Advise! 20 days post-surgery for a 26cm ovarian cyst - did I faint, blackout, or have a seizure?

Treatment and medication
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Hi all,

Sorry if this is long, but something quite weird happened today and I'm not sure it's related to my recent surgery. Background: I had a 26cm x 13.5cm x 29cm fluid-filled extremely large benign cyst removed via lapartomy (small incision on my bikini line, only 3inches big) on August 30th. I was in the hospital for 2 and a half days after surgery, and had no issues.

The first week out of the hospital was in decent pain, the second week it was more like a dull ache, with occasional sharp pain, and this past week I've had little to no pain at all. My incision is almost healed. I'm only taking 1 percocet a day (if that) and that's usually just in the morning when I wake up from being a little sore due to the way I sleep. I've felt great, but due to my spouse recently having some health issues of her own, I've been doing a little more around the house.

Well, about 7 hours ago I was getting all the plates ready to feed my cats dinner, when I started to feel kind of dizzy. I brushed it off as sometimes the percocets make me kind of dizzy, which I know doesn't make sense because I had the one I had over 5 hours before this occured, but that's what I was thinking at the time. But this felt different. Still feeling increasingly dizzy, I rushed to get their food ready and feed them so I could go ahead and sit down. As I walked towards where I usually feed them, I became even more dizzy and disoriented, like the room was spinning and I was slowly getting tunnel vision. I also got the cold sweats really bad where I felt cold and hot sensations tingle all over my body. I realized something wasn't right so I stopped, put the food down on the kitchen table, sat on the kitchen chair and kind of rested my head on the table/my arms in front of me. I guess I closed my eyes to stop the dizziness. Next thing I know, I wake up and I'm lying on the ground - my dog licking my face/hair. The chair I was sitting in as well as the one beside it are both knocked to the ground. I think I was only out for maybe a few minutes, if that. I got up, hesitantly, and made my way to the couch. After about a minute, the dizzy-ness went away and I feel totally fine now, like it never happened. I'm not in pain, my head isn't sore from potentionally hitting it on anything. I've only ever fainted once in my life before and that was when I started my job at a veterinary hospital and had to deal with something super gross my first day, which was over 7 years ago. I've never just randomly fainted. The thing that is worrying me is that if I had fainted, I was already resting my whole body and weight in front of myself - so could I have lost control of my body, fell to the right of me, and somehow knocked down the chair to the right of me as well and the one I was sitting on? BUT when I woke up, I was pretty far into the hallway. I know it's hard to picture but theoretically, even if I did fall to the right of myself, knocking the chairs down, I feel like I should have still been closer to the chairs, if gravity was working properly. Essentially I feel like I woke up really far from where I would assume my body would have landed if it was just dead weight. This makes me wonder if I had a seizure and convulsed, making my body move farther away? I was also alone at home, so nobody to tell me what exactly happened unless you ask my pets...

Should I be worried? I can't really afford to go to my GP for my own office visit. I'm already in so much debt from my surgery and now medical bills for my spouse as well. She's going for an echocardiogram on Friday at my GP's office and I plan on asking him then while I'm there since we have the same doctor. He asked about my surgery last time I was there with her so I don't think he'll mind me asking a question. I also have my post-surgery appointment with my surgeon next Monday. I feel like my recovery has been going great and I was planning to return to work two weeks from today. I'm very confused to why this happened, there was no warning.

Just some background: I am vegan, 24, used to be extremely anemic when I was younger, but I take b12 and iron supplements daily. I'm also taking 10mg of Lexapro once daily that I started a month and a half ago. I am Percocets as neeeded for pain. I hadn't eaten today before that happened but I usually don't eat much if anything until dinner time anyways so I'm sure it's nothing to do with that or it would have happened already? I know, it's bad. I'm trying to eat on a better schedule. I am drinking tons of liquid. Did my blood pressure drop? Did my blood sugar get to low? I really don't know.

Any advise appreciated. I also posted on the Ovarian Cyst form as they have been guiding me through my surgery and I don't know if it's related to that or something else entirely. When it rains it pours!

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Anyone have any thoughts?

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Thats a tough one to answer, i had major surgery several years ago, i suffer with Vagusvasil Syncope, which is a malfunctioning nervous system, it affects the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, so, mine comes with, cronic fatigue syndrome, slow dijestion, and a spiking sugar level, so, it is either too high, or, too low.  It is a form of dysautonomia, which, does cause fits in me, and near blackouts, this is all due to how these nervous systems control, the heart, blood pressure, and blood oxygen.

Before your surgery, all patients are put on a saline drip, and for someone with either CFS or, dysautonomia it would help them, and this did help me enormously after surgery, however, it didn't last and my symptoms came back extremely severely 2 days after surgery, this is because, surgery of any kind is a traumatic event to the body, so, someone with this type of health problem, will have problems post surgery as a result of the trauma and the amount of water intake and food intake they have afterwards, as with this condition it is all about balance, balance of both those nervous systems.

If you have a form of dysautonomia, then drinking water, and being liberal with  salt on your food, will help greatly, this is because we lose blod volume, so drinking water, and eating salt will help raise blood pressure, and alleiviate some of the symptoms, so we  so will rest.

if you have a fit with this condition they are normally convulsions not Epilepsy as such, so, when i fit with it, due to lack of blood oxygen, it is normally very mild, rather than a thrashing about full blown fit, also, if you have an actual epileptic seizure, you normally lose control of your bladder at the time of the attack, if this didnt happen to you, then it is unlikely it was an epileptic fit, if it was a convulsion, then it would have been much more milder shake, rather than a thrashing, and i dont lose control with my bladder, warning signs of a fit  coming on is, extremely thirsty, and very sleepy, also, you will feel as though you are going to fall to the floor, its a feeling in your head, not your body, did this happen to you??

Certain tablets will also affect dysautonomia, so will eating large carb meals, standing up too quickly, and standing too long.

Surgery can also cause damage to the vagus nerve which is through out the entire body, and are the neurones that carry messages to the brain, so messages are miss interpreted, if this vagus nerve is damaged.  If you didnt have these problems before surgery, then either something may have been damaged during surgery, or, it is purely down to the trauma your body has gone through as a result of surgery, that has brought a possible underlining problem to come out, in which case it may settle, as dysautonomia does, but then can flare up again later on.

To test for dysautonomia you need a tilt table test, it is a simple test to see if you go to black out due to a quickening, then a slowing of the heart, resulting in a lowered blood pressure, hence the black out feelings, cold seaty, and sick with tunnel vision, so, they keep you upright in the hope it provokes an attack so they can record the incident and identify it.

 

If this sounds like you, then that's the test you need to have, but, if you haven't had symnptoms like this every before surgery it is unlikely you have dysuautonomia,  but not out of the question,  I am 56 years old and was born with mine, some come on during teenage years only to go in early twenties, but i did have a very severe flare up in my early twenties, you have to think back when you were at high school, do you remember any probs like this when stood for long periods, any problems during hot weather, more so with passing out episodes, did you sweat less or more, did you never feel as though you had, had your sleep out, was your head always unclear, did you have problems eating sugar, and always being thirsty, and dropping large amounts of weight quickly,  these are the things you need to consider.       

hope this helps good luck.

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You can lose control of bladder with faint too

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You just had major surgery! Plus your taking meds, your body just has to recover. Perhaps your blood pressure dropped and you fainted. Don't worry ! But I would ask your Dr. Major surgery is Major, Your body goes thru a lot. I have had the same surgery many years ago. You can faint for many reasons. People faint everyday. I bet your fine! Just take it easy during recovery!