Trypanophobia is the term used when a person experiences a fear of procedures involving needles or injections. I’m not sure why, but that’s me. One of my earliest memories is being under a doctor’s table screaming because they wanted to give me a shot. Today we have a necessity of a vaccine, and so I need to suck it up and go get that shot when it becomes available to me.
According to the ‘experts’, Trypanophobia is extremely common among children but as we age (and become accustomed to getting injections), we fear the needle less. However, there are those cases like me, who never outgrow the fear of the needle and it only seems to get worse over time. When I was younger, I could just look away and everything was cool, but these days my heart starts racing and I feel nauseous before I even leave the house.
There can be many causes associated with Trypanophobia such as the obvious one of having negative experiences in the past. One such example for me was a blood draw I had to endure. I told the woman that I had a problem and was known to pass out during these procedures - instead of putting me on a couch for the procedure she just assured me that I “would be fine” and started jabbing me with the needle. I say jabbing me because she couldn’t find the vein and had to try several times. I could hear her screaming for help as I was sliding off the chair onto the floor below. After the procedure, I had a bruise on the inside of my arm that was (and I’m not exaggerating) five inches long and went all the way across my arm. I was a massage therapist at the time and had to cancel all my appointments that week because my right arm was useless.
Needless to say, as we age this can become an even bigger problem. I have medication that I take now when I have to get blood work for every year. So, every year at about the same time I’m calling my doctor for a Xanax prescription so I can get some bloodwork done. What a pain in the ass.
Fortunately, there are therapies now that can help to relieve Trypanophobia. One such therapy is cognitive-behavioral therapy or CBT which helps you to address the fears of needles and how they might affect your life.
Exposure therapy focuses on changing the response to the fear. By exposing a patient to needles, allowing a patient to hold them, and even using your imagination to pretend you’re getting injected all help to desensitize a person to the procedure.
And then there are the cases like mine, where good old medication is needed. Antianxiety medications work great to take the edge off a bit if you need to have a jab. And this is purely psychological, but I have some numbing cream that is used for tattoos that I put on before I get a jab. I don’t know that it actually helps, but it makes me feel better which is the whole point, right?
I used to feel a bit stupid about the whole thing until I learned that over 50 million Americans are affected by the same thing, which makes it one of the top 10 fears that American’s have. The important thing is to learn how to deal with it in some manner so that you can get the vaccines and treatments you need to say healthy. If you think you may have Trypanophobia talk with your doctor.
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