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A couple years ago I took my kids to get a flu shot at a CVS. 30 seconds after my oldest had gotten his shot I felt him go limp standing against me and he collapsed against me and went to the floor. Sheer panic immediately set in and I was on the floor with him calling his name while he ever so slightly convulsed and came to wide eyed 10 seconds later. The CVS employee was the utmost professional, he calmed me down, repeated this is normal, and had me hold his head and legs as he came to. He put my son in a chair, had him sit there for a while and 20 mins later we were in the car. I felt bad when my son actually apologized to me when I told him how terrified I’d been.

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I've fainted more times in my life than I'd care to admit. After a while, it's not the 'blood' you are afraid of. Instead it's the idea of fainting and causing a scene that becomes the source of anxiety. For me, anyway.

This. So much this.

Fainted for the first time, because of a nose bleed, in front of my high school physics class, literally.

Sadly agree. I wish I could control it

Nothing to be ashamed of. Your Vagus Nerve, the main signaling nerve for your autonomic system, can go off automatically and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. When it happens, sit down in a chair. If you can lean back and put your feet up, that’s better and the episode will resolve more quickly. These episodes will come and go quicker as you are prepared for them.

My wife has had to these for years. The only treatment we’ve found helpful is transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) with a tool like a Neuvana Xen - or you can go the expensive prescription route. We were actually treating her gastroparesis with this and found that modulating the signal worked for all sorts of misfirings - like when getting shots.

TLDR: You can’t avoid them, but you can mitigate them by sitting in a chair, leaning back, and bringing your feet closer to your heart. If anyone is watching, it just looks like you are trying out the recline function of the chair. If your Vagus Nerve issues are bad, you can try tVNS (under the supervision of your doctor, of course).

Oddly, putting my feet closer to my heart (such as when washing my lower legs in the shower) seems to unplug my sinuses if they’re plugged. Related mechanism?

Would this be because your head is closer to your feet, or (and correct me if I'm picturing this wrong) because you're putting your head upside down?

I’m guessing they meant when they lean over, but the movement should be what does it. This movement uses gravity and the pooling of blood to force the liquid out of their sinuses - probably only temporarily though. Does it work the same way if they were to lean over the bed? If so, that’s the answer.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/21778-nose

There is a number of sinus decongesting massage moves that work well. These use pressure and blood flow to force the liquid out of your sinuses and then uses gravity to take it away. I use these to help relieve sinus pressure.

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/sinus-massage/

But, to answer the original question, this is only related tangentially. Laying down, picking up your feet, and breathing generates a signal in your Vagus Nerve complex that essentially overrides the fainting signal. It’s still there, but you’ve added a new stronger signal to dominate the nerve and the fainting signal starts to fade. Simple meditative breathing does the same, but usually not fast or strong enough to stop you from syncope.

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/what-does-the-vagus-nerve...

> I’m guessing they meant when they lean over, but the movement should be what does it.

Oh, no; the motion I'm referring to doesn't involve moving my head at all. I meant that I raise my right knee while balancing on my left leg, to scrub my right calf by bringing it into reach. (Is this not how most people clean their legs in the shower?) Doing this — and holding the pose for at least a few seconds — almost always unplugs my right sinus. (And only the right sinus. Have to raise my left leg to unplug my left sinus!)

There's some triggers I can control. I've fainted in the bathtub because of steam, so I'm careful not to have too much steam. I've fainted a few times while getting blood drawn, what works for me is when the person keeps talking to me and has my focus the whole time. I've fainted when there's too little oxygen in the room, so I just get out. I've fainted during flights, so I eat, drink, turn on the fan and point it to my head, make sure I'm not overheating if the sun hits me directly, go to the toilet, keep myself engaged. When I faint my eyes stay open, but my mind is just gone, last time I was out for one and a half minutes.

That sounds hard.

Luckily I only fainted a few times in my life but the last one was most vivid as in some time had clearly passed and I was injured. That scares me now thinking under what circumstances it could happen again.

Same here. I am not even afraid of it anymore, at least not consciously. It's actually fun trying to hold tight onto consciousness--an existential rodeo sort of thing. In any case, I just accept it and make sure I am sitting/lying down.

All too familiar feeling. One time I was traveling by bus, I didn't sleep enough the night before, plus the sun was shining on me and people were talking loud around me, so I started to become anxious and just passed out. The doctors couldn't find anything, so they just told me to sleep more. But the worst part was that after my first episode I couldn't even sit in a car because I felt anxious and dizzy every single time even if I just thought about it.

It's been 2 years since my last episode and now I don't feel that anxious anymore, but it feels like there is something in the back of my mind telling me that it can happen again.

As a kid I watched the needle go in my arm as blood was drawn.... and all of a sudden tunnel vision and almost fainting. Had to be walked to the car.

So I figured out watching blood come out of me causes me to feel faint, so I don't watch. I've seen blood and other person's blood, but my blood seems to be some special case.

What I've figured out is - if you are bleeding, maybe your brain helps you collapse to the ground in a faint, where you will be level, have a low heart rate, and not bleed out all your blood through a wound.

Could this be the evolutionary reason we faint at the sight of our own blood?

now it's just a trait of scared monkeys, if it wasnt for development of civilization, it could be deadly. Lucky us, first communities of monkeys learned how valuable non deadly dominance can be, which allowed smart but not very good at aggression to survive, and over the years develop additional ways of dominance, rather than just pure strength.

Maybe a convincing way to play dead, plausibly just a bug, but if the idea is not bleeding out there are already sophisticated mechanisms to regulate tension and heart rate.

Dropping on the floor is not very helpful. It's never a good time to just collapse and risk crashing your head on a rock.

Interestingly, when they take my blood with a needle, I almost always faint. But if I have a nosebleed, I have no problem at all - I can look at it dripping, I can look in the mirror to clean myself, nothing happens.

So, there must be some other things at play here.

Yeah, I have to look away for shots and hate having blood drawn but if I get a nasty scrape with blood gushing out - meh, no problems at all looking and poking.

Yep, fainted so, so many times... Always seems to happen after getting hurt on or near a nerve for me - or after a blood draw. Was scary the first time, embarrassing and annoying every time since then. :) Had a nurse explain that the best way to prevent it is flexing / tightening the legs, to force the blood up out of them. Seems to work, at least for me.

That works for me too. A cardiologist told me it is because it gives your body a reason to keep the blood pressure higher. He also advised drinking lots of water every day.

Is it while standing or laying down? I don't faint if I lay down.

Also if I pass a crisis without fainting, I get immunity for a good while

Fighter pilots are trained to contract their solar plexus by making a “hut” sound to do something similar when they’re passing out. I was going to try this the last time I was fainting after a blood draw, but was interrupted by the phlebotomist imploring me to breathe slow and deep—I think this just sunk me further into it.

Valsalva maneuver against a closed glottis. As someone prone to blacking out when standing up or after a set of heavy squats, figuring this out has been very useful to me.

They said it's normal to faint after receiving a flu shot? Hasn't heard of that happening to people before. What was the explanation?

Normal maybe isn't the right word, but it's an expected possibility, the FDA has a page about it [1], and that's one reason FDA recommends patients be observed for 15 minutes after a vaccination, especially for types they haven't had before.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/fainting.html

Somewhere in EU, I (and everybody else) was told to wait 15m before leaving the area after the vaccine.

This is no doubt because of the possibility of such events.

It's not the shot itself, it's the injection/getting stabbed. I think I fainted four or five times in my life due to injections/blood draws. I have to lay down look away and control my breathing otherwise I'm gone. It is a pain in the ass and I get light anxiety from it.

Same. I also realized I can't get acupuncture due to this, I will just faint

I’m curious if there’s a refractory period. (I.e. if you faint and come to after the first needle goes in, then maybe you’re “past it”, and the rest won’t bother you?)

I'm really curious but I don't think I could get myself to try it.

My gut feeling is that there is a refractory period but it would still feel like shit because it takes time until my blood pressure returns to normal.

In my school, they started taking blood tests during annual medical checkup. (certified doctors & parents permission).

100 students participated in the blood tests out of which I think atleast 4 fainted. The test was done by just piercing a small needle, & not the actual extraction of large amount of blood. The analogy is slightly different than a vaccine shot, but nonetheless the setup is same by using needle.

Two of my kids experienced this vasovagal syncope response during injections. It is terrifying; they appear to go into a seizure, convulse, and are unresponsive for up to half a minute. Terrifying.

I became faint, I would say, after I got my first covid shot a couple years ago. It wasn't immediately after the shot but within the 15 minute time frame post-injection when they would have you wait around to see how you feel. It was a strange sensation and there was a place where I was allowed to lie down. I don't know why it happened and it hasn't happened since with further vaccinations. I am glad they were so kind about the whole process.

I had Botox in my fingers of both hands. After the second set of fingers I became faint. The Korean clinic lady (doc? technician?) said “needle shock”.

I give blood and get vaccinations easily. But yes, this Botox was rather painful so maybe “needle shock”

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