Can you have a mini-seizure due to food blocking your airway?

November 17, 2013 6:31 AM

So I was just eating some hummus on crackers while doing something else, felt a clump of hummus get lodged in my throat, felt briefly dizzy, then a kind of blackout for about five seconds. Came to, my trackball has been knocked off the desk. I otherwise feel 100% okay. What just happened?

Obviously, I'm a little freaked out. But my pulse is normal, my memory's fine, reflexes, etc. all check out, vision's good, gait is normal, and I've done pretty much every self-test I can think of in the last few minutes to see if I'm in any way... messed up. Nothing. I'm in generally pretty good shape (overweight, but a regular exerciser, had a general physical and bloodwork done recently with nothing out of the norm).

Once or twice in the past I've had a kind of "dizzy surge" when eating peanut butter, the same kind of "stuck in the throat, here it comes, whoooaaa, there it goes, fine now" episode. This is the first time I've actually lost a couple of seconds and swatted something off my desk.

And this wasn't "movie choking on food" choking-on-food... I didn't have several seconds of "oh my god, I'm choking on food" gesturing and looking around. It was a sudden-onset hey-I-think-I've-got-a-clump-of-glargh followed by what I assume is about two seconds of flailing.

A good wake-up call to eat slowly and with small bites (I've got terrible food habits), but... is there something more to this? Should I be waking my wife up and heading to the emergency room? My attempts at searching for information on this haven't been super fruitful.

posted by Shepherd to Health & Fitness (11 answers total)

Best answer: There appears to be some correlation between swallowing and vasovagal syncope (basically what used to be called a "fainting" episode), based on a quick google I just did. If it's a transient and unusual event, it's nothing to worry about. But you should mention the above symptoms to your doctor at your earliest convenience. (Or google "swallowing syncope" if you dare.)

If you're otherwise healthy, the odds are you're fine. But have you ever considered that you might have an allergy, perhaps to peanuts? I don't know if chickpea allergy is a thing, but there could have been peanuts in the cracker, or some other common allergen in both foods.

IANA(M)D
posted by spitbull at 6:39 AM on November 17, 2013 [3 favorites]

The reason I say that, by the way, is that the mechanism that connects eating certain foods to syncope might be some sort of allergic inflammatory response in your throat. Nerves and blood vessels are packed pretty tightly in that zone.
posted by spitbull at 6:41 AM on November 17, 2013

Response by poster: Not to threadsit, but just to address that prospective line of thought: I'm not sure if allergies can have random incidence, but I eat peanuts and other peanut-including foods very consistently. The peanut butter thing is more about the consistency, and that along with the hummus... semi-solid, goopy, I try to swallow a large gob and the above happens.
posted by Shepherd at 6:46 AM on November 17, 2013

Seconding vasovagal syncope. My son used to have a thing where strenuous coughing or a gag reflex would trigger a near-fainting episode. And it wasn't just psychological - his pulse O2 would actually dip during these spells.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:15 AM on November 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

see previous question I asked about an episode my daughter had that was very similar

No lasting effects
posted by foleypt at 7:30 AM on November 17, 2013

I've had this kind of thing happen ( sans the passout ) when eating certain foods (things that can clump) and for me it is actually related to swallowing, breathing and pressure buildup. It is not quite choking but it does feel as though my throat could burst from pressure (passing out may even be the more pleasant option as I find the experience terrifying) Liquid almost immediately relieves the pressure buildup and now I pretty much don't eat if I don't have some liquid handy .
posted by srboisvert at 8:43 AM on November 17, 2013

I think losing consciousness is one of the things that warrant a doctor visit. If you don't know what's causing this, then you can't prevent it. This is definitely your body telling you that something is pretty wrong.

Next time you could be driving a car, walking a flight of stairs, or the dozens upon dozens of things you don't want to pass out while doing.
posted by Houstonian at 8:52 AM on November 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: This was the thing that happened to George Bush when he "choked on a pretzel" in 2002. People made fun of him at the time, but this LA Times article explains a bit more about what happened.

Tubb said Bush's slower heart rate made him more prone to fainting when a nerve was stimulated by the pretzel caught in his throat. The medical term for such an episode is vasovagal syncope, or vasovagal fainting, Tubb said. In such cases, the body sends a signal to the heart via the vagus nerve. This causes a sudden drop in heart rate, which is restored when the person falls.

Such fainting is a common and harmless event that does not signify any underlying illness or have any lasting effects, said Dr. Marshall Morgan, head of the emergency department at UCLA.

"If food goes down the wrong pipe, the natural response is to cough," he said. "It is pretty common for people who are coughing to have a syncope," a brief fainting spell.

It remained unclear Sunday night whether the episode was accompanied by any seizure-like activity that could be a symptom of a more serious matter. Both cardiac rhythm aberrations and seizures are among the transient medical problems that can cause someone to lose consciousness.

posted by jessamyn at 8:56 AM on November 17, 2013 [9 favorites]

Antecdata but this happened to me when I ate too large a bite of a tortilla chip. I guess the weird shape got stuck in my throat, and I fell down, blacked out for a couple seconds. Coughed it up and I was fine afterwards.
posted by book 'em dano at 9:04 AM on November 17, 2013

I can assure you if all the things it might be, an actual epileptic type seizure is not one of them. I have epilepsy and the many things that can trigger seizures are all specific to how the brain processes (or fails to) things like flashing lights, alcohol, or fatigue. A reaction like this where something - for lack of a better word - rational is happening to cause unconsciousness is not a seizure.

If you feel "100% ok" upon regaining consciousness, it is absolutely NOT a seizure as all types of seizures have a "post ictal state" that involves some variation of headache and feeling like shit. I have "petit mal" seizures and when I wake up from one, it feels a bit like I was run over by a train.

Vasovagal response or some other kind of syncope seem likely. You should definitely get it checked out, but to ease your mind a bit, I would absolutely bet you money that this is not a seizure.
posted by sonika at 2:03 PM on November 17, 2013

Best answer: You should see a doctor about this. Don't go self diagnosing it as a vasovagal episode, because the other possible causes, especially cardiac, are serious (even if unlikely).

If you lose consciousness and there isn't a very clear reason (as in, you were dehydrated and standing up a long time, or you're squeamish about blood and saw something nasty, or you just gave blood), you should always see a doctor.

There are epileptic seizures (e.g. absence seizures) which are brief and have no post ictal period - so seizures are another important cause your doctor needs to rule out. Epileptic seizures are enormously diverse depending on which bit of the brain is involved (so one person's description of their seizures might not match yours).

It's probably nothing serious, but see your doctor to be sure.
posted by JeanDupont at 10:34 PM on November 17, 2013