Holiday Vaccinations

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My 12 yr old son is quite upset by medical subjects generally but needs some needles for a foreign holiday.
He refuses to go for vaccination, any suggestions on encouraging him to face what is, let’s face it, a slightly painful
experience.I have offered him local anaesthetic cream to numb the skin but he would rather not go on holiday than be injected ! Help .

"Get the shots or stay in a juvenile detention center while the rest of us are gone."

Offer to be there for the vaccination. Tell him he can squeeze your hand if the shot is very painful.

I had to get over the pain of vaccinations, too. I had to "get over" it. I was pretty bad up until I was about 10 years old. At that time, I realized that I wasn't going to get a lollipop for being "good" during the vaccination process.

I feel it would be good for him to have your support----but this is something that he HAS to do. Life is like that sometimes.

I think you should let him explain properly about why he has a problem with medical things in general. Even if he has

to have the injection, being able to discus it and know exactly what is going on, can make us feel more in control.

Or rather less out of it.

Yep, life is like that, all the time. There is simply no magic pill when it comes to dealing with injection and dental care. I've seen all too many horror stories on how many teeth had to be pulled from autistic children. Is that any better than going through sedation?

I still see children wearing head protection (bumping), special ear plugs (noise reduction), tinted eyeglasses, etc.

All these issues, come entirely from something else: underdevelopment. The circuits inside the brain loop around themselves, without (software) connections to other parts of the brain. Once the brain is properly developed, you develop reasoning power. For instance, I was phobic with moths even until adulthood. Sure, you could get away by avoidance. But once my wife told me: look at yourself, how many times bigger are you compared to a little moth? Then I realized how silly I have been all along, and gradually got used to moths, or picking up spiders and taking them outside the house. (Funny thing is my wife is scared of reptiles, while I don't have issues holding snakes.) My son used to be very sensitive to noise when he was a toddler. Now he has no sensory issues. The solution to all the phobia and sensory issues is not avoidance. The ultimate solution is brain development, establishing connections so that your sensory system doesn't run in isolation from other parts of your brain. And all that, starts with drawing pictures and writing down words for the children, early on. And by early on I mean from when they are 6 months old. Autistic children that can't read alphabet by 9 months and can't read books by 18 months, are begging for problems.

By the way, when I am suffering from spicy food, do you guys know what I do? I drink a few sips of really hot water. Yep, it's excruciatingly painful for a few seconds. But afterwards it's heaven: you've raised the threshold of your sensory system, and you don't suffer anymore. It works every single time. So when I see people drinking cold water after eating spicy food, I just shake my head.

When I was a kid, I was TERRIBLE about vaccinations. As in, my father had to help nurses restrain me as a TODDLER I would fight so hard.

Once I was old enough to explain, I could tell them it was the sense that someone was doing something to me that I couldn't see or control. Once my mom understood that, she got the nurses to explain each step and let me watch. I was the perfect patient from then on. I wasn't afraid of the pain. It was the loss of control and unpredictability of the "surprise shot" method they use on most kids.

That may not be his issue, but thought I'd share in case it is.

I still have to explain to my nurses that I am weird and need to watch them take my blood, etc, and that it helps if they explain what they are doing like a new med student is in the room. It makes it an intellectual experience I am participating in and not a scary one being done to me like I'm a lab rat.

Yes I have to watch too. I particularly need to see any item preferably touch anything that is going to be inserted, such as dentistry tools.

I how finding out about Louis Pasteur, Edward Jenner, and John Williamson(Johny Notions) might help. All three of whom developed vaccinations independly, and how vaccinations work (Giving the immune system a preview of the organism, but in a harmless form) so that when the body meets the real thing, instead o getting ill, the immune system gives the organism a f***ing good kicking and eliminates it.

Quite often if we get told we HAVE to have something, it puts our backs up, whereas explaining how it works so we understand why can make us a little more amenable.
:
a bit about Johnny Notions
http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/35366/6