I’ve fainted a couple of times. First, when I was seven and playing Red Rover. Anyone remember that one? Kids are supposed to hold hands in two teams facing each other and one kid is called to run across and try to break through the opposite team’s chain. Well, we decided it was a good idea to hold each other’s forearms for a better grip and when I got called over I didn’t break the chain. I flipped over it and landed flat on my back. Knocked the wind out of me so hard I was out until the ambulance showed up. I think that’s the only time I truly scared my mom…
Second time I sliced my finger open when I was fifteen and cutting carrots with a serrated steak knife. (I don’t recommend this) I wasn’t able to get the the bathroom to find a band-aid because it was occupied. So I went back to the kitchen to run my finger under water and woke up with my dad splashing water on my face.
Apparently I’ve got some kind of thing about bleeding to death or something. I’ve gotten close to fainting ever since then whenever I give blood. I’m fine with the needle and I even watch the blood bag fill up, but when they take the needle out I start to faint. Did the same thing when I got my tongue pierced. I was fine while it was being done, but as soon as I stood up to rinse my mouth out the guy had to hold me up and find a paper bag. Weird…
I fainted at work a few weeks back. I was sitting in the office, where it’s hot and stuffy, and just felt completely zonked. My boss asked me if I was okay, then I just slumped to the floor.
When I came to, my boss led me out of the office and through the store, in order to take me outside for some fresh air. I wasn’t all that impressed when a customer came up to us and started ranting at me because she was waiting to be served. Not being entirely “with it” at the time, I just told her to get bent and then walked off in search of fresh air, leaving my boss to apologise on my behalf.
Well the first time I really fainted was in eighth grade. I was talking to a kid who could make his face really red (there’s always a kid in every class who can do that) by concentrating or however. Anyways I decided to try it. I stood up at my desk and proceeded to strangle myself. After a good ten to fifteen seconds of this I attempted to walk. Big mistake. My vision swirled and the next thing I knew I was on the floor looking at the ceiling with my legs twitching. Odd. From what I hear I turned quite red though, so its all good.
Something that appears to be unique to me is my habit of blacking out after I get up and move after a long time of inactivity. It can be anywhere from 10 minutes to 4 hours, it doesn’t matter. I know people sometimes get dizzy when they stand up too fast but this is way beyond that. What usually happens is this:
I will be sitting in this swivel chair listening to music or cruising on the internet. If my parents call my name for dinner or whatever, I will stand up and STRETCH while taking in a deep breath. My eyes focus to infinity (read: can’t see shit) I usually spin, and I collapse on the floor.
After I hit the floor, my brain starts functioning again. Slowly. I never know who I am or why I am there. My short term memory goes to shit. I always think there’s someone else in the room, and there never is. Nobody has ever witnessed it. From what I have described, people tell me it sounds like what happens if you use nitrous. I wish I could get it on video so I knows what happens for the few seconds that I’m out cold. Does this happen to anyone else?
Once when I was 13; my brother broke his wrist and we were at the ER. In comes this woman whose ulna had actually ripped through her skin and was poking out at a seemingly impossible angle. I just focused on it, couldn’t look away, thinking, “I am looking at a human bone…” I was staring at the blood and felt like I had on binoculars, I could not look away! It was so awful, and then I just slid off the plastic chair onto the floor. Came to seconds later and had to go sit on a toilet for ten minutes.
The second time was at work. I was all alone on a Saturday morning, strolling casually through the warehouse, when all of a sudden I felt the worst pain ever. Next thing you know I was lying on my side. I felt like I had been asleep for about ten hours, and no one was around, so it was all very surreal. Ambulance ride later and I find out I have a kidney infection.
I thought it was kind of cool both times (well, minus the pain.) Each time (going down and coming to, respectively), I had a hyper-surreal moment that was pretty psychodelic.
I once fainted in Chorus because I’d neglected to eat (not an unusual thing; Chorus was before lunch – about 1 pm, and I don’t eat breakfast EVER, so if I didn’t have fifty cents for a quick snack in the hall I would just go through class incredibly hungry for an hour and a half. 'Course, we were doing Lacrymosa, which has incredibly high notes held for very long times. We were also on the risers in the auditorium (pre-concert dress rehearsal), and the fresnels made it very hot. I could feel myself slipping, so I sat down but (dumbass) kept singing. Passed out.
I’ve passed out from concussions, from having high fevers and from trying to stand up too fast. That’s the only real “faint” I’ve had.
Nope. Never fainted, but I have come close once or twice. Gets hard to breathe, heart pounds, break out into a cold sweat and start shaking. When I feel like this I know if I continue to do whatever it is I am doing, I will pass out, so I sit down until I feel better.
The last time I felt faint was a few years ago, while I was grocery shopping. I knew that if I tried to push that cart for one more second, I’d be out cold, so I had to sit down, in the middle of the aisle. Everyone stared at me, but I was too sick to really care. Some bag boys helped me to a padded bench at the front of the store and the manageer got me cold water and asked if I needed an ambulance.
Felt like it a few times while pregnant. Only once went all the way over, and that was injury-related:
The (off-duty) EMT who was on that (overnight) canoe trip (the one where I stepped on glass and sliced the bottom of one toe to the bone) was changing the bandage and braced her thumb on my toe to get some leverage… unfortunately putting the pressure right over the spot where the nerve had been severed. Sick-pain feeling, long enough for me to say “that hurts like I’m going to pass out,” and then BOOM, over I went. I had been sitting down, but it was at the top of a hill (leaning against a tree), and I slid down face-first in the sand. Mouth full of sand, eyes full of sand, nose full of sand, oh, BOY!
I ‘came to’ wondering what all these people were doing in my bedroom. Zero time (as far as my perspective was concerned) between going over and waking, and massive disorietation on the wake-up.
The ‘fun’ part was how your body kicks in to get you conscious again with injury-related faints. The EMT kindly warned me that every hormone I had was flooding through my system, and everyone was going to look mighty yummy as a result. I’d already noticed, by then. BOY, howdy, those men looked hot (and most of the women, too). That also being the time I really REALLY noticed what a babe my (future husband) epeepunk was.
Holy cow, I remember that game! My friends pretty much did the same thing when we played Red Rover, except one time when the game got tight, we decided not only to grab each other’s wrists, but at the last second we raised our arms and clotheslined the kid.
I used to think fainting was fake. It was a literary moment in a Victorian novel. It was the way a certain girl got out of taking the math final.
Then one day in the Doctor’s office in 1974 I happened to glance over at the blood I was being drained of. Geez, that syringe seemed awful big.
I woke up looking at the ceiling with some faces looking down at me.
I haven’t, though I came close once. I went to get my tetanus shot for band camp before my freshman year of high school, and did fine while getting the shot. Then I walked into the hall, and the whole place started spinning… luckily I was close to a bench, and my mom got me to sit down and drink a juice pack. I hadn’t eaten breakfast, but I ALWAYS do now.
Is there a difference between fainting and passing out? There were a few times in high school where something grossed me out (fetal pigs in bio, I think) and I sort of put my head down and faded out for a few minutes.
Then, a few years ago, I was at the doctor’s office for a check up. While I was sitting on the table, I looked over and saw him with this huge needle in his hand. My vision really started swimming – you know, like the Wayne’s World scene switch --, I felt like all the blood had been drained from my body, and I fell off the table. The doctor and the nurse were amazed. After I opened my eyes, it took about half a minute (a longer time than you might think) before I could hear the doctor, it was like watching TV with the sound turned off. Turns out the needle wasn’t even for me, the doctor was just moving it out of his way. This seemed much more like what I had read about in novels!
I had had PRK (precursor to Lasix) and was being driven home when my bandage contact started to pop out. My friend turned the car around to go back while I managed to put the contact back in.
I got out of the car and literally ran to the door of the center desperate to get in. The door was locked.
My friend knocked on the window and I passed out into the arms of the surgeon and nurse anesthetist.
I don’t remember how I got to and on the gurney, but distictly remember me not breathing and not caring. I heard them talking about how the first smelling salts they broke open was defective because I still didn’t come around, but the nurse smelled it and it nearly knocked her over.
Then they were yelling about the fact that I wasn’t breathing and checking my pulse when I started breathing shallowly again. The nurse popped another smelling salts and that woke me right up.
The surgeon was visibly flipped out, especially since my Mom works at the joint and was on vacation at the time.
I almost fainted the day I visited my dad in the hopsital after had a heart attack. Got the darkness around the edge of my vision. I think it creeped in far enough to totally black out my vision for a little bit. Felt really light headed and dizzy. Had to sit down and put my head between my legs until it passed.
I’ve passed out only once. Back in college, I pulled an all-nighter typing up a final draft of a report for a class. I went to all my classes that day and came home around 4 pm. I walked in the door, put my keys on the table, and turned on the tv. The next thing I know, I wake up on the floor under the kitchen table, and two hours had gone by.
I passed out once while I was horseback riding. That wasn’t fun. We were having a lesson up in this ring called the Sahara (No trees, no shade, all sand…) and it was about 102 degrees. Now, if you’ve ever been horseback riding (I ride English), you know that to be comfortable and safe, long pants and a helmet are required. I got a bit over heated and just kinda… blacked out. Next thing I knew, I had my foot caught in a stirrup, at my ankle and people were screaming. Yes, that DID NOT make the horse want to slow down. That’s also how I got my weak ankle.
I also passed out at the same camp because somebody had tried to poison my roommate and myself by putting laundry detergent in our water bottles. I got really sick and passed out on a flight of stairs…
Fainted a few times, all related to medical procedures.
First time I can remember was upon admittance to the hospital for eye surgery. Probably 8 or 9 years old. I had blood taken in the lab and was then sent upstairs to my room. I got on the elevator and when it started to rise I hit the deck.
The last time I fainted was last year. I had a mole removed from my shoulder and at the end of the procedure (about 5 minutes in duration) the dr. told me she was done. I sat straight up and, feeling fine, proceeded to put on my shirt and go to the reception desk. I distinctly remember the room growing dimmer and dimmer and me saying “I think I need a chair…” The next thing I know I’m laying in the floor with a nurse holding my feet up to get the blood back to my noggin. As someone said earlier, if dying is anything like that then I’m ok with it. Just a very quiet shutting down of everything. “Nite, nite world.”
When I was a senior in HS we had a blood drive. I helped organize the event and I worked (got out of class) all day going and getting people for their turn and holding peoples hands. I had no intention of giving blood but at the end of the day everyone was kind of looking at me funny and they guilted me into it.
Shortly after they but the needle in me the blood started fine then suddenly stopped. The nurse had me squeezing this little rubber ball and kicking my legs but nothing would come out. I was later told the the needle probably went up against the side of my vein and had formed a suction there. They didn’t figure that out until after the nurse took the bag my blood was supposed to filling to and gave a pull at the side to try to get the suction going.
Apperently I screamed in agony and then fainted. I awoke about ten minutes later and now almost twenty years later my arm hurts thinking about it.
I’ve been fortunate enough to only faint twice. The first time was when I saw my brother in the hospital when he was near death because of an accidental drug overdose. And the second one (on a more comical side) was when I got a TB shot. It was the funniest thing because I got the shot walked about 15 feet then decided to faint and bounce my head off of concrete floor and then proceeded to bleed profusely all over everything. After I woke up I needed 15 stitches to fix the cut above my eye and on the side of my head. Well there is my ghastly story hope ya’ll enjoy it.
I am a fainter, myself. The first time is too bad to ever forget, as it involved a gynecologist. However, there was a time period when I was very anemic during my early teens and I would pass out almost every day. I’ll do it when I have a high fever, too. I did it once in a doctor’s office (strep throat) and the lady sitting next to me said that I had started to have a seizure. ???
I can make myself feel faint by watching any tv show/reading any book that graphically depicts or details the process of birth. The very idea…uh…hang on…
Whew
I think it’s called “Bring on the Night” - a pseudo-documentary-thing about the recording of Sting’s album by that name. In it, his wife gives birth and the blue, coneheaded, slimy baby is plopped onto her stomach seconds after it is born. That was the first time my head hit the floor before my body did, because I was trying to get into the proper faint-defense position of head-btwn-legs. Needless to say and a gash in my head later, I’ve learned to either go with it when it starts or lie down as quickly as humanly possible.
