Anyone have Vagus nerve problems causing strange, unnerving symptoms?

I am using this way to ask a related question of the Mayo volunteers; I've had this vasovagal factor mentioned several times in the past as an issue I may be facing. In some of these descriptions today I see some similarities to what I have experienced although for the most part to lesser degrees. Could you advise if we want to explore this vasovagal issue further what medical field would be best to contact -- neurology, cardiology ... ???

I had an autoimmune disorder, Giant Cell Arteritis, (GCA) which was not diagnosed for over a year. Over a period of a few months, I had 29 gagging attacks. Usually, they started at lunch time, I'd get a squiggly feeling behind my navel, the top of my head got very hot, then I would gag and get dry heaves. I also usually had diarrhea.
A doctor friend told me I probably was having vagus nerve attacks.
One of the solutions to a vagus nerve attack is to lie flat with feet elevated. If I heaved a lot, I was exhausted and debilitated for the day.
There are a number of people online offering exercises to reset the Vagus nerve. I did these a lot. I also read Dr. Stephen Porges book, about the Polyvagal Theory, which he developed. He is a Psychologist and Neuroscientist. You can find information about his theory and interviews with him online. here's a link:
https://www.polyvagalinstitute.org/whatispolyvagaltheory
After a while the attacks subsided and I was treated for the GCA with steroids. The attacks stopped and have not returned, but they were horrible. I've never seen them listed as a symptom for GCA either.
Good luck. I hope you can get some relief.

Much appreciated!

Hi @joaf37 , Interesting question. Now for me it wasn't something to treat just something I had to get used to. I can share that I had a friend who was sure that his episodes of AFIB were tied to what he ate. I do know the vegus nerve not only helps in adjusting to changes in heart rate but also regulates the stomach processes like digestion. Kind of a fascinating nerve. Now for me it was not cut from the stomach but only the heart, so my transplanted heart won't respond to the need for increases in heart rate as quickly as someone with their native heart. So, my guess would be a neurologist as they deal with nerves in general and since that nerve ties into a few different organs that would be my thought. have you by chance asked your PCP? that for me would be who I would ask for a recommendation. I am curios though are you experiencing heart related issues? or stomach?

Thanks for taking the time to send this. My PCP here is a good guy overall, somewhat cardio knowledgeable and very practical. Have been with him about 18 months. My employer changed insurance coverage more than once so we've had to change PCPs more than once. However, I go to Vanderbilt Medical Center for cardio. It's 200 miles away. I had to make a change although this is not a small town with no options. I'm a Mayo patient now for something else but Mayo is too distant per cardio because I need to go for cardio care fairly often. When I had gone to Mayo years ago, I knew what the basic tests were per what they did immediately. My Mayo MD raised the issue of the vagus nerve then but not any emphasis. The local cadio MDs I had where I live weren't even doing those basic tests even when I had major concerns. Vanderbilt, within three days elapsed time, per those tests, discovered I had a heart attack. Talk about shock. I'm lucky I didn't have another one when I heard that. I am staying with them for continuity regardless of the travel costs and time but they haven't raised the vagus nerve issue. I'll raise the issue on the portal. I've had a couple of cardioversions, initially with 6 months success, the most recent with ongoing success. I started to see an Afib specialist there as well (that's been several months) but no sign of it now ... seems to be the opposite. I'm in holding pattern aside from the Rx I take but far, far better than when I first went there. Again, thanks for taking the time to send your message,

Hi Joaf37,
I had an episode of vagus nerve syncope while on a cruise ship in 2019. At 11:30 pm I woke up feeling nauseous and needing to use the rest room. While on the toilet I had a very large bowel movement and felt like I was going to vomit. I passed out and fell off the toilet and hit my head in the tile floor. My husband heard me fall and called the ship’s medical office. In the ship’s medical clinic I was hooked up to an IV by a young nurse who didn’t speak English and didn’t know how to start an IV. The unknown fluid entered my vein very slowly and my forearm began to bulge. I started having hallucinations and uncontrolled movement of my legs similar to severe RLS. A Canadian Coast Guard ship was called and I was transferred to a hospital in Nanaimo, BC. The hospital removed the IV and did many tests on me between 1 am and 8 am… and diagnosed me with Vagal Syncope and told me to have my PCP check me when I returned home. They discharged me with a letter stating that I was safe to fly home to Southern Cal.
My PCP did similar tests when I returned home and did not find anything of concern.
I have had a couple of similar incidents since then when I have eaten too many high fat foods during the day. As long as I eat a low fat high fiber diet I seem to be fine.

Are you on any meds, especially benzodiazepines?

What a nightmare that must have been -- I had a fishbone caught in my throat in France one --- I could feel your pain in every word... "far from happy far from home" certainly applies. Your situation was much worse than mine -- appreciate your sharing the detail.

Ironic that you should mention these incidents with the bathroom situation, I have had the some of the same ... when so always first thing in the AM and very unsettling but not to the extreme you define. Often wake up nauseated. I was told recently that what we've experienced is not all that uncommon. People just don't tend to discuss these issues. I do the same things you describe in your closing comment and that has worked best for me as well .. I plan to raise these issues with my PCP when I meet with him in 2 weeks. Again --- I thank you for your comments!

It's an issue with your blood pressure drops and your heart rate drops might want to bend your head down when you use the toilet kind of like your bending down to help it not so you don't feel that way. Are you constipated with the bathroom don't push really hard make that can make it worse. Do you know this when you clear our dairy products says you doesn't make you nauseous or would you eat very fat meat like lamb are really stuck at high in fat. A couple times it's happened to me when I use the bathroom I start shaking and getting real box of pale and everything goes black on me and I need to I fell off the toilet you need to lay on the bathroom floor for about 4 hours until it cools off I feel like I literally died but for about 5 to 6 seconds I'm literally passed out. I got to keep the cool car on my head or stomach it's happening about three times. Another thought I'd be good to obeyg and I wouldn't stop here to check stuff for you to make sure you don't have anything with your ovaries are with your hormones are if you don't have. Do you have a bed wedge under your put in a your bed so the blood pressure doesn't drop so low your sleeping the blood pressure goes to lower can make you nauseated and feel sick too.🙏🙏🤑🤑🧐🧐🧐🤔🤔🤔

The large bowel movement and the nausea that follows with sometimes several other evacuations in the ensuing minutes is something that I experienced four years ago, but at the time I was in the process of losing weight and avoiding carbs. I ate a lot of roughage for bulk, but I would go three-four days without a substantial bowel movement...quite unlike my usual habit of two or three times each day. I believe it is forceful peristalsis, but essentially a bowel spasm.... a bowel charley horse...a cramp. After the first emptying, I'd get the salty taste, my upper lip would get sweaty, and I was sure I was going to lose to the wave of nausea that followed. A lot of swallowing, keeping calm, and it eventually left me. I don't associate this experience with any loss of BP or syncope.

All-in-all, a distinctly memorable and unpleasant experience if you ask me. In total, this happened about once every month during my six month loss of 10 kg. Once I slowly returned to my normal diet, I had two things happen: the episodes ceased and I began to slowly gain the weight back on again over the next 18 months. Rinse and repeat...