Covid jab hell

[OrlandointheWilderness]

Looking for advice as I'm at a loss here.

I have a nearly 11 year old DD. She's naturally a timid child, doesn't like pain (who does!?) but not confident with things eg took her forever to learn to ride a bike as she was scared and didn't like horse riding because of the fear.
She's had her first covid injection. I've just taken her for the second and it was hell. She was sobbing, screaming I don't want it and wouldn't let them near her. Nothing I said worked and in the end the nurses didn't want to because of the distress (completely agree with that of course). I don't know how to react with this? Obviously a pull yourself together sort of attitude won't help but it just seemed so extreme. When she got in the car she asked why I couldn't just be nice for once and her life was so hard.
Any thoughts, I firmly believe in vaccinations and given my grandparents are elderly and very vulnerable I've always tried to ensure we are all protecting them and us as best as we can.

Yep!

Agree with advice to have calm, non-judgmental conversations around it when she's calm. 'I could see how distressed you were, that must have been so hard for you, can you tell me more about what happened?' Then you can hopefully unpick whatever is going on.

Agree also that anything positive that can be done to avoid her ending up with a full-blown needle phobia is definitely worth looking into. I genuinely don't know what I will do when my DD really REALLY needs some medical intervention. There is no clear triggering event that would have caused this for her, unless of course she somehow remembers her baby jabs?! But she will not take any medicine including Calpol, will not even consider a needle, and could not cope with having an ECG a while back when she was having some chest pains. They nearly didn't let us leave the hospital, but eventually decided that she was probably OK and we were able to go. There is always a complete panic response, no negotiation possible. She is generally anxious and is autistic, which probably has something to do with it.

When the day comes that she needs some sort of treatment that she is not OK with, I will literally have to help pin her down while they sedate her or do whatever is needed. The thought of this chills me to the bone, especially as it will worsen her phobia even more. :-(

Does she like dogs? When my kids had their jab there was a support dog at the clinic. The kid next to us was really anxious and they spent some time with him and he eventually had his jab while cuddling the dog.
Could you see if there's a clinic near you that has this option?

Would she have it if you used EMLA cream ?

Obviously a pull yourself together sort of attitude won't help but it just seemed so extreme.

It probably would have helped. She wasted a number of people’s time and behaved pretty badly. And the comment in the car was silly

Was she ok with her toddler immunisations, OP? Or have injections always been a problem?
I taught my toddlers that their immunisations would be just a tiny scratch, and worth it to stop them being ill with nasty diseases. I also told them that they should remember to thank the GP for protecting them.
My GP nearly fell off her chair when DD, aged 2, actually did say thank you! But I have always felt that honesty and good preparation are key to getting children to accept things calmly and logically.
If your DD’s problem is a new development and appears to be a full blown phobia, then you may need to work on gradually desensitising her, before she can accept it.
At her age, she will be beginning to hit the hormone storm of puberty, and may be over emotional and irrational at times, plus challenging your authority, so it will all need careful handling.
I hope you can nip it in the bud, as a needle phobia is a major nuisance when needing health care as an adult.

But how do you know this for sure? How do you know what is going on in this little girl's life that might make her feel this way? Yes, it might be an overreaction from an adult's point of view, but children have real feelings that are very real to them. A little empathy goes a long way. If you dismiss a child's feelings as wrong or unimportant, they're less likely to share their feelings with you in the future.

Buy some Emla cream. Are you taking her to a specialist childrens vaccination centre. If not find one , ours played Encanto on a big screen and had sweets and stickers plus cold spray. All childrens nurses.

Not quite the same but I have a 15 yr old who wanted to have the covid jab but had 3 aborted attempts, once at school, twice with me at a walk in centre.. She'd get there but then panic attack, shaking, crying, totally distressed so they wouldn't do it. Her issue wasn't so much the pain though, just the thoughts in general.

4th time on advice of a paediatric nurse friend, we got Emla cream and applied it an hour beforehand. Then her dad took her instead of me. He's the more fun parent and better at talking rubbish than me. With the cream, she couldn't feel it, then her dad just kept talking at her to distract her while she played a game on her phone too. Then it was done.

She's had the 2nd one now too again with Emla cream, dad and phone distractions.

However my daughter did want it done. I'm am a firm believer in vaccinations, they've all had their childhood immunisations but if they said they didn't want the covid vaccine, I wouldn't be forcing them in to it.

Could your DD have a needle phobia?

@LittleBearPad I tried it. And I am not the sort of mother who is overly soft, I expect (and generally get) a high standard of good behaviour. I am not fluffy and easily cried round into submission and my word generally goes. But I AM fair, and if I say it was an extreme reaction then it was. Short of physically pinning her down there was absolutely nothing, NOTHING, that could be said that would have made her have it.

I'll speak to her and see if she would want to try again with some of the cream and see if we could try some breathing techniques etc

Does she know she made an absolute show of herself? Was it worth it?

i would come down like a ton of bricks on (a) wasting your time and that of the nurse and (b) the “my life is so hard” though. Her life is so easy, and she is obviously monstrously ungrateful or is a half glass empty person. Yes of course children are selfish, but really she should be utterly ashamed to feel hard done by.

you tried to do a nice thing for her, and she deliberately fucked it up for you, and used you as her audience. Thanks DD.

It’s normal to feel a level of anxiousness or trepidation before injections/dentist visits etc. Part of growing up is recognizing that trepidation as a normal reaction and doing the right thing anyway.

Ds is also 10 and was utterly hysterical for his covid jabs. We have reasons that we didn't give him a choice, he had to have it. The administering nurse was amazing, he was calm, explained what was going on, how the needle worked, etc but every time we got ds clam and agreeing, as soon as the needle was an inch away, he freaked out again. In the end, I just held him and it was over in 3 seconds. He's the same about all new sensations to be honest, most recently a new hairbrush that feels different on his scalp, and a nasal spray for his hay-fever. After a couple of uses of each, he's absolutely fine, but it's so wearing trying to get him to do anything that feels slightly different or mildly uncomfortable. OP, is your dd very fair skinned by any chance? Ds is almost transparent and I wonder if that brings extra sensation sensitivity.

It somehow sounds from your post, and I might have got the wrong end of the stick here, like a sort of pre-teen tantrum more than it sounds like a genuine fear of the vaccination itself. When she and you are both calmer, can you try to work out between you whether she is genuinely terrified of the jab or whether she is in a bad mood with mum and knows that this is important to you so chose this to kick off over?

If it is a genuine fear of the jab, you can work on a set of distraction techniques or a numbing cream or to provide her with information about the benefits of the vaccine or whatever. Explain to her that many, many adults really hate getting injections so lots of people have worked out ways to grit their teeth and get through. it. If she is mad at the universe because teenager then I guess hear her out on that and suggest to her that you rebook the vaccine for a day and time that she will behave like an adult.

Do you have a family friend who is a medical professional who would have a chat with her about it, perhaps she would be too embarrassed to scream and cry in front of them so they could help her to understand how important it is that she has the vaccine.

I agree with those recommending emla cream - it may help her psychologically.

@BlibBlabBlob I have an autistic DS and had the same sort of worries as you. When my DS was nearly 10 he was admitted to hospital and needed blood tests. He was hysterical, I pinned him down along with a couple of members of staff so the blood could be taken. It wasn’t pleasant but was necessary, we had to do it like that a couple more times and then he got used to it - within 3 months he’d had 20-25 blood tests and didn’t need any numbing cream or spray, he barely even registered it was happening.