Unpredictable blackouts

Hi yes I have had an EEG but it was clips put on my head back in 1957 and I have Chiari 1 and EDS Beighton 9 at 68! I'm able to drive because apart from when I had a until of blood drawn for Autologous eye drop I don't faint. The ECG should show that your fainting might be heart relating. If that is clear then your POTS is that you have low BP especially when you stand up. Presusubably your double jointed.? Do you have dizziness, anxiety, phobias, fits, epilepsy etc. Good luck we kneed every ambulance man we can keep!🍀🎄🍀

I have narcolepsy and postural orthostatic tachycardia (POTS).   The other person replying is incorrect in saying that the tilt table test causes a drop in BP, because with POTS your heart rate will raise (tachycardia) and but your BP remains stable.  The condition they were referring to is termed "orthostatic hypotension", which causes similar symptoms but there is a marked decrease in blood pressure after standing.  Both conditions cause dizziness and syncope (fainting) when a person who has that condition goes from a supine position to a standing position.  They asked if you are double jointed because there is a condition called Ehlers Danlos Syndrome that can be the cause of orthostatic intolerance.  If you are not "double-jointed"/remarkably flexible with stretchy skin, then it is unlikely that you would have Ehlers Danlos.  A heart condition may be the cause of orthostatic intolerance, which is probably why they are investigating your symptoms as such.  However, you may want to request a sleep study (specifically a polysomnogram with a multiple sleep latency test) to rule out sleep disorders like narcolepsy, which cannot be detected by EEG or a tilt table test and may be the cause of your sudden fainting.   You say that stress is a trigger for your blackouts and this is actually a common complaint in patients with narcolepsy, because strong or prolonged states of emotion can trigger cataplexy which can feel, and appear to others as fainting.  A sleep study is non-invasive, they just stick a bunch of electrodes to you and monitor your brain waves, pulse, respirations and the saturation of oxygen in your blood during sleep to see if there are any readings that correspond with specific sleep disorders.  They look for how quickly you enter REM sleep (which is when you start dreaming) during the MSLT.  Patients with narcolepsy generally enter REM sleep very early in the sleep cycle, I believe the criteria is under 8 minutes when normal dreaming should occur at least 40 minutes into your sleep cycle after the first few stages of sleep have occurred.  Anyway,  I just thought I'd mention this, because it might be worth investigating before you subject yourself to the more invasive internal cardiac monitor.  Hope this helps! 

Hi luke, 

For me,after several unexplained feints, cardiac monitors showed nothing except very slow heart rate. The tilt table test is what a diagnosis of Autonomic dysfunction was eventually based on. ie a breakdown in the communication between heart rate and blood pressure.

Hope that helps.

Rob