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I am a bio major that passes out at the mention of blood.
...well...sorta...
Hear me out.
This all sort of started in the end of the summer of 2008 when I was going to the doctor to get a shot for...something...maybe Meningitis, since I was transferring to a new school. Before this I had never had trouble with shots. Anyways apparently I held my breath while I got the shot, which I have been told since is a common thing that people do without knowing it, and this caused me to pass out. No big deal, (although the nurse didn't notice me go out so I smacked my head on a counter when I fell, so I guess it could have been much worse) but I had never passed out before, so it was new to me.
Fast forward a few months, and I have chosen biology as my new major since I find it fascinating. I'm in a gen ed human bio class that I registered for before I chose my major, but the class was still ok and counted as major elective credit so w/e. The professor, well, she was just a horrible professor. She seemed to think her job was not to teach us about human biology, but to teach all of the freshman girls about the evils that us college guys were going to unleash on them if they ever drank alcohol or wore a miniskirt. (Also, she gave EVERYTHING cutsie nicknames during lecture and it was infuriating.) Anyways on one of her rants she decided to fight the sexual urges of her students by simply clicking through a powerpoint of the genital mutilating after effects of various STD's and simply list off the STD that caused what we were seeing in the picture. About 3 minutes in a girl a few rows ahead of me couldn't take it anymore and passed out. Obviously that doesn't effect me, but I then realized that 1. I have passed out before, and may pass out again, and 2. Passing out infront of a class of 300 students must suck a whole lot. Those 2 realizations almost made me pass out when the professor plunged right back into her slide show, but I made it through.
A few weeks later we were dealing with the Cardiovascular system. One of the things we did was watch a nearly class-long video of a man recounting his heart attack. Unfortunately the guy was 1. Familiar enough with the human body to know what was happening to him, and 2. Too stubborn to admit it. So he had the distinct pleasure of having a >6 hour heart attack while fully aware of what was going on. I couldn't fucking take it. I got tunnel vision, was covered in sweat, and towards the end the only thing I could hear was static. I have no fucking clue how I didn't pass out, but afaik I didn't.
Anyways I kept on with biology, and have since had 2 semesters of bio courses without passing out/almost passing out, and those semesters included dissections, so I figured I was golden.
But today was hemophilia day in genetics.
About 5 minutes in to his description of the steps involved in bleeding to death as a hemophiliac I realized I was probably not going to make it. My immediate urge was to excuse myself to go to the bathroom and come back when I had it under control, but I was pretty sure standing up would knock me out. And anyways, I propped myself up so that if I did pass out it would just look as if I fell asleep. That is when my epic 20 minute struggle began.
It started with pins and needles over my entire body, and the feeling that my skin was really hot. My clothes became crazily uncomfortable, and I started to sweat profusely. I lost circulation to my hand enough that I could no longer control it to take notes. I got extreme tunnel vision which eventually became almost complete blindness. And then my hearing changed so that it sounded like my professor was lecturing at the end of 100 foot pipe while I was listening at the other end. That was pretty much the peak, and after that everything sorta slowly came back, although for the next half hour I could hear static that wasn't there. I apparently tensed all my muscles up during this, since my arms and legs were sore as hell when I came out of it, and still are.
Anyways now I am trying to figure out how I am going to deal with this, and I really don't want to change my major as I still find biology/chemistry to be the most fascinating thing ever. Anybody been through something similar and have strategies to deal with it? Any psych people know of ways to solve this?
I've thought of going on youtube and watching video's that set it off so that I can become desensitized to it, but I'm afraid that might just make it worse.
Finally, an interesting little bit that I'm sure tl.netters will appreciate. In the depth of my episode, I was trying as hard as I could to think of something else. Anything other than hemophilia and blood, and I wanted to think about it hard enough to block out my professor. I grasped at a few straws before I finally found it. Of all things, the thought that helped me stay conscious during my ordeal was Dragoon micro vs. tanks. I have no clue how, but just picturing mock battles and how the protoss should go about engaging the tanks in a given situation was able to keep my mind off of the blood enough to keep me awake. (Btw I don't count blue dragoon goo as blood.)
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Oh wow that's too bad, sorry I can't help, awesome read tho.
Edit: Maybe watch a bunch of gruesome horror movies? You really do get desensitized to them reasonably fast and I would be surprised if it wouldn't transfer over to real life desensitization in those situations.
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So, how bad and visual does it have to be? Because I'm sure you can pursue your major without it being too bad, unless it's really almost any sight of blood.
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On January 13 2010 05:48 DamageControL wrote:
So, how bad and visual does it have to be? Because I'm sure you can pursue your major without it being too bad, unless it's really almost any sight of blood.
There were no visuals in lecture today, he was just talking about it. I think it is only human blood too (I'm not going to be a doctor so I think I will be ok if I can just stay awake through my lectures), because all of my dissections and whatnot have been fine.
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Honestly, that sounds a lot more like a panic disorder than just an aversion to blood. If that's the case, then you should seriously consider getting some professional help, because it's not something you can just will away.
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The thought of blood makes you pass out? Like inReacH said, watch horror flicks... or does that not do it?
Your description of what you felt reminds me exactly of someone I knew from college that put a nicotine patch on and smoked a cigarette. He tore his shirt off, it was so uncomfortable.
Maybe you could take up smoking.
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Hmmm.... I pass out whenever I get hit really hard or I lose more than a few CCs of blood.
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On January 13 2010 06:08 thopol wrote:
The thought of blood makes you pass out? Like inReacH said, watch horror flicks... or does that not do it?
Hmm, I can't remember a horror flick doing it, and I have watched some of the more bloody ones. (Although I haven't watched any of the really really bloody ones like hostel, so maybe those would trigger it.)
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man, that sucks i got no advice. good story though 5
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Sounds like a very extreme reaction, I'd definitely consider getting this examined properly.
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Cognitive Behavior therapy is the way to go. If you were to ask me based off this information something in all these situations is setting off a trigger in your mind that is causing you to react the way that you are. Try to think back to a certain situation you might have had in the past (possibly before your shot incident) that you may have felt similar feelings or maybe seen something or heard something that greatly impacted you. It's also possible that something that you have seen or heard in each of these incidents is taking you back to you passing out over the shot self-consciously.
I know that might sound confusing but basically if you can figure out what the cause of this trigger comes from you can basically learn how to modify the behavior and fix it so that it won't happen anymore. As you said direct exposure to things that do make you feel like you are going to pass out could actually work as well as you can maybe build up a tolerance for the images and thus be able to learn to lower your anxiety.
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Don't worry, I'm here to help!!
Man up and overtime you won't be so sensetive to it
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watch a bunch of vampire movies!
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I've had sort of the same problem, but nothing as extreme as you. Both of the times I have given blood samples I've almost passed out and was feeling weak after. Once in a P.E lesson our teacher told us to hold our right arm above our heads for a few minutes you could then feel blood pumping back after. I started to get cold sweat and heard a long beeeep as my vision also became fuzzy. I was fighting after to not make an embarassing fainting scene.
I think the problem might be a mental one because of the anxiety of fainting. I don't know how to deal with it but maybe see if you react the same way alone.
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Hawk.
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lol hawk
make sure noone has one of them voodoo dolls on you imo
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oh come now, it was funny!! youre lucky i didnt think to find a bloody walrus until after i posted  tough love baby, tough love...
for real though, fuck spending money on a quack or something, youre a college kid... go dick around on bangedup.com or some other horrible site and dull your senses. youll wanna find out as soon as possible in your college career if you can tolerate it, and you wont do that by visinting a psych and talking about it (and it's free!!)
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I respond to a certain stimulus by passing out; so in a thread where I ask for help dealing with that problem, you make a page pretty much unreadable to me by filling it with that stimulus. Sure, it is funny to you, but did you honestly expect me to find it funny also?
(I unbanned you because you have been decent to me in the past and I realize you did it with intent to be funny and not just to be a dick to me.)
Some people on irc seem to think it is this, and I agree with them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasovagal_episode
Unfortunately the most effective treatment is avoidance of stimulus...which I can't really do without abandoning my major. I am probably going to go to the campus doctor in the next few days to see if they have anything to help me.
This sucks.
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If the problem is to do with human blood, you should probably see a professional to help you deal with it.
If it's panic attacks caused by other things, you should still see a professional to help you deal with it.
Either way, get some kind of assessment done on yourself.
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Just watch dexter or something.
Seriously though, not every bio major will end up swimming in blood, so you're fine.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://s2.buzzfeed.com/static/imagebuzz/web02/2009/7/20/10/blood-everywhere-12472-1248099979-15.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.satanspace.com/gallery/albums/bloody/bloody-mess.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://fatgrrl.com/wp-content/BloodyMess.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.wrestleprints.com/catalog/images/wrestleprints/LaddBloodyMess.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://wellhellmichelle.com/wp-content/uploads/voodoo-doll.jpg)
