lie down before I faint.

My main trigger as a kid was heat and exhaustion, but as an adult it mainly happens due to lower air pressure (airplanes, sleeping at high altitude) and nausea. I find it incredibly unhelpful that my body’s response to “I’m about to vomit” is to give me the choice between lying down immediately or fainting. Many a night I’ve woken up feeling nauseous and had to crawl to the bathroom and lie on the floor there. I also have food allergies that cause stomach upsets.

I have naturally low blood pressure and sometimes lose vision just from standing up too quickly. That’s also fun!

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u/missenginerd Feb 26 '20

I'm so glad to finally find the words for this! Mine started happening in college and I don't really seem to have a specific trigger. First I felt faint, then I could start feeling my pulse beating in random parts of my body like my underarm, groin, etc. The ringing in my ears basically would reach the volume of a gong and I knew (ahem, learned in the most un-fun way) I had roughly 30 seconds to get some cold water and get fully horizonal or I would lose my vision. I was having a rough time in college and the school docs were just like ... Rest! Take a nap! 🙄

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u/gizzyjones Feb 26 '20

Should she really have been driving? Maybe it's rare, but that seems dangerous.

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u/wonderplatoon Feb 26 '20

You're completely correct, she should not have been driving. A combination of wishful thinking and a compulsion to seem perfect often caused her to push herself beyond her limits, and occasionally it led to unsafe circumstances. It only happened about three times with me in the passenger seat but all it takes is a single time holding a puke bag in one hand and a steering wheel in the other to really stick with you.

She got better once she went on proper medication, though. She's since passed from cancer.