My 15 year old has been diagnosed with Vocal Chord Dysfunction. It affects her mostly while she has been exercising... she ended up quitting her basketball team because of it. She has had speech therapy, and has learned about how to make the restrictive feeling go away. The problem that we can not find an answer for happens 20 minutes after she is done exercising... she will start fainting... it started out as 4 or 5 fainting episodes in 30 minutes that lasted 10-20 seconds each time. It has progressed to 15-20 episodes of fainting that last 20-35 seconds in a 30-45 minute time span. This stops only after an ER trip, and ativan that makes her a rag doll. She then needs 3 or 4 days to recover, as it takes everything out of her. The amount of fainting seems to be directly related to how hard she exercises... The harder she plays the more trouble with fainting she has. It only seems to happen when she has to relieve the VCD restriction.
We have been through many things: Asthma misdiagnosis (plus all the meds), allergy testing, methacholine test, stress test, echocardiogram, etc. (heart is very healthy), we go to a neurologist next week. One doctor suggested just get a good pshychologist.....
The speech therapy doesn't seem to be as effective as it first was. Thus she quit playing basketball... to the dismay of herself and doctors... to the relief of the coaches who are scared silly watching her go though this fainting business. She does exercise on the treadmill to stay in shape. She has also had to deal with the VCD while playing clarinet, singing and when exposed to smoke from a bon fire or scents from areas in store where perfumes etc. are sold, but it doens't happen all the time in those situations like it does with sports.
Any suggestions or ideas on anything else we should be looking for would be greatly appreciated.