Anyone else had a teenager that faints a lot?

[Bigkingdom]

In the last 6 weeks my 14 year old has fainted twice. The first time i found her on the kitchen floor and she was taking a while to come round so an ambulance took her to hospital. They couldn’t find a cause.

A few days ago it happened again. This time she came round quicker. I called the doctor and she is having a blood test tomorrow. The fainting always happens soon after waking up.

Has anyone experienced this before?

My eldest DD has been a fainter since she was 15. She's 24 now and still faints occasionally, usually for the reasons other posters have mentioned. DD2 is almost 10 and has started complaining of feeling like she's going to faint. It's a horrible thing! I did it a couple of times during pregnancy, too.

I had this as a teenager - many times in school, on the street, at the bus stop etc. It was suspected anaemia, then they sent me for neurological tests which revealed nothing. 20 years later I was diagnosed with endometriosis and realised the fainting coincided with my period. I'd been passing out with the pain.

DD1 is an epic fainter!
Very low blood pressure and POTS (she has Ehler's Danlos Syndrome) and since her early teens has fainted just about everywhere.. a bit embarrassing as she is now a doctor herself and ward rounds where she is standing still for a while in a warm room... she reckons she has been caught mid faint by every consultant that she works with

Decent hydration, enough food and also weirdly, salt helps. It's rarely sinister but it is a bit scary if it happens a lot!

Low blood pressure !! Seems to come on in puberty. I find taking a drink to bed helps - I usually drink a whole pint of water or squash over night most nights

Have a look at the effects of vit B12 deficiency. My teen DD had been having major dizzy spells and we think fainted a couple of times but her blood pressure wasn't low. Her B12 level was low so she's taking supplements. Low B12 can cause you to become anaemic. I'm not in the UK so not sure what a doctor would routinely check for but could be worth mentioning if it isn't blood pressure related.

I also used to faint as a teen. Mostly on the first day of my period and if I had to stand for too long. Often the pain would become so intense and then I would black out. Turned out years later I had extensive endometriosis.

Is she hypermobile? My dd faints and apparently it's connected in some way.

@StillMedusa - sounds just like my dd who has just finished first year medicine

No but I used to faint a lot when I was a teenager. I learned to sit down when I felt it coming on. Eventually I must have grown out if it. It stopped happening. I think it was low blood pressure, hormones?

@StillMedusa - Does your dd have the elastic skin associated with Ehler's Danlos Syndrome? The consultant my dd went to dismissed Ehler's Danlos Syndrome as she doesn't have elastic skin but after doing a bit more reading, we reckon she probably does.

OchonAgusOchonO She does indeed.. it is horribly stretchy. Her sister also has a dx of EDS ( we are assuming inherited from Dh ..not diagnosed but he can still do the splits at 58.....) but is less stretchy skinned but dislocates SO easily... she dislocated her shoulder rolling over in bed!

It's often under diagnosed.
My girls (and ds2 but he also has autism and learning disabilities so no one cares about his joints!) were ridiculously bendy as tiny children.. dd2 was worse then and you know how you swing kids between you? We stopped after the 4th time her elbow dislocated..

As kids they were hypermobile and had low muscle tone (DS2 still wears splints) but apart from a few dislocations nothing serious. As the girls, particularly hit their teens the issues cropped up... fainting lots, joint pain etc, all dismissed by doctors.
At Med school DD1 took place in various tests as a student.. her heart rate was incredibly erratic and it turned out the 'indigestion' I had diagnosed her with was actually a heart problem related to EDS Her amazing flexibility became painful and her dislocations increased.
Meanwhile her sister .a student nurse... was equally struggling with joint pains, fainting, dislocations and severe fatigue.

By sheer luck DD1 was actually referred to an EDS specialist who confirmed the diagnosis and a year later DD2 the same with a different specialist. Both now on a lot of meds, have physio, and get on with it the best they can.. DD1 is about to start GP training as she always wanted to be a GP and realistically running round the hospital wards is not sustainable. They both have gut problems too.They are now 28 and 26 and it took many years to get a diagnosis. Turns out there is a long history on DH's side of identical issues! DS2 is oblivious due to his autism!

(I do also have DS1 who is untouched and claims he was the only perfect child )

It's worth pushing and pushing if there are many issues.. hypermobility is not always benign!

Was she using hair grooming items or was it hot at all? I have a type of epilepsy literally known as hair grooming epilepsy which causes faints and occasionally seizures when the head is over stimulated, first time was having my hair straightened and most recently having my hair done at the hairdressers

Just come back to this, interesting to read about Ehler's Danlos Syndrome as I have quite a few of the symptoms.

@poetryinaction I have a friend who has/suffers from that, both her mum and brother also suffered. Her brother is wheelchair bound and her mother died last year, incredibly sad.

That used to be me, similar to a PP essentially got used to lying on the floor in public rapidly if I felt a faint coming on, careful getting out of baths, try not to get too hungry - fainted at school many times

Also had problems in early pregnancy with fainting so something to watch out for then as well

My DM was the same, and had low blood pressure

@StillMedusa

DD1 is an epic fainter! Very low blood pressure and POTS (she has Ehler's Danlos Syndrome) and since her early teens has fainted just about everywhere.. a bit embarrassing as she is now a doctor herself and ward rounds where she is standing still for a while in a warm room... she reckons she has been caught mid faint by every consultant that she works with

Decent hydration, enough food and also weirdly, salt helps. It's rarely sinister but it is a bit scary if it happens a lot!

The reason salt helps is because it helps you retain water, and therefore not be dehydrated, keeping your blood pressure up, which can help prevent fainting.

So for people with low blood pressure, a high salt diet can actually be healthy, although OP you should definitely only up her salt intake on the advice of doctors.

My friends son has/does.

The doctor said it was to do with the fact he has grown alot in the last 12 months, so when he stood up and moved quickly then his blood pressure dropped through the floor and he feinted.

My DH had it also as a teenager as well and grew out of it.

DD2 is a fainter (PoTS and EDS) - at one point she was collapsing 100+ times a day, which was incredibly tough on all of us. Thankfully now she's only fainting a couple of times a week, although she has gone for months at a time without a faint.

Annoyingly she's had to cut down on salt after having kidney stones twice (the kidney specialist was horrified when she told him how much salt she ate ) - it's taken a lot of trial and error to work out an optimum diet, as her digestive system is also badly affected.

But back to the OP, in most cases, a decent diet, plenty of fluid, and going from lying/sitting to standing slowly and in stages should help, but do get your DD checked out, in case there is anything which can be dealt with. Fully recommend STARS as mentioned above, they were incredibly helpful to me as a panicked parent who just sobbed on the phone to them .

Also turns out there's a type of fainting which happens after you poo, which made DD quite grateful her faints were "just" after standing up, as the first question any medical type asks her (after "could you be pregnant") is "what were you doing just before you fainted"

Yes me, my mum and now my Dd.
As others said I had to have breakfast, often after a hot bath or shower. Fainted at hair dressers (aged 12ish), regularly at church, supermarkets and frequently in pregnancy.

I always used to do this as a child, scared the life out of my mum. No cause was ever found and it randomly stopped in my early 20's

@StillMedusa - your dds sound worse than mine. It's tough.

Dd19 has never dislocated but started subluxating shoulders and clavicle in her early teens. She went to a pediatric ortho who sent her for physio and to get checked out for the cardio issue. Thankfully no cardio or digestive issues. The physio made a huge difference and got the subluxating under control. However, as she got older, the pain got worse and she now suffers badly with knee and hip pain. She's back with physio again and had orthotics fitted, both of which help. My ds's are both hypermobile but have no pain issues with it. I'm blaming dh too - none of that on my side

I had this with low blood pressure. If that's what it is, she needs to sit on her bed first, then stand, to let things sort themselves out gradually. It's not treated in the UK on the grounds that it's not dagerous, but on the continent, where I grew up, they do give medication for it. It helped me as otherwise I was left feeling constantly exhausted.

The doctor will be able to confirm. It can be annoying, but it's much healthier than having high blood-pressure. Now I'm mid-40s, it still tends to sit below normal (90/50 or 100/60), although it drops if I'm ill (once registered at 48/65, by a doctor)

Could her periods be causing anaemia? I had extremely heavy periods as a teenager.