Experience with Unconsciousness

I realize I have not been posting to the Gluten-Free Blog as often as I'd like to lately. I've had all sorts of things going on recently, many of which were just not the most fun. I've had to suffer through a few medical tests the past couple weeks, as prescribed by my doctors, presumably to help me achieve the best health possible over the coming years. I say "suffer through" only because of the most recent test which rendered me unconscious for a while.

I'm generally OK with medical tests, so long as they are not too invasive. I don't mind having blood drawn to check things like my RBC (Red Blood Count), Hemoglobin, Thyroid hormones (like TSH and T4), kidney and liver functions, and blood glucose. They can take those tests once a month if they want - such tests just don't bother me. But, when you start putting thing IN me in order to get a particular measurement, that's when things start to become less tolerable.

I did an oral glucose-tolerance-test the week before last, and that wasn't even too bad. You basically drink a super-sweet fluid that has 75 grams of pure glucose (sugar) in it, and, the medical people draw blood at various intervals to see how your body reacts. In my particular case, they drew it every half hour for two hours. It was a fair amount of needle-pokes, but with a talented blood-sucker (the guy I had is gifted, and he can take blood with hardly a "pinch" of pain) it certainly beat having a scope put down my throat a couple years ago to diagnose Celiac Disease. The only thing being put into me this time was oral sugar water essentially. Simple enough, and it is all in the best interest of seeing how well my body is handling sugar - I don't want to develop diabetes, and I'll do what is necessary to keep a good check on my system.

But, the next test I had this week brought with it a bit more excitement. This time I was to take a test that was only to be an hour in length. It was to start with me getting a shot of some hormone-stimulating solution, followed by blood draws at 30 and 60 minutes later to test my body's reaction. It all sounded harmless enough to me, so I proceeded to take the test.

Unconsciousness and Back
No sooner was I asking the nurse administering the shot about whether I'd be able to walk around while I wait for 30 minutes to elapse than I started feeling light-headed. I quickly told her to get my feet up, and that was the last thing I remember as I nearly instantly went unconscious.

I started to regain consciousness after about 30 seconds (according to observers). It was a freaky feeling to say the least. If you have never experienced it, it's hard to imagine. Your sense of place and time is obliterated. It's like there is a temporal gap in your memories that your brain has a difficult time bridging. When you are out cold, there's nothing. Plain and simple: nothing. No dreams, no memories, just time that didn't exist for you. Call it time travel - travel that you don't remember embarking upon when you arrive at your next destination: foggy consciousness.

At the reemergence of consciousness and mental thought, my brain was having a rough time piecing together what was going on. At first, it was like a dream, though an odd one to say the least. Then, as I moved further from the edge of nothingness towards reality, it became a very vivid dream, with actors and props totally unfamiliar to me. I had absolutely no idea where I was or anything, and they already had the automatic jump-start machine (i.e., defibrillator) wired to my chest, with the machine repeating (in a computerized voice) "clear the airway... give CPR... check vitals". That was the first thing that made any sense to me, albeit just barely. It was still as though I was watching some choreographed show in action, though it was quickly becoming apparent I was playing some role.

Finally the people hanging over me and standing around me were making sense when they were asking "are you with us?" and similar questions about how I felt and such. My brain finally assembled enough of the puzzle, and I thought to myself, "ah, now I remember... that damn test I was taking!". I'm now covered in sweat - a side-effect of going unconscious seems to always be dumping a quart of sweat in seconds, usually a "cold sweat" of sorts. But, otherwise, I'm calm and feeling rational.

Although it seemed like forever, this all probably took only a minute or so in total. But, it was one of the weirdest minutes in my life. I have experienced syncope before, and regardless of how many times you go through it, it is just a god-awful feeling to live through.

Off to the E-R
So, what started as an hour long and rather risk-free test became a bit more complex - passing our was not supposed to be part of the equation. Within a couple minutes of starting the test I'm being taking to an Emergency Room for an EKG and blood tests, etc., to make sure I didn't experience a heart attack (luckily, those tests all came back fine).

As they are wheeling me down to Emergency, I at least had the presence of mind to instruct them to finish the test they started, since, like I told them, I'm NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN! They had already injected me with what they needed to, so at this point, it was simply taking a couple blood draws in order to complete the test. After insisting repeatedly that they do so, the blood was drawn on time (I sure hope it helps some Doctor understand my body in a way that was worth all this). And, I soon received a saline-drip plugged into my arm to rehydrate me and get my vitals back to "normal", as my blood pressure had dropped considerably during this ordeal.

I started to feel, for the most part, back to normal within a couple hours of the saline infusion. And, not being one to want to hang around in hospitals any longer than necessary, I was definitely getting the itch to leave the place. Needless to say, the ER doctors didn't want me to leave so soon, and wanted me around "a couple more hours" for observation. I agreed, and remained.

By now it was certainly lunch time, and, you guessed it, forget Gluten-Free Foods in the hospital. The nurse that stopped by to discuss food options had no idea what gluten-free was, but luckily by this time my wife had arrived on the scene and was nice enough to go home and acquire me something that I knew was gluten-free (the last thing I needed was non-GF food!)

I stayed around yet another couple hours, and when I thought they'd be telling me to go home, the doctor on duty told me how he wanted me to stay overnight while on various monitors. Given they couldn't "explain" my reaction, and my being "out" lasted so long (I guess 30 seconds is a long time, especially if you stop breathing during that), they wanted me to remain overnight. I chose not to after careful consideration for over an hour.

Conclusion
To me, it seemed rather obvious what happened. Either I had a bad reaction to the substance shot into me for diagnostic purposes, or I had some exaggerated vasovagal syncope response from nerves that just hit at the same time. I will never know for certain. What I do know is I don't want to go through that again! And, I also knew that if I stayed overnight in the hospital, I wasn't going to sleep much at all with wires and tubes sticking out of me.

The only residual effect that remained by the end of the day was being a bit tired, and having a slightly sore spot on my arm from the IV of saline. It's now been a couple days, and so far nothing else has come from this experience, and I sure hope that is how it remains. The half-life of what was pumped into my veins was low enough that most all should have been flushed from my system by the time I left the hospital anyhow.

I don't want to let this experience scare me out of future medical tests, especially tests that may be critical and valuable. What I am quite sure of from now on is that I will advise anyone that plans to shoot me full of an unfamiliar diagnostic substance that I have a history of syncope under such conditions, and that they best begin by doing anything possible to minimize the chance of a repeat performance - whether that means elevating my feet ahead of time or hypnotizing me first. One way or the other, I certainly don't want any surprises like this again.

With luck I'll be back to writing more regularly on the Gluten-Free blog, and I have some Gluten-Free Desserts I want to be baking. I've just been taking it easy and de-stressing for a few days, as I try to mentally recover from my latest life experience. Hopefully the rest of you never have to experience this type of thing first hand.