I am thoroughly impressed one could be mentally composed during such a routine. I have a medical condition that has resulted in many procedures and operations. Needles and blood do not cause me any anxiety. However, on one occasion I had to have my big toe nail removed. It was numbed up fine and I was reading a book during the procedure. However, I looked down at one point and saw my toe nail being pulled off in a bloody mess and, even with (a) no fear of blood and (b) no pain, I almost passed out. There was something deep in my brain that said “alert, that looks really bad so you need to immediately pass out!”
This is called "vasovagal syncope". [1] Certain emotional triggers, including the sight of blood, cause the brain to command the cardiovascular system to lower blood pressure. In some people this reflex is strong enough to cause loss of consciousness due to the decreased blood pressure.
There's a number of competing theories as to why this happens, possibly an evolved response to help control bleeding or vestigial tonic immobility (feigning death to hide from predators). [2] Either way, it's kinda fascinating.
In July of 1974 I was in my first month of internship at LA County-USC Medical Center. I was on the Jail Ward rotation: anyone in the LA County Jail who needed to see a doctor was brought to this ward in handcuffs by sheriff's deputies in a van, uncuffed upon leaving the elevator, and from then on treated like any other hospital patient, though there were deputies scattered throughout the ward, which held perhaps 50 prisoner-patients. Deputies were required to deposit their weapons in a safe before entering the ward.
In my third week or so on the ward — three weeks after graduating from medical school — we got a man who'd been in a fight whose arm had been sliced open by a broken bottle down to the bone, the injury being about a foot long. The thing was, he was so drunk, he wasn't in any pain yet was perfectly conscious.
Me and a fellow intern spent 3-4 hours in the early morning suturing him up after copiously irrigating the wound with many liters of sterile saline. We'd NEVER done anything remotely like this in med school, so we simply did what we'd learned from watching and reading. We must have put in hundred of sutures, starting with deep muscle and then moving outward layer by layer. We worked from opposite sides of the surgical field. During the entire procedure the guy never complained of pain, but rather talked with us perfectly rationally.
When we were done, we were certain he'd become septic and require weeks of IV antibiotics, but darned if that wasn't the case: he was discharged back to the County Jail after a couple days, with no apparent infection.
I'd say it's very annoying rather than kinda fascinating. Cannot donate blood. Routine bloodwork can become a chore. Minor doctor procedures become gripping.
Doctors/nurses don't like it either, apparently they do not want you to pass out during these transacations.
And since it's a brain-based thing, thinking about the issue, "ok, I'm not going to let this bother me" actually just enhances how much it bothers me. ugh.
I live off grid, and barely a day goes by that I don’t cut myself and have blood dribbling out, somewhere - and it doesn’t bother me in the slightest - even some pretty gruesome injuries (like bifurcating my thumb with an axe) are just “well, crap, that’s going to need stitches”. Even when it was stitched up, the needle going “click” as it pushed through the underside of the nail, I just watched with fascination.
That all said, every time I have a phial of blood taken, I faint, like clockwork. I’m not convinced that it’s the sight or thought of blood, but perhaps a marginal drop in BP or available blood glucose triggering syncope - but I’m not a doctor, just confused as to why it’s triggered by blood being drawn, but never by accidental bloodshed.
I've had this happen once when I cut my thumb cutting glass tubes for a high school science class; I had to be semi-carried me to the nurse's office who got me to drink orange juice to recover. The weirdest thing is that I'm perfectly fine getting my blood drawn for tests and watching the nurse draw the IV or swap out vials; it's just that thumb injury that cause me to go lights out
I had this happen to me on several occasions. Once because I got a contact lens to protect a wounded eye. I told the doctor I could not imagine putting anything artifical in my eye while it is trying to heal. She insisted it would work for 80% of the patients. Once in, the world went black. It didnt even hurt. It was my brain refusing to accept this version of the multiverse.
I make a point of mentioning my tendency to just pass out when I get slightly strange treatment from med personel. They seem to have it often enough, because they are always happy to hear in advance something might come up.
Its strange, because I can not really predict if it will happen. I am not really afraid of pain. It is more like being afraid of loosing control or something.
It is real. I have never been frightened by the sight of blood, do not think it is gross etc., but a couple of years ago I was having blood drawn for some lab testing and glanced down at the tube while the nurse filled the vial. The vial was super dark red but quite frothy and bright pink colored at the top. Anyways the colors were much more vibrant than I expected and I rapidly felt myself slipping away? I don't think I completely passed out but I started to fall or something and caught myself. I think the nurse asked if I wanted to lie down for five minutes after that and rest before leaving, haha.
The only similar thing I experienced was working on my own ingrown toenail and fixing it, forever. I did it as a teen.
I was totally not able to do that when I started having issues with it, the bare thought of touching it made me feel uncomfortable. But after like 5 or 6 different treatments under local anesthesia or involving ridiculous molded acrylic concoctions that _were not doing anything_ I got tired, bought a scalpel and grabbed some cotton and a napkin and spent like one hour carefully cutting and shaving the thing and using cotton balls to lift it around in a way were it looked like it will grow well after my massacre.
That was probably twenty years ago and I never had any issues with it since then.
Years ago I tore open my arm at work down to the bone (cut sheet metal corners are sharp!), while it was been stitched up at the hospital I was fascinated and watching closely to the point the nurse commented that most people would look away.
I'm somehow in both - I'm interested, think I'd like to watch; but don't out of fear that maybe I would faint or whatever and find that embarrassing! (Which I probably shouldn't, don't mean to say that anyone who does should, etc.)
The frustrating part is, I definitely faint due to blood being drawn for example, but something about the sight of the procedure makes it hard to look away
I guess this explains why they wouldn't let me watch when I had the same thing done. It's not the sort of thing that bothers _me_, but they wouldn't have exactly screened for that ahead of time.
