I work in healthcare and have started countless IV’s over the years. My favorite way to take someone’s mind off the needle is to hold up the package and read out loud “sharp end toward patient, dull end toward nurse” as if it were in the directions. It gets a laugh every time and that’s a win when someone’s not having a great day.
As a kid I had weekly needles stuck in both arms for 3yrs, then once a month for 3yrs, allergic to bees.
I looked forward to the shots cause the nurses would hand out jelly beans if you didn’t put up a fuss. seems hardly anyone liked the black jelly beans so the girls saved them for me, I’d leave with a pint of em every week 👍
I think almost everyone has a phobia of needles….
If you enjoy having sharp metal objects poked into your skin and muscles you should be seeing a different kind of doctor 
This topics comments honestly surprised the heck out of me coming from anglers. A fish hook is essentially a rounded needle with a barb, and ya stab fish all day long on the face with those but when the tables turn….
This topics comments honestly surprised the heck out of me coming from anglers. A fish hook is essentially a rounded needle with a barb, and ya stab fish all day long on the face with those but when the tables turn….
I don’t think the fish enjoy it either, but on the good days it seems like they do lol
I work in healthcare and have started countless IV’s over the years. My favorite way to take someone’s mind off the needle is to hold up the package and read out loud “sharp end toward patient, dull end toward nurse” as if it were in the directions. It gets a laugh every time and that’s a win when someone’s not having a great day.
I would have to watch you a bit closer..After I laughed.
I watch the needle slide in every time, I find it interesting.
Use to donate blood as often as I could, now I do the power red or double red, 3 times a year. This is were they take 2 units of red blood cells each visit.
I give myself and my wife injections once a week and also my youngest daughter when she lived at home and my wife and I also get monthly infusions. Its kinda nice, since we moved up north a nurse comes to our house to do the infusions. We keep the pump and Iv stand here, the medicine gets delivered to the house about 15 minutes before the nurse gets here.
We got a ton of shots in boot camp and there were always guys that would drop.
As I write this we have two sharps containers full of syringes 💉 the medicine packaging is hardcore!
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I Should mention that my daughter and I have Ankylosing Spondylitis(its hereditary) and Ann has severe rheumatoid arthritis.
Think of them as a straightened fish hook w/o barb. I used to have a pretty severe distaste, but never a phobia – now I watch the needle go in just to prove that I am stronger than the needle.
It’s amazing what the mind can do!
I was in line for shots in second grade. The classmate ahead of me was having alcohol rubbed on his arm. I dropped out of line…so to speak. I stopped getting shots altogether because of vomiting and passing out.
Fast forward to the ’80’s. I became a registered EMT. 12 hour shift in what was then called the St Paul Ramsey emergency room. Infants getting stiches around their eye, one biker fell over backwards on a gallon wine bottle…LOT’s of stitches… never bothered me a bit.
Fast forward to having a stint put in my leg 10 or so years ago and I told the nurses “don’t tell me what your going to do unless it’s going to startle me”. After the stint was placed, a nurse started telling me about the two tubes going into the arteries in my groin. I repeated, “DON’T TELL ME ABOUT IT!”. Well she did anyway and that’s when I asked for something to get sick in.
I remember passing out in bed while getting sick. When I came back I was surrounded (when I say surrounded, I mean no more people could fit in the room) and a little voice in the back of the rooms saying…”do you know his heart rate is 30?” (beats per minute”)
All of this just because my brain heard something it didn’t like.
One tip I’ll give if you would like to try it. If your getting an Intra Muscle (IM) shot like tetanus, shingles, pneumonia ect. Ask them to give it to you in your calf. Most times you’ll never feel it, certainly can’t see it while laying on a bed. Depending on the experience of the person giving the shot, they might say they can’t give it to you in the leg. Well, maybe they feel uncomfortable, but a muscle is a muscle and it’s the only way I get my shots now.
First shingle and tetanus taken while getting the Coast Guard physical last week. Works great…for me.
I work in healthcare and have started countless IV’s over the years. My favorite way to take someone’s mind off the needle is to hold up the package and read out loud “sharp end toward patient, dull end toward nurse” as if it were in the directions. It gets a laugh every time and that’s a win when someone’s not having a great day.
And really, that’s all it takes. Getting a persons mind off it. I don’t know how many nurses know how to catch a flathead because of my nervousness. 
I don’t have a phobia necessarily, but it does wig me out a little. Once I see the blood pulsing into the tube I am more fascinated than anything else.
A fish hook is essentially a rounded needle with a barb, and ya stab fish all day long on the face with those but when the tables turn….
You’re able to watch the fish get hooked? I’d consider that a superpower! 
Wow Brian! Heart rate of 30?!thats unsettling, kinda like Hamms & Spam!
Glad you’re still kicking buddy! 
I’ll take your needles if you take my prostate exam.
I’ll take your needles if you take my prostate exam.
Know what’s worse? Having a prostate exam and telling the Doc it was removed a few years ago. True story.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Lynn Seiler wrote:</div>
I’ll take your needles if you take my prostate exam.Know what’s worse? Having a prostate exam and telling the Doc it was removed a few years ago. True story.
You using the the whole fist doc? 
The only needle I cringed at was when they went in my shoulder looking for fluid. Tore my rotator and blew a bicep. I thought I was going to fight the doctor and nurse.
That was horrible and crazy painful.
Do you think Beads’ Mom knew about the orange trick or not?
Ha! You bet she did. Just like she knew I was allergic to cats but had 4 of them ba$tards in the house.
Now I have to call my therapist 
I’m not a fan but I wouldn’t say I have a phobia.
About 20 years ago I had to get a lot of blood drawn for some reason I don’t remember. I was sitting there not really thinking of anything when all of a sudden the nurse told me to put my head between my legs. I thought to myself “well thats an odd request” but I complied. The next thing I knew I woke up to a bunch of nurses and my dad looking down on me. Evidently i had fainted. I dont know if anyone has ever fainted before but its fricken weird. One second you’re there and the next time you wake up everything is changed from your last memory.
Hasn’t ever happened to me again but anytime I give blood I always tell the nurse of that experience so they are prepared
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