I’ve been scared of needles since I was little, which is fairly normal, but the fear is still there, and it’s really bad. Whenever I am approached with a needle, I try to run away or hide from it. I have to get blood drawn so the doctors can see if my thyroid glands are working right, and I know I have to get this done, but I’m terrified. It’s really, really hard for me to just stay calm, since I go into full-on fight or flight mode. Sometimes even thinking about it makes me panic.
The main thing about it that bothers me is the idea of something going into my skin, and leaving a hole in it. I do not like it when there are holes in my me. The anxiety lasts for about a day after the needle encounter, as the ache reminds me of the hole. The combination of the ache and the idea of the hole causes my intrusive thoughts to go wild. The most common one is, “hey, chop off your arm, then the hole won’t be there anymore.”
How do I suppress this? I feel really bad for the doctors that have to deal with me, and I don’t want to give them a hard time. They have enough trouble with children, they don’t need an anxious 5’5” trans guy trying to hide under tables.
As someone who had had many blood test. What I found worked best for me unfortunately was time. The first time I went in, I was SHITTING MYSELF scared, now, I can watch the needle go in an not even flinch. There's plenty of numbing creams out there to easy the pain. Butterfly needles are tiny, I mean tiny tiny, so there's not that big of a hole to being with, but after a minute, the hole is blocked by platelets and there's no longer a hole there. As for pain, I've never really experienced aches after a blood test, just some light bruising. Shots and blood test are two different things any have two different results, so you may find you don't feel the same about different needles !!
I have a fear of needles as well and as weird as it may sound, I have this little panda keychain on my backpack and I bring it to the doctors with me when I get shots or blood work. When I get overwhelmed I squeeze the panda and it helps a lot. And for the hole thing, try using oragel. It will numb the skin and the anxiety tends to fade. Elsa's famous words “ conceal don't feel” well this is it.
Tomorrow’s the day, lads, ladies and laddon’ts! I’m terrified! I do not want to leave my bed! I can barely move! Writing this is the only thing kind of distracting me from my impending doom! I am going to die! There will be Stick in Skin tomorrow! There will be Hole! I hate Hole! Bad Stick can’t get me if I don’t move!
Hey! I'm sitting for a blood test right now! Bad stick won't hurt as much as you think it will, and like I said, there's only a tiny hole, and it'll heal over in a matter of minutes anyway!
All done!! The worst part was when they pulled the needle out, but I got a groovy frozen bandaid after so pogg
AAAAAAAAAA IT IS TODAY AND IM TERRIFIED
Hey, calm down! Deep breaths! You'll get through this!
IT IS IN 3 HOURS I AM SO SCARED
Im scared they’re gonna have to hold me down and I wanna just stick my arm out and close my eyes but I don’t know if I’ll be able to because of THE BIG FUCKIN TWISTY TURNIES IN ME STOMACH AND THE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA IN MY BRAIN
Seriously eyes, chill. Remember to keep something to squeeze and deep breathes. Don't Look at the needle either.
Hey, I just got a vaccine fifteen minutes ago! I haven’t had blood taken for a while, but when I did, I had Pokémon Moon open on my 3DS, early game, fighting a level 4 Pikipek with my own as they drew the blood. I concentrated on the battle, not on the shot, even though I was nervous. Both the battle and the blood draw were over before I knew it! Maybe you could do something like that as well? It’s a bit childish, yes, but it works, doing something that you love to take your mind off of your fears.
I just got it done! I’m really proud of myself, and it only took three minutes of stalling! Thank you all for your advice!
Good job eyes! And your welcome
Guess who just got told they have to get seven shots in one day -w-
oof- I’m sorry about that dude
On top of that their my other set of allergy testing so they're gonna hurt ;-;.
