Last edited Tue Dec 1, 2020, 11:13 AM - Edit history (1)
It started as an infant. Pediatrician used the same needle on countless "patients" as it was the late 50s. (He sterilized them I'm sure, but the tip became blunter with each use -- and that hurt.) As I became a young child, my doctor tried to fool me into injections by giving them a euphemistic name as a "click-click." It didn't fool me or my nerve endings. It got so bad that during one visit, I grabbed my mother's purse, ran through the waiting room, out the door, to the car, and locked it. My mother couldn't extract me as I had her car keys. (She enticed me out by offering me a nickel and I sold out.)
Later, as an adolescent, I developed cystic acne, which on occasion required a numbing shot of an agent prior to another injection of cortisone to reduce the size of the cyst. The injection was in my upper face, lower than and to the side of my eye. I practically had to be tied down to the table. My dermatologist first sprayed something that I was told would somewhat reduce the pain of the first injection by "freezing" the nerve endings. It didn't completely work. I'm guessing this happened at least 10 times. The cyst was painful enough without an injection.
2020: I now extend my arm without blinking for flu shots, blood work, etc. Fortunately for me, I guess that there has been progress in training phlebotomists, doctors' assistants, and pharmacists. When I reflect on my past, I know I'm accurately remembering the pain and the trauma. It WAS bad. But -- as I've been a "player" during my decades and have had experienced incredible pain relative to the injection pains, the shots really aren't that bad IMO.
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