81GyGuy said...
I wonder if any of us here who have had a medical or nursing background that involved interaction with patients have ever observed this kind of reaction in some patients who were about to get needle shots. How did it go, and how was it resolved?
BillyBob, for example, did you ever see this in your RN days?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/202109/is-fear-needles-keeping-some-people-getting-vaccinated
Heck yes I've seen it, many times. I saw it as an RN, mostly working ER. I have seen big strapping men laid out like cord wood when I approached them with, or actually stuck them with, a needle. But not just men, women as well.
One thing that often surprised me with the women: when I went past my RN training into anesthesia ( CRNA ), after a few years I ended up sub specializing in OB. There were a few of us that seemed to have a knack for those new fangled(early 80s) epidurals, and we also seemed to fit in better with the OB patients and all the night work. Here is something most folks don't know- or at least it used to be this way: most anesthesia pros- CRNAs and especially MDAs( MD Anesthesiologists) absolutely hate OB(with rare exceptions). I suppose a combination of being up all night plus the patients are often extremely vocal and demanding. I (and a few others) seemed to be a better fit for all of that, so from about
3 years out of school (starting in 83) until 2001, I did almost nothing but OB(birthing babies and C sections) + GYN surgery(women's hospital where I met my wife, an OB nurse). And- except for working all night on call wearing on me as I got older- it was where I belonged. I was one of a very few that all the nurses requested when they needed- or their loved ones needed- an epidural or even a general anesthetic. Plus, I was just pretty happy in that sub specialty. I made a mistake an took an offer ( $) I could not refuse and went back to general surgery in 2001 until retirement late 2013. But I always regretted it, I was not near as happy.
But, I digress as usual. I was about
to comment about
a surprising thing regarding women in labor pain. First, the sheer fact that though I never heard of any man or woman willing to go natural for surgery, a small % of women would actually choose to go natural for child birth. And sometimes the same women would come back and do it again. And those women were usually in pretty good control throughout their labor, doing very little- if any- screaming. But go to a number of women in the throws of labor who want nothing to do with natural: they want their epidural yesterday(as I would). But you go into the room(where a lot of screaming and thrashing is going on) and explain the risks of the epidural, and the extreme importance of them holding still during the placement of the epidural so they don't hurt themselves, get them into position, prep, drape, and say "OK, there is going to be a small sting now", and you stick the same needle in that some of you guys inject into your little friend in hopes of pumping things up, into their lower back. For the purpose of numbing things up/injecting lidocaine for the much larger epidural needle.
And amazingly, though they are screaming from a labor pain at the moment you poke the tiny needle in, they stop screaming from the labor pain, start screaming from the 25 or 27G needle, and jump across the bed. Then have to be repositioned and cautioned about
the danger of moving as I am about
to insert an 18 gauge epidural needle next to their spine. Then sometimes it happens again.
Now, this is not the same thing as what the OP is talking about
. But still, regarding needles, even the tiniest needles, I always found this amazing. How can someone be screaming because of the labor contraction, only to blow all of that off/forget about
it, in order to respond to the now apparently much greater pain of the tiniest needles known to man? ( or woman ) I never could figure it out. At the other extreme, I had plenty of women in the middle of labor pains who later told me they never even felt the numbing needle, or the much larger epidural needle which followed. Which did not surprise me considering the intensity of the pain they were in compared to that tiny needle. I expected them to not even be bothered by such a tiny pain compared to what they were going thru. And often, they weren't, not in the least.
But I have seen some of the strongest, most macho looking men absolutely pass out when approached by a person with a needle. I once was doing an epidural while a group of nursing students stood behind me watching. One was a red headed male. (don't know if that means anything, just describing the suspect). As I would look back every few seconds to explain to them what I was doing, that red headed male nursing student was looking me in the eyes, nodding his head as though understanding, and had a big old grin on his face. He kept right on grinning as he fell forward into my epidural tray, passed out cold.
So, the very thought of needles can mess up some folks, for sure. Regardless of gender or political party.;)
Post Edited (BillyBob@388) : 11/1/2021 5:44:20 PM (GMT-6)