Dear Teapot Trust: Needles Are the Worst! How Do I Deal with Them?

Hi Fin,

Lots of people feel scared and worried about needles. This is normal, but unfortunately, those feelings can get so strong that they make it hard for you to get the treatment you need. But don’t worry, there are many things that can help you to feel better.  

I have three types of suggestions for you to try: calming, distracting and planning.  

For 'calming', we can try some breathing exercises to help you to relax your body, which can help you feel less scared and tense. Here is one to try: you are going to pretend to blow bubbles. Take a nice deep breath through your nose whilst counting to 5, then imagine blowing a really big bubble by breathing out of your mouth. As you slowly breathe out, imagine the bubble getting bigger and bigger, what colour is your bubble? Now imagine the bubble floating away and taking your worries with it. Try doing this ten times. 

For 'distracting', we can try something that can help to take your mind away from what is happening. You could look around the room and see how many blue things you can spot! You can try listening to music and tapping your fingers along to the music, and try to follow the beat with your hands! Or try bringing something like a fidget toy or a cuddly toy to play with. If you want to try something arty, why not try drawing something tiny or very detailed? Try to get lost in making your picture as small and detailed as possible! Or you could try filling a page with all of your favourite colours, concentrating on filling every last bit of the paper. 

For ‘planning’, knowing exactly what will happen when you have treatment can help you to feel more in control and motivated to get through it! You could draw out the steps of your plan, starting with a clock showing the time that your treatment will start, draw the arm that you will get your jab in, draw what will happen next or what calming activities you will try. Also, remember to make a drawing of what will happen afterwards to put at the end of your plan. This picture will show how you will feel after you have managed to get through your treatment, maybe you will feel relieved, proud or like a superhero! Make sure to share your plan with the people around you so that they know what you want to happen. 

I hope this helps, Fin!

From Megan

From Polly, Paediatric Rheumatology Nurse  

Hi Fin,  

Thanks so much for getting in touch. Sorry to hear you need to have regular injections, but the great news is that you are trying to work out how to make them better so you can keep taking the medicine, that’s so smart! Needles aren’t great, I personally hate them too, and I’m a children's nurse who often has to give them to other people ☹, but there are some things you could try, which might help.  

Firstly, try some square breathing, it's where you breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, breathe out for 4 seconds and then hold for 4 more seconds. Keep doing this, imagining a square in your mind and you are working your way around the straight lines of the box, it can be a little tricky, so keep practising it, try it before the needle so that you feel a bit more in control.  

Distraction is quite good too, have you got anything that you like to do, which you could try and do while you have a blood test or have an injection – maybe try and learn the alphabet backwards, that would be a cool trick.  

Another thing that some people find helpful is to squish a hairbrush above where you will have the stab; this often confuses your nerve endings, and so the needle stick isn’t as painful.  

[Blog artwork by Olivia]