Real Men Wear Gowns: Cough Syncope

In this “Real Men Wear Gowns” segment, we have a story with three episodes. To produce the full effect , we’ll tell the story backwards.

We begin at the end, with a man at the gym. He starts on the treadmill slowly.   While he’s in the gym, his goal is to make his heart and pulmonary system stronger. It’s because he suffered these episodes. Episode one.

“Actually it happened I was sitting with my family and then I started coughing and after I just passed out, I don’t remember.”

Fyed Shah was overseas on vacation, and then when he headed home it happened again.

Episode two. The coughing and the fainting. Then, when he got back home in Little Rock: episode three, the worst one. Dr. Nosheen Mian, his Primary Care Physician, is also a friend of the family. She was right there for episode three.

“Before the 911 could come, I happened to be the first responder. I was there and saw him lying there pretty much paraplegic. He couldn’t move his arms or legs.”

Mr Shah had cough syncope. It begins with coughing, “which leads to someone just passing out or falling and fainting.”

It was that last fall that literally became his biggest headache

“Fortunately it was temporary after a few days. After a few weeks of physical therapy and surgery on his neck; he had a complete recovery,” said Mian.

Again, the relationship with a Primary Care Physician, in this case a family friend, makes all the difference.

“He feels like he can talk to me about any health condition, any symptoms. So far it has worked out really well,” added Mian.

And Mr. Shah is working out really well too.