I have a severe needle phobia, and for the first time (besides blackout-levels of anti-anxiety meds) found a routine that helped:
1. 10% numbing cream 40 min before
2. Ice on the area for 10 min up until the shot
3. A vibrating device ('buzzy') next to where needle goes in
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(I have a decent pain tolerance, all the things I did were for psychological reasons.)
But I just got my booster and it was *fine* and I feel on top of the world, I am so happy, I have lived in crippling fear of needles for so long, I hope this helps someone else
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!! congrats!!
is your phobia mostly about the pain? i'm still fairly phobic (used to be MUCH worse) but i cant imagine numbing/ice helping. the buzzy thing sounds promising though :o
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Unclear? I'm not sure if it's "my body thinks the pain is going to be way worse than it is" or if "feeling it go in lets me know there's a needle in me which is bad". Probably combo of both. For whatever reason removing the pain of it makes me less phobic.
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i don't have a needle phobia, but always feel anxious if i *don't* see the needle going in. always thought the people who looked away were weird
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Have you considered doing ketamine just before? Dissociation seems like the exact thing you need to go over a scary procedure. (Must remember to try next time I must get carved by a dentist.)
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I HATE how needles breach the Sovereignty of My Body but I’ve recently been able to distract myself by thinking how cool and sci-fi it is to deliver a payload straight into my body. I think of it like the nurse is installing a new part that I ordered into my car
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I have needle phobia, too. It used to be worse, but I had to get allergy shots and that was a good exposure therapy for me. But I still can't stand to give blood, even though it's something I would like to do for lots of other reasons.
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I did a lot of exposure therapy for my needle-phobia, in preparation for my shots. The sequence went like this: looking at pictures, watching videos of injections, handling needles, using a lancing device to actually puncture my skin, using the lancets by hand rather than device.
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