What to do if child has phobia and unable to do Covid test

[LimeLemonOrange]

My teen has a phobia of injections, he's recently started CBT therapy for this. He's talked about generalised fears of medical procedures, so I suspected that if he came down with Covid we'd have an issue getting him to do the test.

He's off school, last two days he's had a sore throat, his temperature has risen but hasn't been high. Until this afternoon when it went up to 38.2 for a short time, but it is now back to 37.9.

He doesn't have any other symptoms of Covid. His sore throat isn't as bad now, he just feels a bit off colour. When his temp went high he felt rough but now it's settled he's not as bad.

It could just be a cold or flu, but I thought we ought to do the right thing so tried to book a test for him. But he's too frightened to have the test and the very idea of it has caused a major mental health episode for him.

Not sure what to do in this situation. Any advice?

Thanks RosesforMama and GreenOagoda - that's good to know that you can still get results from shorter times with the swab.

That toddler story made me laugh!

I'm hoping that the fact that he's isolated in his room and unable to do the things he wants to do (including watching TV with me, eating with family etc) will help him feel motivated to give the test a try. Though I do realise that phobias can make a person irrational. However, fingers crossed that with him his phobia is more about people doing things to him (tests, injections, procedures etc) rather than him doing something to himself.

He did it! Doing it himself with the home test was the right way to go. No pressure, took his time.

@LimeLemonOrangefantastic fantastic news. fingers crossed for a quick turnaround time and a negative result.

OP well done to all of you! I’m so proud of him, so I’m sure you must be bursting. Hopefully this will help with some other tests in the future too, he knows he did this one

We had a case in my daughter's school with a child with sensory issues who refused a test. The rest of the family had all tested positive but without a positive test from the child the school couldn't shut the bubble. Parent's were kept informed of the situation and not sure if any chose to isolate voluntarily. The child in question was told to stay at home for 14 days.

A nasal swab will be fine. No need for him to swab his throat, that's the worst bit!

Can you put headphones on him.
Close his eyes/blindfold.
Escapism basically

I'm glad he managed to do it Hope he's negative and feels proud too.
As a teacher I can't imagine telling my employer I had to be off for 14 days without a positive result. We've been off for the time it took for test results, and if a test was impossible they'd have to suck it up but it would be a very uncomfortable conversation with my boss.

Thanks everyone, I'm so proud of him!

And it was negative! So everyone went back to school today.

Oh well done! Hopefully that will be a good experience for him to draw upon in the future.

Also it takes the stress out of anticipating what his reaction would be if he needs a covid test in the future.