Saturday did not go as planned. I woke up Saturday and went to the gym as I usually do on a Saturday morning. I was on the Elliptical for 30 minutes and then the Treadmill for 15 minutes. The morning was going well. I then went to the Leg Press and did my typical three sets and then went over to the Incline Bench. I did my first set on the incline bench and at about rep 7 of the second set I began to feel dizzy. So I stopped. I could tell that I was going to pass out so I laid back on the incline bench and put my hands up on the part you push up so I could steady myself so I wouldn’t fall over when I passed out. Then all of a sudden there were people around me asking me if I was ok. I could hear a number of people. I tried to say I was ok, but I couldn’t say anything. I tried to move and I couldn’t move. Someone kept asking me if I was ok and I was finally able to move my hands after what seemed like maybe a minute. They asked me to squeeze their hand if I could hear them so I squeezed their hand. I then opened my eyes. I heard someone say, “He is opening his eyes”. But everything was black. I couldn’t see anything. So I closed my eyes. I just sat their on the incline bench. Someone or more than one person stayed there with me asking me questions until I was able to actually say something verbally. I was able to tell them my name and what my wife’s phone number was. They gym had called the paramedics that arrived soon after (my gym is actually in the parking lot of the hospital).

By the time the paramedics arrived I was feeling significantly better. I was able to see fine and was almost able to stand on my own to get onto their stretcher. They checked my blood sugar almost immediatley and they told me my blood sugar was 114 which was good. I was glad to hear this since there is a history of diabetes in my family and I am not wanting to become diabetic. They also checked my blood pressure, it was really low, but I don’t remember them telling me a specific number.

The paramedics got me into the ambulance and drove through the parking lot to deliver to me to the Emergency Room. I hung out in the Emergency room for about 4 hours before they decided to admit me. They took 4 viles of blood (which my body didn’t seem to want to let out), numerous blood pressure tests, an ECG and some other random tests. None came back showing any problems so they decided to admit me for further observation.

Today they did a CT scan which also came back as normal and tommorrow they have another slate of tests for me to do so they can try and figure out why my blood pressure dropped while I was working out. Currently, none of the four Doctors that have seen me have any theories. Just ideas for more tests.

I am currently writing this from my hospital room. I actually feel fine and was hoping to head home today but they want to continue observing me.

I will probably write more here as I learn about what happened to me.

Sheesh, Jeff!

What a story!

Best wishes for the best outcome.

Stephanie

Jeff, have you shown your workout log to your doctors?

How long have you been working out so hard?

wow! i hope you feel better too and get some answers. did you change your diet? exercise routine? eat enough? taking supplements? new meds? did you stand too fast? were you dehydrated?

Whoa Jeff that must have been scary. If you're at all like me, the worst part is not having a good theory on what is going on. I hope the labs and doctors are able to give you some solid information to go on and a plan to prevent it from happening again. Wishing you a quick and total recovery!

None of the doctors that have seen me have requested the details from the Gym, but I have shared with them the details of my routine. None of the doctors have thought that the intensity or regularity is the culprit.

From what they have told me, while I am working out my Blood Pressure and Heart Rate should be high, and since mine dropped all of a sudden they are trying to find the key to why that occurred.

It makes this even stranger since I feel perfectly fine right now and feel like I could go to the gym and not have any problems, but then again I felt the same way minutes before this happened on Saturday.

I am hoping that during the tests tomorrow something will be discovered, but I have a feeling they aren't going to find anything. The nurses are all surprised I am still here. They were joking with me that I am the healthiest person on their floor, including the staff.

No change in my diet, no supplements and no meds. I was a little dehydrated when they got me to the ER but the doctors also don't think that dehydration was the culprit, mainly since I wasn't severely dehydrated. I really thought dehydration was the answer until after speaking with a few doctors. They have all said that if I had passed out while simply walking or sitting at home they would not be as concerned, but since I was working out they are concerned. Mainly since when you are working out your blood pressure and heart rate should always go up, and not drop down.

They are exploring cardiac issues and neurological issues but so far are not finding any issues.

It is frustrating not knowing why it happened, and feeling fine while being trapped in a hospital room with heart monitoring equipment hooked up to me. Hopefully tomorrow will have some answers.

i hope you get some answers. hopefully it isnt anything serious. hang in there.

I don't know if this is the same or not, but on many occasions I've gotten dizzy and had nauseau to the point where I've needed to go into the bathroom to regroup for fear of losing breakfast. This has happened to me since I was a teenager. My friends too. Not all the time but after a great leg workout. A personal trainer once told me that when you work the legs hard and they get really pumped, since the muscles are so large, it takes a lot of blood to pump them up. This leaves less blood for the rest of your body and your brain, thus the dizziness.

The worst thing you can do when your legs are pumped is to sit down, like on an incline bench. Walking around is supposed redistribute the blood. Maybe try restructuring your workout so there are not sit down exercises after working out the legs.

I've read stories about Arnold and Franco Columbo taking weights out into the middle of the woods and squatting heavy until they puked and passed out back when they were training for Mr. Olympia. That's my scientific reference.

This makes sense and I had just completed the Leg Press before starting the Incline Bench. I am going to bring this up to the Doctor tomorrow and see what he says.

Thinking back to when I lifted intently, the only time my vision blacked out and I saw white shooting stars, was after several reps of 405lbs. on ye old leg press.

That really sucks Jeff. I've had that feeling before. I thought I would pass out many times doing cardio, my heartrate goes way past the safe zone (181 for me, usually gets past 210). I should be glad nothing happened though, because it's quite common when I do cardio.

I just took a stress test and impressed the Doctor. He told me to stop showing off. So I passed that test with no problems. My heart looked great, my blood pressure is good and I was able to keep going at 100% of what their treadmill can do (15% grade at 4.5 miles per hour) for 10 minutes while holding a conversation with the Doctor and the Nurses.

They then took a ECHO and initial thoughts from the Doctor was that I will be going home today with no known reason for my passing out.

I mentioned the Leg Press theory to him and he thought it might be viable. However, about a minute had passed and I was into my second set on the Incline Bench when I passed out, so he isn't completely convinced. Also I was blue when they found me and he said the coloration of me is a direct indicator that blood was not flowing. He said this is typical for people who have had a Heart Attack, which he confirmed I didn't have.

So, everyone is stumped and I will hopefully be released in a few hours and get to talk with my primary Doctor about my questions like:

Can I go to the gym? If so what can I do? Will he communicate to the gym? That kind of stuff.

Well I am glad you are okay Jeff. I didn't have to worry for the night as in I just read it today. Good luck on figuring out why it happened.

Sorry to hear about that. Hope all is well!!

Well, I just read this too. I have consistently low blood pressure - well usually still in the healthy range but definitely on the low side of it. I used to catch in high school so I would be squatting a lot. When I would stand up after squatting for a while, I would almost always feel dizzy. It got to be normal for me. There were a few times where the blackness actually closed all the way in on me, but I never passed out. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, I vote for the leg press theory - except for the whole blue thing. That's kinda crazy.

Anyways, I'm glad that you are feeling better. And hopefully nothing like that will happen again and you can chalk it up to some random incident.

Twice in my life I've near fainted, once with puking, both under the same circumstances--during the infancy stages of getting back into training and going WAY TOO HARD.

Luckily, each time I made it to the ladies room and got it together with a bit of time.

I chalk it up to the folly of youth, as it hasn't happened for more than 15 years and I've of course since learned to do things less enthusiastically/maniacally when starting out again.

Sorry to hear about your scare, Jeff. Here's to that NEVER happening again.

take care,

glad they didnt find anything bad. keep us posted.

So glad to hear things aren't looking serious for you! I hope a simple explanation is found, and you are able to avoid anything like that in the future. You sound like case study material if the doctors are able to make some connections.

I wish you well!

Man, that sucks, Jeff. I've gone through a similar episode, but didn't end up in the hospital. My trainer was completely puzzled as to why it happened, and I never did come to a conclusion. Could be that you pushed too hard on the legs. Could be that you're getting older and can't take as much abuse . Whatever the case, try taking it a little easier for your next few workouts just to see how you feel. There shouldn't be a problem with going back to the gym.

I spoke with my Doctor yesterday and he told me he didn't want me to be released from the Hospital yet. He wanted to have me under observation for one more day. My Blood Pressure tests were slowly dropping over the course of the day after my stress test, so he wanted to see how low it would go overnight while I was asleep. I guess one of the cardiologists discharged me without communicating with him. Interesting how that works in a hospital.

My current orders are to be relatively inactive right now. I am meeting with another cardiologist on February 4th to have a 'tilt test' performed to see if I have something called 'Vasovagal Syncope'. If I have this then I will fail the tilt test consistently. Also if I have this there really isn't anything I can do about it other than lay down if I feel like I am going to pass out. Which will be really strange.

My primary Doctor reiterated to me the seriousness of what happened. I guess it is really really not good to turn blue when you pass out.

So there will be no more visits to the Gym for the next few weeks at least. This has me fairly bummed out, since I had been going for an hour or more each day since October.

Thank you for all the responses everyone. I really appreciate them. I probably won't have any updates on this issue for the next few weeks. but now I can focus better on my eating habits since I can't be active. I really don't want to gain back the 25 lbs I have lost since October, and being inactive for the next weeks is going to be difficult for me. Food is what I always go to when I am bored or feeling a bit down on myself. I need to change that habit, and this gives me an opportunity to tackle that directly.

Good luck with everything Jeff. We're here if you need us!

Bored/down eating is a huge problem for me too. I work 40+ hours a week sitting in front of a computer (really really easy to get bored). Something that has really helped me is distributing out my calories for each part of the day. I'm supposed to eat about 1800 Cal per day. So I divide this up amongst breakfast (300), snack (100), lunch (500), snack (200), and dinner (700). In this way, if I get bored in between snack 1 and lunch, I know that if I eat something, I will have to take away those Cal from lunch, snack 2, or dinner. Most of the time, I decide it's not worth it because I've already planned out all my meals and snacks except dinner. Anyways, I guess what I'm saying is I battle thoughtless eating by being more structured. Hope this helps!

Is that like cow tipping?

"People with vasovagal syncope typically have recurrent fainting episodes, usually when exposed to a specific trigger."

Is that the same as those sheep that faint when they hear a loud noise?

Jeff, are you sure the ambulance took you to a people hospital?...


Seriously, I'm glad your docs haven't found anything terriably wrong. Too bad about mo gym for awhile.



Healthy recipies, moral support -- just name it.

Stephanie

My wife keeps bringing this up as well. We went to california a few years ago and saw the 'fainting sheep' at one of the Geisers in Northern California. She also thinks I am like one of those. She is now sneaking up on me and saying "Boo!" really load to scare me into passing out. It hasn't worked yet.

ok keep keeping us posted. hang in there!

Maybe you caught something when you saw those sheep!

It sounds like your doctors are covering all the bases as far as proper testing. Just make sure one doctor is definitely looking over everything the others are doing. It's not uncommon that the different branches don't always work together or know what the others are doing when there is a lot going on all at once. It's important to be your own advocate. Ask lots of questions, and make sure everyone explains things to you in ways you can understand. There may not be a good or any explanation for everything right now, but you will get much better care and answers by participating as much as you can.

Here's to this incident being a fluke!

Glad you're feeling better. Dont worry about the gym. It'll still be there when you're ready to get back into it.

In the meantime, tell your wife that nothing beats a Scream mask and a rubber knife when jumping out of a dark closet.

Peace!

I like the way you think...

I am noticing something else that is different after my incident on Saturday. My Blood Pressure appears to be significantly lower. I had been tracking my blood pressure about an hour after lunch while at work each day since the turn of the new year.

Here are my Pre-Saturday blood pressure readings:

1/2/2008 - 124/68
1/3/2008 - 128/68
1/4/2008 - 132/74
1/8/2008 - 123/69
1/9/2008 - 128/68
1/10/2008 - 134/76
1/11/2008 - 126/72

And here are my post Saturday readings that I have taken since being back at work, also taken one hour after having lunch.

1/17/2008 - 105/63
1/18/2008 - 109/71

And here are my blood pressure readings during the afternoon while at the hospital and while at home.

1/14/2008 - 97/68
1/15/2008 - 95/57
1/16/2008 - 95/68

I don't know a ton about Blood Pressure, but seeing a consistent drop in systolic pressure since Saturday's incident doesn't seem normal to me. I left a message with my Doctor regarding this yesterday and haven't heard back from him yet. But I did get my 'tilt table' test moved up to this coming Monday so I won't have to wait until February to get that test done.

I thought maybe somebody would have some theories about Blood Pressure that might help explain this change in my blood pressure since the 'incident' on Saturday?