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From: Ed
I work swing shift and had just finished working my last midnight shift. At 6:03 AM I tool my Allegra-D allergy med. At 8:00 AM I went to my family Dr. for a yearly checkup. During the visit I had a mole on my back removed after getting a local. The last thing I needed to do was get blood drawn for a cholesterol check. I had fasted since midnight except for 2 glasses of iced tea to get ready for this. The Lab. Tech had trouble getting enough blood out of one arm and went to the other arm and then hand. I was sitting and leaned my head back to nap while she was attempt to draw my blood. That is the first time that I knew of that I had passed out. When I woke up there were many Doctors and nurses standing around me and I felt terrible and was wet with sweat. Five hours later while laying in ICU the Lab Techs uncapped an IV to get a blood sample to see if I had had a heart attack... thats when the second one happened. They had me on a heart monitor at the time and could see that my heart stopped for about 35 seconds. It could have been restarted by either the adrenaline shot into the IV or by my ICU nurse giving me chest compressions. After bing transfered to a larger hospital and having an EKG and an ECHO the Cardiac Electrophysiologist determined that I had vasovagal syncope and discharged me after no abnormal signs for two days. After reading some on this forumn I realized that two weeks prior to these episodes that I had two others, both at night. I woke up on two different nights, five days apart, sweating terribly and feeling like I was going to vomit thinking I had a flu bug. I never did vomit but, I think that I past-out on the second night without knowing it while I was kneeling over the toilet. I remember waking up freezing cold and still sweaty. I feel fine now but am getting a tilt table test set up for this week due to all of my questions that I still have. I have learned quite a bit from reading what others have stated here about their VV experiences, more than I understood from the Doctors. Thanks