Fun Stuff > CHATTER
Do we have a New Year's Resolutions thread yet?
Redball:
I related how I fainted when I first gave blood, at 17, but with a note from my dad.
The impulse came from an experience a couple of years earlier: My mom cut her hand slicing something at the kitchen sink. I applied a tourniquet, then promptly fainted, going down like a tree and leaving a dent in the pedestal that held up the kitchen table. So we both went to the hospital.
I thought I could get over the fear by giving blood. I guess I did, if I gave as much as I did. ut I still close my eyes and look away every time a needle goes through my skin.
With one exception: My wife in one of her chemo series would experience a precipitous drop in white blood cell count after every infusion. She would come home from the hospital with 10 injections of neupogen to rebuild the WBC count. I was amazed that she could inject herself.
A couple of years later, I was told I needed Forteo, an injectable drug to combat osteoporosis. I did it with only occasional pain, for two years. It was easy. I think the ease transferred over to being easier with blood draws after that. Maybe the fat in my tummy helped too.
pwhodges:
There was one dentist where I would faint when having an injection in the gum; after a while we found that I fainted before the needle touched me... I never did it at any other dentist's, and I didn't dislike or fear the one where I did. Very strange - maybe the chair was uncomfortable or something.
bainidhe_dub:
I hate hate hate getting novocaine shots at the dentist, but with this new dentist I saw last month, I learned that the serious discomfort I used to have during fillings that gave me heebie-jeebies just thinking about it too long? That's not normal, that's what it feels like when you're not numb enough and can feel the freaking drill bit. So I still hate the shots, and need three or four vials, but it's a hell of a lot better than having your face numb for hours afterward and still feeling the drill.
Zingoleb:
I'm apparently better than I was w/r/t/ shots, especially dental shots - I used to get incredibly freaked out thinking about it, much less reading up on it.
I still don't think I'm ready to have one in my face, though I've managed to overcome my crippling generalised fear of needles - thanks EMDR!
Redball:
My dentist has a neat way of distracting from the needle. As I recall it (since it's a needle, I don't focus on the whole thing that much), he pulls on softer tissue, maybe my lip, wiggles it back and forth a little roughly, then inserts the needle. It's like my first ever penicillin shot, following a root canel in 1948 or so, in my bottom: The dental surgeon spanked me twice, 1, 2, and inserted the needle on 3. I hardly felt it.
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