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Just had my first proper day at college today and I had a double session of Biology. During the discussion of cardiovascular disease, I started feeling faint, my hands went numb and I almost collapsed. It happened twice in less than two hours, and I'm seriously considering having to switch to a different course, which I don't particularly want to do, seeing as I was lucky to get into Biology in the first place. I've had this problem during GCSE level but it has never been as bad as this, I've spoken to a doctor and several teachers about it yet their advice just doesn't seem to work. Does anyone have this/have had this before, and if so do you know anything that I can do to help control it?

Thanks,

Go to 4chan, go on /b/, start gore thread stare at every image.

other than that I don't think there is anything you can do

Some people genuinely do faint at the sight of blood.

I doubt anyone here knows better than a doctor what you should do.

Valkyrie wrote:Just had my first proper day at college today and I had a double session of Biology. During the discussion of cardiovascular disease, I started feeling faint, my hands went numb and I almost collapsed. It happened twice in less than two hours, and I'm seriously considering having to switch to a different course, which I don't particularly want to do, seeing as I was lucky to get into Biology in the first place. I've had this problem during GCSE level but it has never been as bad as this, I've spoken to a doctor and several teachers about it yet their advice just doesn't seem to work. Does anyone have this/have had this before, and if so do you know anything that I can do to help control it?

Thanks,

No need for this , thanks !

Get married. You will feel no pain.

Hmm well I suppose you could inure yourself to it kind of like aversion therapy to cure arachnophobia. Go to the local morgue and stare at dead bodies!

Only kidding - I can't really offer any practical advice other than I would imagine you would become better through exposure (unless your squeamishness is an actual psychological block or phobia)

Try getting lobbed through a window, lacerating your left arm from palm of hand to half way to the elbow.

Then, having been rushed to Hospital and dosed up on wonderful morphine, proceed to playing with your exposed tendons, and marvel at the pristine white of your own skeleton.

Worked for me!

Can't help here.
I'm not particularly squeamish.

Being one of the first-aiders in my gaming club kinda needs me to not be squeamish.

I do know a girl who works in pathology who is both squeamish AND extremely phobic of certain human bodily fluids.

How she decided that pathology would be her career still astounds me.

Frazzeled missed a step of course, because getting married will only account for about half of the immunity to gross stuff. Get married then HAVE A KID, force yourself to stay in the room during the delivery, which isn't bad, or the C-section which is where stuff gets REAL. I will never forget what my girlfriends spine looks like as the doctors decided it would be effiecent to check out her kidney while they were in there. Seeing her organs each laid out in their own shinney tray while still attached to her and to look at the other end of this blanket wall thing they had going on and see that she was awake, drugged to hell and gone but awake, and trying to talk to me as I hold our kid for the first time.

That should about cure what ever problem you have with gore, which is great because it's almost nothing compared to what you'll see being a parent.

The human mind is wonderful at desensitizing itself to things with enough exposure.

Muster up the willpower to expose yourself to pictures of blood and viscera in your off time (as heinous as that sounds). Force yourself to be as analytical about it as possible. Basically, you have to try your hardest to switch off your instinctual nature until logic becomes your natural reaction.

It might be difficult to handle at first, but the idea is to get to the point where you won't fail a class that you've already paid for.

Like some of the posters here, I don't have any problems with exposed human tissue (I work at the hospital on the Medical/Surgical unit) however a friend of mine got hypnosis to treat a problem where she fainted when she saw blood. Its been a year or two and no problems...

Thanks for your advice guys wish me luck for Monday, we'll be doing heart dissections.

I'm quite squeamish and that's why I joined St John Ambulance as a First Aider, to combat this. Also, I backed out of the dissections, I do A Level Biology and I am refusing to dissect the rat. It's not compulsary and its unnecessary. Don't be embarrassed cos you don't want to slice something up.

The OC-D

Valkyrie wrote:Thanks for your advice guys wish me luck for Monday, we'll be doing heart dissections.

How did it go? These sorts of things are optional in classes, you can just watch someone else cut it up.

Have you ever prepared meat in a kitchen? I would suggest getting a few odds and ends like a heart and kidney from the butcher and cutting them up in your own time at home before doing it under any kind of pressure in a class.

I'm squeamish about seeing stuff on medical dramas, having someone guts being fiddled about with makes me ill. I also hate seeing needles being put in people, yet drama all the time has to show a close up the needle going into the skin on the TV.

Howard A Treesong wrote:

Valkyrie wrote:Thanks for your advice guys wish me luck for Monday, we'll be doing heart dissections.

How did it go? These sorts of things are optional in classes, you can just watch someone else cut it up.

Have you ever prepared meat in a kitchen? I would suggest getting a few odds and ends like a heart and kidney from the butcher and cutting them up in your own time at home before doing it under any kind of pressure in a class.

I'm squeamish about seeing stuff on medical dramas, having someone guts being fiddled about with makes me ill. I also hate seeing needles being put in people, yet drama all the time has to show a close up the needle going into the skin on the TV.

I haven't done it yet, we're doing it on Monday. She said that I could sit out if I'm feeling ill but I want to give it a go, see if I can get over it. I've never thought of getting used to it using stuff from the butcher, I may have to try that, thanks for the idea.

Couldn't say. When I was 5, I was partially responsible for pulling a squirrels head off of it's body (it was already dead). Didn't phase me in the least. Since then I've had no problem putting my arm inside of body cavities, etc...

I would imagine that time will take care of it. Enough exposure, and you'll grow desensitized to it.

They have this fun box to check when you enlist in the military. Do you have any problems with guns or blood? I marked no. First time i saw a helicopter medivac I thought i was gonna puke, but then the urgency of the situation took over and second one wasn't even an issue. My only suggestion for you is focus on the task at hand, not what it is you are doing. Being prepared for it, studying and knowing what you are doing, shut off the part of your brain that makes you think and just act. If you know what you are doing, then it's quite possible and easy after a while.

Valkyrie wrote:

Howard A Treesong wrote:

Valkyrie wrote:Thanks for your advice guys wish me luck for Monday, we'll be doing heart dissections.

How did it go? These sorts of things are optional in classes, you can just watch someone else cut it up.

Have you ever prepared meat in a kitchen? I would suggest getting a few odds and ends like a heart and kidney from the butcher and cutting them up in your own time at home before doing it under any kind of pressure in a class.

I'm squeamish about seeing stuff on medical dramas, having someone guts being fiddled about with makes me ill. I also hate seeing needles being put in people, yet drama all the time has to show a close up the needle going into the skin on the TV.

I haven't done it yet, we're doing it on Monday. She said that I could sit out if I'm feeling ill but I want to give it a go, see if I can get over it. I've never thought of getting used to it using stuff from the butcher, I may have to try that, thanks for the idea.

We were all expected to supply our own hearts or kidneys for class by asking for them from the butcher. You'll either get them free or for a nominal charge but you need to ask for it with all the tubes attached. The butcher normally tends to neaten it up or cut it about and you don't want that because you want to be able to see the various valves and chambers when you cut it open.

IG_urban wrote:

Valkyrie wrote:Just had my first proper day at college today and I had a double session of Biology. During the discussion of cardiovascular disease, I started feeling faint, my hands went numb and I almost collapsed. It happened twice in less than two hours, and I'm seriously considering having to switch to a different course, which I don't particularly want to do, seeing as I was lucky to get into Biology in the first place. I've had this problem during GCSE level but it has never been as bad as this, I've spoken to a doctor and several teachers about it yet their advice just doesn't seem to work. Does anyone have this/have had this before, and if so do you know anything that I can do to help control it?

Thanks,

No need for this , thanks !

*double sided moding*

Watch all of the faces of death movies, then both Hostel movies. You will then be so numb to human suffering that you could gag a cannibal serial killer.

When I first saw event Horizon, I had nightmares for weeks ( I was pretty young) especially over the video they show half way through.

I had major problems with gore for a long time untill only recently I decided enough was enough, and forced myself to watch all the Saw movies. I basically desensitised myself enough to no longer go weak at the knees over them, but they are still pretty nasty to watch. It worked a treat and I don't have real problems with gore anymore


Maybe try as others have also written and try to rent some movies you know would normally make you squeemish, and try to watch them as far as you can. It eventually stops being such a big issue.

I may have a little bit of advice to offer. This deals less with seeing things to lessen your aversion and more what to do when you actually start to feel squeamish. For a little background, I'm not particularly squeamish save for certain things that turn my stomach. The best I can offer is to breath. Close your eyes, breath deep, breath slow, pay attention to your breathing. As you do, try to slack your muscles, don't tense. If it gets too bad, ask to step away for a few minutes.

Second best advice? Don't try to think about the details of what you're looking at, do your best to keep your mind on what you're doing, and keep the wording in your head friendly. Don't cut the wriggly blood spurty vein on something that was once alive, cut the tube that leaks red fluid on the something that's more or less a collection of carbon based matter.

My best wishes to you. Breath deep.

At the end of the day it is just meat. Not really a fan of handling raw meat myself (even when cooking) but I didn't have a problem cutting stuff up in biology, and only felt a bit off at University where I had to play with sawn up bits of human (though that was mostly the smell of preservative rather than the leg/arm/hand/internal organ/etc).

Perhaps think about what you are cutting as a biological machine might help. Each bit is a component of the machine that does something and your goal is to find out what it does and how it does it.

I've seen several of my friends faint at the sight of bone, or arms going the wrong way.Easiest way to remember is that this sorta stuff is inside us all. We all have a heart, brain kidney or liver no matter how abused and each of us is different in some way.

Watch all those *wild kingdom* documentaries with the animals eating other animals. I'd also say watch medical procedure movies.

Thanks for your help everyone. I had the heart dissection lesson today, and it didn't go well. I lasted longer than I thought, but within 10 minutes I had fainted.

Thats ok. The question not asked-why would you want to overcome it?

I'm squeamish of blood and bugs but I did manage to get through a heart dissection, and a lung dissection, and prodding a liver with my fingers. I say just try your best to be brave and stay up right and it will eventually pass. Just like feeling sorry for victims of disasters/crime/war/famine you see on TV. You initially feel sorry for them, but as compassion fatigue sets in, you'll eventually go 'get off the screen, I've seen this advert for charity about a millions times before, I want my soap' [Don't look at me like that, we've all thought it]