Syncope

A friend and I were talking about her absence from work last Friday. She was on medical leave because she felt dizzy as she was getting out of bed and had to lie down again to prevent total lost of conciousness.

She laid on her back for a couple of hours before she was just well enough to call her husband back from work to take her to the doctor. She could not even turn to her side because the movement would make the room spin.

The doctor told her that her blood pressure was a little high and would need to be checked again next week. But he/she did not explain to her why she felt dizzy. I told her that it could probably be due her high blood pressure.

She told me that she often feels dizzy especially when she bends her head down towards the floor but her pressure has always been within acceptable limit and she is not on medication.

She further said that when she was younger, she was prone to fainting. She first fainted when she was a child. Her mother was giving her a hair cut, to prepare her for the start of a school term when she lost conciousness suddenly.

As she fell to the ground, she knocked her head on a door. She was not sure how long she had fainted but when she was coming through, she heard someone crying and had thought it was the neighbour. She wanted to get up (she probably thought she was sleeping) to tell them to stop crying. When she opened her eyes, she realised she had fainted, was bleeding on the forehead and her mother was looking down at her with teary eyes.

She also remembered the time when she was queuing at the post office and the people around her kept asking her whether she was feeling all right. She wondered why they asked her that and she even replied that she was fine. Then all of a sudden, she fainted and had to be carried into the office for first-aid.

There was another time when she gained conciousness she discovered that someone had brought her to the hospital.

However, the syncope stopped after she gave birth to her first child. After that she usually just feel dizzy and last Friday was the first bad incident after a long while.

She told me that she had blood tests done and the results were all fine. The doctors could not find anything seriously wrong with her. I told her about blood circulation and that blood was unable to flow up to her brain which caused the fainting spells. She needs to find out what causes that to happen. I guess it's probably due to some vesticular problems. So the next time she feels faint, she should lie down on the ground to prevent losing conciousness or at least sit down to ensure that blood is able to flow better.

I told her that I would print out some articles for her on this illness when I get home. I remember having done some researches on syncope, vertigo, sudden death and cardiac arrest the first two months after my mother's death.

Below are some links on this illness:

When a child faints

vestibular balance disorders

syncope