Ever since I was a child, if I saw, thought, or talked about blood ( in particular my own). I get all queesy and pass out. Even a little pin prick or something. Is this crazy? I have another friend who is the same too. My Dad is the same too. He is even worse. He passed out one time getting eye drops put in his eyes for dialation. I heard this has something to do with mental, but there is also something physical. What gives? Can I cure this?
This is more common than you might think. The medical term used to be vasovagal syncope but is now, more correctly, called vasodepressor syncope. The word “syncope” basically means a faint. The term “vasodepressor” reminds that the problem is ultimately due to an inappropriate lowering of the blood pressure and heart rate.
I don’t know why the sight of blood, in particular, sets it off. Often, it occurs during moments of physical and/or emotional stress. Essentially, victims’ bodies perceive that there’s too much “fight or flight” reaction going on, so a reflex is sent to turn off the adrenaline and turn on the vagus nerve (sort of an anti-adrenaline nerve).
The condition tends to start early in life. This diagnosis is unlikely to first manifest in later years.
The real danger is banging yourself on the head during a fall. The condition itself is benign. For recurrent and /or debilitating episodes treatments are available including mechanical means (special stockings) and medicines (beta blockers).
There should be lots of info available on the Net.
It was my Fredshman Highschool Biology class. A really hot and sticky summer class. My school was like 100 years old, so it didn’t have any airconditioning or air circulation. So , we are sitting there watching a 16mm film in a semi-dark room. The film was about the processes and problems of a hemopheliac. I don’t know about you other Tribes people out there, but I can deal with blood and violence in video games, but I have to be one of the most squeemish people who has ever lived when it comes to REAL blood. Hemopheliacs are not one of my favorite topics of discussion. (no offense to any of you who made be bleeders)
So we are watching this hemopheliac movie and they are explaining about how if a hemopheliac gets a bad injury the bleeding won’t stop. This was staring to enter my imagination, and I started to feel the sweat clinging to my brow and neck. Then they decide, “well now that we have described how nasty this condition is, We’ll show em!!!” They show this dude’s arm just bleeding! Is this really necessary for my education??? THey are like wrapping it up in bloody towels and showing how they have to give hime shots of special drugs made from leeches to help clot the blood. At this point my face was really staring to get blue and I am quite sure there were only about 12 drops of blood circulating around in my head. I turn around to look at the cute girl behind me and try to get my mind off the film. I said " Hey, Anika , I don’t feel too good…"
BAMMMMMMM!!!
The next thing I remember is that I am in the nurses office wearing my gym clothes. I am all like “What ssthe” I cannot form the propper “th” sound. OH, becuase I have no teeth!! I look around and the nurse is talking on the phone to my dentist. So they rush me to the dentist office and they fix me all up. I still have no idea what happened at this point, and I don’t remember the hemopheliac film. So they get my teeth all fixed and my mom’s friend takes me home.
When I get home my buddy that was sitting next to me during the film calls me on the phone and is like “Dude! are you OK??” I am all “Sort of, what the hell happened??” He explained that as soon as I said “Anika I don’t feel so good…” I turned back and put my head on my desk and then just totally fac planted on the hard marble floor making the most nasty crunch sound ever! On impact I apparently lost all control of my bodily functions and wizzed about 2 bug gulps worth of giesser solution in my pants in front of the gawking crowd of Freshmen pupils. My teacher pick me up and tried to shake me back to reality. I woke up (no recolection of this) and he said “Dan, Dan!!! Do you know where you are???” (he must have thought I was on drugs or something. My reply was “Know where I am??? I dont know who the F#$%!@ you are!!!”. At this moment class was dismissed. Aparently , they didn;t realize how screwed up I was, so he said to just go to the nurse. I don’t know what I did after that, but I must have decided to take a stroll around the school in my urine infested pants in a search for some clean clothes. So I guess I found my way to my gym locker and changed into my gym clothes. Somewhere along the way I figured out that I hurt myslef, so I went to the nurse and colapsed. Pretty embarrasing. Especially coming back to school after a couple of days and goin to my gym locker that had been fermenting. (remeber I said it was a really hot summer day?)
I was actualy suprised that the people in my class were concerned for me and didn’t make ANY jokes about it. I would have. And, well I guess that basicly ruined any chances of me getting that cute girl that sat behind me.
Sorry to say, but that’s not a funny story. I wonder whether there’s any treatment for such a condition. I shudder to think what might happen if you ever go queasy while in control of a motorised vehicle or some other risky circumstance.
I am guessing that you have avoided triggering this reaction, but I am guessing that you could probably train yourself to ignore the urge to faint if you tried. If something like vomiting can be ignored I am guessing that this could be cured in that manner as well.
You probably should go about fixing this, as I can see it being a serious problem in an emergency situation. I was trained well in knife safety and have yet to have cut myself, but I have a clear memory of holding a towel around my sister’s finger after she cut it rather deeply. As the knife was very sharp the cut sealed very easily and healed without anything more than pressure, but if my sister were like you she quite probably would have died. Passing out when you need to keep the red stuff inside you is extremely dangerous.
The mental trigger is the worst part, as if you are slowly bleeding to death in the den and your father walks in he too would probably end up on the floor. Then a sister or brother walks in, clunk… If anything, you need to get over this in order to protect your family and children.
Anyway, if you managed to read this post in one sitting then you might be well on your way. I suggest renting the movies “Evil Dead” and “Evil Dead 2” to help with your cure. They are both amazingly bad, yet funny movies that should inure you to blood if anything will.
…hehe, “Farewell to Arms”…
The driving thing is very dangerous. If you truely faint just at the thought of blood, you might want to tell your doc for some drugs. If the next red car, or puddle of red tranny fluid, sets off your memory about blood and you faint, it could go very bad for you.
This is a real condition people. I’ve had it my entire life, and it’s not something that goes away or you grow out of. It has probably happened to me about 20 times so far. Mostly when I was a kid watching UNICEF movies or horror films.
The last time was last year when I jammed my thumb going down the stairs of my house. I had just awoken, my blood pressure was low, and that apparently pushed me over the edge. I went outside for some air and woke up face planted in some bushes twitching. My wife freaked… I went to the hospital… and I was fine an hour later.
As I’ve gotten older I have learned how to tell when it’s going to happen most of the time and have prepared for it so that I was lying on the ground when it hit me. Fortunately it has never happend to me while I was in a car. In some cases, if I know something disturbing is coming and if I can avoid seeing it I can prevent it from happenning, but once it starts to happen there’s nothing I can really do to stop it. Splashing cold water on my face seems to help a little…
My doctor says there really not much they can do medically. If someone is aware of a treatment that works for them I would like to know about it.
I worked with a man in the military who had this problem (a definite minus for that line of work).
He was alone in the house and taking something down from a closet shelf, when a dog carrier fell and gashed his head open. The sight of his own blood made him faint. He came to, saw the blood again and fainted again; a third time, then a fourth.
Luckily, his wife came home about that time and found him, now in shock from blood loss, and called an ambulance. What a thing to live with…
I think it is really hard to explain what kind of things make this “trigger”. I in fact love Evil Dead and other such Horror “splatter” films, but the story about your sister and the knife are the kind that freak me out. I think it is sorta related to only “real” blood and gore. I wish there were some kind of treatment that would really help me.
The thing I am most worried about is when my wife has a baby! I want to be there holding her hand, but I know it is just impossible as I am right now. In my opinion it is definitely a mental condition that triggers a physical response, so I guess in theory it should be treatable as some of you have suggested.
My friend has a similar condition with Spiders, it sounds ridiculous, but even a picture of a spider or a toy spider will send him into a violent panic attack. He told me that one time he was at the beach and a crab came along and the movement it made scared him in the same way. He thinks it has something to do with the shapes and angles that he sees that triggers it.
The driving in a car thing is definitely scary. But, it is pretty easy to tell when you are starting to get qweesy it does not just come in an instant. One time my dad was driveing while talking to his brain surgeon friend and he passed out! The surgeon had to grab the wheel and turned off the ignition as to not crash!! He is much worse than I am I think. If I start to feel like that I tell the people I am around, and if I was in a car I would pull over immediately.
these storeis make me qweesy just reading abouyt…Im going to go lie down now.
This is perilously close to a WAG, but I believe there is an evolutionary explanation for this phenomenon. If memory serves I read it in Pinkers “How the Mind Works.” The idea is that if you see your own blood, your body reacts by clamping down on the blood supply so that it can supply the vital organs. When this process goes too far, you get lightheaded and you faint.
I think lots of people suffer from this to one degree or another. I had a situation once when I was donating blood. I was doing fine till she showed me all the blood that she had taken out of me. Then all of a sudden it was time to lie down on the floor for a while.
it happens even when I don’t see my own blood. like in the movie I was talking about above. It has something silimar to what you are saying, but not only the sight of it in my case, even the thought of it can be bad.
One time when I was a kid I was visiting the historical Williamsburg and we were on a tour and some guy was talking about blood letting practices of the olden days and he was showing all sorts of crazy contraptions that had razors and spikes and stuff and I totally did a face plant in front of a big tour of people. No blood, just imagination.
It pretty much is not a fun feeling. If you have never fainted, you probably have no idea of how crappy of a feeling it is. If you try to fight it the world starts to spin. Holding your feet up a bit helps.