Let’s face the truth! No one is fond of shots.

However, some people are more afraid of needles than others. Their reaction to the needle is more than a momentary reflex and goes more than this mild comfort. It can even lead to anxiety attacks resulting in nausea, chest pain, and increased heartbeat.

This needle fear, also known as trypanophobia, is quite prevalent among people and can affect people of any age group. Children are more likely to get affected by it as revealed by a renowned pediatric surgeon in Peshawar during a webinar on children’s health.

Whether it’s vaccine shots or blood donation, you will find people screaming after seeing an injection needle. It only hinders the routine medical practices but in the case of patients suffering from a health problem. However, several ways can make this fear manageable.

How to deal with the fear of needles?

Some of the ways that can help to deal with needle phobia include;

1- Change your mind

One of the most effective ways to face your fear to stop thinking about it. Though you can’t completely do it, you can still practice diverting your attention and thinking about something else. This is especially important when you are sitting outside a healthcare facility where you are going to face the needle for some procedure. Not thinking about it, will enable you to face it with confidence.

Referring to needle fear, a physician from Mubarak Medical Center from Peshawar was telling how a patient fell outside the surgical room. Thus, learning to face your fear is the very first thing you can do.

2- Enlist the situations that concern you most

Needle fear can be of different types for different people. Some people are afraid of seeing the needle in the picture while others are scared of getting pricked. You can enlist your fears in increasing order. This will also give you more time and you’ll gradually learn to face your fears.

3- You can rely on anaesthetic creams

Well, depending upon what scares you the most, the sight of a needle or the pain while needles pierce through your skin, you can apply any anesthetic cream over the place to superficially reduce the pain.

4- Think about cognitive therapy

This is one of the common treatment approaches to treat fears and phobias. In cognitive therapy, you train your mind and tell it the worst possible scenarios. In this way, you train your body to reduce sensing the intensity of pain or phobia. This training lets your mind have realistic expectations towards your phobias which fully takes away your fears after a session or two.

5- Deep breathing might work for you!

Imagining yourself in peaceful surroundings and deep breathing to reduce the uphill of stress which you get after seeing a needle can be a good option to treat your phobias.

6- Show and tell approach can help the children

Fear of needles is more common among children and problematic to a greater extent. Here is the one thing you can try to make your child feel comfortable. Just as the nurses demonstrate the children about the process of injecting a needle explaining how it is done and then demonstrating it to a fruit. Normally, practice is continued until when the child becomes comfortable with it and can hold the injection in his hand to inject the fruit.

Parents can also try this therapy at home, you can begin slowly and take more time on every step allowing you to turn down your child’s fear of children.

7- Desensitize yourself

While you have tried all the things to tackle the needles fear, here is the last thing you should try. For this, you need to take yourself away from the room of a hospital or healthcare facility and imagine sitting somewhere else where your mind feels comfortable. Then, you can try holding the syringe on your own and wait unless your fear and anxiety go away.

You can try the fake moments that can be used to inject yourself but without actually pricking yourself. Moreover, using a cube of ice at the place of injection can also stop your sensation of pain, ultimately setting down your fear of needles.