Vaso-Vagal Discussion

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Vagal response

From: Dan Dunaway

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My wife just a few days ago had a heart cath and a stent placement in the LAD artery on the front side of her heart. About 3 hours later while a nurse was holding direct pressure on the femoral artery on her groin and immediately after pulling out the two sheaths in the artery my wife became very nauseated from the pain involved from that, but never vomited, her BP nearly bottomed out, (the last figure I heard was 50/30), she passed out, she stopped breathing and she had only one heartbeat in 37 seconds, and her whole body became very rigid. They gave her atrophine and dopamine and were ready to do CPR. My daughter and I prayed fervently while this was going on and in a short time she came to. She only remembered getting very sick at her stomach from the pain and was confused when she came to. They seem to think the Vagal response was triggered by too much direct pressure on the femoral artery. She also was dehydrated. Her heart Dr. commented that he had only rarely seen such an extreme vagal response and several of the nurses later said they thought they were going to lose her. Thank God for His mercy......


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Last changed: June 22, 2007