Needle phobia in child who needs regular injections: where to turn if cbt doesn't help?

[Whatthepizza]

As above - nearly 10yo needs regular injections for a chronic condition and has developed a severe needle phobia as a result. We've had several sessions with a cbt therapist, including graded exposure, which helped to an extent, but DC seems to be going backwards despite our attempts to use the techniques learned in cbt since the sessions ended. The treatment by injection is long term so no chance of any change there, unfortunately. Injections are given at home with one of us holding DC down, and not nice for anyone (mainly dc, obvs).

I know cbt is supposed to be really effective for phobias but tbh I found the emphasis on looking at your own behaviour a bit much to put on a child who has both a needle phobia and a chronic illness to come to terms with.

If DC continues to struggle, what other options are there? It was made fairly clear to us that we were lucky to be referred on the NHS, so I suspect we'd be on our own if we wanted to try and find other solutions. Can anyone advise? Or are we just stuck with this situation?

I don't know what condition your child has, but it may worth contacting their consultant and seeing if they can refer to a psychologist for support.

Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) could be worth a go? It worked with my phobia and helped me.
www.planetnlp.com/needle_phobia.html

My dc had therapy for a needle phobia, it took about six months of graded exposure.
But she didn't need injections going along so was able to be in control of the situation.

But we worked through pictures, videos, injecting oranges, before visiting doctor's for injections- which took a couple of visits of several days before they were able to have the injection.

I would talk to a psychologist.

We used a hypnotherapist for DS. Just had 2 sessions I think.
Funnily enough I’m sitting here while he gives his own injection as he does every night now.

Could you get in touch with the Speakmans? They cure peoples phobias and I don't believe it's all just for tv, it might be worth a try?

I really sympathise with her, I used to have a very bad needle phobia (I would faint at people mentioning it) but over time and unfortunately after a lot of injections, it has gone. It won't be forever, you're a good mum for taking this seriously and trying to get her professional help.

Thanks, all. Sorry if I wasn't clear (I may have got exact job titles not 100% right). The person we saw was a psychologist and we were referred by DC's consultant.

@velvetbee that's really interesting. The idea of my dc doing their own injections is beyond belief for us. How did that work? How did you find a hypnotherapist? Was your dc a similar age? Hope you don't mind all these questions!

Hmm, I can’t remember how old exactly, between 8 and 10 I guess. He’s 16 now.

He was diagnosed with a brain tumour at 3, so had lots of blood tests etc and got to the point that he would start to scream as a nurse approached. It was manageable but grim until surgery gave him adrenal insufficiency and he stopped growing. After a couple of years he met the criteria for growth hormone injections and as it was going to be a daily occurrence we felt we had to sort out his fear.

We found a hypnotherapist by googling and ringing round. One locally had a fabulous office in the centre of town but charged a fortune, one rented a room above a dentists I think, about 20 minutes away. We went with her (she was a third of the price).
She did a combination of breathing techniques, word triggers, Harry Potter visualisation and a sweet. I think teddy was also involved.
It meant he would let us do his injection, we’d pop a sweet in his mouth, say ‘breathe in’, then ‘breathe out’ and the needle went in as he was breathing out.
It’s hard to remember but DH thinks he’s being giving it himself for about a year even though he has a learning disability and is mentally about 6. He still gives himself a sweet and does the breathing thing.

We also have a 14 year old who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes a year ago. It’s was easier with him because the specialist nurses are used to training them and he was so much older than his brother was when it became necessary.

No experience of needle phobia but if he has Type 1 Diabetes have you considered a pump or iPort? Just a thought if that happens to be the condition.

Thanks so much to all of you. It's not diabetes btw.

Thanks especially to you @Velvetbee - that's so useful to know and we will keep that in reserve as a idea to explore in future if necessary. What a thing to have gone through- I'm glad your DS is doing well.