What happened to me tonight?

I left work, tired but eager to get home, a bit hungry and very thirsty. I had a fresh bottle of Pepsi with me, but didn’t want sweet. There was a bottle of water in the cupholder, with just a little left in it…uncapped, and been there for a day or two, but it is snowing and it was cold and wet and I drank it without really thinking too much about it…and it tasted funny…sort of cherry-flavored. I looked at the bottle to see if somehow my daughter had left a flavored water there the other day, but no, it was plain water. I smelled it, didn’t smell or see anything odd, and figured it was my imagination, and took the last sip.

Within about a minutes I felt drunk. really drunk. My lips were tingling, my hearing sort of became muted, and I really had to focus on driving. Did I mention I was driving at the time? Now, I had a gastric bypass, so I’m used to alcohol hitting hard and fast…but I hadn’t drunk any! I had a small bag of flavorings in the car that someone had given me, and one was cherry. I thought perhaps my son, who had been looking at the bag the other day, had decided to put a few drops in the bottle to see what it tasted like, and not told me, and that I was reacting to the alcohol in that. So I called him and asked…I had trouble making a coherent sentence. But I really didn’t feel as drunk as I feel when I drink…I just really had to focus. He told me to concentrate and just get home safe.

I decided I’d better dilute whatever was happening to me, and I reached for my Pepsi, and found an orange in my bag. I devoured it…and the half a turkey sandwich, which tasted…more bland than usual. Then I started chugging the Pepsi. By the time I got home, I was feeling better, and within a half hour the numbness in my lips wore off, my hearing returned to normal, and I felt fine again.

I hadn’t taken any medication for my blood pressure for hours. I’m been battling my bowels all day, and had eaten too much sugar earlier in the day (talk about self-medicating!) but that effect had worn off. The symptoms came on so fast after drinking that water, it had to be that. Could bacteria have grown in there and made me ill? It was just water, and it didn’t look or smell funky…just tasted like cherry, vaguely.

Any ideas?

Sounds to me like you had a freak reaction to some kind of mold in the water.

How was your blood sugar/what did you eat all day would be the first thing I’d consider before the ideas of toxic mold and all…

Especially since when you ate you started to feel better.

I don’t monitor my blood sugar. I was constipated as a result of the medication I was taking, so I ate a lot of sugar to get things, um…moving quickly. But that was hours before this event. That reaction had completely worn off. This didn’t feel like any of my food responses…it felt more like chugging a shot of vodka. One of the interesting things with a gastric bypass is how quickly you recover from digestive upsets of all sorts.

And how does water get moldy, anyhow?

All kinds of things wrong with you and maybe the water. Blood sugar, blood pressure, dehydration, all of those alone, let alone together, could give you the reaction you got, including the weird taste. Been there done all that on long bike rides in hot weather …

Got teenagers? If so, any chance they were drinking in the car?

Not the water itself, but the bits of food stuck in your teeth or half-dissolved in your saliva.

Ah. Never thought about backwash!

Maybe it was the dehydration. I’d been drinking some diet lemonade over the previous few hours, but I was really not taking in enough fluids at all today. Budgetary issues made me chose buying a Pepsi Max to stay awake over bottled water, and for some reason I don’t trust the faucet at my store, so if I don’t bring water from home or have bottled water I don’t drink it. And maybe because it was the first time I sat down for hours…I was battling fatigue (another fun side effect of the new blood pressure med) and getting in the car always signals my body to relax completely.

Well, I’m sticking to my lone teenager theory, until you prove me otherwise.

I’ve left half-full bottles of water out on my nightstand for weeks with no mold issues…and no cherry flavors.

Did anyone else have access to your car?

I would check your sugar at whenever you go to the Doctors next time. Especially if you have a history of diabetes in the family or such.

That description of feeling very out of it, and “almost drunk” is a common one reported from patients with hypoglycemia during the EMT rounds… You just gotta keep an eye on them, give them some sugars, and take them in to the hospital for monitoring. But that does sound eeriely similar to your events. That’s why maybe you should take a 2nd look whenever you can.

Did you taste alcohol? To me, the first few drinks of any alcohol are always followed by a physical reaction to the taste of it, like a little shudder and throat spasm or something. I doubt it would be possible for you to mistake the taste of alcohol for cherry-flavored water, but maybe if you were hard-of-tasting…? I’d search the teenager’s room. Can you tell I have teenagers?

I wonder if it could have been a panic attack. Despite the name, they don’t always manifest as particularly fearful events.

Oh yeah, hey- blood sugar! This has happened to me, especially the “muted hearing” part, but in combination with decreased vision, shakiness, sweating, and vomiting, when my blood sugar drops. And your breath can take on a fruity smell with blood sugar issues, which may explain the cherry flavor (smell?). See your doctor.

But hold the teenager for questioning, just in case.

My guess is low blood sugar. Especially since you had greater-than-normal sugar earlier in the day . . . then, as that wore off, you got the rebound effect. You were saved by the orange.

Could that be some sort of epileptic thing, or a migraine? I don’t know much about epilepsy but I do get weird migraine auras - no pain, but I certainly feel very strange - facial numbness, tingling, losing words and so on. There’s a definite “spaced out” component - the “really having to focus” bit definitely strikes a chord. Very rapid onset as well, sometimes.

I only suggest epilepsy because of the odd taste thing - isn’t that a symptom of an imminent attack?

I didn’t taste the bite of alcohol, but the cherry flavor seemed a bit mediciney…though don’t all cherry flavors? And I do recall a bit of the chills, sweats and shakes that I usually associate with “dumping”, which is what I had done on purpose earlier.

I don’t have a teenager who might be drinking in the car…I do have an adult with a drinking problem, but he doesn’t, and didn’t, use my car. He was IN the car with me and the water bottle and the bottles of flavoring since the day I bought the water…but never alone. So I don’t think he was using the water bottle as an alcohol blind. It had the same level as the last time I drank out of it.

As it happens, I have a doctor’s appointment this morning to see if this new medication is helping my blood pressure any after two weeks, and I will try to get him to slow down enough to relate this story and see what he thinks. I rechecked the Patient Information form, and while dizziness is a side effect of this drug, I’ve been dealing with that since the first dose, and it is a whole 'nuther kind of dizzy.

I think the blood sugar thing may be the answer. I really was being stupid about food yesterday. It’s just to have that happen after drinking the water is so odd, and it was so unlike my usual reaction. Let’s hope it’s not epilepsy…I simply don’t have time this week!

The panic attack info was interesting, though I do recall no feeling of anxiety. I was annoyed and puzzled, but just focusing on getting through the experience and weighing whether things seemed bad enough that I should pull off the road for a while. Yesterday was a stressful day, sort of obliquely.

I’ve been having panic attacks for a couple of years now and they come on suddenly. But I usually only get them about a couple of hours after drinking a sugary soda and since I also had gastric bypass, that’s always a bad idea. Sometimes they come from extreme stress, too.

I don’t feel anxiety, per se, but an overwhelming feeling of dizziness and shakiness and tunnel vision. And, like you, I sometimes have trouble getting a sentence out when it’s really bad. I’ll sometimes eat something to calm it down, usually protein. The first time I had one, I thought it was my blood sugar, so I ate a piece of cheese and started to feel better. When it was all over, I felt incredibly tired.

It’s never been diagnosed, but my husband was having panic attacks and the symptoms sounded exactly like what he goes through. I’m curious to hear what your doctor says.

I can’t explain the cherry thing, though.

I thought panic attack as well. I went through that last year and what you described is exactly how I felt.