What is happening when you stand up quickly and suddenly get light headed?

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Sometimes you can walk a few steps before feeling woozy and other times it’s like everything is spinning as soon as you stand.

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9 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Your blood is falling from your abdomen to your legs, lowering your blood pressure in your head. Your heart then starts beating faster to bring the pressure back up. The dizzyness is the lowered bp for that few moments.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Orthostatic hypotension. When you get up, your blood pressure needs to accommodate the postural change and sometimes it takes a little to catch up.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The otonomic nerve system can’t keep up regulating bp under stressful conditions. That’s more likely to happen in warmer climates.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It tends to happen more in younger people, or people with low blood pressure – and as long as it’s not causing any significant issues (you’re not falling over), isn’t anything to worry about.

Not uncommon.

I had it as a teenager but “grew out of it” (and in recent years my blood pressure has gone up)

Anonymous 0 Comments

When you’re sitting or, more commonly, lying down, your heart and circulatory system don’t need to work as hard to pump blood up to your head (fighting against gravity). The circulatory system relaxes in this case. If you stand up quickly, your circulatory system might not have enough time to adjust to the sudden posture change, and your brain won’t have enough blood being pumped to it during that period. That causes the dizziness and possibly stars appearing in your vision. As the circulatory system adjusts to you standing again, enough blood gets to your brain again and you go back to normal.

Some people are more susceptible to this and can even faint if they don’t get up slowly enough. The medical term is called orthostatic hypotension, which roughly translates to posture-based low blood pressure.

Anonymous 0 Comments

This is called orthostatic hypotension. It’s not uncommon. I have had it all my life. I get up too fast and whoeeeeeee!!!

If it’s never happened before, consider getting checked out by at least a PCP. If you’re just asking in general it’s because the heart only has to work so hard when you’re sitting or lying down as it does when you suddenly stand up. It takes a minute for the heart to ‘catch up’. Most people with normal blood pressure don’t experience this, or only get it if they’re dehydrated. Chronically low blood pressure types have it all the time.

Considering the long list of bad things that happen with hyPERtension, me’ ‘seeing the fairies’ when I stand up to fast for a few seconds is a price I’ll pay.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It can also happen to people with very high blood pressure. If it happens regularly, ask your doctor.

Anonymous 0 Comments

That would be orthostatic hypotension. Sounds fancy, but orthostatic just means „upright standing“ and hypotension means „low stretch“ / „low pressure“. So it‘s low blood pressure caused by upright standing.

Don‘t let that word scare you, it‘s really common after lying or sitting for a long time and if it‘s just for a brief moment there‘s nothing to worry about.

When you‘re lying down your heart doesn‘t need to pump very hard. It just needs to get the blood flowing. When you suddenly stand up your heart has to work harder, because now it needs to work against gravity.

It takes a while before the heart can react, and in that time you have low blood pressure. That means for a brief moment you‘re not getting enough oxygen, causing dizziness, blurred vision, weakness.

But again, that‘s totally normal and as long as it remains a short period you‘re totally fine