Getting Dizzy After Weight Loss

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  • saralukies
    saralukies Posts: 24 Member
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    My son experiences this same thing. He stands up, blacks out momentarily (sometimes falling over, sometimes not) and then is fine. He is currently 15, and getting taller and taller, but no wider. His doctor sent him to every specialist under the sun, including heart, ortho, and endo, and no one found anything problematic. The final conclusion was that, with his increasing height, his blood pressure drops because the blood volume is just not enough to fully oxygenate his brain when he first stands. He was recommended, just as many people above have said, to drink more water and get more salt and electrolytes to increase blood volume. Now, I don't know if this relates at all to what you have posted, but it is evidently extremely common with young men. I do agree you should see a doctor just in case, but I just wanted to reassure you that it could be something as simple as this. Good luck!
  • charmmeth
    charmmeth Posts: 936 Member
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    This will sound bizarre, but you might want to ask your doctor to check your blood pressure in the upper and lower half of your body. I had a friend at college who had a blood vessel that was nearly blocked. He was fine at rest but when he did anything active his blood could not get back into his upper body fast enough and he would feel dizzy or blackout.
  • Beautyofdreams
    Beautyofdreams Posts: 1,009 Member
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    anacline wrote: »
    I've experienced something similar, and with more and more weight loss it progressed into also going blind for a few minutes, and eventually fainting. It would happen especially when standing up (even slowly), exercising, taking warm (not even hot) or cold showers, and eventually just any random time. I would get dizzy and go blind almost every day. My logs show it happening 2 times right after waking up before getting out of bed, 10 times while taking a shivering cold shower, 2 times during midterms, 1 time while I was sitting in my car at a red light, 5 times while sitting and studying. 3 times while watching Netflix, and 1 time while on a walk with a friend, 30 times while standing up normally. I would faint about 1 time every 2 weeks, 2 times while exercising, 5 times while taking a warm shower, 2 times while sitting and studying, 5 times while standing up quickly (2 of those times were on a buss). I started logging to try to present to a GP.

    General practitioners will not do anything to help you and will tell you this is normal. I went to 5 general practitioners in College Station Texas who all were along the same lines of useless.

    I tried, all sorts of vitamins to see if it might be a vitamin deficiency, iron supplements, increasing salt, decreasing salt. Nothing worked. The only way for me to make it stop was to gain back weight.

    If you go to the GP be prepared for doctors to drop gems like "carry around candy and eat it all the time to see if that will stop it." "You followed my instructions from last visit? I don't remember that? You're eating too much sugar, that's why you were passing out", "You're probably pre-diabetic" "Your blood sugar levels and blood pressure are a bit low, but that's fine, it's a sign of good health, maybe eat some candy to stop blood sugar drops", "I think the fact you're getting dizzy randomly is a sign you're getting healthy." and said in the most vitriolic tone: "If you want to be fat, be fat, I don't care!"

    @anacline, bravo! I am going through exactly the same symptoms and issues since starting weight loss. I have visited numerous doctors and received diagnoses varying from small scale stroke, anemia, to vitamin/mineral deficiency.
    The one correlation with blackout episodes is a weight loss of 2 or more pounds, as in a whoosh. Each time that I have blacked out and fallen I have experienced a drop in weight. These have become more frequent as I get closer to my goal weight. I am now 20 pounds from goal weight and the blackouts increase with my decreasing weight. Not trying to be too thin, just the ideal weight for a woman of my height and frame.
  • natasor1
    natasor1 Posts: 271 Member
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    If you have problem with having dizziness while get up or exercising, try to do the test with your boold pressure: measure it twice in stand up position and twice in sitting down postion. It may be different if you have orthostatic pressure difference, standing could be lower than sitting. It s very common. Docs even don t concider it as problem. To make your life easier, just consume more salt ( about 5000 mg a day), electrolites and water. When you exercise and start feeling the rush of blackness, just imaging that all your blood have been streammed to you huge muscles of legs, back, abs. When you brain feels shortness of oxigen it very greedily wants to get it all back. You brain like another person living inside of you, can manipulate your activities. It s trying to put you horizontally to even the blood flow back to itself. Best to sit down and put your head down between your legs or just touch the floor with your hands.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,561 Member
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    Could be several things. How do you actually breathe? Is it cadenced? When losing weight you have a tendency to move faster and if you're breathing is incorrect, then you can get dizzy. Every exertion should be a breath out. IE when you do a push up, breath in on the way down and blow out on the way up.

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  • cmhubbard92
    cmhubbard92 Posts: 5,018 Member
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    saralukies wrote: »
    My son experiences this same thing. He stands up, blacks out momentarily (sometimes falling over, sometimes not) and then is fine. He is currently 15, and getting taller and taller, but no wider. His doctor sent him to every specialist under the sun, including heart, ortho, and endo, and no one found anything problematic. The final conclusion was that, with his increasing height, his blood pressure drops because the blood volume is just not enough to fully oxygenate his brain when he first stands. He was recommended, just as many people above have said, to drink more water and get more salt and electrolytes to increase blood volume. Now, I don't know if this relates at all to what you have posted, but it is evidently extremely common with young men. I do agree you should see a doctor just in case, but I just wanted to reassure you that it could be something as simple as this. Good luck!

    My fiance is 35 and has had this happen as well. Usually it is first thing in the morning when going to the bathroom. He now makes sure to take a rest in between sitting up in bed and standing.

    It made me very nervous at first, but it is surprisingly common. He has unmedicated high blood pressure, so we have been working on that, and his numbers are getting better.

    OP, I think you should seek another doctor/second opinion as this is something a doctor should want you to get a handle on. It is very unsafe, and could be much worse the next time it happens(could hit your head on a counter, or blackout while driving, anything). The doctor you are currently seeing should not be brushing it off.
  • jasdebi2012
    jasdebi2012 Posts: 15 Member
    edited January 2021
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    I'm not a doctor, but yes, dizziness on its own can be anything. The positive thing is it could be that you are standing up faster than you used to because you got rid of that extra weight and also strengthened your body. When we stand up our blood pressure takes a sudden & fast drop, and that can cause dizziness. Do you monitor your blood pressure to know if your readings are are high or low? Of course it could also be dehydration, malnutrition, an infection or just anything.
    I doubt you'd need sodium except for if you have some underlying health condition (e.g. hyponatremia), but if you are eating healthy even if you don't use salt, you should be consuming the 1,000 mg of sodium suggested as adults' RDA from the AHA.
  • jeri30
    jeri30 Posts: 46 Member
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    Are you eating back your exercise calories? With MFP that should be a yes.

    I spent a couple of months coming real close to blacking out eso from crouching or bending over, being very dizzy and lightheaded when I stood up, etc. Turns out I needed to watch my protein intake and calories. I wasn't eating enough of either. Not even close.

    MFP doesn't add exercise calories into its daily calories, which is why it's a separate category in its calculations. Nor was I drinking enough water.

    On your diary page, scroll to the bottom and click on nutrition. Then at the top of should say calories, nutrients, and macros. Forget the macros.

    Click on calories, it'll give you your total calories, net calories, and goal calories. Total is how much you've logged in calories for today. Goal is the goal the app set for you to eat.

    Net is calories you've eaten minus your exercise calories. Your net calories should be over 1000 calories, preferably close to or at your goal calories for the day, esp if it's 1200 calories, which is minimum to keep your body working properly while being in a deficit to lose weight.

    Let's say your goal is 1200 calories. You exercise and burn 300 calories. That makes your net intake to run your body 900. You don't eat those calories back for a while let's say a couple of months. The effects of doing that will eventually catch up with you one way or another since you're not eating enough to maintain the (good) health your body is running out of stored nutrients and eating your muscle mass, etc. You need to eat those 300 calories back to get to 1200 calories minimum.

    Go to the nutrients page next and check on how you're doing on meeting those needs to. I have disordered eating and depression and some days it's a real struggle to get in enough calories and nutrients and it shows that on this screen.

    I noticed my protein intake was way too low (like 20 grams for the day) way too often and have been concentrating on trying to make it to least 50g if not the full protein goal for the day. Other nutrients too low too. My hair has stopped falling out too! Yay!! Vitamins are great while figuring this out.

    MFP is unfortunately quite limited in the nutrients it tracks. You may want to check out Cronometer, which allows you track all the nutrients in the foods you eat for free to see what's going on with your nutrition at that level too if you're still having problems after using MFP.

    Be sure you're drinking enough water too. Google how much you should drink in a day of water and try to get it in. Dehydration can also be a factor/cause of this. Also a factor in developing kidney stones. Ask me how I know. 🤔🙁😭😭😭😭😭 They do not feel good. At all.

    HTH

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