Hm, that’s interesting. I suffer from generalized anxiety disorder and I’m taking Effexor to control the panic attacks. It’s helped a lot, but I still have that fear of my heart just stopping.
Yes, I fear the going to the Dentist.
It’s been 15 years since I’ve seen one.
I don’t fear them because of any physical trauma I went thru, but a fear of what they (well one) will try to soak me for.
Now, a filling I got when I was 10, has fallen out, so the streak may end soon.
This is not really a phobia, but I have weird “situation”.
I faint every time I get a needle in my arm. That’s a given. Many of the doctors and nurses that have had to administer a shot didn’t believe me, and I wound up bending a few needles when my whole torso suddenly dropped.
No, I don’t think that’s weird. The weird thing is, I also faint when I have my blood pressure checked and, at times, when someone manually checks my pulse. Basically, touch my veins and I start feeling funny. I don’t know what this is, cause I’m not scared per se, it just … happens.
Needles hold no fear for me, I don’t mind pelvic exams, and my Bp is nice and stable at 90/60.
I HATE DENTISTS.
And I have the lovliest dentist in the world. He’s gentle, considerate, chatty, Hi-tech, friendly. All the good things.
And I’m frozen with fear, not because of the pain or discomfort (my teeth are great, only 1 filling), but because I can’t cope with having someone’s fingers in my mouth.
Freaks me OUT.
We have the same problem. I wish someone could explain why it happens. I have to lie down or I will keel over. The blood pressure cuff will send me over the edge too unless I really focus on something else. I wonder if it’s all mental or if something physical is really going on.
Whenever I get a shot or have blood taken through the vein in my elbow, I have to leave a bandaid over the little needle hole for at least 3-4 days. I’m afraid that if I don’t keep a bandaid over the little hole, that it’ll open and that I’ll bleed to death from the needle hole (even the needle holes for vaccines).
One other phobia.
Bear in mind that I can deal with blood exiting my body by needle, and entering my body likewise (pheresis donor).
If I walk past a room where blood is being infused, I just lose it.
Somebody else’s blood going into a person just freaks me out. I don’t know why. Tell me that it was a self-donated unit, and i’m fine, but the idea of whole blood (for some reson, components don’t do it either) from one person to another just gets me.
Sorry to bump this thread up, but I must have missed it…
Anyway, I have this extreme fear of getting my blood taken, blood pressure cuffs, getting my pulse taken, basically anything involving veins, and especially pressure points.
I can watch the goriest, bloodiest movies or whatever and it doesn’t bother me. I can cut my knee open and watch the blood poor out, but if I scrape my wrist or the inside of my elbow I get light headed and possibly pass right out.
In fact, just writing this post has me a bit woosy.
I mentioned it to a doctor once and he had a medical expanation for it, even with a medical term attached to it. He said that people can be born that way, but the mental aspect of it definitly magnifies the consequences.
I will try to look up the term and report back here.
I would be interested in hearing if others have these same conditions as well.
Okay, this is complete WAG with no medical basis in fact but here goes:
Your stories of fainting when the veins are touched reminded me of something. Is it possible you have a mild form of narcolepsy with a very specific trigger?
A friend of mine has a hearty Thoroughbred horse who has mild narcolepsy only triggered by… braiding it’s mane (something one traditionally does for horse shows). Let me tell you it was a bit alarming the first time I witnessed this: I’m talking to my friend, she’s braiding up the mane… the horse’s eyes droop, then her knees begin to buckle. My friend stops braiding and gives a bit of a smack on the shoulder. The horse wakes up, regains its balance and looks around as if nothing’s wrong.
This is the only time any form of narcolepsy is evident in the animal. Kind of like needles are the only time you have unexplained fainting.
Dunno… one just reminded me of the other.
All you people are freaks!
I had to have an emergency C-section last October, which meant a vertical cut.
I can see the scar on my skin, and can see that it has healed and adhered well.
But I CAN’T see the scar on my uterus, and that worries me. Whenever I’m holding my baby and he’s jumping up and down on my stomach, I worry that my uterus will suddenly split open and I won’t know about it because its under the skin (and fat, but we won’t go into that).
I will happily give blood. I don’t mind the burning as the needle slides in, and watching my blood flow into the little bag is fascinating.
But the finger-prick…I can’t stand the finger-prick. There is a very kind nurse at the clinic I attend who will do that immediately, even before the weigh-in, just so I can get it over with and stop stressing about it.
RE: Xanax
If you take it as it’s prescribed, you shouldn’t have a problem. Not very many docs will give you the heavy hitter Xanax. You’d most likely get a very small dosage at first. The addiction happens when people use the drug for something other than the medical problem.
I’m totally with you all on the dentist front. My dentist is the absolute nicest man, I’ve known his assistant for like 12 years and she’s a peach, but it still takes so much for me to open up for a shot of novocaine. And forget about drilling - just the sound from the waiting area drives me nuts. I was about to get a root canal once, and even though the nerve had been removed already and I was in no pain, just the anxiety of having the procedure made the rest of my teeth hurt!
Oh, and it’s not a medical phobia, but it freaks me out sometimes to watch other people put earrings in. I don’t know why, but it gives me the willies. And I’ve got 8 holes total in my ears, so I don’t understand why it bugs me.
Anaesthesia. I am drop-dead terrified, panic attack prone toward anaesthesia.
Being put fully under is what scares me the most. Second place goes to that “twilight” thing they give you so you go off to la-la land and don’t remember a colonoscopy, for example. I pour with sweat – takes everything I have not to physically run away – my heart rate goes nuts.
Third place goes to the oh-so-scary phenomenon of actually being awake but paralyzed while they’re cutting you, so you can’t yell, or waking up in the middle of an operation, or something.
I’m not usually scared of operations, though thinking of the pain afterwards gives me pause. Nope, it’s the anaesthesia that has me terrified & gibbering.
Stems, I guess, from going full-under when I had my wisdom teeth out. They screwed up the anaesthesia, and it affected my brain & thinking for days. Couldn’t concentrate enough to read, couldn’t follow a TV program, lowered my inhibitions to the point where I wept and wailed at the slightest provocation… like regressing to a 2-year-old state. Worst part: I knew something was wrong with me (which is why I wept & wailed).
The horror of “losing my mind” like that again… plus dying, maybe that’s the rest of it… I’ve put off two “elective” surgeries indefinitely because I’m so terrified of the anaesthesia.
Kelebrian
I don’t know if this counts, but I’m terrified through an accident, or some type of medical problem, I will loss my eyes. I think they are my best physical attribute (dark green), and I’m just scared I’ll loss them. Like I’ll fall into a cabinet door or something. Weird, but that’s me
Having a needle stuck in your eyeball is not a pleasant experience for anyone, but the only time I ‘lost the plot’ in a medical setting was when I had been sedated prior to an eye op and the surgeon was about to anaesthetise my eye.
Watching that syringe coming towards me was the most frightening experience, so I did what any normal person would do and flailed around, knocking the needle out of the surgeons hand in the process (and I think giving a bit of a backhander to his face as well!!)
While he was a touch pissed-off about the interruption, they DID eventually give me a general just to shut me up. 
When I went in a couple of weeks later for the same op on the other eye, they weren’t taking any chances and put me straight under a GA again.
Even now my eyes water and sting just thinking about it. 
kambuckta
They would have to give me some strong junk for that. That would be one surgery my life would have to depend on
You’re not talking about any of the medical phobias on The Phobia List, are you?
I don’t have any of those, thank goodness.
What I do have is this recurrent fear of mortality, and just dropping dead while I’m doing something else… with no warning. Quite scary.
F_X