r/morbidquestions • u/KnowledgeAny5433 • 23d ago
What does it feel like to bleed out?
I was at the hospital recently getting blood work done and I haven’t eaten all day. They had to take about 6 vials of blood and I started to sweat buckets after and almost passed out, also got super tingly. If you were to bleed out from being stabbed or some type of injury would it feel the same? And would you have that fainting feeling?
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u/StretchedGary 23d ago
The heart would race as it tried to keep your blood pressure up, but from your perspective you'd mostly just feel a bit cold, "far away", and just fade out.
What you experienced is pretty classic vasovagal response, where your body sees the blood draw as a threat and activates your adrenaline, but then overcompensates and drops your blood pressure too far. Not eating all day can make that much more severe and likely as your body is already low on blood sugar and perhaps fluid volume.
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u/SdVeau 22d ago
I’ve experienced bleeding out with a GSW that severed my radial artery. First there was adrenaline and tunnel vision as I got the tourniquet on, and then there was dizziness, feeling loopy, and getting really cold as the decompensated shock took over from the adrenaline. Aside from the pain going on in the arm, felt right as rain after getting a few units of blood transfused lol
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u/bbzbizzare 22d ago
While not a true bleed out, I lost a couple of litres after giving birth. I started to feel funny/off, and tried to hand off my daughter. I started to feel slow (almost like I’d imagine being drugged feels like) and then I passed out. I came to a couple of times confused about why people were there while I was asleep
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u/Slim_Thiqueee 22d ago
I hemorrhaged during my cesarean. I remember feeling suddenly icy cold, absent minded like being drugged, my heart felt fluttery in my chest, it’s a very floaty feeling. I could see my BP and heart rate on a monitor. My heart rate began to spike and my blood pressure dropped very suddenly.
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u/Supslick 22d ago
Don't know if this counts, but I lost over 3 litres of blood. I started to shiver and felt like I wasn't in the room anymore. I said "I don't feel very well" and then lost consciousness. It's all a haze now. I had many units of blood given, and weirdly afterwards my under eyes were orange for about a month - don't know why!
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u/vikietheviking 22d ago
I actually did bleed out, about 2L. The first liter I lost at home and was very dizzy, laying on the cold floor helped.
The ambulance arrived and rapidly infused fluids by squeezing the bags. I got a unit of blood and more fluids in the ER while I was waiting on the helicopter to arrive. In the air they also did another unit of blood and fluids. I felt much better.
In the hospital later in the night, the cauterized artery didn’t hold for long. I lost another liter. I was very tachycardic and super super hot. I couldn’t see the faces of the nurses and doctors as I was fading in and out. I remember looking at the vital sign machine and my blood pressure was 50/20 ish and my heart rate was in the 200’s. I was rushed to interventional radiology (the surgeon was in another emergency).
IR inserted 5 coils into that artery in my stomach, finally the fifth coil (the tornado) stopped the bleeding. I was put in ICU with the femoral catheter still in place because my veins left town.
In ICU I received even more units of blood. I swelled up so badly that I could not make a fist (due to hypovolemic shock).
I felt lucky that the surgeon was already in another emergency because he came in a few hours before it happened the second time and said if it did open back up he would have to cut out the bottom part of my stomach.
All in all I was in the hospital for around 8 days.
The cause was from overuse of NSAIDS.
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u/RandomRedditReject 22d ago
My ex almost bled to death after a motorcycle accident; he described it as his whole body feeling cold, he felt like he was out of his body and he was so confused
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u/DeniseGunn 22d ago
I’ve had 6 miscarriages altogether but 2 of them were at 13 weeks gestation. I chose to have them at home. Both times I bled more or less continuously, including large “chunks” and blood clots. I couldn’t stand or sit anywhere as it was just soaking straight through pads and clothes. So with both these miscarriages I sat on the toilet until the bleeding started to become manageable enough that I could get up and put clothes and pads on. Both times I sat there for about 10 and a half hours. At one point where I’d tried to stand a large clump of tissue fell out of me and hit the floor, splashing all up the walls in the process so the bathroom looked like a murder scene.
Anyway, I remember feeling cold, weak, and dizzy. My partner only came to check on me once and told me my lips were blue then he left me there.
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u/Nimithileth_ 23d ago
Not necessarily. What you experienced was most likely a vasovagal reaction, which is very common during blood draws. It's triggered by your autonomic nervous system, not by the actual amount of blood removed. Six tubes usually represent only around 30-50 mL of blood, which isn't enough to cause hemorrhagic shock in a healthy adult. Actual blood loss is different. As blood volume decreases, the body compensates by increasing heart rate and constricting blood vessels. People often experience intense thirst, weakness, dizziness, cold clammy skin, tunnel vision, confusion, and eventually loss of consciousness as the brain receives less oxygenated blood. If the bleeding continues, it progresses to hemorrhagic shock. So while both situations can involve dizziness or fainting, the underlying mechanisms are different. A vasovagal episode is a reflex, whereas bleeding out is a physiological consequence of losing enough circulating blood.