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Medical Medical Induced Trauma

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Hello everyone,
Has anyone else gone through a similar experience?
When I was six years old I had a horrific experience with a test called a vcug, I had three done on me . It is a test done on kids with urinary problems and involves . Anyway when I was getting the test done on me I had no clue what was happening. So here is how it went, my parents and I went to the hospital and checked in. Pryor to checking in my mom and I got called in and we were taken to bathroom so my mom can help me get changed to a gown. Later a nurse took us to ancoupay room where there was a long white table with a huge camera above it. The look of the room made me scared. After looking at the room I just froze next to my mom and refused move. Everyone in the room was trying to get me on the table by telling me everything is going to be OK and it will be short, they were wrong............ It was not short nor was I OK. So, I hopped on the table and layed down with my legs together cause I was not wearing an underwear. Soon a nurse came near me and told me to open my legs. I did not want to cause I was told not to show that part of my body. After a couple of seconds she said " if you don't let us we are going to have to keep you in here all day". Soon I gave in and opened them up, as soon as I did I felt one of the nurses(there was two) wipe my private parts with something really cold. I just froze in fear. Soon they started to put in a catheter it burned and stung so badly in my urethra when they trying. As soon as I felt burning and stinging pain I started to wiggle around and started to sob in pain hoping that it would stop. Soon another nurse and my mom started to hold me down to keep me still. The catheterization took ten minutes. I thought that was the end but it was only the beginning....... After all that happened they started to fill my bladder to the absolute maximum. While my bladder started to get filled I had the strong urge to urinate but it kept getting stronger. Once it came to the absolute maximum I felt a sharp pain in my stomach. Soon I had to pee in front of EVERYONE in the room. I was resistant in peeing but the urge was to strong. I felt so embarrassed and confused of why I had to pee in front of everyone. Soon it happened all over again, then again two years later at Dell children's hospital. The one at Dell children's went a lot smoother. Then I had surgery which was more painful physically but wasn't so scary cause I was under anesthesia. After all that was done I developed bad iatrophobia.

Sorry if I was long
 
I am so sorry to hear about your horrendous experiences! I too suffer from immense medical trauma from being born premature and severely ill for the majority of my childhood. I had many experiences and hospitalizations similar to yours. My mother as well as many doctors restrained me during multiple procedures. Arterial sticks. Collapsed veins. Straight jackets. It was a horrific and chaotic time that changed my life forever..medical trauma is very real. Welcome to the forum and bless you!
 
Unfortunately.. however, medical care has evolved greatly in it's treatment of children and trauma prevention over the past 20 years. Medical trauma is finally being recognized and now doctors know not to restrain children for procedures and the importance of adequate pain control.. the end goal is to make the experience as least traumatizing as possible. A far cry from the medicine of yesteryear. And that makes me feel good.
 
That sounds like a pretty terrible and scary experience...probably more confusing that your mom seemed to be on "their side".

I've been hospitalized a few times and restrained also. As a kid I don't remember the really invasive stuff because I was unconscious for the worst I believe (intubation and draining lungs...both collapsed). In some fuzzy awake moment, I do remember a strange guy bring me a bed pan and having to use that, without really understanding why I couldn't get out of bed and do it myself. I was a couple years beyond potty training and this was really embarrassing. My mom seemed to be in on this, so it felt like a sort of conspiracy. Also, because of other kids at home and the hospital I needed to be at being many miles away, I did not always have a parent with me. Most of my memories are waking up and nobody is there...or a strange nurse or doc coming to do another test. I also didn't understand what was happening, at all. So very unreal.

Oddly, I'm not afraid of doctors. I find hospitals to be comforting. I don't know if that's a mastery thing for me or what (I seemed to land in ER easily over and over in my teens). I don't feel very human there, but I feel safe. Like they'll not let me die. If I have a panic attack at home I seem helped by a pretend oxygen mask...just the feeling of it (I was also born with breathing problems and isolated in the hospital). The medical stuff is a weird warp zone in my head. Sometimes machines feel more comforting than humans...their perfect rhythm is soothing.

Even though they say invasive medical stuff can register in a young person similarly to sexual abuse (I'd believe that), and even though I was afraid of the environment and people and feeling abandoned (I actually just felt it was all unreal most of the time), I think I was more traumatized by the life threat than the stuff the doctors were doing....maybe why I'm drawn to hospitals in a quirky way. But probably helps that I don't really remember invasive procedures. I was also able to scream my way out of one restraint when a test wasn't working (felt I couldn't breathe, but being able to scream was a good sign in a different way). My mom was there at that time, came in and tell them we were done. Try later. I already had a poor connection to her from earlier trauma and her own trauma, but it mattered that someone could hear me and help me out of that horror. Like I was real for a moment. Every bit of it was confusing and disorienting.

I'm glad if they are working on better ways to explain and help kids through invasive or scary stuff. Sorry for what you went through when you were younger. Do you have other symptoms or is it mainly this fear of doctors? Do you have PTSD or are you just curious about this experience (yes, can be traumatic and lead to phobias, even if not leading to something like PTSD). Has it ever helped to find a primary doc you like somewhat and stick with the same person? I found a doctor who was easier for me to talk to, adult to adult, and feel more real and present through those appointments. And I trust her. That's been extremely helpful.
 
I had a couple medical traumas... one when I was 6. Botched tonsillectomy and was bleeding out post surgical. My mother ignored the hospital staff and the visiting hours to come check on me... I was covered in blood, "blood everywhere" she says, grey from blood loss and probably in or close to shock. Had to have two transfusions. It was 1966 and people tasked with checking on me, didn't. People didn't sue then.

Blood was a big trigger for me to my 30's, shiny floors, nurses whites/lab coats, the smell of the old hospital disinfectant... I fainted or freaked out at doctor's visits til I was in my 20's... and would have to check to see if smelling salts were available to visit anybody in the hospital to my 30's. I shoved my face in it and went through CNA/Home Health training with hospital clinicals to normalize it.
 
@Chava, I can relate to so much of this..I too remember waking up far too many times and being alone. I also find an odd comfort in hospitals, safety in the sterility and mechanicalness of it all. Machines being more comforting than humans really hit home for me too..I think that might have something to do with the fact that I spent the first three and a half months of my life in a incubator.

As painful and traumatizing as some of my hospital stays were..psychologically is where the most damage was done. The constant fear of death. The exhaustion of being sick all the time. The never ending cycle. It made me a very lonely and unhappy person at a very young age. I was tired of strange people touching me and the lack of understanding and control. A truly overwhelming experience.
 
I get repeated vivid nightmare, but my primary doc is cool, but the smell of her office just makes me vomit:spitdummy: and needles aren't too much of a problem but catheters:barefoot:. It has affected me with making friends with girls odly because they might remind me of the nurses @Chava
 
Machines being more comforting than humans really hit home for me too..I think that might have something to do with the fact that I spent the first three and a half months of my life in a incubator.

This makes plenty of sense to me. That's a major chunk of developmental time being cut off and cared for mechanically (I was incubated too, though not for that long...but seems like later medical trauma sort of magnified all disconnection...I came out feeling like the world was unreal or I was in a dream or movie, all the time).

Also, our sense of sound is among the first to develop before we are born. Immediately after birth we are soothed by simply having our needs met, contact, gentle movement/rhythm/vibration and sound. I realized in one of my really trapped body memory experiences that I could "do" something with subtle sound vibrations internally, which allowed me to slowly unfreeze and get on with my normal adult stuff. Hard to explain, but I felt really connected to that as probably being my only "resource" as a newborn. Sound or vibrations remind me that I'm not dead too.
 
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Absolutely! Science has proven that there are massive bonding issues as well in premature and extremely sick infants because of the amount of time spent in isolation away from the mother. Developing in an artificial enviroment has also been show to disturb the circadian rhythm in babies as well. I did not recieve any physical contact with my mother or father after birth for nine weeks and I have always felt wounded by that..I've always felt so alone..no matter what. An emptiness.. Always this feeling that there is something wrong with me that just never goes away. That I'm on the outside looking in. It just makes me wonder..

Sound and vibrations help provide balance within the body. Correcting a dysregulation if you will. The electromagnetic impulses of frequency help regulate the central nervous system. I find a lot of comfort myself in the same thing. It's very fascinating....
 
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