How to get over a fear of needles when going through fertility treatment

“I'm scared of needles. How am I going to get through IVF?” As I help people with the ups and downs of fertility treatment, the topic of needle phobias comes up often, so I'm going to talk about a couple of different techniques on how this is typically addressed.

First, if you are someone who's worried about needles and worried about fainting, a lot of people will tell you, oh, just relax, and to be honest, is really not helpful when it comes to fainting. Why? Well, when you faint, your heart rate drops, and your blood pressure drops, so we don't want your body to be in a completely relaxed state.

Applied Tension Technique

What we do want is your blood pressure to be at a normal state in your body. Not too high and not too low. The technique to help you prevent your blood pressure from dropping is called the Applied Tension Technique, and it’s pretty easy to do. You apply tension to your body by squeezing your muscles in your body. You can squeeze your hands and make a fist, or tense your muscles in your arms, legs, or core.

This technique requires that you practice this over and over.

Practice this in order to achieve a normal blood pressure resting state where your blood pressure is not through the roof, but you're also not in a very relaxed state. The goal is to get your body back to a neutral blood pressure place to prevent fainting.

The next technique I am going to discuss might sound familiar. It is called exposure therapy and it is used to address fear and avoidant behavior. Exposure therapy can be applied to several different types of fears.

Exposure Therapy

Exposure therapy sounds just like what it is. You expose yourself to your fear, until it is extinct. This can be done over time, by implementing relaxation techniques to reduce anxiety symptoms and creating something called a fear ladder. I like to start with teaching a relaxation technique that my clients choose. Once that is complete we create their fear ladder together, which include a list of fearful activities that involve needles. Picture a list of 1 through 10, where 1 would be the first step on your ladder and something that is the least fearful as it relates to needles, and 10 being the most fearful and the highest ladder step as it relates to needles.

Once relaxation exercises and the fear ladder is complete we are ready to start the exposure therapy. We always start with the first step of the ladder which usually includes talking about needles. We allow for the anxiety to rise and then practice the relaxation techniques to build confidence that you can lower your anxiety symptoms. Exposure therapy can empower you to work through your fears by accepting that they will show up, accepting that they are present and reducing your anxiety. Once we feel confident that you are ready for the next step we might watch a video about needles and always repeat the relaxation stratgies. Other ladder steps might include holding a needle, looking at a needle, swabbing your skin with a needle, or pricking your skin with the needle? As you can see, we would walk you through so many different steps on the ladder. So when people say, just relax. That's not easy. Exposure therapy takes time and includes multiple steps.

Just to give you perspective, in therapy we might just focus on one step at a time, and that one step might last multiple sessions.

My hope in sharing this with you is that it validates your frustration, but also teaches you that addressing a fear of needles takes a lot of patience, emotional work and there are mental health professionals who can help.