Every year I debate as to whether I should get the flu shot, and frankly some years I get vaccinated and some years I do not. Other years I don't get the shot because I end up thinking I did get it, but in reality that last shot was given to me the previous year.
Oh well. I'm generally a fairly healthy person, so it's a debatable issue. I suppose I should keep better track of when I have had it and make a regular point of getting it, if that is what I really want to do. Which I'm actually not sure about.
Anyway, I read an article recently in the October 2012 issue of the Better Homes and Gardens magazine about getting the flu vaccine. The article discussed the syndrome of dreading the sting of the shot. Apparently a study done and reported in the journal "Pain" suggests that if you look away while being given the vaccination you will experience less discomfort than if you look right at that nasty needle plunging its way into your upper arm.
Other research seems to indicate that you can use mental distraction - looking at the pictures on the walls, chatting with the nurse, or counting the cotton balls in the jar on the counter - to inhibit your body's pain response in its early stages.
So I got thinking about how I typically experience my vaccinations. I guess I am just a nosey person, but I always look at what is happening when I get a shot or have blood drawn or any other medical procedure that is within my field of vision.
This kid seems pretty brave to me. He is obviously in the camp of those who "stare down the enemy."
Now this next patient is on the other side of the issue, and you probably couldn't convince him to look at things even with a bribe of a trip to Disney World. He's got his mind made up that this is gonna be the death of him.
I love the reaction on this next guy's face. Something tells me he wasn't quite ready for what was happening, and it took him by surprise, or else it hurt way more than he thought it would.
So where do you fall in the bravery spectrum of vaccination patients?
Will you be getting a flu shot, and if so,
Will you look, or not?
I never took any that I can remember.
ReplyDeleteMy job requires me to get the flu shot...which I highly drag my feet and disagree with that particular vaccine in general. But...I need my job so I already got mine this year. Rachel
ReplyDeleteI highly disagree with the flu vaccine...but my job requires i get one so i've already gotten mine this year. Rachel
ReplyDeleteWhat the heck...it told me the first post didnt work. Oh well lol
ReplyDeleteShots don't bother me. I, personally, think flu shots are for the most part a hoax. It's like picking up a spoon of sand on the beach & hoping you picked the right grains. I never took one until about 3 years ago. My husband now has no immune system and his doctors asked me to start taking flu shots, & to take the pneumonia vaccine, which I did. Otherwise I would never go near a flu shot. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
ReplyDeleteI would fall on the first photo, I stare at the needle :) I don't remember having a flu shot, though. But I will be required to get one soon.
ReplyDeleteActually, The guy in the last picture just saw a camel spider leap into the room. DO NOT look up camel spider...you will never sleep again!!
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