They said it could have been caused by violent coughing, but more likely to be the choking episode.
A few years ago just before covid officially came along I had this nasty cough (maybe I was patient zero?!). I was coughing all night and went to bed.
When I woke up, I stepped out of bed, looked out the window, and then a few seconds later I realised something.....I wasn't breathing! I rubbed my mouth with my hand to instinctively remove anything blocking my ability to breath whilst my brain tried to work out what the hell was going on lol
It was like the mechanism to breath wasn't working. For a second I thought i'd had some sort of brain damage and had forgotten how to breath! haha
Before I knew it, i'd now gone about 20 seconds without breathing and full panic was setting in. I was punching my chest and had now managed to walk downstairs to get the attention of my GF.
She's flapping away helpless. At this point about 1 minute had passed and I was certain that was it for me. I remember thinking 'Jesus. What a way to go! I'll never even know what the hell happened! Did I swallow a golf ball in my sleep? Gonna be an embarassing funeral if something like that has happened!'
Absolute peak panic at this point as my body has now gona about 70 seconds without breathing and i'm fighting a ghost and flapping around trying to somehow breath! Just as i'm close to collapsing, a pinholes worth of air suddenly presents itself to me and i'm able to breath in the tiniest bit of air, making a weird sound as it's as if i'm trrying to suck in a gallon of air through a tiny hole. Despite the tiny amount of air, it's a huge relief. Seconds later i'm able to get a tiny bit more air in. Eventually i'm able to breath again.
I go straight to the hospital and they run tests and stuff and stick tubes in my nose to see my vocal chords (ouch! that was no day at the beach!). They find nothing and don't know what it was
From doing my own research, i'm of the opinion that it was a 'laryngospasm'! (where your vocal chords all literally close up, usually for about 50 seconds) - Likely brought on my the violent coughing (as a result of a virus. Maybe even covid?!).
I hope nobody ever has to experience that. It was horrid.
