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Immunisations for child with profound medical trauma/ phobia

26 replies

Icelollies2025 · 09/03/2025 11:17

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 🙏

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Unseenentity · 10/03/2025 09:19

Icelollies2025 · 10/03/2025 09:07

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!

Surely the GP can write some kind of medical exemption or statement of equivalence here? The government should not be making your child jump through detrimental hoops just for box-ticking.

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