Health - Carotid Artery Swelling

[kemikal_nation]

Don't kno if this has been brought up or not but SWIM thought it might be good to thro this out there.

SWIM did about 6 or 7 lines of cola throughout the course of a 12hr period with the last few lines taken in succession. It went fine until he started checking his blood pressure with an at-home unit. SWIM started feeling sore/minor numbness in his left arm and shoulder and so checked his blood pressure more and more. Most website frequently state that OD'n can cause a heart attack, making him paranoid and so checking the BP several times in each coke sitting. The feeling did not go away and he preceded to check again. Blood pressure did not go above 145/95 but as the feeling persisted he check the BP even more frequently. This continued on until the left side of his neck started to swell. By the end of the night SWIM's left neck area, shoulder and upper arm was in some pain but very swollen. He went to bed freaked out hoping he wouldn't have a heart attack in his sleep.

The next morning SWIM's neck was still swollen and tight. After doing research on the interweb and finding nothing about this being a side effect of cola, he came to this conclusion: coke causes restriction of the blood vessels and due to the constant checking of BP, the arteries above the arm strap became engorged with blood and are now swollen/inflamed. The carotid artery in the neck was the focus of this "back pressure" causing the extreme swelling in the area. From what the medsites say, the carotid artery will be inflamed for a few days to a week or so.

To sum up, if SWIM deduced correctly, he strongly advises not to check your BP that much EVER on coke. An off the wall thing to happen but very scary and quite painfull/irritating. Checking BP has been SWIM's way of monitering himself on certain drugs, namely X for the most part but this backfired horribly.