HPV for needle phobic 12 yr old, is there anywhere other than school

[Rudi44]

DD is petrified of needles, whenever HPV comes up in conversation she gets very very anxious and upset. I doubt she would go through with it at school but potentially would if I could take her. Our GP has said they won’t do it but I wondered if there might be anywhere else we could ideally get it done for free.
Thanks

Dud your GP give a reason for saying no? It seems pretty unreasonable, as they presumably give them to those who are off sick on the normal vaccination day. You may just Ave to be pushy with them.

Have you not asked the school if you can be with her? Doesn’t seem like an unreasonable request.

Have you had the invitation/consent other yet? There may be a number on it you can ring for further advice. For instance here if you miss any of the vaccinations that are normally done in schools, there's a place you can go and get them done by the same nursing team. But it's a timed appointment and there's more privacy than at school.

Does your daughter really need to have it? She's only 12.

Yes I am afraid she does have to have it at 12. Our school give the first vaccine in Yr 8 and the second in Yr 9, there are no options to work around this.
I am going to push a bit further with our GP and am waiting for the nurse to call me back to discuss

Let the school know about her anxiety. They should let the imms team know.
Your daughter should be seen first when it's quiet, with you if that helps.
That's what we do with nervous/anxious girls.

My dd had her first at a children's centre - was a bit of a disaster. When it came to the booster, she again didn't have this at school. I was going to push for drs clinic but i got a call and they actually did a home visit. My poor dd was hysterical but it needed to be done

Rachelover - yes it is necessary and needs to be done young.

Thanks so much for understanding, I wondered if people might take the stance to tell her to just get on with it but she’s almost sick with worry. First step will be GP and then if we hit a wall I will discussing with School nurse who has already been very sympathetic

School nurse did ours at the local clinic. We phoned them.

Sorry diamonds, did you organise it via school or through a clinic (walk in centre? ).

It was done directly through the school nurse. I rang them directly and explained and as DD had previously flat out refused a flu jab due to needle phobia and because she was old enough to say no the GP wouldn't do it they said to bring her to the clinic they were based from and they would do it. I think she went to the home educators vaccine clinic for those who aren't in school.

I wonder why the GP won't do it. DS missed his booster and meningitis jab for similar reasons and I'm having that done through GP surgery

You could just tell her that it's up to her and to just have a chat to the nurses when they come in. They would put her at ease with no pressure to get it done. If she sees her friends having it she may just agree to it but if she doesn't then try again next time when they come back for the second vaccination.

I am needle phobic and found out when I fainted dead in front of all 250 people in my year group (meningitis jab aged 15) - not a good look for me and put me off having injections for ages.

My mum took me to the local college as she taught there and I had it done and she got one of her 18 year old male students to hold my hand which perked me up somewhat. It was much more private which helped so I guess speaking to the school to ask about going first without anyone looking might help.

I think at dd's school they do the catch up in school, rather than at the GPs. The leaflet said that they've found it's more effective when done at 12-13 than slightly older, which means they only need to have 2 injections instead of 3.

Hopefully they can arrange something fo her, they must have had this situation before.

Thanks for the advice everyone, just to update in case this info helps anyone, after pushing back with the doctor they have said if she signs up for the School one but doesn’t go through with it they can arrange to do it at our GP after all. So that’s great.

They also recommended Elma cream which applied 30 mins prior will numb the area.

As a practice nurse we've done this once or twice for the same reason. But we don't stock the vaccine, it has to be ordered in. And make a double appointment or the nurse will only have ten minutes which isn't fair on anyone.

Thanks, yes they mentioned it would need to be ordered. The double appointment is great advice, thank you