Eternal Sunshine Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 Few days ago I cut myself quite nastily while preparing dinner. There was a lot of blood but what puzzled me is that I started feeling quite ill. All the sounds went muffled and I felt faint. I also felt very nauseous and my face was pale and clammy. My boyfriend got me to lie down and I was fine in 15 minutes. My cut wasn't that bad nor did I lose a lot of blood. WTF is up iwth me feeling so ill? Is it psychological? I didn't really feel anxious or scared. I just felt like I have to fight hard to stay conscious. Any psychological tips to prevent this in the future? I felt like a total wuss Link to post Share on other sites
Els Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 Ever heard of women in the past fainting at the sight of blood? Yeah, it isn't just a myth. Vasovagal response, if I recall correctly. Different people have different triggers. It's not just women, either. I know a guy who quit medicine because he realized that blood was a trigger for him and he couldn't go through his entire career fainting. Link to post Share on other sites
whichwayisup Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 Few days ago I cut myself quite nastily while preparing dinner. There was a lot of blood but what puzzled me is that I started feeling quite ill. All the sounds went muffled and I felt faint. I also felt very nauseous and my face was pale and clammy. My boyfriend got me to lie down and I was fine in 15 minutes. My cut wasn't that bad nor did I lose a lot of blood. WTF is up iwth me feeling so ill? Is it psychological? I didn't really feel anxious or scared. I just felt like I have to fight hard to stay conscious. Any psychological tips to prevent this in the future? I felt like a total wuss This is a completely normal reaction to when one hurts themselves. your body goes into shock, it just happens, you have no control over that. Last year I got 3 fingers caught up in an exercising machine and the same thing happened to me. Felt dizzy, ill, sweaty and panicky, light headed.. Don't feel like a wuss! Link to post Share on other sites
Calutaxi484 Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 Luckily for both you guys it's not REALLY shock. But yeah seeing blood, and plenty of other things can make you get kind of dizzy. Like Els said it's a vagal stimulation (there's plenty of other ways to stimulate it too). Most people way over estimate blood loss. Generally it takes 1-2 liters of blood loss before the shock cycle starts. To put it in perspective take a liter bottle of water and dump it out in the parking lot, it's going to be a pretty BIG puddle. Most of the time when we hurt ourselves we're losing maybe 100ml tops (which is roughly 2% of our total blood volume). Link to post Share on other sites
spiderowl Posted December 11, 2011 Share Posted December 11, 2011 I think it's an instinctive reaction and totally beyond conscious control. Maybe generated by the sight of blood on oneself and knowing one has been injured. At some deep level (I would imagine), our brain does not know at that point how bad the injury is and so it reacts with shock. Also, I seem to remember reading somewhere that when we feel faint, it's because the brain lacks oxygen. Ordinarily in that situation, if badly affected, a human would collapse which might cause the blood to withdraw from the extremities in order to flow to the brain and supply the brain with oxygen. If this is the case (and I have no real idea), then that would reduce bleeding from extremities and protect the human from blood loss. I have had this same reaction when bitten by a puppy (finger bled but it actually turned out to be a small wound but I didn't know that at the time) and the phlebotomist (blood nurse) at the hospital had to have three attempts to get blood from my arm one time. I felt really stupid on both occasions but it was not under my conscious control. Link to post Share on other sites
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