I don't know what it is.
So for a couple nights, I didn't seem like I was getting any sleep in my bed for some reason. I presumed it was due to back pain of sorts (I sleep on the floor just fine, but the bed makes me feel like I didn't get any sleep. And I have some sort of back injury because my leg spasms when my back is in a certain position, causes ongoing left testicular pain, there is an occasional distinct feeling of sharp pain in the midsection left side of the vertebra, pressing on it one night left me with the most horrid feeling for like two hours straight (couldn't sleep for two hours), sleeping in a certain position definitely causes a sharp pain at that point in my back.).
Well anyway, I was feeling tired but not what I would call fatigued, and one night at 1 AM I went to Carl's Jr. to get two of their two huge hamburgers (I don't normally eat meat), and two hours later at around 3:30 after laying in bed for like five minutes, started getting this hot and cold shivers and there was a distinct feeling of numbness/weakness radiating down my left arm along the arm pit and I generally felt unwell in my chest/upper body area.
I guess it might've been my heart, so I ate spinach to help alleviate it (spinach is a slow vasodilator due to its nitrate content) and took 160mg of aspirin, and then I took my blood pressure to check it because I didn't know if it was back pain or what. My blood pressure normally runs at 120/65 and the systolic very rarely is above 130 and the diastolic is practically never above 70, and my blood pressure was running at 141/78, highly suggesting this feeling was due to my heart, probably from those two giant burgers but also possibly contributed by my ongoing tiredness. After 10 minutes of taking the spinach, blood pressure was down to 133/72 (and I felt better though "the sensation" still lingered), and after 20 minutes it went down to 125/66 and I felt completely fine, fine enough to go back to sleep though kind of anxious about
what just happened, lol.
The next two days, I slept in my bed and it felt like I was get more sleep, but when I woke up, I felt extremely fatigued for a good three hours. This was a sense of deep fatigue I've /never/ felt in my life (I've never felt fatigue like that, let alone that bad.). I also noticed that any vigorous activity was pretty good at getting my heart to jump with regularity.
So I started sleeping on the floor, and I feel much better today and my heart's no longer jumping. I felt tired, but definitely not fatigued.
So, should I go see someone or is this a relatively normal phenomenon after eating two giant burgers from Carls Jr. at 1:00 a.m. in combination with sleep deprivation? (Btw, my normal bedtime at the moment is somewhere around 2:30 AM.).
I'm kind of scared of heart failure because the doctor at MEPS (I was joining the Navy) told me my kyphosis (curvature of the upper back) could lead to heart failure, and I hope I didn't just see the first step in a longterm downward progression, lol.
By the way, I now know the best way to react to events like that is...
1) take 650 mg aspirin. (immediate blood thinner)
2) drink 1-2 glasses of wine. (Immediate vasodilator due to the wine's sulfates & ethanol. Usually see an immediate drop of 10mg.)
3) eat a bunch of spinach (Or kale). (Long-term vasodilator due to the spinach's nitrates and potassium. Usually see a 5-6 hour drop of 10mg over normal, but it takes 10-20 minutes to take effect.)
My eating of spinach before taking aspirin probably wasn't the best way to do things, but I haven't actually rehearsed this scenario before, lol. Little to no experience you could say, lol.
Yeah, I'm never eating burgers again, lol.
Btw, I'm 28. And, sleeping on the floor is no panacea - My right arm goes numb waking me every 3 hours, lol. But, at least I'm getting something.
Post Edited (swbluto) : 9/22/2015 10:04:12 PM (GMT-6)