Fears & Phobias

Fear of Needles (Trypanophobia)

The Fear or Phobia of Needles (Trypanophobia) can be just the fear of needles or related to: dentist, hospitals, family doctors (GPs), giving blood, receiving blood, operations, or any medical procedure.  Additionally the person is often very anxious and suffers from panic and rapid breathing, even at the thought of a needle.  Mostly it appears to be the thought or perception or fear of pain which triggers an extreme anxiety, panic and phobic reaction.  Nowadays, with younger sufferers and younger more modern doctors, nurses,  dentist, phlebotomists.  Further advances which help are more modern equipment; finer needles, local numbing cream, pre-iced area, etc.

Very early on the initial root causes could be; early negative experience of attempted injections or vaccinations, memory of seeing another person being injected, memory of trying to give blood, smell or experience of the medical setting, other fears for e.g dentists, operations, hospitals, pain, etc.  These attempted or very fearful experiences of needles can also be very recent and triggered by any of the above reasons and needs.

Extreme care should be taken when treating Needle fear or phobia (Trypanophobia),  to ensure that the fear or phobia of needles does not become stuck and even more serious than before, there are many tried and tested methods, please see our needle phobia methods.