Relapse trigger?

[glenmoor_guard]

[B]Hi everyone. Thanks for your word of support and sage advice. Please chime in on a new experience for me.

During a blood draw for my 50 year physical, I fainted after the second stick and prep was underway for the 3rd. Since then I have been plagued by dabilitating weakness. I'm trying a rollator & an AFO to spare my knees - pretty banged up already. I've lost 2 work days - first time unscheduled for me.

Could this fainting spell (about 1 minute) have triggered an exaserbation?

Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks, Glen

[rdmc]

hi Glen,

I'm no dr. And I have no idea about the fainting spell. However stress can trigger pseudo exacerbations, and possibly a true exacerbation. what you just describes sounds pretty stressful to me.

Hope you get to feeling better soon.

[Redwings]

Hi Glen:
It isn't known exactly what causes relapses. But I can't think of any doctor who would say that a single episode of simple fainting would trigger an immune response great enough to cause a relapse.

One possibility is that you were already at the beginning of a relapse and subtly unwell enough that you fainted in a situation that wouldn't ordinarily be stressful enough to cause you to faint. And then the relapse went on to develop full bore. The fainting may have been a result of an exacerbation rather than the cause of it.

A similar situation would be, "She fell and broke her hip." Doctors know now that there are many cases where the opposite is true -- the person's hip broke and that's what caused them to fall.

Just something to think about...

[lemstar]

Redwings said what I was thinking....that you may have been vulnerable already, had the blood drawn and fainted as a result of already being vulnerable. Put all those things together, and yeah, you could have a relapse. But I doubt fainting caused it; rather, why would you faint during a blood draw in the first place?
In the end, it doesn't really matter, as we all know, no matter what our condition, that stress is unhealthy for us, and also somewhat unavoidable if you are alive.