I'm about to talk about medical issues including needles and seizures. If that bothers you, please stop reading immediately.

So it turns out the dentist is no exception to my increasingly disruptive vasovagal response, and I'm pissed. For those that don't know what it is, basically in certain triggering situations, my ears ring, I get tunnel vision, hot flashes, then my blood pressure drops and I pass out for some seconds, seizing up and shaking while I do, until I wake up completely dazed and vomit for a while.

This happens to me when I'm around needles, in short. In long, it's also happened when I had a splinter, when I saw my friend's newborn child still in the hospital, and during certain female health tests. And now the dentist, though that never bothered me before. It used to only leave me fatigued and nauseous for a half a day. Now, I'm down for a for a full day at least, trying desperately not to be sick again, or to mentally relive the experience and possibly have a second bout of it.

Since this happened to me, I wasn't able to get my fillings. And I have two visits total that I need to do this in. So I have to go back Monday and try again. My dentist prescribed me Valium, and said to try putting salt under my tongue. Hopefully these things will take control away from my nervous system enough to let her work. But honestly, just thinking about doing this all again in a week is enough to make me want to run screaming. It's incredibly painful, and makes me feel quite a bit of shame over my own weakness.

My husband linked me an article about using your muscles to keep your conscious. You practice tensing your body and raising your blood pressure, then when the time comes, you do it then and it helps you stay afloat. I'm hoping between this and the Valium, I can survive two more visits. Apparently aversion therapy is the most effective treatment for this. But the thought of repeatedly fake-injecting myself makes me want to vomit again, just typing it. Like, typing this journal, right now, has already made me feel very nauseous once more. It's ridiculous.

So yeah, just... I hate this. I hate having this, I hate that it's getting worse instead of better, and I hate the cures because they make me sick to think about.

Work might be slow while I go through this, since it lays me down for so long each time. I'll do my best to keep going, and hopefully something I do will help me through these reactions.