Occasionally in movies there is a scene in which our tremendously masculine hero is so overcome with pain that he passes out. Yet I’ve never heard of a woman passing out when she gives birth (I’m assuming this is the greatest pain many women will endure). So I’m wondering, do women ever pass out in the maternity ward, or do their bodies somehow keep them conscious? Is passing out from pain common?
Speaking as a female, passing out from terrible pain rather than enduring it sounds like a much better deal…
IANAP either and I’ve never given birth, but a male coworker has told me that his physician told him that severe kidney stone attacks put childbirth pain to shame. And though both sexes can get kidney stones, it happens more frequently in men.
Childbirth simply is not that bad. I gave birth to an 11 pound baby (that’s 5 kilo for everyone outside the US) without so much as an aspirin. Yes, it was painful, but not overwhelming. And not constant.
As for passing out from pain, my WAG is that the brain can be overwhelmed with input and sort of short-circuit and over load. Also I think that severe shock could be caused by the injury causing the pain and cause passing out due to lack of oxygen.
Extreme pain has never allowed me the pleasure of passing out (ruptured a liver, blew out an appendix, various lesser concerns), but I have gone into shock for a couple of days (burns) and, while you can feel in the tactile sense, and feel pain, the shock numbs the pain to a great degree.
My hubby passed out from pain when he urinated during a bout of epiditimitis and prostatitis, and was passing stones to boot! It was bad enough for a while that I had to hold him up as he tried to urinate so that he would not fall and hurt himself again. What a fun way to spend your very first holiday together.
I passed out from pain once, and it was surprisingly not all that painful. This was long, long ago when I was younger and still foolish. I had broken a rib a few days earlier while playing tackle football with some other kids in the backyard. We weren’t supposed to do this, so I didn’t tell anyone, just kind of “sucked it up”. When I went to football practice at school later, it was okay until I bent over to tackle a ballcarrier. Apparently in the bent over position my rib kind of poked into something inside. I went out for a brief period. I do remember it hurting, but not nearly as bad as other dumb things I have done. This may just be the body’s way of forgetting pain. The “shock” value others have stated previously probably was also a factor. I got x-rayed later and that’s when I found out it was broken and had to 'fess up. FWIW I told my doctor “it hurts when I breath”. Doctor’s response, “don’t breath”. Gotta love them HMOs.
Shock is hypoperfusion----not enough oxygenated blood getting to the vital organs, like the brain. Laboring women who are taking in a lot of room air in big gulping breaths will be unlikely to pass out from labor pains. I can see a man with a kidney stone, afraid/unable to take deep and frequent breaths, passing out. I can see a hemmorhaging laboring woman passing out—the blood she is bleeding isn’t circulating in her body and is no longer oxygenating her brain adequately. Pain can cause our sympathetic nervous systems to go into overdrive. Blood is shunted away from the extremities and this blood pressure change sould cause the most masculine of heros to pass out.
I came very close to passing out due to pain when someone decided that I needed some sort of tight vest like thing on with my broken sternum.I had to lift my arms above shoulder level, which hurt like hell, then have an incredible pressure right on the break itself. It was like standing up too fast, only that it really hurt too.
It probably depends on the person too. Women probably don’t pass out due to painful birth sense I imagine there body is doing everything it possibly can to keep them awake during the process.
Passing out due to shock might not be only due to pain but probably other things can trigger it too. Like pulling a long thin steal shaft from your foot. There was no pain but that sliding sensation in the middle of my foot just triggered waves of dizziness and I did black out. That is NOT a sensation you’re supposed to ever feel.
I wonder if it has anything to do with panic? Certain things cause your body to panic which floods your bloodstream with certain chemicals which knocks you out.
One kinda sorta educated guess would be that its the body’s way of protecting itself from the memory of the pain.
No one likes pain, and its been proven that pain can actually be detramental to the healing process. By passing out your not likely to remember the pain when you wake up. In corrolation with modern pain meds, someone can be kept relatively comfortable during their healing process (Do not read snow the patient here, just comfortable). My guess would be that the body is doing something similar here.
I almost passed out after breaking/cracking my ankle at a skating rink. I’d hobbled over to use the phone and when I got done, the blackness started closing in. The only thing that kept me from completely passing out was the death grip I kept on the counter and the decision that I absolutely would not humiliate myself by falling in front of everyone. Apparently, being carried by two men to the back room in front of everyone didn’t bother me.
The first time was when I tore my ACL while skiing. I wrecked and I felt the pop from the ligament failing. The next thing I remembered was lying in the snow with another skier next to me asking if I was okay.
The second time was when I had a severe colitis attack (at least they think it was colitis… I loooove doctors). I kept falling in and out of conciousness over a period of three days. On the upside, I received lots of morphene (sp?). I now know why opiates are so addictive.
The funny thing is, those two events skew my whole perception of pain. For example, I broke my big toe a couple of months ago. The triage nurse at the ER asked me to rate the pain on a scale of 1 to 10. My first thought was, “a little over 1.”
Strong unrelenting pain is known to cause stimulation of the vagal nerve, which provides the “handbrake” to cardiac output. Sudden fright does the same thing, as does fear and anxiety.
Strong cardiac inhibition will cause a momentary drop in cardiac output, hence a dip in blood pressure. In some cases, this causes the blood supply to the brain to momentarily fall below anadequate level.The reflex action from the central nervous system is to promote a collapse, where the blood falls to the ground, providing a horizontal state where venous return from the lower extremities is raised, thus restoring normal cerebral perfusion.
Testicular torsion. Passed out during the doctor’s examination. I was holding my breath, heart rate had to be about 150, and when the Doc started twisting those babes around, it was bye, bye, doctor, hello Demerol.
Interestingly, the post-operative pain from the corrective surgery I underwent a year later was far, far worse and much more constant, for months instead of seconds. I can now put out cigars in the palm of my hand, when I feel like showing off.
I am afraid to ask what this and how it happens, yet curiousity compels me forward. That and the possibility that some foreknowledge could help to avert such a fate in another.