Eric Bischoff recently suffered a serious health scare after trying to add a new supplement to his diet.
Speaking on a recent episode of his 83 Weeks podcast, Bischoff explained that his problems began when he tried to add a new fibre supplement to combat his hypoglycemia. However, he only read part of the instructions, and that oversight nearly cost him his life.
“I’m hypoglycemic, meaning if I have a candy bar, I’ll pass out,” he said.
“I’m reading about all this stuff and one of the things I read was using a supplement like Metamucil or, in this case, I used…psyllium husks. So, I’m thinking I’m going to add these psyllium husks to my repertoire.”
I’m looking at the directions and it says ‘Recommended one to three tablespoons.’ And I’m going, ‘Well, that’s for the average person.’ Since I spent 30 years in the wrestling business, I know that if one to three is good for the average person that I need a minimum of four to five, because that’s how that works. That’s where I stopped, I didn’t read the rest of the directions, especially the important part that said, ‘Don’t start out with a maximum dose right away, work your way up to it.'”
Continuing on, Bischoff said he added the psyllium husks into a smoothie, but just a few hours later went to the bathroom and began passing blood. However, as he had no other symptoms he didn’t tell his wife about what was going on and presumed he’d be fine when he woke up the next morning.
Late that night Bischoff checked his blood pressure and saw that it had dropped considerably. After telling his wife that he needed an ambulance he passed out. Once he regained consciousness he took a shower while waiting for the ambulance and passed out again.
“The moral of the story is just read the f***ing directions,”
Doctors were unable to work out what was wrong and he was discharged from the hospital, only to pass out, and start passing blood once again two days later. While spending a couple of days in the ICU he recalled doctors discussing removing part of his intestines.
“So, now they are having a discussion with me about how much of my intestines they are going to surgically remove, and give me a little bag.
And I’m going, ‘Oh no, we’re not doing anything’ but the doctor was pretty serious.”
Eric Bischoff’s Illness Remained A Mystery To Doctors
However, 10 minutes into the procedure surgeons decided that Bischoff was losing too much blood to continue, and the hospital had run out of his blood type.
“I had used up all of the blood they had at the hospital or in the county where I live in. So, they put me in a helicopter and life-flighted me up to Billings, Montana because they had better equipment and experienced surgeons up there and all that kind of stuff.”
Once in the hospital in Billings, Bischoff remained in ICU but began to feel better and stopped passing blood. Doctors continued to perform tests as they were hesitant to discharge him, but couldn’t find anything wrong with him. Before eventually going home, Bischoff said that doctors informed him that he nearly died twice.
“It was a complete mystery. And I’m thinking, “It’s not a mystery, I know exactly what happened. I took those three big heaping tablespoons of psyllium.’
The lining of your intestines are so vascular that it heals very, very quickly so over the course of 24 hours, whatever I tore up healed and now with all the tests they had, they couldn’t tell me what was wrong with me. But I knew, I told the doctor, I said, ‘I’m pretty sure’ because it was the only thing that I did differently.
The doctor did tell me, he said, ‘You almost died twice, you almost died in Cody and you almost died here.'”
Eric Bischoff explained that despite the scare he’s now feeling fine.
H/t to f4wonline