Vasovagal Reactions

[Lemons2lemonade]

Wondering how everyone else is doing with this.

Please do not view the following link until voting is completed.

http://www.medicinenet.com/fainting/page4.htm

[Katybug]

I have this every time I squat to clean my kitties' 2 litter boxes. But, squatting down is better than bending over for me, there isn't a lot of options. I don't faint but I get very lightheaded and short of breath. I also try to avoid putting things like a full laundry basket on the floor and then picking it up again later because this will cause the same problem. I will put it on a table or countertop so I don't do the abdominal clinch/strain of bending over and picking up something heavy.

[Lemons2lemonade]

The part that i find really interesting about this poll is that vagal manuevers are supposed to reduce the HR and avert faints (allegedly) yet most replied that they are unsure whether or not it actually reduces their heart rate. I have tried this before with no avail, and also answered unsure.

[spinner]

I never go all out physically anytime. I havnt hit a tennis ball in 2 years. Tennis is nothing but bursts of exertion and then rest.

I NEVER bend over at the waist i always squat--to pet a dog, or pick something up.

I also avoid loud stressful noise like rock music, or high pitched noises.

[heathmcev]

Vagal maneuvers cause me to have rapid-fire palpitations much of the time. They pass quickly but are disconcerting.

[Freaked]

Garggling. An unexpected trial. I find myself hunched quite a lot because the more upright I am the worse my symps normally. I do manage to walk upright most of the time (for the short distances I can walk), but the other day I was garggling with salt to help sore tonsils. Put my head all the way back and felt a bit weird but manageable, put it down again and nearly passed out.

Don't know if it was a vagus nerve thing, but it did seem to trigger the slow, pounding heart for a few seconds that I associate with vasovagal faintness. Happened every time I did it, and the only thing that helped was to move my head very slowly. Certainly not something that ever happened to me before POTS; sudden position changes just seem to be a no no. A lot of my falls or stumbles have been bending at the sink in fact, or reaching up suddenly is never a good idea either. Needless to say standing in the shower is out of bounds for me these days - heat, standing, bending and reaching. Recipe for POTS disaster.

[AshleyPooh]

It's interesting, but way before I knew about POTS, about a year or two ago? I was at the urgent care center for a bad back strain. They gave me a shot in my hip called Toradol. The shot hurt really bad.. and when the nurse left the room, I started to feel queasy. I started off to the nurse's desk t ask them about it, and the closer I got, the darker my vision got, until when I got there I was like " Am I supposed to see black everywhere?"..... they dragged me back to my room and laid me on the bed, and I proceeded to have a god awful episode of almost passing out. Afterward, they tried to say I had triggered my vagus nerve.

I asked my cardiologist about this recently, and she says more than likely it was an adrenaline rush reaction dropping my blood pressure. So I suppose... that is a vasovagal reaction lol.