I've really noticed my tastes in food changing over the months... it was that which prompted me to become a vegetarian. The downside is that I've noticed that my hair has become a little thin and dry lately, and I'm wondering if I could be running short on iron. Will have to look into getting a good iron supplement of some kind, either pills or a tonic of some sort. I checked them out in my local health food shop and the tonic was about £10 a bottle (which is a little expensive for 250ml! especially as I'm going to be losing money through loss of work soon). Maybe I should go to the doctors, see if they can give me something for it? The only thing that is putting me off is that I just know that they will want me to go to the hospital for a blood test... and just thinking about that makes me feel really queasy (and I've just started shuddering!). Have looked up my phobia on Wikipedia and I have this:
Associative trypanophobia is the second most common type, affecting 30% of needle phobics. This type of trypanophobia is the classic specific phobia in which a traumatic event such as an extremely painful medical procedure or witnessing a family member or friend undergo such, causes the patient to associate all procedures involving needles with the original negative experience.That about sums up the way I feel.
When I was fifteen I was taken in for tests at the local hospital to see if they could find a medical/genetic reason for my being so obese. The only way they could test this was to take fifteen different samples of my blood over the course of a 36 hour period (one the night of my admission, one each hour for twelve hours the following day during which time I was nil by mouth, one before I went to sleep that night, and the final one on the morning of by discharge from the ward). The one the night before was fine, a regular needle (and because I was classed as a minor, they put some cream on my skin called Emla, which numbed the skin and I didn't feel anything).
The next day it was a different story! They came round every hour with these thick needles (with little green plastic "wings" on them) attached to thin tubes, so that they could draw multiple samples at a time... they really hurt, they were so big, and every single one left me feeling sore and mildly bruised! They even had to mark the veins that they wanted to draw from, as they kept disappearing. The Emla also did nothing for the pain of those large needles. The fact that the doctor that did it was new and not used to drawing blood from people only made it worse, and in the end, everytime he came round I started to panic. He even botched up the last one and I had to come back and have it re-done... fortunately, it was done by a proper phlebotomist and I barely felt it!
I wouldn't have minded so much if they had found a reason at the end of it, but all they could come up with was the fact that I have too many male hormones and I should probably have been fraternal (different sex) twins. Thanks a lot! That's all you could come up with! Well done on giving me a guess and a phobia... CHEERS!!!
I think that I'd rather try the iron supplements first, and leave the doctors until I have no other options available!
I feel quite sick and scared now... I shouldn't have made myself recall that experience!
