Tag: Trypanophobia

Trypanophobia

Trypanophobia comes from the Greek words trypano  meaning to bore as in to inject or puncture and phobia is of course fear.

needle

Apparently this condition was officially recognised as a phobia in 1994.

I knew of someone  who is now in his 50s and had a pathological fear of injections as a child 40+ years ago.  So much so that he did not get to have the prescribed dose of BCG to fight off tuberculosis!

He said that his  fear of injections was so severe that he had to have a consultation with a child psychiatrist.  But then again hypodermic needles were a fearsome size and scared many adults as kids!

Over the years, technological advances have made needles much thinner and therefore more user-friendly but the scare-factor has not completely been eradicated.