Finally had my TTT, fully expected I may not pass out since that seems to be fairly common, but joke's on me 'cause my heart totally stopped for 25 seconds.

I spent the first 20 minutes of the test feeling just kinda 'meh,' the doctor came over and said "are you doing okay?" and I said "I don't feel great, but I'm fine." Then he said okay, now we're going to give you a sublingual nitroglycerin tablet; let us know if you feel like you're going to pass out. The tablet hadn't even fully dissolved and I said "I feel like I might pass out," then immediately "I'm about to pass out I'm passing out." Then woke up from what felt like a very long sleep, completely drenched in sweat, and had absolutely no idea where I was or who the people standing over me were.

The electrocardiologist who ran the test was so calm, but the nurses were sort of excited like something interesting had just happened. The doc said "look who I found in the hall!" and my cardiologist walked in and said "I heard you're making trouble in here! So glad you agreed to do this, because now we have VERY strong answers," I still had no idea what had happened, other than I had obviously passed out because I felt like absolute dogshit (the usual after passing out). I overheard a nurse excitedly tell another nurse that my heart stopped for 25 seconds. Then I heard the EC say "who came here with her?" someone answered "her husband," and he said "okay, please bring him in here," because it was obviously gonna be a while til I could be moved back to my room because I was in such terrible shape.

Of COURSE, the first thing I say to my husband when he walked in was "my heart stopped." Ugh, lol. I felt really bad for just blurting it out because he immediately looked drained (we also have an extremely medically complex toddler and both have a lot of medical PTSD from it, so this is not something my husband was prepared to hear today). So the electrocardiologist said "okay, you'll need to come back and see me in a couple weeks so we can talk about options... my current recommendations are either a heart monitor implant, which stays there for 2 years and may eventually lead to a pacemaker, or just go ahead with a pacemaker... that way you just won't pass out anymore."

I wound up staying at the hospital for like 4 hours because my heart rate just didn't wanna come back up... I was just sitting around 37-45, and just kept feeling nauseous. I've been home a couple hours and am feeling a lot better, but still tired/drained.

When I texted my friend who is a cardiology nurse practitioner at Vanderbilt, she said "HOLY SHIT, 25 seconds is a long time!!!!" I wasn't really expecting such an excited reaction, since the EC played it so cool. But she thinks I should just go ahead with the pacemaker. I honestly only pass out maybe once a year... 99% of the time it's a vagal response to heavy period/cramps, but I do gray out when I stand up a lot of the time; it happens literally every day. He didn't give me a diagnosis today, but I'm assuming it's vasovagal syncope (which I've known about for a long time because of the way I pass out) AND POTS.

Soooooooo yeah. I was expecting to maybe or maybe not pass out today, but never in my wildest dreams did I think my heart would be stopping today, let alone receive a recommendation for a pacemaker. Guess I have some decisions to make. Would be awesome to hear any similar experiences from people who wound up with a pacemaker or heart monitor implant for similar reasons.

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TLDR (sorry, it really was a long post!): heart stopped 25 seconds after nitroglycerin, but restarted on its own as soon as I was horizontal. Electrocardiologist recommended either a heart monitor implant or a pacemaker today, but we will discuss further at my follow-up in 2 weeks.