Applied tension for the fainting response — what my nurse taught me

Started 19 September 2025 · 21 replies · 180 hearts · read 2.9k times

PerrineStrasbourg, FR · 19 September 2025

10 months ago

Applied tension for the fainting response — what my nurse taught me Writing it down partly to work out what I actually think.

Before anyone says it: yes, I have an appointment booked. I would still like to hear from people who have had this.

Here is where I am. The medication side has been more or less as described, and the part nobody prepared me for is everything around it: what to say to people, how to plan a week, and how to tell the difference between a thing to endure and a thing to raise.

I have read the guides here, which were more useful than anything else I have found, and I still have a question they do not cover.

Sorry for the length. If anyone has been here, I would very much like to hear it.

Bryn MNeath, UK

I am about four months behind you and I have been dreading exactly this, so thank you for writing it down before I got there.

7me too 6

BassCoventry, UK

Reading the opening post, I recognised more of that than I expected to.

Yes to the burping. It is real, it is unbeautiful, and it does settle.

EsiFacilitatorToronto, Canada

the reply above — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

I want to slow this down a little. There are four different answers flying about and they are all somebody's real experience, which makes them true and not necessarily relevant to the person who asked.

BessLouth, UK

For what it is worth, the trial data on this is thinner than the confidence of the internet would suggest. Worth knowing when you read the posts.

WinkleWeymouth, UK

the reply above said something I want to sit with for a second.

Have you got anyone who can be with you when you do it? It made an enormous difference to me and I felt silly asking.

IslaOban, UK

The thing that changed it for me was going slower, agreed with my prescriber. I am not suggesting you do that. I am saying the conversation exists.

7me too 1

Ollie OPeterhead, UK

I did exactly the same and felt terrible about it. You have not done anything wrong.

BramwellRipon, UK

Practical, boring answer: write the three questions down before you go in. I have never once remembered them otherwise.

HéloïseGeneva, CH

the reply above — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

Coming back to this a fortnight later to say it settled. Leaving the update because I hate reading threads that stop.

TavitaApia, WS

#10

I am the person who had the frightening version of this. I went in, it was investigated, and it was not what anyone feared. Going in is the whole of my advice.

BronLincoln, UK

#11

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

Mine lasted about seven weeks and then lifted over a few days. I cannot tell you why. I can tell you it lifted.

7me too 2

DelythBala, UK

#12

Yes. All of this. I had the same in my third month and I remember thinking there was something specifically wrong with me, which there was not.

PietPretoria, ZA

#13

I have been in this circle a year and this question comes round every few months. It is not a silly question. It is the question.

PerrineStrasbourg, FR

#14

Gently disagreeing with the reply above, or rather adding the other half of it.

Similar here, and mine turned out to be a completely unrelated deficiency picked up on bloods.

Bryn MNeath, UK

#15

The phrase that unlocked my appointment was asking what specifically she wanted me to watch for. It moved us from reassurance to a plan in about thirty seconds.

BassCoventry, UK

#16

the reply above said something I want to sit with for a second.

Different experience here, for balance. Mine did not improve and in the end I stopped, and that was the right call for me. Both outcomes exist.

TaaviTallinn, EE

#17

I would take that to a clinician rather than to us, and I would do it this week. Not because it is definitely serious — because it is the sort of thing that is much easier to rule out than to worry about.

BessLouth, UK

#18

Two things that helped me, neither of them clever: small amounts more often, and drinking a lot more than felt necessary.

WinkleWeymouth, UK

#19

My pharmacist was more use than anyone. Ten minutes at the counter, no appointment, no charge.

EsiFacilitatorToronto, Canada

#20

Before anyone offers a remedy: what has been described here is on the list of things that need a clinician today rather than a thread. I am going to be firm about that, kindly.

14me too 4

Ollie OPeterhead, UK

#21

the reply above said something I want to sit with for a second.

My experience was very boring, which I offer as data. Some of us just get a dull time of it.