Working in the retail store one day, we had a woman who allowed her child to scream and cry almost non-stop for an hour while she conducted her business. Everyone in the store (more than 20 people) was so damned relieved when she left! The clerk who waited on her got permission to leave early for the day because he had such a headache from being next to it the whole time.
In the midst of it, I don’t think anyone heard me when I muttered under my breath “I swear, there will only be two loud pops, then it will all be over…”
Of course, I remember the time when I was 10 and had three large warts burned off the palms of my hands. Took three nurses to hold me down for the doctor to get the job done and I swear that my screaming peeled the paint off the walls, killed small mammals and prematurely aged everyone in the room.
Hi, my name is pbbth and I still cry when I get shots. I’m 26. I don’t scream and sob or anything, but I will cry quietly to myself the entire time and for a few days before hand. Shots burn! It isn’t the sticking that hurts, it is the fact that it isn’t finished the moment you’re stuck, but they have to sit there for several seconds pumping stuff into or out of your body, both of which cause a horrible burning sensation. I have gotten better over time, actually. When I was 6ish I had to have stitches and they had to strap me down so I couldn’t move and I screamed so loud I might have caused serious hearing damage to the people in the hospital with me but now I just cry quietly to myself. I figure by the time I am 40 or so I should be able to handle the whole process without a problem.
YES. Anyone who says “you’ll only feel a pinch” is a liar, a damn liar, and probably a statistic as well. Two-minute IV flushes with saline for all of 'em. Don’t worry, it’s only a pinch.:mad:
I’m 25 and I can’t stand shots. The doctor had to talk me into getting my latest tetanus shot, and I had to think it over, giving him nervous looks, before finally saying ‘okay’. When the nurse came in I was a nervous wreck, held out my arm, closed my eyes tight while turning my head away, and just said, “Do it. Just do it, don’t wanna see it, just…do it.”
I will remember her name forever. It was Fay. I barely felt a thing. I don’t know how she did it, but it was the most painless shot I’ve ever had. …well, except afterwards, when the aftereffects of the tetanus shot kicked in and I felt like I was punched in the arm for a few days.
Oh, speaking of needles, a funny story. When I was in 2nd grade, I had a cyst on my throat that needed to be surgically removed. One day my mom was walking us back to the car after a doctor’s visit on Oahu, and I noticed we were going a different way back, but didn’t think anything of it.
A nurse walking by said, “Oh, you here for a blood test?”
My mom said “Yeah”. I freaked. Apparently she was trying to keep it a secret from me until the last possible moment, and the nurse ruined it for her. Oops. Years later she told me she basically inwardly facepalmed after the nurse made her blow her cover. Thanks a lot lady.
And the lady giving the blood test lied. She said it’d only be 5 seconds! Only five seconds in my arm!
She counted to TEN that bitch. Yeah, wherever you are, I remember you. :mad:
Heh. I had to get a shot for my lymph node biopsy…they had to inject me with something the day before my surgery so they could figure out which lymph nodes to take out.
The doctor was nice enough to warn me it would feel like a bee sting. :eek:
And the injection goes under your nipple, which, quite frankly, is used to pleasurable touches, not bee stings.
I didn’t need anyone to hold me down, but I did hang on to the technician’s hands and yes, I did holler. The doctor apologized, and I was fine, but damn…I’m not doing that again.
I was a terrible scardey cat until I conceived my son; he’s an invitro baby and I had to have blood drawn and a couple of shots a day for awhile. Needles don’t even phase me anymore.
Not even when my mother lost my immunization record when I was 13 years old in one of our many military moves, and I had to get all of my childhood shots repeated to be able to attend the new school. The biggest problem was going to swim team practice with a really sore arm.
And then a few years later, I was hospitalized with an infection, and they were drawing blood from me in six packs three times a day.
After those experiences, I was completely over any lingering fear of needles.
My 11-year old son has issues, though. He got his flu shot yesterday. He’s been worried about it for weeks. He actually dreads the fall season because he knows he has to get a flu shot.
If I have to get a shot, I cry and shake. Not sobbing-aloud crying, but copious-tears-flowing-down-my-face crying. I also find it helps if I make sure I don’t see the needle go in, by taking off my glasses and turning my head as far from the needle as it will go. I get very stressed for days before anything involving needles, and I’m pretty much worthless for the rest of the day. I crash hard a couple of hours later when the adrenalin works its way out of my system.
Rationally, I know it won’t really hurt much, but that makes no difference to my emotional state. In my case, at least, I suspect a genetic predisposition. My dad and my sister both faint at the sight of needles. I’ll take the crying and shaking over that. I just schedule any appointments that might involve needles for the end of the day (since I’m way too shaken up afterward to be worth anything at work), make sure not to look at where the needle is going in (I can’t even watch something like that on TV or in a movie without feeling nauseous), and make sure I don’t have anything scheduled for that night when I’m going to crash. Mr. Neville and I do plan to have kids someday, and we’ve already agreed that he will take them to the pediatrician for anything involving needles- I would have to look away, and they might learn the fear from me (I even have to look away when the vet gives the cats shots).
There’s an alternative to flu shots that is now approved for healthy children over 24 months old. If your son falls into that category, you might want to look into this for him. I had FluMist once, and I should do it again this year. To needle-phobes getting FluMist- bring a bottle of Coke or some other flavored beverage when you get it. It goes down into the back of your mouth, you can taste it, and it tastes bad.
A few years ago I worked as a floating teacher’s aide in an elementary school where one of the cafeteria workers was discovered to have active TB. Every single person in the school had to have a TB test, and as I was a familiar face to kids in grades K-4, I was conscripted to work as a child wrangler in the nurses’ station. For several hours, I had to hold screaming, writhing children on my lap while nurses pricked at them with needles. It was more traumatizing for me than for them – later in the day a lot of them proudly showed me their arms and told me they hadn’t even cried (LIES!), while I was shaking and feeling like I had participated in some kind of mass torture session.
Mark me down as another vote for I hate needles with the passion of a flaring quasar!
The worst is that some jackass will always insist on sticking the needle in my right elbow, which has permanent nerve damage. The last two times this has happened, I;
1> Damn near went into shock and took over an hour to recover, causing the doctor and nurses to treat me very poorly because they thought I was being a big baby about the whole thing. I never went back to that place.
2> Passed out from the pain before the general anesthesia kicked in.
Since these events, I’ve walked out on giving blood because the guy insisted that he had to hit my right side, and on two occasions, nearly walked out of the doctor’s office because we were starting to get into a screaming match about the jackass insisting on giving me a shot or drawing blood from that arm and not my left arm.
Look shit for brains, there’s no difference for YOU between my left and right arms. But the difference for me is a world of pain. I’ll gladly walk right out of here before I let you inflict that on be because you’re too lazy, stupid, arrogant and/or insensitive to listen to me and use the other arm.
The biggest problem was going to swim team practice with a really sore arm.