Q: My 24 yr. old daughter starting having anxiety issues in high school while having to watch a film with gore..(Joan of Arc, etc.) This continued through college, again, feeling faint, fingertips tingled, vision became funny, seeing spots and her hearing was temporarily affected. After leaving the room, she’d start to feel normal. Just recently, she was a juror in a civil case. The lawyers were discussing broken bones on a little boy (no photos were shown). She was listening intently in the first row when she started feeling like she would faint–sweaty, numb fingertips, seeing spots, hearing issues but she did not faint. They stopped the proceedings to help her out of the courtroom and bring the alternate in. She was so embarrassed! Someone asked her why she didn’t put on the jury questionnaire that she had a medical condition?She said, she does not take medication for it and didn’t think she had a condition to warrant it. What would this type of condition be called and is there anything she can do about it? Would this be a blood and injury phobic?
– Tina P.
A: Yes. This is a blood and injury phobia. Having blood drawn–or watching someone else give blood–or watching an operation, or watching someone who has been injured– causes a fall in blood pressure and fainting. Patients are asymptomatic the rest of the time. An important element in such a phobia is being a passive witness. For instance, if your daughter was first on the scene when the young man was injured–AND SHE HAD TO HELP HIM– she would not have fainted. Similarly, a medical student operating for the first time will not pass out, but the student nurse standing behind him might.
This phobia is treated as most phobias, namely, by slow and graduated exposure. Most of the time most patients do not want to go through the effort, however, it can be done. I once had to treat a life-long needle phobia in a pregnant woman who had developed gestational diabetes. She had to have her blood drawn frequently. We started with her playing with hypodermic needles, then watching from the other end of the room while other patients gave blood, and then sitting closer and closer to them, and so on. Whenever she felt like she was about to black out, she backed away momentarily. The whole process was completed in a matter of days. Her phobia did not return after giving birth. I posted a number of blogs on this condition, including one on my personal experiences with fainting
– Dr. Neuman