The two hours before are worse than the ten seconds

Mine got much worse for a fortnight after one that stung, and then went back to baseline. One bad experience can reset the whole thing temporarily.

What worked was doing it at the same moment every week rather than at a convenient moment. Deciding when was where the dread lived.

Gently disagreeing with Nadir, or rather adding the other half of it.

I still do not enjoy it, two years in. I do it in about forty seconds without thinking, and I do not enjoy it, and both of those are true.

Somebody here suggested breathing out during rather than holding my breath, and it changed the physical experience noticeably. Very small thing.

No advice, only that you are not the only one who found this part hard.

Cold hands made mine worse. Warming up for a minute beforehand genuinely changed the experience and I found that out by accident.

Here, reading, and glad you posted.

The dread built through the day and peaked about an hour before, so I moved mine to first thing in the morning and cut the anticipation to ten minutes.

My nurse talked me through the first one on the phone and stayed on the line, and I have never been more grateful for nine minutes of somebody's time.

I was three days late twice because I could not face it, and I want to say that here because I felt like the only person that had ever happened to.

Mine was never about pain. It was about doing something deliberate to myself, and once I understood that, all the advice about pain was beside the point.