A peer support community, independent and not for sale. Since February 2024.

GLP CircleA peer support community

Travel and holidays

Long-haul with a needle phobia

Started 5 November 2024 · 14 replies · 163 hearts · read 3.2k times

TullaTralee, IE · 5 November 2024
1.7 years ago

Starting a thread on this because it keeps coming up in ones and twos: Long-haul with a needle phobia

Anyone else navigating this? I feel as though every piece of advice I read was written for someone with a completely different week.

I have read the guides here, which were more useful than anything else I have found, and I still have a question they do not cover.

I have written down what has actually happened, in order, because I find that more useful than my summary of it.

The thing that has surprised me most is how much of this is about other people rather than about me.

Not looking for a plan. Just company and whatever anyone has found.

54

NúriaBarcelona, ES
#1

I asked my nurse the same question and she said something I have repeated ever since: that the aim is to keep you on treatment, not to get you up the schedule.

10

MimiHong Kong
#2

Gently disagreeing with the opening post, or rather adding the other half of it.

Please do not read the comments under news articles about this. I lost a fortnight to that.

8

NoorFacilitatorSingapore
#3

Noticing out loud that this conversation has drifted into comparison. That happens without anyone intending it and it does not help anyone. Let us come back to the person who asked.

19

TamarPlymouth, UK
#4

My experience was very boring, which I offer as data. Some of us just get a dull time of it.

6

VeraRiga, LV
#5

What the reply above described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

I am the person who had the frightening version of this. I went in, it was investigated, and it was not what anyone feared. Going in is the whole of my advice.

11

SalmaManchester, UK
#6

Coming back to this a fortnight later to say it settled. Leaving the update because I hate reading threads that stop.

9me too 7

OzzyAdelaide, AU
#7

Practical, boring answer: write the three questions down before you go in. I have never once remembered them otherwise.

13

BlueStroud, UK
#8

Gently disagreeing with the reply above, or rather adding the other half of it.

I did exactly the same and felt terrible about it. You have not done anything wrong.

7

OzrenZagreb, HR
#9

The phrase that unlocked my appointment was asking what specifically she wanted me to watch for. It moved us from reassurance to a plan in about thirty seconds.

11

BrackenHexham, UK
#10

Different experience here, for balance. Mine did not improve and in the end I stopped, and that was the right call for me. Both outcomes exist.

11

NissaHaifa, IL
#11

the reply above said something I want to sit with for a second.

Similar here, and mine turned out to be a completely unrelated deficiency picked up on bloods.

15

NevGrimsby, UK
#12

I have been in this circle a year and this question comes round every few months. It is not a silly question. It is the question.

10me too 2

NoorFacilitatorSingapore
#13

Two things, both boring. First, none of us can tell you what to take. Second, the conversation you want to have is with your prescriber, and we can help you write it down.

25

DuncanPerth, UK
#14

Reading the reply above, I recognised more of that than I expected to.

What helped was lowering my own expectations of the week rather than trying to hold the week together.

8