Update, EEG test confirms Epilepsy. 2 seizures ever and only on the bike 6 years apart. How strange. I guess I have other seizures I just don’t notice them. TIme skipping, muscle twitches in face etc. Any leads or experience can share?
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Sorry to hear this….hoping for the best possible case for you in terms of being able to manage it. Please let us know how you are doing.
I was diagnosed with Epilepsy as a kid and the one thing I remember is the consultant saying the whole world is epileptic given the right conditions to trigger fits. Just my threshold was lower at the time and it could change. He was right and I’ve not had a fit in circa 27 years, after 5years I think the NHS/ insurance no longer even treats you as so. Hopefully it’ll change for you too.
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Yes agree 2 fits ever and both on the bike on a hot day 6 years apart. I’m not changing my life for that. Luckily it’s tested in Thailand so I won’t register this in the UK unless it gets worse of course.
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Good that you followed this up with quality medical testing. Hope you’ll be safe for future rides.
For anybody finding this in the future. The suggestions above with hypotension and vasovagal syncope are possible benign explanations, that can be considered when other more sinister things are excluded. Passing out during exercise is a high-risk feature for an underling disorder, especially when it happens repeatedly. Please get seen by a physician and do a physical exam, and depending on that possibly an ECG and EEG (+/- follow up testing).
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So now I don’t know if I can believe the results as 35% or general population exhibit these abnormal waves when hyperventilating, so doesn’t seem conclusive. Not taking the medication either. Got this tested in Chiang Mai Thailand. How reliable are Thai doctors? I heard many buy their qualifications. Having my results looked at by the university hospital in the UK. 2 blackouts in 6 years. Everything points towards post exercise hypotension because I sat down at a cafe immediately, no cool down and relaxed for 20-30 minutes before I started riding on the then much higher temperature.
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Hi,
@aprimrose85 I was hoping to send you a PM but I can’t.
I joined this forum to reply to this post after finding it through Google searching.
I ended up in hospital yesterday with the same thing and it’s not the first time.
Only if I stop at a cafe then continue, I get the blackout feeling where I have to get some sugar in me asap and then I’m usually ok. It’s why I hate stopping at cafes.
Yesterday though, I left it too late and by the time I had stopped, I slumped over the bars and collapsed. I was with 3 friends luckily, and I had a seizure struggling breathe and lips were turning blue.
In the ambulance I came around and realized what had happened. I could barely walk due to my calves being totally locked up.
The first time this happened I was in Mallorca and it was a much worse scenario. I had MRI scans, CT scan the lot. All clear.
The neurologist at home in the UK concluded it was vasovagal Syncopy and that was that.
I know it’s related to blood pressure/blood sugar somehow and possibly a hypoglycemic seizure.
How have you been since, and have the UK docs also diagnosed you as epileptic?
My secondary school days were interrupted about once a month with severe migraines and eventually micro blackouts. The docs/scans couldn’t say for certain about anything just I might have been one of those 35%. Then the day after my final high school exams (1992) I collapsed and had a fit but nothing through college. But I was chucked on phenytoin. In the 2nd year of college I started wearing glasses and stop having severe migraines (co incidence 
At Uni the specialist doc I was seeing for the epilepsy, tried me on a new anti migraine drug. I then had a spate of translucent states that culminated in more fits. Midst the last one, a local GP asked my parent what tablets I was on an in horror told them to flush them down the toilet. A tiny wee bit of research confirmed the DO NOT PRESCRIBE to anyone on epilepsy medication.
Maybe unrelated I then had a bout of pancreatitis. It miraculously cured itself but I had lost 2.5st in a very short time. On hindsight I should have realised (although the specialists should have realised), the phenytoin was now too much for my system and its side effects were magnified.
In 2000 I moved out of the house and stopped taking the phenytoin altogether and touchwood 24year later on that front I’ve had nothing worse than a bad sore head.
I have just come across this thread. I have had a similar experience. In December 2023 I was riding on my own and the last thing I remember is eating half an energy bar and stuffing it back in my pocket. I came to at the side of the road being tending by a passing motorist who happened to work for the local ambulance Service. I was taken to hospital in the ambulance which she called.
Various tests were administered along with the diagnosis of a broken collar bone. Low sodium was one of the outcomes of the blood analysis, I was to be discharged later in the evening but lost consciousness again after getting off the bed and was kept in hospital overnight…
I had ridden a time trial (16km) the night before and had ridden that morning with a fast (for me) bunch but had left them to undertake a longer ride. It was a fairly intense effort for me.
Epilepsy was diagnosed in my early 20s and medication has controlled this with no seizures for over 25 years. However none of the symptoms I used to experience with a seizure was present on this occasion .
For some time before this blackout I was experiencing light-headedness on standing up, particularly in the evening after a more intensive workout. This was to the point of having to hold onto the back of the chair to avoid falling.
I was referred by my doctor to the local syncope clinic. After what seemed to me to be very thorough testing and investigation, the diagnosis was postural hypotension. The recommendation was to increase salt intake and then to lessen from one teaspoon a day to half and then to nothing to see how things went. I am still taking half a teaspoon of salt daily and intend to reduce as suggested in time. There have been no subsequent blackouts either while riding or at any other time.
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