Stimming whilst in a hospital bed?

Thanks, me too. It does raise an interesting issue, surely the NHS needs to be better integrated. Creating an artificial barrier between physical and mental health isn't helpful. It's no good treating physical symptoms if in the process you break the mental ones.

Pleased to hear your update - a good effort by all involved. 

Hope the remainder of your hospital visit proves to be a more manageable experience.

Bit of an update. Had a similar experience last night, with out warning I was woken in the small hours by a lady in all black including some head dress, wanting to too do another arterial blood test (a very painful procedure. This time I got super agitated and refused the procedure. So early in the morning and all in black it felt like the Grim Reaper had appeared. Unfortunately I had a bit of a meltdown and the nurses tried to calm me and keep me still. Obviously stopping me stimming had the complete opposite reaction to what they desired. I ended up rocking on the bed until morning when my wife arrived. We had combined chat with the day sister, explaining about stimming. She wanted to get my blood oxygen up and was amazed that I achieved this by tapping my whole leg whist doing an evil sudoku. My wife phoned the Learning Disability and Autism lead to explain what had happened. He the emailed the Matron who then paid us a visit. She was super nice, very understanding and much more aware of stimming. The outcome was the staff were all briefed and a review/ update of the training staff received. My wife has also order me some more fidget toys to see if they might help. Thanks for all your input and support

The worst they could say is "no" ...maybe you could ask the ward team if it would please be possible for them to contact the Hospital Occupational Therapy Team (OT) to ask for help - they often use varieties of dense squishy balls stress-style balls and therapy hand putty (for hand exercises and to support stims of dementia patients.

At school, I used to use a ball of Blu Tack.

Failing that, a pony tail band / elastic band (as long as you don't have a problem with latex).

Some hospitals also have access to a Learning Disabilities Liaison Team of specialist nurses who are happy to support Autistic people too.  They tend to be a resourceful "csn do" team!

I am so sorry you are like this and you had to go through such a horrible situation! I’ll be honest the thought of being in that position makes me feel so faint and unwell so well done for getting through that! You are so much braver than me I can tell you that! Were the staff with you nice at all? I find if you are able to talk about something you like then that can somehow take your mind off things, as everyone else has said a fidget toy could be helpful or even a random object to feel. You look after yourself and treat yourself now though for being so brave! 

I do a lot of toe-wiggling in bed. I'll also really tense and relax my leg muscles. I usually only do either if I have restless legs, as they are a bit ... antisocial. However, as you probably don't have any company in your hospital bed (unless its really overcrowded), you could go wild.

You could try some slight sit-up motions as a way of sort-of rocking while lying down (unless you've had abdominal surgery).

I like to flap my fingers a lot—just smacking them off my palms—which might be less likely to dislodge a cannula than a proper hand flap.

Something to fidget with is probably a good idea (profdanger beat me to it).

Another thing I really like in bed is running my hand over the bed covers if they have a nice texture. So perhaps some textured items you can place by your hand?

Oh wow, that sounds nightmarish and I’m sorry you have to deal with that situation. Especially the blood sample, I would definitely struggle with that as well.

The best that I can think of is to rub or fidget with something small, like a coin or something else that can fit in your hand easily. I used to fidget with a smooth, polished stone by rubbing my thumb across it when I was stressed. Nowadays I use a spinner ring. But something small like that could potentially give a similar experience to fiddling with your hair.