Watching Manchester United nearly killed one of the team’s supporters. Reuters reports that doctors diagnosed a 58-year-old female fan with an Addisonian crisis and treat her life-threatening condition before she attends games at Old Trafford.
“Doctors suspected the condition when the woman started getting bouts of anxiety, palpitations, panic, light-headedness and a sense of impending doom towards the end of matches,” the report reads.
An Addisonian crisis is a severe offshoot of Addison’s disease. It’s symptoms often include fatigue, depression and lack of energy. In extreme cases it can lead to low blood pressure and send patients into a coma.
“We believe that our patient was having difficulty mounting an appropriate physiological cortisol response during the big games and therefore we present this as the first description of Manchester United-induced Addisonian crisis,” Dr. Akbar Choudhry said.
The fan’s symptoms are less severe when United plays against a team languishing near the bottom of the stadium. Luckily, she just so happened to be on vacation and missed Manchester City’s 6-1 thrashing of United in October.
