When my fainting problems started

On November 4th 2004, which was about 3 months after moving into our new home, I was sitting at my computer in the morning and my head started feeling really fuzzy. I got up to go get a drink of water and halfway down the hall my vision went black and I felt as if I were passing out. I ran to grab the phone to call my husband and then I called my doctor, Dr. Tipton in Payson. I had an appointment with him that afternoon; he had me come in the next morning for some blood work. All of the tests turned out normal. Since I had had a bad sore throat and cold the previous week, he thought it might be related to that and said to comeback if I still had problems the next week.

The following week I felt faint again and made another appointment with Dr. T. He ran an EKG which showed some PAC’s and scheduled me for an ECHO-Cardiogram and halter monitor. The ECHO was normal. The halter monitor was fairly normal, but showing my heart rate around 40bpm at night and up to 160bpm during the day (with no exercise). Dr. T suggested I see Dr. H who specializes in arrhythmias. The soonest I could see Dr. H was in March (which was not acceptable to me since it was November). I made an appointment with Dr. O in Salt Lake City at the Utah Heart Clinic in the first part of December.

Dr. O suggested doing a tilt table test to determine if I had vaso-depressor syncope. The tilt test was scheduled for Dec. 21st. It turned out positive, and they prescribed Toprol XL, starting at 12.5 mg for the first week then 25 mg after that.

This was all rather frightening to me as I had 2 boys ages 2 and 3 1/2 years who wouldn't know what to do if their mommy passed out. I also was worried about driving anywhere or going to the store in case I started feeling faint. After having been a pretty active and confident person all my life, I suddenly found myself feeling restricted and dependent. I was 31 and felt like I was too young to be having these kinds of problems.

The Toprol XL helped some, but I would still have episodes of feeling lightheaded and faint at times – especially in the morning and upon standing. I went ahead and kept my appointment in March with Dr. H to see if he had any further suggestions. Dr. H wanted to give me another medication that raises blood pressure, Midodrine, and told me to not eat any sugar. He also said no sugar substitutes or honey either. This made me feel very down and even though I tried to follow the advice, I found it very hard to stick to this diet. I got to where I didn’t know what to eat. I was pretty depressed about it. Although, since I had had caramel apples the night before my first near faint, I thought the idea of restricting sugar might not be a bad idea. So, I decided to try more of a low sugar diet. Only having 30-40 grams of sugar each day, and I used Splenda products and other artifical sweeteners. I lost about 25 pounds after doing this for just a few months. I also tried walking most every day. I still had episodes of lightheadedness and faint feelings, but it wasn't as bad and I was glad I lost some weight. I'll continue my story in the next post.