Having blood taken and immunisations

Advice / support needed please.

My son, 16, is nor well at the moment and needs some important blood tests doing. He knows and understands why he needs them but cannot follow through with the procedure.

Anyone else have experience of this?

What can I do to support him / help him?

Thank you for your time.

Parents
  • I get very stressed by blood tests so I explain I'm autistic and if I do strange things, don't be alarmed.    Make sure they let you in to the room with him - as his carer, they can't stop you but due to covid, they might try to exclude you - you are allowed access by law.

    Two things help me - I ask them to tell me when they're ready to stick me and I 'stim' (either my left leg jiggles uncontrollably or I rub the top of my head hard and fast) while they take the blood.     The other thing is to talk to me very fast about a favourite subject to make my brain redirect from what's going on - if he's into planes, ask him about which museum he wants to go to - which plane does he want to see there and why that one in particular.   Make sure you don't run out of difficult questions that make his brain function.      It's all normally over in less than a minute.

  • I take blood for a living, often I'll exclude the parents of an older child from the blood draw as they can cause more problems than they'll solve.

    Mums in particular like to say stupid things like "oh that's a lot of tubes", "is that really the needle you need to use", "oh his brother/dad/dog hates getting this done [list awful effects]. My worse was a mum who fainted though close second was a dad who picked up a needle, unsheathed it and was like oh there's something sharp under that rubber thing. Yes sir that's a needle, thanks for giving me boatloads of paperwork to do you complete idiot. I would have stopped him but I had a needle in the arm of his adolescent child so I wasn't going anywhere.

    You can ask the doctor for EMLA cream/patches to apply before the blood draw, they have local anaesthetic in them and mean he won't feel the scratch of the needle (but he will feel some movement, like the dentist). 

    Ask the person drawing blood if they can use a paediatric butterfly needle as these are smaller (thinner) but still do the job in adults. 

    The blood drawer will likely chat away to keep him distracted and follow it up with something nice.

  • All of what you said above is why i hate people  Smiley   I admire your strength in dealing with them.

    I find the paediatric needles to be the best - if the nurse is skilled, he won't even feel it.

  • Honestly people drive me insane! I start to suffer when I'm around them too much. I really rely on my weekends to recharge and get my tolerance back for the Monday.

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