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Short Stuff: Fainting At The Sight Of Blood · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and here's Jerry. And if you feigned the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: side of blood, or even discussions about it, you should
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  Speaker 1: probably stop listening. Now, That's right. Beca it is. It
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  Speaker 1: is a thing. It doesn't bother me. I don't. I
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  Speaker 1: don't love the side of blood, but I'm not too
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  Speaker 1: easily grossed out. I can watch a surgery on TV
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  Speaker 1: and I'm fine. I like writhing, naked and blood. That's
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  Speaker 1: how much I love blood. Oh good Lord, covering my
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  Speaker 1: entire gigantic body. Wo So anyway, um, if because I
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  Speaker 1: can do that, I clearly don't have chuck particular phobia
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  Speaker 1: about feigning at the side of blood. And that's really
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  Speaker 1: what the whole thing is coming down to is we'll
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  Speaker 1: see but feigning itself in this particular kind of fainting.
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  Speaker 1: And this is a thing like people actually do this.
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  Speaker 1: It's not like some movie or TV trope. Yes, but
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  Speaker 1: when you feign to the side of blood, there's a
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  Speaker 1: specific physiological faint that's going on. There's different kinds of fainting,
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  Speaker 1: and this one in particular is what's called the vaso
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  Speaker 1: vegel syncope and vasile refers to your like your blood vessels.
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  Speaker 1: Vegel refers to the vegas nerve, which was played a
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: huge starring role in our episode on what happens in
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  Speaker 1: the brain during an orgasm. The reason the vegas nerve
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  Speaker 1: gets a shout out in this this name for this um,
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  Speaker 1: this type of fainting is because it has it plays
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  Speaker 1: a role in controlling the speed and rhythm of your heart.
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  Speaker 1: And then syncope is just another word for fainting, for
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  Speaker 1: loss of consciousness. That's right. Uh, we know some things
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  Speaker 1: and don't know other things. We know that it is
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  Speaker 1: a legit phobia. It's about three to fifteen percent of
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  Speaker 1: people have this where they faint at the side of blood.
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  Speaker 1: And we also know that it's not just the side
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  Speaker 1: of blood. It can be an injury that you witness
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  Speaker 1: even like I think you pointed out here, like someone
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  Speaker 1: slaying their hand in a car. Or it can be
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  Speaker 1: needle centric, like if someone's coming at you to give
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  Speaker 1: you a shot, you can pass out. So the technical
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  Speaker 1: name for the phobia is b I I blood injury
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  Speaker 1: injection phobia, right, um. And it is a phobia because
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  Speaker 1: there's there's no real danger or anything to truly be
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  Speaker 1: feared from a you know, hypodermic needle or something like that,
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  Speaker 1: even though there is plenty of danger from it, that's
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  Speaker 1: still considered interrational fear, you know what I'm saying. Sure
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  Speaker 1: you're not in a horror movie and they're not gonna
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  Speaker 1: put it in your eyeball, so right, And so with phobias,
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  Speaker 1: um B I I is actually a peculiar type because
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  Speaker 1: with um vaso vagel syncope, you're fainting because your your
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  Speaker 1: heart has slowed down enough that your blood pressure drops,
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  Speaker 1: which robs your brain of the very important blood it
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  Speaker 1: needs to function correctly, and you lose consciousness until your heart,
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  Speaker 1: you know, reins in northern normal rhythm again, which it
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  Speaker 1: does on its own. And that means that B I
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  Speaker 1: I is its own kind of phobia, because with most phobias,
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  Speaker 1: that's not how this goes down at all. No, Uh,
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  Speaker 1: with most phobias, you're gonna like have a spike in
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  Speaker 1: your heart rate initially, and then that'll probably lead to
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  Speaker 1: like a fight or flight type of thing. It will
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  Speaker 1: really ramp everything up. And we be I I. You
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  Speaker 1: do have that initial, very brief spike in your heart rate,
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  Speaker 1: but then it just goes boo, and everything slows down
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  Speaker 1: and you hit the bricks. Basically, Yeah, so that makes
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  Speaker 1: it very strange. As far as they know, there's no
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  Speaker 1: other phobia that produces this effect, um, except for the
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  Speaker 1: blood injury injection phobia. But they after digging a little
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  Speaker 1: deeper into this this um kind of odd malady frankly um,
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  Speaker 1: they found that not only is it like is there
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  Speaker 1: a fear component like in other phobias, there's also a
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  Speaker 1: disgust component, and that people who have blood injury injection
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  Speaker 1: phobia are experiencing levels of disgust that are even higher
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  Speaker 1: than their levels of fear. So it's just a really
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  Speaker 1: strange phobia all around. And it does seem to be
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  Speaker 1: its own type. Yeah, and it does. It does. It's
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  Speaker 1: not funny, but it does make for funny moments in
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  Speaker 1: movies and TV shows when someone comes running into a
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  Speaker 1: room and see something awful and they go, oh my god,
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  Speaker 1: and that's the initial spike. And then because it does
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  Speaker 1: kind of follow it scientifically and then they just go
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  Speaker 1: oh and and hit the deck And it is a
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  Speaker 1: trope for a reason. But it is interesting and that like,
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  Speaker 1: scientifically that's kind of exactly what happens right, So you
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  Speaker 1: want to take a break and then come back and
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  Speaker 1: talk more about b I I phobias. La la do I. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: So one one explanation for blood injury injection phobias is
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  Speaker 1: that there's it's a gene. It's it comes from some
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  Speaker 1: gene or mutation that's passed down. We don't know very
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  Speaker 1: much about it. But if you consider that, um, that
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  Speaker 1: it is conferred genetically, that suggests that there's like an
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  Speaker 1: evolutionary aspect to this, that that somehow it made sense
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  Speaker 1: through natural selection. But it seems like the opposite of
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  Speaker 1: what would make sense through natural selection. Like if you're
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  Speaker 1: if you're approached with danger or injury or something like that,
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  Speaker 1: you see someone else being injured, you would think you'd
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  Speaker 1: probably be in danger too, and so um, running away
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  Speaker 1: really fast, fighting back like you would think those would
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  Speaker 1: increase your odds of spreading your genes rather than fainting
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  Speaker 1: dead away. But there's actually a theory that says, like, no,
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  Speaker 1: it kind of makes sense if you look at it
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  Speaker 1: this way. Yeah, and it's a theory, but the theory
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  Speaker 1: goes that, like let's say you're in a battle with Took,
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  Speaker 1: Took in the gang and Took Took gets clubbed on
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  Speaker 1: the head and blood squirts out everywhere and you go
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  Speaker 1: uh and you pass out and hit the rocks. Then
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  Speaker 1: the other invading I don't even know what error we
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  Speaker 1: are with Took Took anymore, what would they be? Took
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  Speaker 1: Took existed about ten thousand years before UTSI, So I'm
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  Speaker 1: gonna say he existed about eighteen thousand years ago, prior
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  Speaker 1: to the advent of agriculture. All right, but what like,
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  Speaker 1: what were they called? Those weren't Neanderthals, were they? No,
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  Speaker 1: they were modern humans. They just hadn't given themselves a
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  Speaker 1: name as far as we know yet. All right, So
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  Speaker 1: the other modern humans, the invading modern humans, they they
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  Speaker 1: run up at Took Took and Took Took or I'm sorry,
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  Speaker 1: Took Took's friend who is now passed out on the ground,
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  Speaker 1: and they just think he's dead, and they'd walk right
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  Speaker 1: by him like it's the old play dead during battle thing, right,
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  Speaker 1: Which is okay, that makes sense if you stuff and
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  Speaker 1: think of it. Yeah. Um. The other thing is if
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  Speaker 1: if it was Tuk Took himself who had been injured,
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  Speaker 1: um and fainted at the sight of his own blood
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  Speaker 1: because of that drop in blood pressure, he would be
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  Speaker 1: less likely to bleed out from that wound, or would
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  Speaker 1: bleed out more slowly, which could in fact also save
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  Speaker 1: his life too. So no, it also kinda is depending,
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  Speaker 1: you know, but it's one of the one of the
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  Speaker 1: few we've got because we just don't understand it, Like
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  Speaker 1: we we understand the physiological component about what happens with
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  Speaker 1: vaso vegel syncope. It's how the sight of blood or
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  Speaker 1: somebody shutting their hand in the car door or hypodermic
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  Speaker 1: needle triggers that. It just that's where we kind of
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: lose our grasp on that UM. And one of the
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  Speaker 1: one of the reasons why did what would you say,
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  Speaker 1: like three to fifteen percent of the population, is it?
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  Speaker 1: That's a really wide estimate too, Yeah, is definitely significant,
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  Speaker 1: But three to that's a that's a big gap between,
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  Speaker 1: you know, those two numbers, and it's a big gap
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  Speaker 1: in our understanding. And one of the reasons why we
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  Speaker 1: understand it so little is because UM, by its very nature,
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  Speaker 1: that condition prevent people from going to the places where
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  Speaker 1: they could be treated and have their conditions documented and
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  Speaker 1: have estimates be a lot more accurate, which are like
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  Speaker 1: doctors offices and clinics and things like that. They avoid
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  Speaker 1: those places like the plague because those are the places
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  Speaker 1: where people get stuck with needles and have blood drawn
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  Speaker 1: and go when they have their a huge gash in
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  Speaker 1: their forehead. Like, they don't want to go anywhere near
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  Speaker 1: those places because you go into that room and they say, well,
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  Speaker 1: let's see what's going on with you. Let me draw
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  Speaker 1: some blood after I slam my hand in this drawer
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  Speaker 1: looking for the needle, and it's coming at you from
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  Speaker 1: all directions, So you're not going to go in there.
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  Speaker 1: You might even uh it can be tied to something
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  Speaker 1: called medical proceduring anxiety, which sort of speaks for itself. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: so you're not going into any hospital. So it's really
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  Speaker 1: hard to get great information about this. But our old friend, uh,
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  Speaker 1: Cognitive behavioral therapy can help you out, according to web md,
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  Speaker 1: and there's a Swedish psychologist name Lars gerin Oost who
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  Speaker 1: apparently is the best in the business. And it is
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  Speaker 1: like with a lot of CBT, it's self exposure. But
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  Speaker 1: what you do is, and this sort of makes sense,
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  Speaker 1: what they do is they tell you too whenever you
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  Speaker 1: think of anything like this, and they I think they
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  Speaker 1: start out by even saying, like, just think of driving
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  Speaker 1: to a blood donation center and put that in your brain,
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  Speaker 1: and you really want to tense up your muscles all once,
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  Speaker 1: everything in your body because that'll just get your heart
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  Speaker 1: rate going higher than it normally would be uh to
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  Speaker 1: get elevated, and that's a way to combat. And then
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  Speaker 1: they just make it worse from there until they are
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  Speaker 1: basically playing doctor dress up and coming in with the needle. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: so teach you how to stave off fainting as step one, right,
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  Speaker 1: and then after that when they're exposing you, it goes
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  Speaker 1: from making you imagine you're going to to get blood
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  Speaker 1: drawn to actually showing you videos of people getting blood drawn,
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  Speaker 1: to like you said, your therapist coming in like he's
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  Speaker 1: a a phlebotomist with a syringe in a tourniquet and
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  Speaker 1: actually putting the tourniquet on your arm, and the whole
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  Speaker 1: time you're just tensing your core so hard, trying to
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  Speaker 1: keep from passing out. And it sounds awful, and exposure
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  Speaker 1: therapy is awful when you step back and look at it,
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  Speaker 1: but it actually does work. And what um what they
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  Speaker 1: say is that possibly in his few as like three
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  Speaker 1: to five sessions of learning applied tension and then use
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  Speaker 1: and then doing exposure therapy, you might actually be able
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  Speaker 1: to look at blood and not faint, which is really
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  Speaker 1: something pretty good. I think if I was the therapist,
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  Speaker 1: I would dress up like nurse Ratchet. I would go
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  Speaker 1: full bore and then you know, the person afterwards say
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: like what are you wearing that wig? Why are you
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  Speaker 1: dressed like that? And say, I don't know. I think
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  Speaker 1: it just increases the anxiety, is what I've found. I
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  Speaker 1: would dress up like the main character at the end
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  Speaker 1: of promising young woman. That's what I'd come at you like, wow, wow, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: scary pink wig, rubber nurse. Yeah, yeah, that's trying to
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  Speaker 1: picture you like, that's stop that. I don't give you
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  Speaker 1: permission to picture me. Well, there's a million people picturing
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  Speaker 1: that right now. So one other thing, chuck. The reason why,
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  Speaker 1: aside from like it's dangerous to just faint dead away
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  Speaker 1: like that. You can hit your head and you can
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  Speaker 1: break an arm. All sorts of bad things can happen
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  Speaker 1: to you. But one other reason why it's important to
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  Speaker 1: get treatment if you do have a blood injury injection
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  Speaker 1: phobia is because um, Like you said, there's that medical
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  Speaker 1: UM procedure anxiety that keeps you from going into the
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  Speaker 1: doctor's office, and that means that you're not going in
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  Speaker 1: for like vaccines or cancer screenings or you know, wellness
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  Speaker 1: checkups UM because you're avoiding the doctor's office. So there's
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  Speaker 1: a lot of actual negative effects that it can have
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  Speaker 1: on your life. So if you do have that, maybe
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  Speaker 1: go check into getting treated because apparently they've got it
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  Speaker 1: figured out and you can not faint at the sight
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  Speaker 1: of blood or a needle anymore. That's right. Do you
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  Speaker 1: got anything else? I have nothing else or well then uh,
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  Speaker 1: that's it for short stuff. It's short stuff is out.
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• 12:30
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