I have a physically degenerative disability and so I have to do a lot of annual tests to "watch my progress". Unfortunately these tests often involve needles. That's 23 years of prick, prick, prick. Personally I hate needles. It may be because of my long history with medical institutions but needles give me sweaty hands and sometimes shortness of breath.

Let's count my year so far:
- yearly physical (1 arm prick)
- blood gasses - respirologist (1 arm, 1 wrist, x4 days in a row)
- neurologist CK test (1 arm)

During these many years I have met two kinds of "professionals" outside of the norm; artists and butchers. The artists are a dream, if you are ever so lucky, these people can insert and remove IV needles with the prick of a mosquito. The butchers on the other hand are better suited for work not involving hands. They often prick with such force and coldness you wonder if you're stepping on their foot. This is compounded when there is trouble locating a good spot; this means getting poked more than once which I much prefer to the horrid wiggling. Indeed the butchers are quite bad. I once had a butcher miss the vein entirely. Note that when I mention butchers I'm talking about people settled into this profession. People who are relatively new have my sympathy. Many of them seem to be more nervous than anyone else.

Hey,

Yeah you are right, It is because of the constant puncturing that you have a short of phobia against them. I too do not like them but have bear them, I have quite some thin veins and they stick quite close to my bones so every time I am injected It hurts like hell. Blood tests are bad as the nurse has to poke me around quite a bit until she gets the right amount of blood.

There was this time when I had gone for a regular check up and she asked me to take a blood test and as the nurse got all the things ready and poked me in the arm once and pulled hard and nothing comes in it except maybe a drop of my blood and the spot was painful. Then she attacks the next arm and still got nothing so she poked the first arm and got some blood and then left me.

I too do not enjoy them but again it is for my good so I shut up and smile

As a doctor I just hope I am an artist and not a butcher. But talking to the patient and shifting his attention does help a lot.

As much as I can be I'm used to needles now. I figure any residual uneasiness is wondering if I'll get a butcher. My brother is a different story; his veins collapse.


One time I entered a blood lab with the intent of drawing a single sample of blood (I was sick and they wanted to do a blood cell count). I left the blood lab with 7 puncture marks! Maybe the person was having an off day, but they tried and failed twice on each arm, twice on the left wrist, and finally got it on the right wrist (no pun intended). You should note that I do not have difficulty drawing blood, it's usually hit with very little miss.


I get talkative when I'm nervous. In some situations it relaxes the nurse/doctor.


The fact that you're expressing concern tells me you're not a butcher. The way I see it butchers tend to treat it more like they're working on an assembly line rather than performing a service on a human being. Yes there are butchers who are such because they just don't have the hands. I had one well intending person who couldn't quite handle holding the needle while changing the tube; I had the needle wiggling in my arm... no amount of words can express how that feels.

Uhhh don't remind me of needles i have to go for a blood test soon.
I dont mind the occassional immunization in the arm but drawing blood from my vein? uhh no.
But still these things have to be done.

I was never really fond of needles I loath them as a kids because of the pain when they went in and what not, but as I got older I was able to deal with it. Lucky for me so far I haven't had the pleasure of getting stick more then once, except for the time my back went out on me and they had to draw blood twice because those moron army doctors thought I had diabetes and I didn't . Of course I usually enjoy it went someone faints over getting a needle stuck in them , yeah thats cruel of me to say, but it does happen though. I would also say it's a uneasiness of the fact that a needle could be dirty and give me some funky incurable disease or something like that.

Getting shots and having blood drawn actually doesn't freak me out that much at all. It really used to though, when I was little. I guess I'm fortunate to have veins that stick out so it makes the nurse easy to inject stuff into me and take blood out. When they take my blood I actually watch them do it. Its fascinating really. But I can totally understand why people hate it. I think it would start to hate it if it became a regular thing for them to do to me.

The only thing I particularly didn't like is when I got scoped. The nurse kept hitting my hand (I believe she was trying to get the veins to show better) while the other one was trying to talk to me. It was hard to pay attention to her.

Having blood drawn doesn't bother me too much. Well...once it did. When I was taking my Army physical, every station (hearing test, bloodwork, et cetera) was little more than an assembly line. The inside of my elbow was one giant, solid bruise for the next four or five days.

My father, though, tells me that the blood gases draw hurts like crazy. I'm just going to trust him on that one and hope that I never have to have it done

I don't really mind needles all that much. This is probably because I don't really have to be pricked all that much. I didn't like them at first because I was really small but now I don't mind, although I still wouldn't mind doing without them. I am not old enough to give blood yet so depending on how that goes my liking of needles may change.

Sewing needles bother me when they get lost or they prick me deeply. Blood needles bother me when they have to poke me on my hand. Ouch!