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Needle phobia

The steps I broke it into, written out

Started 14 March 2026 · 14 replies · 95 hearts · read 2.1k times

BramwellRipon, UK · 14 March 2026
4 months ago

Starting a thread on this because it keeps coming up in ones and twos: The steps I broke it into, written out

Squeamish subject, so I am going to be plain about it and get it over with.

This started at the same time as two other things, which is why I cannot attribute it to anything with any confidence.

I have had a fortnight of this and then three good days and then another fortnight, and the pattern is the bit I would most like to understand.

Sorry to be graphic. If anybody has had this, I would rather hear it plainly than politely.

32

PietPretoria, ZA
#1

My GP took it seriously the moment I described the fainting rather than the fear. The physical detail was what got me the referral.

6me too 9

BassCoventry, UK
#2

I could not be in the room with the box for the first fortnight. That is where I started and I now do this weekly without difficulty.

3

EsiFacilitatorToronto, Canada
#3

Stepping in because a question about another medication has come up. That is a pharmacist question and it is genuinely one they will answer properly and quickly.

15

BronLincoln, UK
#4

Well said, and thank you for taking the time over it.

5

Bryn MNeath, UK
#5

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

Mine came from a childhood hospital experience I had not connected to any of this until a therapist asked, and that connection was most of the work.

6

PerrineStrasbourg, FR
#6

I practised with the pen without doing anything, several times a day, for two weeks. Getting used to holding it was a real step and I nearly skipped it.

6me too 3

HéloïseGeneva, CH
#7

What worked for me was somebody else being calm. Not encouraging, not enthusiastic. Calm. That was the whole ingredient.

4

WinkleWeymouth, UK
#8

What Perrine described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

I had one bad experience in the first month that set me back weeks, and rebuilding from it was slower than starting had been. Be gentle with yourself if that happens.

10

BessLouth, UK
#9

Héloïse — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

I keep a small written plan of my own steps and I still read it sometimes, eighteen months in. It costs me nothing and it steadies me.

5

TaaviTallinn, EE
#10

Please do not let anybody, clinical or otherwise, make you feel unreasonable about this. Mine was dismissed twice before it was taken seriously and the delay cost me a year.

6

IslaOban, UK
#11

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

The thing I did not expect was how much better it got once I stopped fighting the fear and started planning around it.

5

DelythBala, UK
#12

Lying down changed everything for me. My nurse suggested it in about ten seconds and it solved a problem I had had for twenty years.

4

EsiFacilitatorToronto, Canada
#13

Facilitator note: I am leaving this open rather than closing it, because the question has come round three times this year and this is the version I want people to find.

14

BramwellRipon, UK
#14

Mine is still there. I have a set of things I do that make it manageable, and the fear itself has not gone, and that is an honest description of where I am.

6me too 4