Blood-injection-injury phobia

When you suffer from blood-injection-injury phobia, you experience an intense fear or strong aversion when you are confronted with situations that involve blood tests, hypodermic needles, vaccinations, operations and diseases. Someone with this phobia tends to avoid hospitals, doctors and dentists. The disadvantage of avoiding situations like this is that it can have major consequences for your health. After all, never going to the dentist is not good for your teeth.

Symptoms

When someone who’s dealing with this phobia is faced with a situation that he or she fears, they may experience symptoms such as:

• accelerated breathing
• a dry mouth
• excessive sweating
• nausea / dizziness
• headache
• trembling
• confusion
• stomach cramps
• chest pain
• panic reactions; screaming / flight behaviour
• feeling faint / passing out

What distinguishes the blood-injection-injury phobia from other phobias is that some people dealing with this phobia have a tendency to pass out when faced with an anxiety-inducing situation. Research has shown that about 50% of people with a needle phobia and 75% of people with a blood phobia suffer from fainting.

Causes

The development of a blood-injection-injury phobia can have various causes. It can result from a negative experience, for example during a blood test. Furthermore, experiencing a panic attack during a specific situation or witnessing a traumatic event (a bloody accident, for example) can also be a cause.

Therapy

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is effective for treating blood-injection-injury phobia. This tyepe of treatment focuses on discussing and treating the behaviour and thoughts that sustain the fear. An important part of this is exposure therapy, during which you will actively expose yourself to the anxious and frightening situations.

Your practitioner can guide you to overcome this fear by gradually exposing you to the anxious situations.

Sources:

https://mens-en-gezondheid.infonu.nl/aandoeningen/157703-bloed-injectie-ziektefobie-een-medische-angst.html

https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/anxiety/exposure-therapy-anxiety-disorders

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4079768/