What does fainting feel like?

[KateTheEighth]

Odd question I know but I've never fainted before

I was in the shower and felt like I was being pulled to the ground and my head felt really odd. I didn't pass out.

I'm ok now but feel a bit spaced out and a bit headachey

If it's relevant I went for a run this morning but I felt great during and after

Any ideas?

Thank you

Ringing in the ears

Feeling the floor rising up

Edges of vision going black

Hot and dizzy for me, then waking up on a floor disorientated and spending the rest of day feeling horrendous like I've been on a massive bender but didn't do the fun part of having a drink!!

I’ve fainted lots of times and for me my hearing goes and I get a few seconds where it’s like I’m disconnected from the real world and then I’m on the floor coming round . It’s a weird sensation even when you know what’s coming .

I get tunnel vision and get all clammy

I haven't fainted but I've been on the verge a couple of times. Once when I tried to walk to the kitchen when I had norovirus and once when I got in a really hot shower after a run.

Both times it was as a pp described - lightheaded, hearing was muffled and my vision tunnelled. I managed to stop myself fainting by sitting down and taking deep breaths.

For me it always felt like going under with nitrous oxide as a child 1970s so still allowed. I’d get the buzzing and falling sensation.

I've never completely fainted, but have come close many times.
Light headed
Queasy
Overheating abruptly
Like a plug has been pulled on my energy and it's falling out of me
Balance goes, start swaying
Things sound muffled and distant
Vision goes black and white and like I'm in a tunnel.

Hunger and thirst are common triggers. Worse in pregnancy.

I feel suddenly cold but clammy (cold sweat), my vision gets patchy, I feel queasy and my hearing gets muffled, then thud, I’m on the ground coming round and completely disoriented, exhausted and possibly in pain if I’ve hit something on the way down.

When it happened to me, it was like a sudden rush to the head, feeling dizzy, then temperature rising and feeling sick all in the space of 10 to 30 seconds, then lights out.

Only fainted once. Went to loo in night came round on bathroom floor. Lucky didn't crack my head.

DH is a fainter. He faints when he gives blood- not passing out but sick dizzy etc.

He also fainted properly the other day in the morning. Massive crash. Couldn't open bathroom door as his feet were there. Eventually got him to move. Again lucky no head injury against sink. He whacked it on the floor though. 2 cracked tiles

Start to feel hot, then feel dizzy/lightheaded. Then a bit sick, and my arms and legs got sort of weak and heavy. Sometimes its like everything focuses on my heart, the only thing I can hear is that, and my vision tunnels and then I'm waking on the floor wondering why everyone seems panicked

Most of the time though these days I get to dizzy/lightheaded part and sit down without getting to the on the floor part. Sometimes I'll just move a bit and I'm like 'woah thats a bit off' and I know I need to sit down.

And yes afterwards always like a hangover with a bad headache for the rest of the day

I'm definitely wiped out and could quite happily fall asleep now!

My personal experience is that you wake up on the floor completely disoriented

Mine too - if you're really gonna go, there's no warning. You wake up thrashing about on the floor, trying to fend off whoever is trying to help you.

Having said that, I now have a medical condition that can cause fainting occasionally and I now recognise buzzing in the ears and tingling in my hands & feet as the first sign. Because I notice it now, I can just lie down straight away and the spaced out feeling wears off after a bit.

@MustardRose

My personal experience is that you wake up on the floor completely disoriented

Mine too - if you're really gonna go, there's no warning. You wake up thrashing about on the floor, trying to fend off whoever is trying to help you.

Having said that, I now have a medical condition that can cause fainting occasionally and I now recognise buzzing in the ears and tingling in my hands & feet as the first sign. Because I notice it now, I can just lie down straight away and the spaced out feeling wears off after a bit.

Yep. I woke up on someone’s lap on the train once (I had been standing) - no recollection of how I fell at all.

I get tunnel vision then feel like everything sinks to my feet.
I can identify the early stages now very well, having had a few incidents, and at the very very start if I'm paying attention I start seeing in a weird disconnected way.

I feel dizzy and weirdly out of it, then voices start sounding strange and I get a weird hot kind of pins and needles feeling in my mouth. Then wake up on the floor.

Frequent Fainter here. Head between knees can help somewhat but the best thing to do either to prevent or recover is to lie flat with legs raised. Improves blood supply to brain.

Hearing goes in and out and like you ears ringing

I feel nauseous (can last a minute or 2), then dizzy, vision goes straight away and I'm on the floor ... of a train, in a doctors waiting room, in my kitchen ....
I rarely have enough time to decipher that i'm going faint rather than throw up

I used to faint all the time in the shower as a teen - I'm autistic and couldn't recognise I was too hot until it was too late.

I would feel extremely woozy and my vision would go black.

I’ve only ever fainted once. I had no warning whatsoever. I’d jumped up off the sofa as I was desperate for a wee. Went into the loo and next thing I know I’m waking up slumped against the door with a massive bruise on my arm where I’d hit it on the basin on my way down. I also had a wet leg. I thought for a moment that I’d wet myself but it turned out that I’d dislodged the radiator which had leaked onto me. Fortunately the heating wasn’t on at the time!

I’ve fainted twice and both were fairly similar.

One was in a school assembly, it was baking hot and we were forced to stand for the duration and had to keep our blazers on (this was the 90s)

I remember first feeling really hot, then light headed, then my eyesight started going (grey dots that took over more and more of my sight) and then simultaneously a tunnel vision with my hearing, like everyone was under water and far away. Then I ‘woke up’ on the floor with people around me.

It was very quick, by the time I had the tunnel hearing and the grey dots over my eyes, I remember tapping my friend in the shoulder and then I must have gone.

The other was just before lockdown whilst giving blood, the nurse put the catheter thing in and disappeared to another ‘patient’ and she’d been gone ages, my blood bag thing was full and I had a weird dizzy feeling. It’s hard to describe, it was like nodding off to sleep when you’re tired and can’t stay awake. I then got the weird eyesight thing and last thing I remember was raising my hand and a nurse running over to me.

It goes dark, my lips tingle and my tinnitus turns up to 11.

It happened to me all the time growing up, always in situations where I had to remain standing still for long periods (concerts and cadet parades). It started by feeling like I was going to throw up, feeling cold/hot and then the vision started tunneling smaller and smaller. I could tell exactly how close I was as the point where the vision shrinks to nothing is where I lost consciousness. When you wake up you have no concept at all of how long you've been out, couldn't tell if it was seconds, minutes or hours apart from by surrounding context.

I get muscle weakness in my legs first. Sometimes I get the full creep up my arms, floppy neck, then dizzy head (this is particularly if I was already sitting when it starts), other times it goes straight to weak legs to weak head. If standing, I tend to stumble down though I've become the master of the rapid sit/squat anywhere. It's a chronic hypotension issue, I can get it in any position - even laying down - though the first few minutes after standing tend to be the riskiest.

With my spouse, he gets dizzy and confused first for a few moments, and then drops like a rock. His is thought to be neurological, but thankfully it's been years since he's had a black out.