JamesDimick.com

So some of you who regularly talk to me may be wondering where I’ve been the past week. Let’s just say me and SoBe’s don’t mesh well…

I’ve been in the hospital on and off for the last week for panic attacks and Vertigo. It seems my body doesn’t take well to energy drinks such as the SoBe I had. I’ve never had an energy drink before this little episode. My older brother always got them and I’ve never had one so this time I asked him to pick me up one. Neither of us had any idea it said “energy drink” right on the side of the bottle. It tasted fine and everything but little did I know hours later when I went to lay down for bed I would have a huge panic attack and Vertigo.

I started feeling dizzy when I laid down so I got back up and turned on the bathroom light to try and figure out what was wrong with me. I was hoping it would just subside so I went to lay back down. A minute or so later I thought I was feeling hot so I plugged in my rotating fan and locked it in pointing towards me on the bed. I soon discovered that it was not that I was hot. So I got back up and went out to the living room to try to calm myself down by watching TV.

After awhile I knew I was not getting better but instead worse. I proceeded to go into my brothers room to get him up to come sit with me on the couch until I was feeling better. He quickly noticed that I was very pale in the face and I told him about how I was feeling so he asked me if I wanted him to call 911. At first I hesitated because I didn’t want to turn it into a big thing. He then called my mother and put me on the phone with her. After a little while of talking and me getting worse I decided to let my brother call 911. So he did and we waited. They arrived promptly and just as they did I started noticing that around my pinkies on my hands it was tingling. The paramedics got in the house and started asking me about what was going on. I explained how I was feeling as they began to hook me up to their various machines. As they were monitoring me, more and more paramedics were showing up. We ended up with about 10, or so, guys in the house all looking at me. A few minutes went by and they said based on the printouts of the machines I should get looked at in the hospital. So we all went down to the ambulance and took off.

They took some blood and put in an IV (that they didn’t even use) and I sat there trying to calm down. Once we arrived at the hospital they trucked me into a room and my mother showed up. I had to relieve myself in a jug so they could test it and then we sat there for about an hour or so before the doctor finally came in. She said based on the tests and everything I had a panic attack and a case of Vertigo. Awhile after that they took out the IV and gave me some medication and sent me home.

The next night I was riding in my mothers car and I started to have the same feelings. However, it was way worse. I decided to tell my mom that I needed to go to the hospital. She started driving towards the hospital when I guess I started to pass out because my mother said my eyes rolled into the back of my head and I started falling back in my seat. She stopped at the local Fire Department and they checked me out. I started feeling really anxious… Like I needed to get out of the car and walk. They wouldn’t let me of course. This time my entire hands and face were tingling and it got so bad that my hands actually locked up and I couldn’t move them. I was on the verge of crying it was so bad. The paramedics decicided to take me up to the hospital and basically I went through another round of the night before.

I guess what I learned from this overall is my body doesn’t work well with energy drinks so I plan to stay away from them as much as I can. Possibly for the rest of my life. I feel much better now and I hope nothing like that ever happens again. It was not an enjoyable experience.