autonomic system

⚠️ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestly not to harm. I’m not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not alone please reach out for professional help.

(A Guide for People Who Are Sick of Medical Bullshit)

Let’s be honest: if you’re reading this, you probably already suspect the vagus nerve is responsible for half the weird crap your body does and you’re not wrong. The vagus nerve is basically the body’s faulty fibre-optic broadband, running all the way from your brain down through your chest and into your gut, sending messages like a drunk carrier pigeon on a windy day.

It’s the longest nerve you’ve got, and when it behaves, life ticks along nicely. When it misbehaves? Your whole system goes down like a dodgy second-hand Dell tower from the 90s.

Here’s the real breakdown the stuff they never explain properly while you’re half-collapsed in A&E, being poked by somebody who can’t pronounce “vagal.”

The Vagus: The Autopilot Wire

The vagus nerve runs your parasympathetic nervous system, which is medical jargon for the “calm down, chill out, don’t die” mode. It’s the opposite of fight-or-flight. It’s rest-and-digest. It’s autopilot.

The problem? When this giant nerve gets irritated, inflamed, or just decides it hates you, it can pull the emergency brake on your entire body with zero warning — which is why vagus-related symptoms always come out of nowhere and hit like a bloody freight train.

1. Your Heart’s On a Leash

This nerve tells your heart when to slow down. That’s lovely until it overdoes it.

Too much vagus activity? Heart rate plummets.

Cue dizziness, sweating, that “oh, this is it then” feeling, and your blood pressure going on holiday.

2. It Runs the Gut Literally

Every vomit, every bowel spasm, every time your stomach has a tantrum the vagus nerve is involved.

If it’s irritated or under-performing, expect:

nausea

diarrhoea

constipation

stomach cramps

digestion that behaves like a toddler with a drum kit

Basically, it decides whether food moves… or doesn’t.

3. Blood Pressure: The Vagus Controls the Dimmer Switch

It works with your baroreceptors (those tiny sensors in your arteries) to keep things steady. When the vagus goes rogue? Blood pressure drops like a stone and you’re left gripping the kitchen counter thinking this is how you die — again.

4. Breathing

Calm vagus = slow and steady. Stressed vagus = shallow, panicky little puffs.

Ever wondered why deep breathing exercises work? They’re literally tugging on the vagus nerve to force it to chill out.

5. Stress, Panic, the Whole Sensory Meltdown

The vagus nerve mediates your stress response. When it freaks out, YOU freak out. Even if nothing’s wrong.

That’s why vagal attacks feel like:

impending doom

full-system shutdown

heart weirdness

tunnel vision

sweating

trembling

fainting

sudden need for a toilet you cannot reach in time

It’s the nerve pulling the plug on itself and everything else.

6. Why People With MS Get It Worse

Your wiring’s already compromised. MS damage → hypersensitive nerves → vagus acting like a frayed extension lead.

So triggers for you can be:

pain

heat

eating

standing

lying

stress

not enough stress

random cosmic spite

Basically: your vagus nerve is a diva.

7. Why Doctors Don’t Take It Seriously

Most GPs are trained to see the vagus nerve as “the fainting nerve.” They don’t get that it affects:

heart rhythm

gut function

blood pressure

breathing

swallowing

voice

inflammation

fatigue

neurological flare-ups

migraines

seizures

pain

It’s involved in almost everything your body does automatically — so when it misfires, it’s bedlam.

In Plain English

The vagus nerve is the massive communication cable between your brain and your organs. When it behaves, it keeps you alive. When it glitches, you become a collapsing, sweating, nauseous sack of biological chaos wondering who you upset in a past life.

Warlock Dark Chronic illness survivor, truth-teller, occasional bastard. From My Living Hell (For those who came here by accident: yes, my living hell is real. And yes, we still fight. Every shitty day. With defiance.)

@goblinbloggeruk - sick@mylivinghell.co.uk 𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᛞᚱᚨᚷᛟᚾ ᛏᚱᚨᚾᛋᚲᚺᚱᛁᛖᛞ ✦ ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱ 𒀸𒀭 ᚢᚾᛒᛟᚢᚾᛞ

⚠️ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestly not to harm. I’m not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not alone please reach out for professional help.

Some weekends hit you with a light slap. This one picked me up, shook me like a cocktail, and threw me at the floor for good measure.

Saturday night… well, that one’s going straight into the “Top 3 Worst Episodes of My Life” hall of fame. My body didn’t just glitch — it staged a full-scale neurological mutiny.

The Hit

It came out of nowhere. One moment I was fine, the next my entire autonomic system pulled the emergency brake and launched me into panic hell.

My throat tightened. My swallowing screwed up. My stomach dropped like I’d been pushed off a bridge. My vision became a muffled, tunnelled mess. And my whole body went cold not “a bit chilly,” but corpse-cold.

I’ve had MS for years. I know its tricks. But this was different. This was violent. This was instant.

And here’s the truth I left out the first time: I was scared. Properly scared.

I thought, “Shit… this is it. This is the one where I don’t get back up.” Calling 999

Albertine had to call an ambulance. I didn’t have a choice. This wasn’t a “ride it out” moment. This was the full autonomic shutdown vibe sweating, trembling, throat closing, body shaking, heart refusing to “thump” properly, brain screaming doom.

And then came the worst part:

Forty minutes. Forty minutes of waiting, fighting my own body, trying to stay conscious, trying not to choke, trying not to spiral.

If you’ve ever had a neurological event and waited for an ambulance, you know exactly what that wait feels like. The clock becomes a sadist.

My ears were ringing. My blood pressure tanked. I genuinely thought I was dying.

By the time the ambulance arrived, I was a wreck. They checked me over, confirmed the BP was ridiculously low, stabilised me, and got me back into something resembling a human shape but the damage was done. My system was fried for the night.

Sunday: The Aftershock

Sunday wasn’t much better.

My head felt like a pressure cooker. That weird prickly sensation on the right side of my skull the one that always shows up after an attack set in like an uninvited guest.

My hands pulsed. My head pulsed. The tinnitus screamed like it was trying to win an award.

Breathing felt “off,” not in a dramatic gasping way, but that unnerving internal panic: “Something’s wrong… but what?”

My vagus nerve the drama queen it is had clearly had enough and was still sulking.

And my cognition? Let’s just say I’ve had smoother days. I felt detached. Off. Like I was watching myself from two feet behind my own head.

Monday: The Reset

Now it’s Monday afternoon and I’m calmer, but still not quite right.

The pins and needles are doing their usual “good morning, we live here now” routine in my hands and feet. My head pressure has moved to the top middle that annoying “brain has opinions” spot. My throat feels clogged with half a ton of imaginary phlegm.

But I’m stable. I’m talking. I’m thinking. And I haven’t keeled over.

That’s progress.

Tomorrow: The GP

I’ve got the doctor sorted for tomorrow, and that’s the sensible move. I’m not messing about after this one this was the worst in years, and we finally know enough to start demanding answers instead of shrugging and hoping.

Chest tightness? Swallowing issues? Autonomic chaos? Blood pressure on holiday? Yeah, the GP can have the whole bloody report.

I’m not going down early because I tried to “tough it out.” I’ve seen too many people die playing that game.

Why I’m Writing This

Because this is the real face of chronic illness not the brochure version, not the charity-approved inspirational poster. This is the gut-level reality.

My blog is about truth. Raw, ugly, darkly funny truth.

Life with MS isn’t pretty. It isn’t tidy. It isn’t inspirational every day. Some days it’s a war you didn’t ask for and you fight it anyway.

If you’re going through similar, I want you to know this:

You’re not weak for being scared. You’re not dramatic for calling 999. You’re not overthinking it if your body is shutting down. And you’re not alone.

We survive these attacks by being honest, prepared, and stubborn as hell.

I’m still here. Still fighting. Still writing.

Tomorrow will be another chapter. I’ll survive that too.

I thank my wife Albertine she saved me I love you forever....

Warlock Dark Chronic illness survivor, truth-teller, occasional bastard. From My Living Hell (For those who came here by accident: yes, my living hell is real. And yes, we still fight. Every shitty day. With defiance.)

@goblinbloggeruk - sick@mylivinghell.co.uk 𒀭𒊩𒆳 ᛞᚱᚨᚷᛟᚾ ᛏᚱᚨᚾᛋᚲᚺᚱᛁᛖᛞ ✦ ᚹᚨᛏᚲᚺᛖᚱ 𒀸𒀭 ᚢᚾᛒᛟᚢᚾᛞ