A few years back, when George W Bush was President, there was an incident where he was eating a snack (a pretzel?), and he choked and fainted …
A few weeks later, the same thing happened to me - choking on something , coughing , lightheadedness, dizziness, and fainting.
It has happened to me a few times since.
I believe there is a connection between coughing and decreasing blood pressure that causes fainting.
Does anyone have any more information about it ?
Thanks in advance
Reported for forum change.
Well, I believe the choking would decrease the amount of oxygen getting into your bloodstream, and therefore your brain, and I believe your blood pressure would increase, at least locally to the head, as you’re choking, gasping and coughing, pushing more blood into your head. Plus the increased actions of panicking and trying to force your airway clear consumes oxygen faster. On top of that, you’re not exhaling either, so all that CO2 that’s building up is going to exasperate the lightheadedness and “air-hunger.” Also, factors like your particular physiology, adrenaline, and metabolism at the time can all add to all that you describe, including blacking out (and perhaps death, of course, if your airway isn’t cleared).
Shoot, I remember one 4th of July a few years ago where my brother-in-law was trying to blow up some balloons for the kids. These balloons took quite a bit of effort to force air into getting it to expand. He was on his 3rd or 4th, his face turning deep red pushing all that blood into his head, and suddenly keeled right over on the lawn. He blacked out for a few seconds due to just the extreme effort and pressure it took him trying to blow those motherscrathers up.
cmyk: Most of that sounds pretty good, except for the temporary high BP part. The EMT’s came to my house, and my BP was slowly but steadily dropping, and it kept on dropping even after I got to the ER…
The last numbers they gave me was something like 84 over 60. I asked them if I was going to die; they assured me I was not …