Medical Phobias and Access to Mental and Physical Health Care

Yes? :) 

Honestly, I tried everything I could, and nothing has helped me get rid of my medical phobias. And, as someone said above, thanks to GOD, I'm not the only one. Many other people actually understand me. All of my medical phobias are basic: needles, blood, and so forth. I hate to see blood. Whenever I go to the doctor and have to take blood, I feel dizzy. But, since my condition got worse, I contacted care home Sudbury Suffolk as I didn't want to be a burden for my daughter.

Yes makes it lot worse I thought that to. I find it leads to massive overload.

Lol same that would be a dream.

Exposure was tried once for me.  Nop doesn't work, it was making it worse, I think because it's just piling more sensory overload on.

I wish I just didn't need a body to live, lol.  I'd be just fine then.

Is it the procedures, the people or the illness or the body?

However well I've been dealing with the other aspects of my autism for 56 years - but for the medical phobias, I'd never have known... these things have been crippling and dangerous for me.

Now that I know that so much of my adverse experience is rooted in my sensory issues and therefore REAL as opposed to what the professionals all always assumed was imaginary  - I've been feeling things and reacting to drugs the way other people don't all my life without any of the professionals ever believing me, I can suddenly see a way forward to build some trust with doctors now, if they will understand what I am experiencing and why treatments are causing me to melt down now.  I might also now get some help that is appropriate to get through more procedures instead of everyone treating me like a naughty school girl.

What I remain stuck with is the fear of my own body (and hence illness).  For instance, when they took six of my teeth, it triggered a sensory shock in my own mouth which is now a strain to deal with.  My sensory overload is now literally in my face 24/7.  There's no relief.  All of the sensations in my own body frighten me.  I'm kind of hoping that some one out there might one day recognise this experience and have some tips as to how to calm the body monster down.

That's a difficult one because I do have medical phobias and in the past I did try and seek help for them but help seems non existent so I still have them. I did call the doctor and he kept saying right right and told me exposure would help, but it didn't because I still have them but have been exposed to them lots of times and it's still a problem. If help for it does exist I have no idea where to find it.

Honestly, I tried everything I could, and nothing helped me get over all of my medical phobias. 

I have a phobia of blood and needles and medication. It sends me into a total stress and panic attack. Sometimes I'll bite my lip or nails, or I'll pull out my hair. It depends how stressed I get.

Your defos not alone though. Lots of people in the same boat with these fears.

Has anyone tried Emla (or similar) numbing cream?  To help overcome my needle phobia for the first Covid jab, I tried applying this cream over my previous vaccination mark on my upper left arm.  I followed the instructions and even bought special occlusive transparent plasters to stop the cream spreading.  But either it didn't work or the nurse jabbed me somewhere else as I found the needle intensely painful and the same point continued throbbing at a slightly lower pain level for about an hour. 

This was the first (non-dental) injection I'd had since a tetanus shot 25 years ago.  On that occasion, I didn't feel the needle at all but for a day or two afterwards I felt the constant throbbing pain (like being jabbed hundreds of times) at the exact point of entry - bad enough to keep me awake all night.  I can only assume this is all due to a heightened autistic sensitivity to pain, as most people tell me they never feel a thing when vaccinated, apart from a bit of arm soreness afterwards which doesn't begin to cover what I experience.  And yet I've been accidentally scratched dozens of times when playing with cats over the years and that scarcely bothers me at all, even when they draw blood.  I suppose that's partly because I never know exactly when it will happen.

An hour or two before the Covid jab, I also had to take three Diazepams (15mg) just to get myself to the hub, but even they only calmed me a little (normally 5mg or less tranquilises me and I don't take them often).  Indeed, I found the whole experience so overwhelming - partly due to other sensory overloads (the hub was as noisy as a nightclub) - that on returning home I had a total meltdown, slamming every door, and had to take two more Diazepams followed by a two-hour bath! 

So having found the first time even worse than I expected, my phobia is now doubled for the second dose. 

Hi, I kinda picked up on your post yesterday that you might be experiencing some of the same things I am.

My relationship to medical people hasn't been good. It's taken me a long while to figure out that they might sometimes be interpreting my fear and reactions as aggression to refusal to co-operate. Now and again, I happen across one with real patience who seems to get it and they get a lot further with me.

It sounds to me that you need a GP who truely understands what's going on for you and I so hope you find one.

Oh gosh yes, I absolutely hate medical settings or needles!

One of the joys of adrenaline is you cant faint, or at least i have never done so.  It gets you so amped up, its like being wired into everything.  I once had a bad reaction while trekking abroad, had to use a lot of pens and take a lot of tablets.  Was in a hostel hundred or so miles from the nearest hospital, definite airlift situation if i'd gone down that route and I did have insurance for that eventuality, but instead i got drunk and took all the meds.  Walked 30 miles the next day with a heavy pack.  Thats adrenaline for you.  A temporary superman buff.

__Pathfinder__ said:

But for a standard level anaphylaxis someone else has to push.

   Brilliant.

I can't even look at a needle - if I was using one for something else, my brain thinks the needle is the size of a cucumber and I'm terrified of scratching myself with it.

I had apheresis treatment some years ago - and I did well not to see the giant needles - like sharpened Bic-pens - until the fifth go - and then there was a problem - I kept fainting. 

Dawn said:

I just wish I could climb outside the body and park in the hospital like a car at the garage I can come and collect later so I don't have to feel anything at all, lol.

Me too!  

I wasn't diagnosed at that point.  I can override the epipen thing, but I have to be not far off dying to do it.  Its only happened twice to that level and I did manage to stab it in before my airway closed off.  But for a standard level anaphylaxis someone else has to push.

Doing an injection in the stomach would be a bridge too far.  it was bad enough trying to do the sub-dermal injection.  i think intramuscular is a million times easier than subdermal and a lot less painful.

I think CBT and exposure therapy are different, but are often given together.  My therapist tried to find some way of exposing me to needles, but I dont have a problem with holding needles or using a dummy pen.  My problem is using the real thing.  My brain knows a dummy pen has no needle so why would it fear it.  Same goes for holding a needle.  I suspect the only way i will ever get over this is to grab a load of saline and a box of syringes and learn to shoot up saline.  A relative who is a doctor said that was how he got over his fear of needles.  He practiced doing a canular on his friend and then vice versa, many times over a year and then extrapolated out by doing it on himself and giving himself vitamin shots.  After a year of doing it he no longer even thought about the actual needle anymore.  For me it would be hard to do that.  Maybe too hard.

Goodness. I thought exposure therapy and CBT were different things. Was the CBT adapted for ASD?

My wife has to give me an injection every day - in the stomach.      It's like playing "Battleships" - most times she doesn't hit a nerve in the skin, occasionally she does - and it hurts like fook.

But I'm grateful to her - I couldn't do it for myself either.

I only have one medical phobia.  Needles.  i have so far been unable to get past it.  I have allergies and have to carry epipens for them, but am unable to use them due to this phobia.  Tried CBT to get past it, but that failed, because how do you do exposure therapy when you need to stick a needle in yourself?  They tried to give me a drug that had to be injected sub-dermally and well lets say that didnt work out full stop.

Im stuck with this problem.  I cant see any way of getting past it.  I never used to have the problem either.  I've jabbed myself maybe a couple hundred times with pens over the years, but one pen I used a couple of years back hit the bone in my leg and ever since then i cant physically bring myself to use the damned thing.

Boo hoo on the knee would be okish.  Covid jab didn't bother me much. But anything invasive or anything causes me to be aware of my body... That the rub, I am as afraid of my own body as I am of anyone doing anything to it. It becomes a vicious cycle. 

I just wish I could climb outside the body and park in the hospital like a car at the garage I can come and collect later so I don't have to feel anything at all, lol.

Yeah - I totally understand - but I don't wait until I would get that far - I know it can / could happen - so I put things I've mentioned in place so it doesn't - if I'm going to need the procedure, I don't want to sabotage myself on the day.

What level do you trigger at - boo-boo on the knee or open heart surgery?