Medical Emergencies Caught On Live TV

As a someone who has experienced more than one panic attack, kudos to Dan Harris for handling the situation so well. That may have ended much worse!

As someone who has frequent fainting spells due to nerves and anxiety, I have found you can kind of sense when they start to come. The first thing to do is carefully get as low to the ground as you can. It helps lower the risk of gravity-related injuries to your body. I see so many times with this that people rush around or stand completely paralyzed and that really doesn't help.

It always astounds me when an emergency happens and people just stand there shocked. It shows how special and valuable our emergency services and military are because they have the mental capacity to act in an acute high stress environment

My son has issues with passing out when his anxiety gets too bad. He passed out at school one day and was completely unresponsive for about an hour. He ‘woke up’ before the ambulance got to the school but he wasn’t there. They did sternal rubs and needle sticks the entire time and nothing. The weirdest part was everything was completely normal…BP, heart rate, respiration, bloodwork came back clean and within normal ranges. It was scary

I had a migraine mimicking a stroke. Scariest thing ever. You lose feeling in half your body and when you try to speak it doesn’t come out right and you end up being so confused. It’s only happened to me once but my father had them a few times and had went to the hospital so it helped me a lot to be able to recognize and identify I had the same thing.

As someone with complex migraines, I have aphasia in 90% of my migraine attacks. In some cases, it temporarily affects my Memory as well. Not being able to recall the names of my children or not remembering how to dial 911 or the operator. It can be terrifying.

I'm a hypochondriac, don't know why but listening to Dr. Mike explaining what happened to people medically is oddly comforting. Just knowing there are real people (doctors obviously) out there that are so educated and know the human body is a nice thing.

Speaking as someone who has the rare fainting spell every now and again, especially triggered by my anxiety disorder and issues with eating and staying hydrated, and has had a doctor suggest I have vasovagal syncope episodes, it's really reassuring to hear you talk about this condition and knowing it's not fully life threatening (the dangers of the fall aside). Puts my anxiety at ease, plus I have learnt the signs of my dropping episodes.

As someone with complex migraines, I totally relate to what that news reporter experienced. In fact, before I knew that's what was happening to me, the neurologist I started seeing that diagnosed me actually showed me that very clip of her. She did indeed have a complex migraine. My neurologist did the full workup like Dr. Mike said and cleared me of stroke or anything else. Every time I have one it is very much like experiencing a stroke. Each and every time to some degree. I've had the usual migraines filled with pain since I was 8 years old. But for some reason around 25 years old, my migraines started to change. I still have very painful tension headaches but painful migraines don't happen anymore.

Instead they always occur in this pattern: visual aura to loss of vision in my right eye, as vision comes back it's now numbness in any combination of my face, tongue, lips, eyelid, arm, hand, fingers, leg just on my right side. As the numbness starts to fade in comes communication failure. I can't make sense of reading, writing, speech, relating names to people (even my own husband and son), words and sentences don't sound right, nothing language makes any sense. At this point I usually begin to get irritable with some personality changes at times. All of that pretty much follows the path back to front through each major part of the brain. So through my symptoms you know which part of my brain the malfunction is currently in, like a wave. I wonder if it's the Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide flooding through the brain. Once all of those symptoms subside, I'm left with mood troubles, a strange throbbing in my head that increases with movement, light/sound sensitivity, fatigue, aching eyes like the blood vessels are too full and won't drain, and slower comprehension. Full recovery usually takes 24-48 hours.

I don't have many triggers figured out but I do have underlying conditions that definitely influence my migraines. Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (gut health is directly tied to brain health), and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS, a type of dysautonomia). I know for certain my POTS is a trigger but I don't understand the relationship as to why, besides how loss of blood to my brain upon standing has it's obvious problems.

I've had a good number of panic attacks in my life. I have no idea what causes them or why, and they never happened regularly enough that I considered it to be a problem. Even when they did happen when I was a young teenager, I never bothered to tell anyone about them because I didn't think it was serious. I was on some medications at the time, I figured it was just a rare and unpleasant side effect. That very well could be the case, as I haven't had one since I stopped taking those medications YEARS ago.

I'm not sure why I didn't tell people about my panic attacks though. I remember them being absolutely horrifying, easily one of the scariest things that had ever happened to me.

I have had only one panic attack in my life: I was in the grocery store picking out pasta when I lost my ability to function properly. I felt like I was watching what was happening to me while controlling puppet-like control over my body. A clerk came up to ask me if I needed help and appeared perplexed when I said that I just couldn't find spaghetti (or somesuch inanity). I told him that I just needed to leave and he said something like, "why are you so upset about spaghetti?" The whole thing was bizarre and I managed to get outside where I sat in my car for a few minutes until the world started to make sense again. That was the weirdest 15 minutes of my life (and, no....there were no drugs involved )

As someone who deals with both mental and physical health issues watching these videos help me learn what to potentially do in certain health situations

Oh my god. Thank you so much for validating panic attacks and not just dismissing them. As someone who has GAD and has panic and anxiety attacks, it's so nice to hear that it's not just in my head and that it's physical symptoms as well.

6:58 I have panic attacks almost daily and it gives me so much comfort that Dr Mike doesn't just say its all in your head like my therapists say. I always feel like it's my fault and I'm just faking it so thank you so much for saying its also physical.

Finally! Someone that explains medical events accurately! Every detail was spot on and truthful. How refreshing to hear accurate medical explanations. Well done! A true professional!

Before I got proper medical attention, my panic attacks would actually paralyse my hands and arms, and I had pins and needles from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. Wow I do not miss those days. People should know that panic attacks and anxiety disorders can be every bit as physical as they are mental, nice to see so many who can also relate in the comments! 😊

As someone with GAD, my panic attacks tend to be one of two types: "zone out and dissociate" or "be on high alert, heart racing, pacing around, unable to stop ruminating and rambling". I remember once, a few years ago, when I worked in customer service, I had one of the "zone out" types at work, and when I regained awareness I realized I had been staring directly at a female coworker for an uncomfortable amount of time... it was humiliating... luckily, she seemed to understand, because instead of getting mad she just asked if I was okay.

I think, for me, there's something worse about anxiety than panic attacks: outbursts. I guess you could call them "sub-panic attacks" or something, but when I start to get anxious and stressed, I'm more prone to suddenly yelling or ranting at people, including my bosses, which has... caused some issues for me. I've had two bosses respond to these by telling me I should get a psychiatrist to give me antidepressants, and one who pulled me aside and told me I either had to get a doctor's note put on my permanent employee record that I have an anxiety disorder -- ruining potential career opportunities -- or else suck it up because I'd be fired if anything like that happened again.

Anxiety can go to hell, since it likes to make my life one so much.

As a young teen who has experienced fainting from heat before, it not too bad, i remember feeling sick and my vision starting to blur, i was caught by my dad and he just blew cold air on me and i woke up fine, no ambulance called or anything

I really appreciate you showing a silent panic attack. A lot of people don’t realise how calm someone may seem during one. I started getting panic attacks when I was around nine. Earlier on, they definitely were very noticeable and concerning to other people. But over time, I’ve gotten better at managing them so they rarely outwardly manifest. It still means that I need to take a break from what I’m doing, sometimes.

I had a Vasovagal Syncope Episode. Dr. Mike is right about the risk of injuries from the fall when it happens. I was in a cramped space at work surrounded by wall shelving when I lost consciousness from low blood pressure and fell. I got severe bruising on my head, neck and shoulders.

Once I fell my brain started getting enough blood flow and I regained consciousness within minutes. My blood pressure returned to normal within 1/2 hour. But I had a neck injury from the fall that took a year to heal. I could not turn my head to the left for several months.