Flu shot

[cjsmith]

OW.

I barely felt the flu shot when it was administered. (It was an injection of inactivated virus, not the FluMist thing with attenuated. I suspect the tech was skilled.) But now, oh MAN does that shoulder ache. Every year I forget about this part. I'm glad I got it in my left arm. I'm mousing with my right.

She used a 25ga needle. The ones I use for Duchess, my diabetic cat, are 30ga, so I know what those look like; what I barely felt was bigger than those. Well done.

Duchess doesn't seem to mind hers a bit, but I'm still wondering if I can't develop some of that skill, that deftness used by good needle-wielders to lessen the sting. I have a great opportunity to practice, right?

Comments

[platypus]

Some doctors just don't have the touch, do they? I wish I knew what it was. My flu shot was a bit painful this year, but I didn't have much bruising afterward. Sometimes I barely feel them, during or after.

I had a dental assistant once who gave completely painless shots, and I complimented her on it -- she said it must just be a quirk of her technique interacting well with my anatomy, since not everybody said that to her! Sadly I had to leave that practice, because the dentist was awful, but I really regretted having to lose the assistant.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I wish I knew what it was, too. Sometimes it's probably just luck: the specific injection site just happens to be less full of nerve endings. But man, some of those folks are good.

I had to get an MRI with contrast injection a while back. The critical thing about an MRI is that the patient not move, and when a needle gets waved anywhere near me, I do the whole cold-sweat fan-myself fidget-like-crazy the-world-goes-gray thing. This one person was so deft -- and/or I was so lucky -- I honestly could not feel the injection AT ALL. Boy was I impressed.

[platypus]

Oh, and about needle-waving -- a good dentist will not let me catch a glimpse of the needle at all, and give me enough warning to close my eyes when they're going to anaesthetize me. Most of them seem to know exactly where my field of view ends, and are very deliberate about staying out of it. My endodontist has not got that kind of finesse -- even after I specifically asked him to give me some room and not be all pushy and needle-wavey -- and I really hope I won't be needing any more root canals, because I don't think I'll be going back.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yikes. Yeah, I'm usually pretty firm about requesting to have my eyes shut for the whole thing, lying down if it's going to be a bad one (blood draws often end up this way because they take longer), and that sort of thing. Once an Army specialist was told all this and pretty much ignored me. He did a blood draw, told me to move on to the next station, and I opened my eyes on three nice test tubes. I passed out right at his feet and gummed up the whole intake line until they could pull me aside. Served him right, the nitwit!

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

It would be kind of hard to tell if you're doing a good job with Duchess. I've never seen her react at all.

But you own a bunch of needles. You could stick yourself with them until you got good at it :-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Sometimes her skin twitches. Of course, that also occasionally happens when there's a stray breeze.

I think I might not be anywhere near ready for that exercise. :-)

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

It's actually a good idea, and med students/nursing students practice on each other, after they start practicing on things like oranges.

And you could even just start with stuff like holding a needle, fiddling with it, and then taking a break. You could learn to stick yourself or perhaps start on a sympathetic partner. Might be good to do it at your pace, on your time, and go slowly.

Good luck!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm past the fiddle-with-it stage, as I can inject Duchess just fine. (I sure couldn't the first time I tried! I was way too careful and way too slow and getting a bit woozy, and Duchess decided ENOUGH OF THIS and trotted off down the hallway... with the syringe flopping off her shoulder! Doh!) But probably the next thing I'd need to do is learn to stick myself.

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

Coming from someone (me) who used to grow faint at the sight of a needle in an arm, I'm with ya.

I'll probably cave in time, but I've yet to get a flu shot. I remember that my father used to get bed-ridden ill for 3 days after his mandatory flu show while in the Air Force. I didn't want to be subjected to that. Apparently, what they use for flu shots is very different nowadays, but still...

Hope you heal up quickly!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I still do. My doctor laughs at me. My cats laugh at me. :-) And here I'm thinking of trying for vet school! What am I, nuts? But I know it can be overcome.

I roll my eyes at the whole "you can't get sick from the flu shot" party line parroted by health care folks. They seem to forget that to most of us "sick" means symptoms, not whether the virus happens to be reproducing! If the whole point of a flu shot is to get your immune system to gear up, then GUESS WHAT you might notice? Sheesh.

Thanks!