What happens when you faint?

[Evie]

I was just wondering what everyones experience was when they faint. I have heard that most people blank out and then wake up on the ground Yet when i faint i am aware that im going down and am aware that i have fallen but i cannot move my body or make sounds, my mind however is awake the whole time.

I was just wondering if thats a common expereince or not?

Im not sure if it makes a difference or not to my general health situation... does anyone know?

thanks

[BuddyLeesWife]

My husband is aware - I call it a "meltdown" as he kind of just sinks to the ground. He is able to answer questions correctly but not get up unless assisted. Fortunately he always has a warning that it is going to happen so he can get safe. I'm not sure if this form of fainting is better but the warning is a blessing.

[d4g7]

I get a ringing in my ears, and then everything goes white - next thing I know, I'm on the ground.

[Eillyre]

For my full faint, I feel myself turning white, get a sinking feeling, get a buzzing/ocean wave in my ears, everything goes grey, and I have a vague sense of falling. Then I return to conscienceness lying on the floor (no idea how long).

I've also had the near fainting where I feel it start happening and drop to the floor voluntarily. Usually when I do that I manage to stay aware of what's going on & eventually get my legs up on the wall to get blood back to my head.

Angela

[MightyMouse]

First I get intense nausea and sweating, then I start to feel like gravity is increasing and my body feels too heavy for me to hold myself up. I usually get enough warning to avoid a full faint, but if I don't heed the warning: my vision greys/whites out, but sometimes I can hear what's going on, I lose control of my muscles and I drop. There have been a few times where I've completely blacked out and woken up looking at the sky or the ceiling.

I also start out as very pink/reddish before I get to the point where I'll faint, and just before, the color washes out and I'm pale.

After a fainting episode, I often have the shakes---probably from all the norepiniphrine my body was pumping around trying to keep me upright.

Nina

[LisaColumbus]

I have only had a few times where I go all the way out. I have warning signs usually which allow me to hit the floor and avoid going out. (This happens frequently everyday) My signs are tightening in my chest, throat feels like it is closing, and my lips start to feel numb and tingly.

My sister has no warning signs at all and goes completely out. She has said she is totally out of it and doesn't feel it coming on. She is fine one minute and on the floor the next. It typically takes her about 6-10 to come to when she passes out and then another 5-10 minutes to become coherent.

My Grandmother has no warning signs.

My Mom get black spots in her vision which increase until she can't see and then she goes out.

[Dizzy Dame]

I've never had what the doctor's considered "syncope". They call my "faints" near syncope. I feel like someone is pulling me down to the ground, the room goes grey, and I collapse. I am aware that I'm falling and I usually manage to fall without hurting myself, but I bruise (sp?) the crap out of my knees every time (I tend to fall to my knees, then down on my side).

I was confused about this also, since my falls aren't voluntary. It's really interesting to see how different, yet similar we all are. Good post

[taylortotmom]

I'm a presyncoper. I've never been out cold. Fortunately, my body tells me when to drop so I don't fall. In other words, when I start seeing spots or start getting extreme nausea I automatically squat down and it helps almost immediately.

Carmen

[Ernie]

Hi,

I have mostly 2 types of faints:

1- I don't hve any warning faint and wake up on the ground. It takes me about 10-15 minutes to be able to walk a bit.

2- I get intense nausea, sweating, shaking, headache, pallor, my body feels so heavy then I faint. I wake up and I am paralyzed for about 5 minutes. It takes 30 minutes before I can walk 10 feet and 3 hours before I can walk for 2-3 minutes. It takes 3 days to get back to baseline.

[hopeful-girl]

Hi Evie. That is exactly what I experince. So you are not alone. I some times think I never fully black out because honeslty I am SO afraid to black out and loos conciousness (SP?). Maybe because i am afraid i won't come to ;-). Not sure on that one. But it is very scarey.

So thank you for that post. It really does help me knwoing that other experience the same things. It is terrible because I sure do not wish ill health on eveyrone. But it sure does make me feel a little less crzy ;-).

So thank you for sharing!

Corina (hopeful-girl)

[Evie]

No we are not alone Cornia

When i hit the ground i sometimes have fit like shakes ... i hate it as i am aware and it makes me feel so vulerenable. Like once i fainted at my old house and we had a indoor balcony and one side of my body fell over the top of it while my feet where on the ground on the corridor side. I was having the fit like shakes and could note move or speak and all i could think in my head was OMG PLEASE DONT FALL OVER.

Yeh the drs have said i have both syncope and near syncope ... in hospital i would stand up in the morning to get blood pressure taken and after two mins be on the floor .. the nurses kept asking me questions to check i was not "just falling asleep" ... then i had a fit on them and they all freaked out and were like "wow you really cant help it can you" lol

Yeh i was just wondering why my brain does not shut off yet most peoples does ... at least now i know im not alone thanks guys!

[persephone]

Well, because I've got VVS and POTS I have 2 types.

I'll just talk about the vasovagal one here because I can't put the POTS ones into words- I had 5 today and I odn't know how to verbalise them. I'll need to come back to you later when I'm more with it...

A vasovagal faint is when I get loads of warning and can't do anything- nausea, buzzing in my ears, etc. The last really horrific Vasovagal Faint I had was when I broke my foot last year- they were trying to bend my foot to put it in plaster and the pain made me scream and scream until my entire nervous system shut down and I stopped breathing. I could hear everything going on- it was so weird actually because the pain in my foot that caused me to pass out was gone- I could feel them flopping my foot about freely yet there was no pain- very strange.

The sense of stillness when I stopped breathing was SO beautiful- everything had just become so peaceful and I could have stayed like that forever- I didn't feel like I was suffocating, just that I was going to be tranquil. However, my mum was next to me and holding my hand, willing me to take a breath- I guess after about 60 seconds, I did...but it took all I could muster, and it was only because I knew she'd be devastated if anything happened to me. I could hear the panic rising in her breath as she kept saying "Come on, hen,take a breath" in her funky Scottish accent. She was stroking my hair- I can remember that much. I've often wondered what would have happened if I'd just drifted off, though...there was no sense of being short of air or anything, just calm and serenity.

(ok now you all know why I like reading about dreams and altered consciousness -I want to see if anyone else has ever experienced the same thing!!!!)

[morgan617]

I have episodes where I get really light headed and will dive to the couch, the bed, anyplace but the floor.

But I also have exactly what you do. You know exactly what's going on, but are completely helpless. When my arms or legs are lifted, they just slam back down, completely flaccid. This is what the nuero called my conversion disorder. However two different psych (one psychologist and one M.D.) have both refuted this theory of conversion because I have so many physical changes they can document with these episodes. I wish they would look at this site and see that I am not starting these threads and I am sure as heck not the only one having them...morgan

[morgan617]

Sorry, also about half the time I will get really bad tremors too. They are awful....morgan

[Dizzy Dame]

Persephone,

I had something similar happen to me. When I first got sick, I went to the campus clinic and my pressure was just falling and falling and they didn't know how to help. Finally, I felt myself falling backwards into the stretcher (I was lying on a stretcher) and at first I was scared, but then this feeling of total peace washed over me. I suppose some people would say I had a "spiritual revelation", but in reality I think my bp had just dropped so low that I was near death. The doc's said I turned white as a ghost and stopped breathing, but I don't remember any of that... just a feeling of absolute love and peace.

The experience has changed me forever. I'm not trying to sound dramatic, but I no longer fear death as a result of it.

[Evie]

I remember when i was orginally really sick with glandular fever, i was also getting brain swells etc ... but there are about 3 weeks that i dont remember much of .. i just remember angels being around my bed ... from that expereince i too dont fear death (just the form in which it may come heh). I realise most people may say i was just having brain swells so was going a bit looney ...

I have to say that illness made me more "spiritual"

I was thinking of making a post asking if people found they became more spiritual from the expereince of being ill but was worried it may be considerd off POTS type topic. ...

[lizzy]

hi,

I have a very phiacal and mental job so ,about 2 times a week i passout.i get the warnings but sometime just donot hned them.coldsweat,trouble seeing,basely suddily feely very very drunk, neises,head ade,shachy,pale cannot talk, cannot think clire.when passed out i can hear things going on around but can not respond,

it takes me about 20 min. after i cometo to get myself together to get back to work.my boss calls them my persnal catnaps.

[Gena]

I have been near syncope only a few times when my BP is really really low.

My question to everyone who faints or comes close, do you get tachycardia of any sort first?

When I have tbad achycardia I start getting queasy and dizzy and feel very faint. Sometimes it's the opposite though.... when I'm sleeping and my BP gets very low and I have bradycardia, I feel like I stop breathing and I start to pass out and I jolt awake, which gets my heart going 90 miles an hour!

Just curious what everyone experiences with their heart before they grey out. Thanks!

Gena

[taylortotmom]

Personally, either of the two can cause me to have presyncope- tachy or brady but generally, brady is the bigger culprit for me.

Carmen

[OCsunshine]

When I start to faint, everything goes black (lose my vision) and I gradually just "disappear." At first, even though I can't see anything, I can still hear. I feel my body fall to the floor and have no control of what's happening.

If I am laid flat (by someone nearby helping me), then the blood will come back to my head and I will get my hearing back first and then my vision returns.

If people try to sit me up or keep me upright (REALLY dumb), then I will just stay unconscious and don't have any awareness or presence or anything... until I am laid flat so the blood returns.

My warning sign is the vision loss. Sometimes I get very, very hot and sweaty, too. I usually have enough time to throw my body to a horizontal position (on the couch or bed) before I go completely out and fall down and hurt myself.

[Ernie]

HI,

I usually faint with a BP crash and fast HR or BP crash and bradycardia.

I only have warning when it's the tachycardia.

[morgan617]

tachy 99% of the time, morgan

[d4g7]

Hi, I had a rather big faint yesterday - It was Melbourne Cup Day here - and I had a couple of glasses of champagne with friends - (I know - no alcohol) nothing huge, was still completely sober, drove home, noticed the time was 7.30pm, and no-one else was home, and was trying to find the worming tablets for my dog - I was bending down looking in cupboards and drawers etc. I then tried the cupboard that we keep things like Panadol etc in, which you need to stand on tippy-toes to look in, I was doing that and ferretting through the cupboard - with my arms in the air, got the ringing in my ears, but ignored it, thinking it would only be a couple of seconds until I found the tablets, the next thing I know I am being woken up by my flatmate, who got home at 8.00pm, as I was passed out cold on the floor - I have no idea how long I was there for - I'm guessing about 10 mins.

Luckily, he undertands - he is an insulan (sp?) dependant diabetic, and often has 'episodes'.

So there you go, this time I only got a couple of seconds warning - I already had tachy, as you would expect from a couple of drinks.

It's probably my own fault - but, then, you should be able to enjoy a couple of drinks on Melbourne Cup Day with friends, shouldn't you???

[hockeykid]

I haven't ever been out completely but during my near-faints I get extreme nausea, cold sweating where I am sweating a lot but it is very cold and it feels like a north wind is blowing while I am sweating, my eyes black over, I go completely white and my muscles start to weaken to the point that I can't voluntarily squeeze them. I also get shaky afterward.