Fear of needles and shots? Life just got better!

I don't know if this helps the discussion, but there is another simple way to help a kid with shots.  (I can't take the credit for it -- saw it on an Oobie show once, where Oobie goes to the doctor for a checkup.  But I've used it with my son, and it works so well.)  It works because it makes kids laugh and also makes them feel in charge, which of course the feeling of waiting helplessly is part of the problem with shots.

Get a party blower, the kind that if the person blows on one end, the curled-up end straightens out and it makes a blowing noise, and then curls up again.  (You see them all the time at New Year's, and they are available year-round at party stores).  When the child is going to get a shot, you hand him the blower, and say, "O.K., we'll do 'one, two, three, BLOW'!" and the child puts the blower in his mouth and you say "One, two, three, blow!" and at the blow, which of course is funny to the kid because the silly blower is suddenly straightening out, the nurse or doc gives the shot.  We call it "blowing the shot," and my son always announces that "it didn't hurt at all!"  I think the fact that he is laughing, and focusing on something else right in his face that is doing an action that is silly, and also "blowing away the pain," is why it works.  The nurses in our HMO (who are the ones who give the shots) think this is great, and it makes them laugh too (after all, who really wants to give a shot to a little kid?)  The whole mood is very light when we blow a shot.  Needless to say, though my son will ask if he is going to have a shot before a given checkup, he doesn't look too concerned about it if he is, and he is definitely not afraid of shots.

I don't know that this would work for someone who had to have a painful shot every day, but who knows, it might.  The shot does not go in until the child blows, and that makes THEM in charge instead of being subjected to something at someone else's will, and it seems to me that is half of the anxiety of shots.  "I am waiting for someone to hurt me and I cannot stop them" is not a though very conducive to relaxation and freedom from pain.

I kind of expect to see a jar of party blowers in the nurse treatment room pretty soon.  It certainly could work as well for adults as for kids.  :)  

oops, "thought," not "though"

Good ideas Annie! Your trick actually matches what the research says--distraction can work wonders for pain.