I used to experience black-outs once a year when I was younger in primary school. And there was once I fell forward on an escalator at a MRT station as i was running late for work and the sharp edge of the escalator step pierced hard into my shin, and the pain caused me to black out on the train. Besides, there were a couple of times I just blacked out at home in the kitchen and in the toilet for no apparent reason. The pre-blackout symptoms were exactly the same all these years. I would see colourful stars and dark spots and eventually break out into cold sweat. Thereafter, energy would drain out of my body, so much that I had to lie down. So, the only possible explanations for such symptoms I can infer from all my experiences would be sudden downward blood flow from my brain (from standing up too abruptly) or blood loss due to injury or injury pain or over-excitement. My blood flow abit sord one. The symptoms and the likely causes don't really make sense to me.
Recently, i realised another cause for black-outs to happen to me and due to the same event, I discovered a new fear (or phobia now) that I have, albeit very unpleasantly. It was my honour to be invited to an event to witness the very amazing effects of what fillers and Botox could do to beautify women. Of course, I knew what are fillers and that they involve injections. Injections have always sounded frightening to me, but I don't remember being very afraid of needles when I was in Primary 6 even though I cried upon seeing my fellow primary school classmates cry. Haha. And i remember it wasn't even really painful afterall.
Ok, back to the story. So, I noticed that I was pretty uncomfortable about having such a clear front-row view of the needles poking into the volunteer's face. It was a little surprising to me then, because I was never aware of such physiological reflex that my body had at the sight of needles. As it was an invite-only event, I got hold of myself to snap some photos of the entire filler-injection procedure on one cheek. See, I how responsible despite all the uneasiness!
But within seconds after that injection, I started seeing the familiar stars and black spots. I was still confident of (and overestimated) myself in managing the discomfort and thought that closing my eyes and taking a rest from the heart-throbbing injections would chase those stars and spots away. I shut my eyes... It was definitely out of my calculations that I would even black-out.
The very next moment when I opened my eyes, the ENTIRE nurse crew PLUS the doctor who carried out the filler injection earlier on were surrounding me, all looking dead-worried. I noticed that the doc was holding my head up straight and preventing it from falling backwards again. It was then that I realised that my attempt to keep myself calm and rid my mind of the stars and spots was futile.
My bestie, Lianne, who was also my date for the event AND happens to be a lit major, vividly described the entire process of my seizure during the black-out. Apparently, I only blacked out for 1-2 minutes with all the following happening out of my awareness:
My body involuntarily moved right and "rested" on Lianne's shoulder, then it jerked left and rammed into Peishi, another blogger sitting on my left. Lianne got hold of my arm to stop the jerky movements, but she couldn't stop me from making weird gurgling sound and murmurs, with my entire body shaking and trembling slightly. Thank god that it was only within a minute or two that she realised something was wrong with all my symptoms and got help from the medical staff. And, I'm also thankful that it was only the pre-faint symptoms, not the full-out faint, so i regained consciousness within minutes.
So, I wiki'ed what epileptic seizure is and hope the below info could help you identify if you might have such a condition. Don't worry, I'm ok now!!! I'll just avoid needles next time! ^^ Don't worry. :)
An epileptic seizure, occasionally referred to as a fit, is defined as a transient symptom of "abnormal excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain". The outward effect can be as dramatic as a wild thrashing movement (tonic-clonic seizure) or as mild as a brief loss of awareness (absence seizure). It can manifest as an alteration in mental state, tonicor clonic movements, convulsions, and various other psychic symptoms
About 4% of people will have an unprovoked seizure by the age of 80 and the chance of experiencing a second seizure is between 30% and 50%.
Seizures are often associated with a sudden and involuntary contraction of a group of muscles and loss of consciousness. However, a seizure can also be as subtle as a fleeting numbness of a part of the body, a brief or long term loss of memory, visual changes, sensing/discharging of an unpleasant odor, a strange epigastric sensation, or a sensation of fear and total state of confusion. A seizure can last from a few seconds to status epilepticus, a continuous group of seizures that is often life-threatening without immediate intervention.
Some patients are able to tell when a seizure is about to happen. Some symptoms experienced by the person before a seizure may include dizziness, lightheadedness, tightening of the chest, and some experience things in slow-motion just prior to the seizure.
Some possible causes of provoked seizure are dehydration, sleep deprivation, head injury, intoxication with drugs, fever, metabolic disturbances, withdrawal from drugs and stroke.I apologize that I can't provide you with more professional information. But, please take care of your health and see a doctor if you see that you experienced the above symptoms often.
There is a flu bug attacking many of my friends recently. Please drink lots of water or herbal tea and eat pi pa gao or flu medicine for quick recovery before you spread the symptoms to your loved ones k. It's week 4 of school already! Hwaiting~
Ok, I'm gonna end here abruptly as I've got an assignment due soon!
x,
Ziwei :)
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