Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/64524/

Don't read what I'm about to say if you are grossed out by blood and injuries.

I have wondered the same thing myself, Damasta. I've actually had several discussions about the same thing since I started med school. I liked Mico's answer, and that's pretty much what the people I've discussed it with think, too.

Now time for the gross story. I once was in the bathtub shaving my legs, and my hand slipped, and I sliced off most of two of my fingernails. It was surprisingly not painful (and didn't become painful later, either), and there was blood, but not an excessive amount of blood. I've had cuts that bled more than that. But I started to get all shaky and dizzy and feel like I was going to faint, and I thought to myself, "I'd better get out of the bathtub now before I pass out and drown." I'm certainly not someone who gets grossed out by blood. In fact, I just finished watching an anatomy review video involving cadavers while sitting here eating my steak and corn on the cob. I think the reason the fingernail incident freaked me out so much was just the shock of seeing my fingers without their fingernails. Definitely unexpected and not supposed to happen!

there's a vasovagal response to seeing blood, and in some people it is especially sensitive. In fact, blood-injury-injection phobia is one of the few specific phobias where you can suffer symptoms (fainting) without actually feeling scared. I know I'm a little susceptible to this, so I made myself watch a lot of House! I think it helped, except I felt kind of faint reading that story...

The only time I've ever felt light-headed or squeamish about blood/injuries was from looking at pictures of burn victims in a first aid class ... Oh. My. Word.

The only time I felt light-headed because of blood was when I pricked my own finger to do a blood test in a Heredity class. It shocked me that I got so light-headed. I mean, I donate blood, I've had blood drawn several times, I've had several injuries with blood, so the one time I do it to myself, I almost faint? I even volunteered to do it! It wasn't like I was pressured into it. My teacher said that was quite common, though.

I love medical dramas like House and Grey's Anatomy and have no trouble watching things with a lot of blood in them. But I tend to faint in health class type situations when people talk about medical things. In high school a woman came to talk about childbirth, and she had a baby doll in a red velvet bag that was supposed to be a uterus. She was just talking about it and I started to pass out. Then last year I went to a preparing for motherhood seminar put on by the stake and the same thing happened. It was just a lady talking along with a power point but I had to stagger out of the cultural hall and go lay down in a pew in the chapel. The handful of times I've seriously cut my fingers also meant laying on my back to keep from fainting.

Menstruation shouldn't be gushing or bright red like a bad cut: if it is, something's wrong. It flows at a rather slow rate and is more brown in tint. "Hymenal blood," (for lack of a better term?) on the other hand, can be rather gushy and red and freaky, that's for sure.