Immunisations for child with profound medical trauma/ phobia

[Icelollies2025]

Dd5 was born in UK and fully up to speed with her immunisations there. We recently moved to a different country and the NHS-equivalent is requesting DD participate in some catchup immunisations. Problem is that my DD has deep medical phobia (can't watch anything involving Dr's, hospital, GP surgery, let alone up until recently stepping into the GP surgery - even to accompany me). I took DD to the GP surgery (which she was able to do - progress!) And the GP suggested we try to give her the jabs then and there. DD screamed the place down, thrashed, ran out of the surgery, etc while the nurse was prepping stuff. The Dr witnessed this and we mutually agreed to call it a day.

Working with the Dr, we've worked out we've got 4x choices for right now:

• not bother with the current immunisations (next round as a teenager)
• Dr to prescribe a relaxant to give her at home + numbing cream to put on the place where she'll have her jabs
• just take her in and get it done with, no matter what (we're both still traumatized with last time, and I don't say that lightly)
• take her to hospital, do them under general anesthetic (I don't think this is an option - feels like assault).

All this background to say - if you have a child in similar situation,do you have any pearls of wisdom or ideas on how to get the jabs done without any more/ minimal trauma or regression on the medical phobia front? Thankyou 🙏

I think my answer would depend on which vaccines they think she needs catching up on and the likelihood/risk of an outbreak.

I’ve been in a similar situation we did as many as we could then had to stop and rely on herd immunity as each time my ds was getting more unwell (autistic and with medical phobia and his meltdowns caused severe physical symptoms requiring a and e which made it even worse) so we gave up rather than risk that

mild sedative?

With experience the EMLA / numbing cream serves only to prolong the agony as it were - it means the build up is so much bigger, as it has to be administered at home or 45 mins before the injection.

Under GA sounds extreme - and these days unless the child consents to the vaccine, the medical staff won't administer.

I've got a DC13 in exactly the same boat, and the trauma is very very real. I would be interested to hear if others have managed it. We were in hospital recently with suspected appendicitis and DC point blank refused to allow bloods to be taken. Fortunately he didn't have appendicitis otherwise I honestly don't know what we would have done. Many doctors tried to no avail. I've asked for a referral to trauma counselling.

(Medical trauma counselling - sorry I wasn't more explicit)

I agree it depends on what the immunisations are and what the risk level is. And I'm very, very pro vaccines.

General anaesthetic I would say a hard no, as the process might deepen her trauma in addition to being a risk in itself. She might be very resistant to initiating anaesthesia.

If you can't get her to the surgery for a vaccination how on earth do they think you'll be able to get her into a hospital for a general anaesthetic?!

Forcing her to go through with it no matter what isn't going to do anything to alleviate her phobia either is it?

From your list I'd probably go for the first option, depending how prevalent the disease is you're vaccinating against. If there's a high risk though would she maybe respond to good old fashioned bribery? Can it be done in a pharmacy, might be slightly less threatening, especially if it's like our local one with a big jar of lollies on the counter.

Longer term though counselling will hopefully be helpful to her.

Hypnotherapy would be a great option.

@PanzLabyrinth

The Elma numbing cream is traumatic? Really

It's nothing of the sort!

You've obviously not met a medically traumatised child.

Ds4 didn't like needles. When he got crohns disease and needles became a way of life we found emla cream and buzzybees (little joy buzzers that you use as the needles going in) saved the day.

It must be tempting not to vaccinate but if your dd has a medical phobia then doing anything that risks her getting properly unwell and needing lots of medical intervention seems counterintuitive. So yes, if its chicken pox I might not bother, but measles etc I definitely would.

Just posting in solidarity. I have a 15 year old with severe needle phobia and she hasn’t had any of the teenage vaccinations. We’ve tried counselling and hypnotherapy - neither have been successful for us. I’m very pro vaccine but feel like we are out of options.

If the child had full UK immunisations up to school age I wouldn't be that worried about serious gaps? Definitely GA would not be remotely justified and I'd question whether an upsetting awake experience would be either. What ones are they asking for?

We don't give GAs for jabs. If they're having a GA for another reason we will try to facilitate if the paeds nurses are able. Teens won't get a gas induction so she would need to have a drip inserted for said anaesthetic and we most certainly wont be pinning a child down to do so

She needs counselling as will encounter health care in some shape or form in the future independent of vaccine staus

I have a (much older) child with this phobia and they are utterly terrified - panic attacks, fainting, intrusive thoughts, self harming, the lot.

They also have a severe medical condition that requires multiple appointments, tests, major surgeries, lots of scars, medications injections, and long hospital stays.

The only option here has been - take them in and get it done with. Of course they have to consent to much of their treatment so we have to talk to them forcefully about the (painful, life limiting) consequences of not getting the treatment and surgeries etc, but so far each surgery has meant several months of mental health problems afterward and we are stacking issue upon issue. Insomnia, flashbacks, anxiety, phantom pains and body memories.

But they have to get on with it because not having medical care when you need it isn’t an option either.

Have you not been offered or pursued any exposure/ phobia therapy/Cbt? It does need tacking asap as there will be so many things in the future that need her to have treatment,especially being female …and things like missing out on the HPV jab could mean she potentially has to undergo more invasive treatment in the future.

The much more important thing is sorting out the medical phobia, so I would get her a psychiatry review and likely will recommend some sort of therapy then can do the vaccines. Does she have a diagnosis yet?

I've worked with a child who had medical trauma and needed frequent blood tests due to medications.
We had to follow a desensitisation program with her that they were given.
It worked well, but took about 6 months. Started with just having toy syringes on a table nearby that she didn't need to touch and practicing putting on moisturiser to emulate the numbing cream. Also visiting the GP just to play a phone game in the waiting room and then leave.
There was loads of stages, mostly play related and no pressure and it built up really slowly ending with a full role play of doing the blood test with a real syringe (no needle obviously) and putting a plaster on her and then getting her agreed upon reward (a sticker and a strawberry milk).
Long time but it worked, she was having them monthly and tolerating it well.

Thanks so much everyone for your insights/ideas. I'm very pro-vax in general so this is hard to work through. The catchup jabs she needs are:

• Infanrix Hexa or Vaxelis (DTPA-Hep B-IPV-HIB) #4 dose (they do 4x pre-school jabs here). DD will receive an additional dose of HIB but they can't extract HIB out of the jab

• Nimenrix (Meningococal ACWY)

• Priorix Tetra (MMR-Varicella) #3 dose (DD has had Chicken Pox, but again they can't extract Varicella out of this jab).

I think therapy is definitely needed here, but I am also mindful that these jabs need to be sorted asap - I don't know if it presents more problems if there is a lag between jabs? (guess not, as in the UK, she's fully up to speed until highschool). Thanks again

We have had a very difficult time with medical trauma relating to blood tests after a bad experience with a prolonged attempt to insert a cannula during a hospital stay.
The blood tests/cannulas were necessary so we had no choice but to persevere which has led to some awful experiences but with practice DD has got better at coping.

I've started bringing DD with me when I have a blood test as sort of exposure therapy and so she can see how quick it is when we don't expend time/energy on battling it.

We have done role play doing pretend blood tests and cannulations on each other.

When she has a blood test we take an iPad with her favourite programme downloaded. It seems to help even though I've always thought she was too busy being upset to actually be noticing it. We also plan something to look forward to after the blood test so that she can focus on that.

We have finally reached a place where I don't think a blood test is traumatic anymore. It can be carried out by one nurse now where as previously multiple staff would be required before. DD used to be completely drained afterwards but now is ok.

It would be unethical in my view to give a child GA to have vaccinations. I also don't think skipping them is a good idea. I hope your DD didn't hear the doctor say this! If she did, she needs to understand what it could be like if she catches one of these illness. Would she prefer a vaccination where a tiny needle is in and out in 2 seconds or an illness that would require more injections and IV treatment etc.

It sounds like 2 of those are ones that are additional in the country you are now in, but she would be considered already fully vaccinated in UK. Is that correct? If so, I wouldn't bother.

The meningitis one would be the priority for me. Has she had any of them already?

Surely GA is a non starter, as she would need injection for that in a medical environment anyway.

GA (sedative) can be administered initially through a mask then the patient can be intubated and cannulas / lines inserted when under GA.

On the face of it, I don't really see that your child stands to gain much benefit from the residual jabs. Is it compulsory for eg school enrolment?

The doctor there (or whoever is giving the advice) isn't thinking this through IMV.

Not mandatory for school aged children (all jabs required for nursery/childcare) but you get less $$ from social services if your child isn't fully up to program. I'm prepared to take the lesser $$ from government - it's not about that. I talked with the GP today and we agreed the following:

• Request an extension of time to get the jabs done (deadline to be in 6 months' time), with therapy in meantime.
• In 6 months time, when it's time to do the jabs, to take a relaxant ahead of the appointment, numbing cream to be applied, and then sit in car and wait for the green light that everything is ready. Whisk her in, get the jabs, get out of there again.

GP is super responsive and generous - she saw the trauma and wasn't prepared to apply any further trauma without therapy. Thanks everyone!

Option 4 is off the cards, having a GA is unpleasant and involves Drs

I think all vaccines should be off the table this year, and you need to spend this year with her receiving therapy to work through the trauma she has experienced, and to find a way to help her navigate the future.

very few people require no medical intervention in their lives. So vaccines or not she needs to be reequipped with the agency and confidence to navigate the medical world.
otherwise she may find herself making some life limiting decisions- no routine gyne exams? Delaying seeking help from emergent conditions? Refusing to be a mother because of the fears of medical treatment in pregnancy?

It’s good that this situation has occurred now, because it can prompt you to seek support for your daughter, obviously she and you as a family have had some distressing situation, and it takes time to recover from that, but full recovery will be empowering.
and that can begin now

xx