Severe needle phobia

I have this issue too, I was fine up until I was around 18 when I chopped the end off my left thumb, when it came time for an injection I passed out.  For years if I saw a needle on the tv I would pull a whitey or leave the room, dont think I saw all of trainspotting until I was nearly 30.

Since then I have had bloods taken twice, nearly passed out both times, am now 45 so the vets will be badgering me for more regular blood tests especially as there is a family history of high cholesterol and heart issues and my dad has cancer which is terminal but also possibly hereditary.

The daft thing is now I can happily use a syringe and needle but still cant have one being used in anger on me.

I used to have regular bi-weekly injections into my aris – but it was a big needle. Wasn’t so much the needle as the ‘medication’ and how fast the person shoved it in – it caused me to limp for 4 or 5 days – did it in 10 seconds when it’s recommended at least a minute – lots of soft tissue damage. I switched meds eventually as I was limping for nearly a week, then OK for another week, then limping again.  I was having them when I was laid up with a spinal fracture, and most of the nurses wouldn’t do the injection due to the needle size, so gave it to the head nurse.

Good idea… The nurse? Person who gave me my second covid jab was brilliant… I told her I was very bad with injections, and she said with a slight chuckle that she’d be more worried if I said I enjoyed them.

Whilst I was processing that comment it was done.

There’s definatley some soft/social skills involved as a distraction, as makes a huge difference for people who are phobic.

I’ve got a sub conscious blood related feinting issue it seems. Which really sucks because I’ve got heamachromatosis which meant spending a year doing weekly venesections (blood donations), and now every three months or so.

Sub conscious because my conscious brain isn’t bothered at all and I find the whole thing interesting. One I allow myself to think about blood draining out though that’s it, off we go.

The weekly ones I could manage after the first couple as I got used to it, distraction etc. not it’s blood donations via the usual service it’s much harder to manage.

Not sure what help this is, but maybe someone finds is useful to see other people struggle too, you’re not alone!

Addition to the post above. My last flu and Covid jabs were amusing (to me anyway) in a crocodile Dundee style “Do you have any issues with needles?” “Yes, but that’s not a needle”

I’m another one who has a problem with the piercing of skin. I can watch operations… but I hate the bit where they slice the skin open. I like knives, really sharp knives, but that’s because for them generally any skin piercing means an accident… I hate hypodermic needles as their entire reason for existing is to pierce skin. I don’t like having any sort of jabs/bloods, but can stand it so long as I don’t watch.

Being a pharmacist, however, we now have to give vaccinations to people, so I went to hypnotherapy to help me be able to do it… I’m not keen even handling needles due to the reasons above. Those sessions are where I pinned down (so to speak) exactly why I don’t like them. I’d have to say the hypno did work – jabbing people is never going to be my favourite thing, but I can do it now.

In the meantime, OP: go buy some Emla cream for her which completely numbs the area. Apply under an occlusive dressing – cling film works well! Other numbing creams are available, but that’s the most popular, and what we used for our daughter.

MrsIHN doesn’t like needles, to the point where a planned operation was canned in the pre-op room because she was freaking out so much when they were trying to give her a general anaesthetic.

She had a course of hypnotherapy (which she’d previously used for a similar fear of insects, again, all general anxiety based), which allowed her to get through the second go at the operation.

I also have an issue with the piercing of the skin. I can watch a gory operation where someone has already been cut open but watching the needle or knife going in or even just thinking about it gives me a whitey. It’s the tention of the skin before the needle goes through.

I once fainted at work when a colleague was talking about accidentally administering his daughters epi pen in to his leg. I has cryo ablation for AF a few years back, I worried way more about the cannula that the procedure.

I’ve lost count over the years how many times I’ve nearly or have fainted because of it. Just writing this makes me feel queezy.

Back to the OP, is your daughter scared of other pain not from injections?

Distraction is a good idea.

Recreate this, video it for future use

go buy some Emla cream

Has been tried several times, does not apparently work on her.

She is ok with general injuries if they’re sustained during the course of something fun.

She is ok with general injuries if they’re sustained during the course of something fun.

clearly the answer is to arm yourself with the vaccine and crawl under the trampoline and get your timing just right!

FWIW I’d question the ethics of a school trip to Germany insisting on a tetanus booster.  Not that I think having the 3 in 1 booster she would be due at 14 is a bad idea – she perhaps needs to understand that Tetanus, Ditheria, and Polio are absolutely horrendous conditions.  It’s easy as a Gen Z in the U.K. to believe those are either old diseases or third world problems.  I’m not suggesting it’s as simple as knowing the downside to not having the vaccine and the fear goes away but it might be the motivation needed to either take medication or get hypnotherapy to help with it.  As someone else further up the thread said there’s a bunch of other vaccines which teenage girls in particular are particularly encouraged to get for MMR, HPV etc and solving the bigger problem might make it easier to get those too.

I don’t say any of this lightly – my wife is a Type 1 Diabetic who is scared of needles!  She will inject herself because she knows it keeps her alive.  Needles borne by nurses/doctors/dentists don’t always go so well and when she goes to any of those places I need to make sure I am close by for the phone call to collect her if she’s passed out or thrown up!   In contrast I am a bit weird and not only don’t mind needles but have happily watched as they’ve stitched me up in the past!

I’ve got a sub conscious blood related feinting issue it seems.

I once fainted at work when a colleague was talking about accidentally administering his daughters epi pen in to his leg. I has cryo ablation for AF a few years back, I worried way more about the cannula that the procedure.

A lad I used to work with had a blood phobia. He was telling us about it one time. That was enough to knock him out. He was walking past about five minutes later and fainted mid-stride. It was the weirdest thing, he went down like dropping a plank, imagine the Del Boy / bar scene only face first. We thought he was cocking about, took us a moment to realise what’d happened. Bust up his nose in the process.

I think tetanus might not be as bad pain nowadays as I had one way back 50 years ago in the butt cheek due to an open wound and burst ankle then went 40 years before I had a booster due to bursting my knee open in a shitty sheep field think cryptosporidium etc, wee jab in the arm nothing like what I was dreading but I agree it’s all to do with how good the nurse is whether you get a massive bruise

Can’t say I’m particularly fond of having needles poked in my arm, or anywhere else for that matter, but I just deal with it by not looking! Over the last two years I’ve had the full set of Covid and boosters, blood samples for general health care purposes, and eleven tattoos with two more due at the end of the month with touch-ups on a couple more, and possibly a third in the same session, if my artist can fit it in. Then there were the anaesthetic injections in my eyes for cataract surgery…

Twice. Although fortunately I couldn’t see anything, and they do put numbing drops into the corner of the eye. That’s not something I’m going to be doing again, fortunately.

<p style=”text-align: left;”>To dilate the pupils to see the back of the eye it’s not a needle but a squirt or two of fairy liquid in the eye , well that’s what it feel like as you get sent back to the waiting room greetin</p>

Thread resurrection to share a success story. My daughter, 14 has had a severe needle phobia for eight years or so ever since a blood test with a ham-fisted and unsympathetic nurse.

She has been unable to get any vaccinations ever since, HPV, Covid, nothing. We could just about get her in the room, and maybe roll her sleeve up, but as soon as they approach, panic and refusal.

We’ve had private hypnotherapy, but her unwillingness to engage meant it led to nothing.

Anyway, she has just had two jabs! These are what worked for us:

– Shot blocker

This creates a sensation around the jab area so that the jab is less of a shock.

– Not forcing! Being too directive and forceful is like yanking at a knotted shoelace. It has to be understood and gently pulled in the right places. She needed to be in control. We booked them to come for a home visit so she was in a familiar environment.

– Repetition. We had her write all her feelings about getting a jab. The first time was tough reading (“I’d rather die than have an injection”) and re-write it each evening. The theory is that it desensitises those feelings over time. Interestingly the content became less negative over time.

We also repeatedly practiced the process. Her assuming the position (covered in a blanket headphones on, watching Netflix) and me prodding about on her arm with the shot blocker and a pin. This really helped.

The result? Two jabs today with minimal trauma. Proud parents.

That’s excellent, well done her, it’s a massive achievement

It’s a weird phobia!
My partner’s daughter has a needle phobia.

She’s covered in tattoos.

🤷‍♂️

I’m now up to around 20 tattoos, and I’m not bothered by the process, I understand it’s going to be uncomfortable for as long as my tattooist is working, and then it (mostly) stops.

Vaccinations, I can’t watch while it’s being done, even though I know it’s very brief and isn’t even close to being as uncomfortable as an hour or two being inked; I guess the difference is that it’s not really possible to actually see needles on a tattoo gun, it no different to watching someone using a big felt pen or something, a vaccination you can see an actual needle being poked into your flesh.

My most recent tattoo was on the inside of my left bicep – that was a bit salty for some considerable time! 😣

@pisco sounds just like my daughter.

In the end we talked about it loads and joked a lot. Some nerves when we went to the private place, but I think what did it was me leaving the room so it was just her and a very lovely chatty nurse (who’d been well briefed). And in the end she was fine. She came out saying ‘it didn’t hurt at all!’ yeah we know, we’ve been trying to tell you that for years. I guess you just didn’t believe us 🙂