I don’t faint exactly, but I do have the extreme low blood pressure. Getting up too quickly from certain seated or reclining positions can trigger a rush of blood away from the head resulting in a progressive, circular degeneration of peripheral vision and other indescribable, drug-like symptoms.
My fainting warning signs are when the world starts to get far away and unreal, and the pressure/whooshing in my ears. I very quickly sit down and put my head between my legs, remember to breathe properly, and we’re good. I get basically the same feeling if I’m in a hot bath too long, or stand up quickly when sick, so I think my fainting is a blood pressure thing.
I fainted from banging my funny bone on a table, once (in Sunday School, no less), and there was no warning for that one - bang elbow (hard), wake up on floor. Other injury-related faints/almost faints were more of a shock reaction, I think.
Nope, I’m not a fainter.
I do get woozy easily though, and need to sit down.
I did faint once, that was mostly my fault for not really eating. Was filling out an application form and noticed my vision tunnelling, had enough time to think ‘That’s odd…’ and felt myself fall only to wake up a minute later on the floor with my head an inch from a bookshelf and security beside me.
Yep, I’m a fainter. When I was a kid, my brother cut his leg at school (on the playground), so Mom had to take me out of school because she wouldn’t be home to meet the bus. Brother needed stitches. I started to watch the procedure and then suddenly I wasn’t watching. Mom says she looked at me standing in the doorway, looked away, then looked back and me and all she could see was a pair of tennis-shoe clad feet sticking into the room. The rest of me was lying in the hall.
When my husband had stitches on his hand, same deal, only that time the nurse grabbed me and stuck a cold cloth on the back of my neck.
Fainting for me is just a subset of panic attacks. I get hot, feel flushed, my heart pounds, my hands and feet go numb, there’s a rushing sound, my vision become tunneled, and it seems too hard to breathe. I can head them off by deliberately slowing my breathing, putting something cold on my neck, putting my head down, and getting someone to talk to me about something distracting.
Nope, in spite of several good opportunities. I’ve watched myself be get stitches and found it interesting.
I fainted once when I sprained my ankle. The pain was so sharp I fainted right there in the middle of the food court in the old TD Square in Calgary. Knocked my glasses off and they landed about ten feet away. My room-mate at the time was with me and picked them up, then as soon as I came to (about two minutes) called for a ride home.
I don’t think I’ve fainted any other time.
When I was a young girl (10 or so), I really wanted to be a fainter. It appealed to my romantic sensibilities.
Since then, I have fainted several times, and didn’t enjoy it in the least.
I have always heard of people passing out from pain. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t happen to me. Last year I had pain so bad that I was begging god to take me home, rather than endure it. I can honestly say that if there were a switch that I could flip that would have ended the pain - but also my life - I would have flipped it. Passing out would have been a blessing.
So - to answer your question - no.
I’ve had dizzy spells and momentary blackouts, but they only last a second or two and I still stay on my feet (or upright, or whatever). So, no.
No experience with general anaesthetic, either. It’s a weird feeling, not knowing what unconsciousness feels like.
I’ve fainted twice – on the same night. I had extreme pain in the right lower quadrant of my abdomen. I staggered downstairs to the bathroom, thinking that might help the pressure and pain, got to the bottom of the stairs. The dog came out of my parent’s bedroom (which was next to the stairs) and I reached down to pat her, and next thing I knew, I was on the floor with a dog sniffing my ear and my mother screaming. I crawled into the kitchen while Mom called the doc (at 3 a.m.) and tried to sit on a chair and went down again. Weirdly, when I came to the second time, the pain was pretty much gone.
I’ve come close to fainting once or twice since then, both times from pain. I got down on the floor as fast as I could and laid there until the feeling passed. For me, I remember I felt woozy and there was no sound, then like instant sleep. It was creepy.
That reminds me of when I had an ovarian cyst rupture, stinkum. I had gone to bed feeling not super, but woke up in the worst pain of my life (didn’t faint, though - no shock involved, I guess). I crawled to the bathroom, thinking I might need to puke from the pain, laid there on the bathroom floor for awhile, eventually crawled back to bed, and went back to sleep. One of my last thoughts before falling asleep again was that I expected to wake up dead the next morning, but I was incapacitated by pain so there wasn’t much I could do about it.
Never from pain or grossness.
I pass out a lot from low blood pressure and wonky electrolytes and whatever else is wrong with my body at this point a lot though. Like almost every morning when I get out of bed… even if I’m really careful about standing up, I end up on the floor. I have to keep pillows by my bed. Usually I just feel dizzy and lightheaded, get a searing headache for a moment, and then my eyes roll back in my head (which I actually see and remember when I wake up) and then wake up and go, “oh crap. again? I’m sorry.”
Sometimes I can feel it coming on or know to expect it. There are times when I’ll take my time gathering my books before leaving class becuase I know if I get up right at that moment, I’ll be on the floor, or when I’ll take a break from dance class. Apparently I get really REALLY pale before I pass out, too. I’ve done it enough at dance that sometimes my teachers can see it before I can feel it and will tell me to go get a drink and sit down.
Nope, I don’t faint. I once tried to make myself faint to miss a test. It didn’t work, but I didn’t do so badly on the test after all.
Last year I made myself faint by hyperventilating and holding my breath, just to see if it was possible. I remember my vision went dark around the edges, I felt dizzy and stumbled around in circles uncontrollably to try to get my balance back. Eventually I bounced off a wall and ran towards the lawn (I don’t remember doing this) where I stumbled around in circles again until I finally blacked out. I was conscious again before I hit the ground (I remember falling onto the grass) so it must have only been for a split second. It was interesting.
Wait now, I do remember fainting one other time. I had given blood that afternoon, and was working at my job (at the original Joey’s Only!) as a cashier. I was feeling sorta tired, but all of a sudden I just went over. I came to with a cook looking down at me, holding a spatula like he could use it to help me or something.
I tend to faint when I really, really want to get out of the situation–it’s a Victorian sort of thing, I guess. It usually involves medical things, though. I have fainted while having my broken arm X-rayed, while waiting to have my finger stitched up after slicing it with a bread knife, while talking to a dying great-aunt, on an airplane in Russia while extremely sick, and while having a large mole excised from my side. In all the situations, I was desperate to have whatever was happening over.
I have not fainted while having a large mole excised from my back (the doctor was quick and I didn’t know it was going to happen beforehand), before having my wisdom teeth out (they gave me general anaesthesia), or while having a frenulectomy (though I wasn’t very happy, either).
When it happens to me, I begin to see black spots and feel nauseous. Often my mouth gets unbearably dry, too.
I used to faint a couple times a year during my adolescence; only a couple of times since I became an adult. As I think back, the circumstances were almost always: overheat, not eating, and starting my period. I’m really good at passing out in public places- church, a candy shop, and an amusement park twice. Once as a paying guest, and once as an employee.
Twice ever. Once when I was maybe 12 and had a week-long bout of flu. I’d gotten up to get a Coke and when I came back, I had the whole tunnel vision thing going on. Woke up lying flat on the couch with my mom peering down at me. Apparently I kept walking until I fell over the TV.
Second time was when I was around 20/21. I was at the skating rink and had to dodge a small child. Grabbed the railing and my rollerblades went out from under me. I never went to the doctor, but it was either a small crack or a bad sprain to my foot. I was fine at first, then I hobbled over to the office to use the phone to call my husband. After I hung up, I noticed the blackness. I gripped the counter, told myself I wasn’t going to fall in front of all these people, and told the guy behind the counter I was going to faint. I blacked out for a second and never actually fell. Two guys carried me to the back.
So it appears that I’m capable of passing out without falling down.
I’ve only ever passed out once, I was watching TV, and when I got up to get supper I had a really bad dizzy spell. Almost made it to the table, but my food still landed on the floor (bet that scared my parents something fierce). The most amusing thing is I wound up daydreaming while I was out, so when I came to it was something like this–“Why am I sore? And why’s the floor behind me? Oh, I’m laying on it. How’d I end up on the floor?”
Twice. The first was similiar to DeadlyAccurate’s experience. About five years ago I had a severe case of the flu and fainted in the kitchen. I distinctly remember having a drowning sensation while I was unconcious. When I came to I had vomited. I’m assuming that I must have vomited while on my back and the sensation came from trying to wake up and roll over. It was kind of scary.
The second time involved bedroom shenanigans…and I’ll just leave it at that.
The first and only time I gave blood I hadn’t eaten much that day and just met the minimum weight. I was feeling light-headed lying down but figured I’d be okay, so I sat up, got my feet over the edge of the table, my vision tunneled, and then, hey, there’s a nurse draping my head in cool compresses.
I also went through some horrid phase in my teens where at least once a day, I’d be standing up and my vision would start to tunnel and everything would sound far away. Generally if I sat back down or just tensed all my muscles up it would pass in a second, but sometimes it didn’t. Only happens a few times a month now, thankfully.
It’s possible I once nearly passed out from pain, but the pain was because I had just attempted to slam the car door closed with my head in between the door and the frame, so, uh, it could’ve been the blunt trauma to the head talking.