Vaso-Vagal Discussion

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Vaso-Vagal ME

From: Marlene
Date: 10/22/99
Time: 3:49:55 PM
Remote Name: 152.163.197.208

Comments

First off, I'm really relieved to see that I'm not the only one! I can recall passing out for the first time in 7th grade in church, then again in school, and at the zoo, and even breaking the toilet seat at my mom's house getting lodged in between the sink and the toilet as a result of passing out. After many trips to many doctors, they all looked at me like it was in my head or my mom ought to have me drug tested. Well, the passing out stopped, not to be explained, and it came back just as mysteriously. Now ten years later, I'm out of work for 2 months, for fear that I'll fall out and get run over by a forklift, or get hurt by some of the heavy equipment. My doctor was determined to find out what was wrong with me, I went through a series of tests including ekg, cat scan, you name it, then finally the tilt table test...YEAH..we have a diagnosis, it's not in my head. It was "One of the most remarkable, positive tilt table tests I've ever seen" That's what the cardiologist said. Great! I was put on medication, proamatine was one of them that raised my blood pressure too much, there was another that I can't recall the name of, but it didn't work either. Then I was put on zoloft, this was to be dually beneficial because through all of this finding out what was wrong with me, I became depressed. Both my doctor and I were pleased to see that we had found a med that worked. Until about a week ago. I was told initially that since the tilt-table was so remarkable,(even including some seizure activity while I was "out") I may have episodes where I would pass out, medication may not be enough to correct it. At least now I could tell when it was coming on. It would always start out that I felt like I was catching my breath, then my head would feel "light" and before I knew it, everything would black out, and I'd be down for the count. With this in mind, as soon as I would feel like I was "catching" I would lie down with my feet elevated to try and get the blood flow back to my heart, just as I was instructed. I've been taking the zoloft faithfully for 5 months now, and was taken out of work on a stretcher just the other day because I almost passed out. I don't understand this illness. I felt like I was doing so well there for so many months, and then out of the blue, here I go again. Is it possible that my body has built an immunity to the zoloft? I also was told that I may grow out of this. Has anyone heard that? Some tips I was given was to drink a lot of fluids, including sports drinks to keep up electrolytes, and wear the circulation stockings, and of course to move slower, especially getting out of bed. Sure that helps, but you don't always have that luxury. I fear that I'll pass out holding my niece or nephew, or maybe while I'm sitting for them, what do I do then? I wish medicine knew more about this, and could help us out more. I always think, it could be worse... Feel free to send any other information, I hope I've given insight to at least one person! Good luck to us all!

Copyright 1998-2007  John J. Herr, Ph.D.                                   Please send comments to jjherr@clinicalpsychologist.com