Jeez, body. Don't scare me like this (afternoon spent in hospital)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Weird, weird day. Medical thread incoming, but I have seen and will continue to see professionals, so don’t worry about commenting. No actual medical advice demanded, this is just an account of my trip to the hospital today:

Felt perfectly fine this morning. Did my usual thing, went to work, worked all morning. Come lunchtime, I went out to lunch with a friend. We went to a slightly fancy breakfast place, I had the “Creole Omelette” - contains shrimp, may be important.

About 45 minutes after lunch, I went to go get a cup of water from the water cooler. Took a drink, and suddenly things went…wrong. Felt a sudden rush of vertigo, looked down and the floor was swimming. Figured - maybe some walking would help. I was able to walk around OK - for a bit. Then things started getting worse. I was having these whooshy feelings in my chest, then some pain, then I’m breathing shallow and fast. Feels like a panic attack and I’m getting more and more unsteady on my feet. I stop by said friend’s cube, she’s on the phone. I wobble around for a few seconds and feel like I’m going to pass out. I manage to get out, “I need you to take me to a doctor…” and she doesn’t really hear me. I figure (stupidly) just wait a few minutes, it might get better.

And then I start shaking. My arms and hands, mostly. But I’m shaking and I can’t control it. I manage to speak up a bit louder: “I need you to take me to a doctor, please…” She glances at me, gasps, and hangs up the phone. At this point, I’m thinking: “I’m having a heart attack” - chest pain, dizziness, trouble breathing, sensation (not quite pain but shaking and tremors) down my arms and a growing overall feeling of panic. She tells me I’m white as a sheet, forget the doctor, she’s calling 911. Now I’ve attracted some attention. Our site safety manager is over, and he helps me lie on the ground. My chest, while not outright painful, feels tight. Breathing is a bit tough, though I’m still able to do rapid shallow breaths. My vision is swimming and my arms and hands are still shaking. Paramedics arrive and load me into the ambulance (my first time!) In the ambulance, they give me oxygen, nitroglycerin, aspirin and a saline IV. They tell me my blood pressure and pulse are high.

At the hospital, they do the regular heart attack things - ECG, blood samples, stethoscope, chest x-rays. Waiting for the results in the hospital bed is a few hours, and slowly I’m starting to feel better. The doctor returns and tells me “Good news! Your heart and lungs look fine.”

uh…ok? That’s good, but why did I feel just two hours ago like I was about to keel over? But I am already feeling better…

The doctor had a few suggestions - not confident diagnoses, as I heard them. Maybe a panic attack (though he didn’t seem to think so), maybe esophageal spasms, maybe a new food allergy. Told me to follow up with a GP, but otherwise I look ok. And I was discharged.

You know what, 8 or so hours after the fact…well, I do feel pretty much back to normal. Very strange. And a bit scary. I’m in my early 30s, so heart disease would seem a bit unlikely. Maybe a new food allergy? I’ve had shrimp plenty of times before, but I read people can develop allergies anytime. But wouldn’t an allergy cause my breathing to seize up completely? And as for panic attacks, don’t these need a trigger? I was having a pretty mellow day. I don’t think I’ve ever had a full-on one. Esophageal spasms? Well, that kinda explains it but I’m just a bit dubious something like that would feel (at the time) so serious and so scary.

Just very strange and worrisome. I’ll be making an appointment with my GP shortly.

2

Yikes! I’m glad you feel better, though I don’t have any insight as to what it might have been. I do know two people who developed shellfish allergies after they turned 50, though their symptoms aren’t like what you described. Anaphylaxis is a possible part of an allergic reaction, but not always, so don’t necessarily count on trouble breathing as a symptom, and that usually happens within a few minutes of ingesting the allergen if it’s going to happen.

3

No ringers lactate?
Well I guess you need to have that omelet again to test the theory.

4

My mom had eaten shrimp her whole life and then developed an allergy to it when she was somewhere between 40-43 years old. I remember because we’d gone out to dinner for my birthday and then I’d gone out afterwards with a friend and when I came home, my grandma was waiting up to tell me that my mom was in the hospital. (This was before cellphones were everywhere.)

Good luck and glad you’re feeling better!

5

Yes, you can develop an allergy at any time.

No, it doesn’t necessarily cause your breathing to “seize up”.

Dizziness, lightheadedness, and fainting are potential symptoms of a food allergy although it sounds to me you didn’t get a diagnosis so much as a suggestion of what the problem might be. Food allergy symptoms vary widely (I have several, and different foods induce different symptoms in me).

You also have to be careful about making assumptions. For example, the “easy” answer in your case is “it’s the shrimp” but it might well be something else in your breakfast. If later on this starts to look like “food allergy” is the culprit (as opposed to who knows how many other things it could be) then you should consult an allergist and not just a GP so you can determine exactly what is the problematic food. It would be a shame to give up shrimp when the real culprit might be, say, the orange juice you had with it.

Very wise.

Not always. If it’s connected to exercise-induced problems then a person may have no problems until exerting him or herself, at which point the reaction sets in. So… such a person may be fine for 40 minutes then run to catch a bus then have the start of anaphylaxis.

Fortunately, that’s not a terribly common thing, but even severe reactions may have a delayed start.

On the other hand, while the OP’s symptoms were alarming they didn’t seem to be anaphylaxis. Let’s be real, they may be wholly unconnected to breakfast. I had an inner ear infection once that lead to vertigo, wobbly feelings, and was scary until a doctor figured out what was wrong. Meanwhile, everyone where I work was running around trying to find the “bad food” that was the culprit in my “food allergy attack”. Nothing food related at all, turned out to be a stupid virus. The OP’s symptoms are kind of non-specific and I’m sure I couldn’t possibly list everything it could be, and I won’t even try to do so.

6

Start taking your blood pressure regularly. There are conditions that present with weird symptoms that make it hard to diagnose, (hypertension urgency), without the BP data.

Next time do not wait, go directly to the ER. Do not assume because they let you go that you can ignore these symptoms, just because you survived them, without incidence once before! Sometimes it takes the cumulative data of a few ER admissions before anyone sees a pattern or decides to look deeper.

Good Luck!

7

They can actually. My mom and my grandfather have those and in my grandfather’s case he has collapsed and been rushed to the hospital with a suspected heart attack.

8

Hey GameHat, I’m very glad you’re feeling better and I hope this turns out to be nothing more than a shrimp allergy (or just a bad shrimp).

For the record? No. For some people, yes. I’ve had at least a dozen panic attacks over the past six years (sigh, can’t believe it’s been this long) and I can pretty much say that the majority weren’t brought on by anything specific, or even by thinking of anything mildly worrying. Most times I was sitting reading or watching or surfing the web, when suddenly I noticed an electric buzzing of adrenaline going through my veins as if I were going face to face with a tiger. My heartrate zoomed up, my breathing grew labored, and I was absolutely certain I was about to die.

Unfortunately these experiences led me to become hyper-aware of any rise in my heartrate to the point where I became terrified it was starting over again. I became panicked over the panic. Welcome to Panic Disorder Town, poplation = me.

Anyway, more on topic: A lot of your symptoms remind me of my sister a couple of years ago, who bent down and out of nowhere suddenly felt a rush of weakness and dizziness, lost control of her breathing, sat down and as I was asking her what was wrong, suddenly leaned back and lost consciousness. Her eyes were open but they were flat–she was out. However, her hands were trembling and plucking at herself.

I called 911 immediately. By the time they got there she was feeling better, but they checked her out anyway. Turned out this was a vasovagal response.

Your symptoms sound somewhat similar but more severe, so this is probably not it. At any rate I hope you stay well and I agree that if this happens again, call (or ask someone to call) for 911; though that’s probably what you meant by ‘call a doctor.’ Good luck in finding out what happens–and keep away from the shellfish in the meantime!

9

After working on a food diary for the past few weeks I discovered last week I have a sensitivity to sulfites. I have the same symptoms and have thought more than once I was having a heart attack. For a while I thought it was gluten, but after eating instant potatoes and thinking I’d probably die before the night was over, I started paying attention to foods I enjoy with sulfites. Every time I had pizza for the past several years I’d have a reaction. Every time I have rice (seasoning with bullion cubes loaded with sulfites) I have problems. I feel like my nose is buzzing, I get bad palpitations but my blood pressure drops. I feel lethargic and my vision gets blurry. The severity depends on the amount of sulfites in the food. I can have Coke Zero with Ace-K, which is a trigger for many people with sulfite sensitivity. I can’t have bread (until I find one that’s safe). I think I’m noticing a reaction with the high fructose corn syrup too, which is also common.

10

Oh I should have mentioned, shrimp is usually bathed in a sulfite solution and triggers most with sulfite sensitivity, so it’s definitely something you might consider.

11

When you get your bloodwork results, check your potassium levels. Hypokalaemia can mimic a panic attack.

12

Since this has turned into a diagnosis/advice thread, moved from MPSIMS to IMHO.

twicks, who developed a shrimp allergy in her late 30s that now seems to have extended to crab, dammit

13

Shrimp allergy checking in. Everyone is different, but I will always feel a reaction to shellfish within a few minutes of eating one, and most of the time, immediately. Most recently, I took a bite of a sushi roll that had lobster in it, thinking it was fake crab, and my mouth and throat knew something was wrong before I’d swallowed.

That being said, you can see an allergist and they can give you the skin-prick test for a shellfish allergy.

14

For the record, I was diagnosed with esophageal spasms after a 4 hour ER visit just a few weeks ago. And it hurts like a freaking bitch. It feels just like a heart attack (from what I’ve read), and can definitely make breathing hard. I was immediately treated as a possible heart attack like you. EKG, bloodwork, chest x-ray, the works. I also got mine after eating something not so good, so maybe it was that? I just hope to god I never get them again. It wasn’t just the pain, it was the intense fear that it was a heart attack.

15

You are correct. Shrimp are soaked in sulfites and phosphates to improve the texture, meat yield and make it easier for machines to peel the shrimp.

If you have allergies to shrimp it might not even be the shrimp at all but rather the sulfites and phosphates.

Several cites available if you search for shrimp, sulfites, phosphates.

16

Thanks for all the replies, dopers,

I continued feeling pretty much normal yesterday. Several managers told me I should take a day off, and besides there was a snowstorm here in Chicagoland, so I did. Had a nice day of lots of sleep and recovery. Back to work today, without incident, other than feeling more than slightly silly saying, “Uh, yeah, actually I feel fine now. Can’t explain the attack, nor could the doctor. But it really was scary at the time, I thought I was gonna fall over. Yes, the whole thing passed within six hours. Yeah.”

At the time of the attack, my fears went in this order: 1) They’re going to call my mother, and she will freak out. 2) I may be having a heart attack and/or dying. Yes, that order.

Mother was surprisingly calm and reasonable when I called her from the hospital. The same mother who loses her mind whenever I have something as minor as a cold. “Sneezing?! Stuffed up? You need to go to urgent care, immediately!”

I definitely need to do an allergy test. I won’t be eating any shellfish until then. And the GP to ask about acid reflux (possible cause for esophageal spasms suggested by ER doc.)

Thanks again for the advice, anecdotes, and kind wishes. I’m still alive, and that’s a good thing :smiley:

17

You seem able to describe everything in detail crystal clear. Not meaning to be insensate but maybe you were just having a very uneasy feeling but nowhere near to a life-threatening situation.

18

Certainly possible, even probable. I’d never felt anything like that before, so it was making me panicky. Nothing the ER doc said made it sound like it was terribly serious, so yeah, it probably wasn’t life-threatening. It was more the panic and the fear of a heart attack that made it frightening. And since I seem to be back to normal a short time after, yeah. Probably not life-threatening, though I did think so at the time.

…like I said, I did feel a bit foolish being back at work feeling normal just two days after the fact. Several co-workers were very kind in saying, “You know what? Crazy stuff happens. Better to feel a bit foolish than to be dead. I’d have felt the same way.”

19

That’s so true. I ran into a guy at a Walgreens once who asked about the best aspirin to take for this pain he was having in his chest. I was like, dude, you need to go to the hospital right now. He had someone with him, or I would have taken him myself! Overreaction? Who knows? But was he having a bleeding ulcer or even a tear happening, or a heart attack? Or just some reflux? Rather be safe than sorry! I told him to take two aspirin and four Tums and get going. I hope he went.

20

Of all the things you are feeling, the one thing that is inappropriate is “silly.” Something real happened to you, and seeking medical care was absolutely the correct thing to do.

If someone else told this story, would you consider them silly or foolish?

If it happens again, do the same thing-- ER, 911, the whole ball of wax.