Talk:Fear of needles

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 5 April 2021 and 11 June 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Alyssa736. Peer reviewers: Lilagoldman.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:14, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Requested move

The correct name for this phobia is Trypanophobia rather than Aichmophobia Tmbg37 01:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Voting

• Support Tmbg37 01:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
• Support Trypanophobia 01:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

• • The move request has been completed. --HappyCamper 18:37, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Hogwash

"In early time periods, genes that predisposed a person to avoid physical injuries such as piercing, stabbing or other skin penetration..."

This statement is absurd on so many levels.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.161.16.47 (talk) 00:18, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so. To a certain extent, it makes sense. The gene wold have been toned down as time went on, leaving the fear of needles, or Trypanophobia. - Katami 00:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

It does make a certain kind of sense to me, and I tentatively agree with it. However, it's entirely unreferenced, so I'm sticking that section with an {{unreferenced}} tag. I wouldn't be surprised if there are no references to be found anywhere, though, and it has to be taken out. — Saxifrage ✎ 00:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that can be cited. It appears in Hamilton's 1995 research paper on the subject.

-->

"The presence of a genetic trait among a species automatically indicates that the trait must have been selected for during the evolution of that species. The needle phobia trait probably evolved among the human species in response to piercing, stabbing, and cutting injuries.(1) The vast majority of violent deaths in our species' evolutionary history have been caused by skin penetration from teeth, claws, fangs and tusks, and from sticks, stone axes, knives, spears, swords, and arrows. Besides death resulting from direct trauma or hemorrhage, many of these deaths were due to infections secondary to skin penetration. A reflex that promoted the learning of a strong fear of skin puncture had clear selective value in teaching humans to avoid such injuries. Over the 4+ million years of human evolution, surely many genes controlling blood pressure, pulse, cardiac rhythm, and stress hormone release were selected for to create the vasovagal reflex."

         - Needle Phobia: A Neglected Diagnosis James Hamilton, M.D.

Tryanophobia and the death penalty

Does anyone know if a trypanophobe has ever been executed via lethal injection? If so, who and when? I'm doing a research paper about the constitutionality of lethal injection, so this is an aspect I'd like to cover. Thanks! - Katami 00:03, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK the lethal injection is a painful procedure. Any fear of it could be considered completely rational. No trypanophobia involved there. 83.64.17.44 16:29, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Is this trypanophobia?

I have a very strong fear of anything cutting or being injected into my veins. Is this trypanopobia? Im certainly not affraid of doctors or hospitals just the things I stated in the first sentence. 'o' Whats a question? 19:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Same here. And I just don't like needles, and the ones that are closest say that it was a traumatic experience, but I didn't have any traumatic experience, I just don't like them. What would a doctor call that? Shadowedmist 20:41, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I have actually been described as having this phobia. I am deathly, horribly afraid of things involving taking out or putting things into my bloodstream. Pencils and pins don't affect me, and I had little anxiety about getting my ears pierced. To be honest, straws frighten me more than knives (which sounds ridiculous, but I cannot tolerate even being teased with the threat of someone poking me with one). Also, having my blood pressure taken even frightens me a bit because I can feel my blood being kept from circulating (or I at least imagine it). This is a phobia in that I will actually begin to panic almost immediately upon imagining receiving an injection. I too have no past traumatic experience. You could talk to your doctor about it, but I'll warn you in my experience most general practice doctors don't really understand how terrifying and disabling it can be (as do most people). Sarrandúin ^{[ Talk + Contribs ]} 03:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, all three of you definitely have trypanophobia. As do I, as a matter of fact - though mine is associative, resulting from a couple really bad experiences when I was a young child. It's no surprise that general practitioners don't understand this phobia. Psychologists and psychiatrists are much more likely to be knowledgeable about it, so if you seek treatment for it (cognitive behavioral therapy, etc.), get a referral to one of these specialists. (Especially if it is severe enough to prevent you from having blood drawn for routine analysis - this is one of the most important ways to monitor one's health, and shouldn't be avoided because of a phobia.) Fuzzform (talk) 19:43, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I have a fear of sharp or pointed objects in my field of view, but no fear of injections. I can look at a needle going into my arm, and as long as it goes nowhere near my eye, I have no reaction to it. There was a traumatic incident when I was about seven or eight. I was chased on the playground by an older child after I gave up on a dodge ball game. I turned to look at my pursuer, turned back and a low hanging tree branch cut my eyelid. So, I have a panic attack when I'm confronted with something pointy headed for my face. I thought the term for this fear was aichmophobia, but wikipedia says no. I wonder, though, whether there is a distinct fear related to pointed objects going in the eye without the fear of injections going in the arm. I recognise it as irrational in either case, but they seem to have distinguishing characteristics. But, expecting wikipedia to allow separate articles on everything would be too much to expect - the deletion enthusiasts would be very put out. Planetaryjim (talk) 01:37, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I also think this is called aichmophobia, although this is often used as a diagnosis for people who suffer from trypanophobia. As mentioned in the article, that is incorrect. Aichmophobia is a fear of being touched by a finger or pointed object (Aichme is Greek for point), so this is not neccessarily a phobia for injection needles. My girl friend suffers from it and she even gets dizzy by looking at a (slender) candle... WholeyMoley (talk) 21:41, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Blunt Objects

Strangely enough no matter how often you painfully hit yourself on them you will never develop a special sense of care when dealing with blunt objects. I think the dangers of blunt objects are far underrated. In fact most accidents are caused by blunt objects, most probably due to their harmless appearance. 83.64.17.44 16:56, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Interesting observation; let me elaborate. Blunt objects are not used for the same purposes as sharp objects. The latter objects can cut/impale/etc., whereas blunt objects cannot. Also, think of how common blunt objects are, compared to sharp objects. Sharp objects, in the vast majority of cases, were created by humans to fulfill some type of function - in the case of this article, needles were created to pierce into flesh to inject/remove substances such as drugs/blood (respectively). Likewise, swords/knives/etc. were created to cut things - namely, animal flesh (human or otherwise). Clearly the hypothesis that humans developed a tendency to meticulously avoid sharp objects cannot be considered far-fetched. Such a tendency would be neurological in nature, of course, and would be governed by genetic changes (just like any other body tissue). And... just imagine having a phobia of blunt objects - you'd be in constant fear, since they're everywhere. Yes, they do appear harmless; no matter how many times I stub my toe on the edge of my couch, I never develop any fear of couches. Fuzzform (talk) 19:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Terminology Confusion

I find the Introductory section quite confusing. First it says that trypanophobia is the correct term for this condition because none of the other synonyms capture the full scope of the phobia. Then it says that few if any medical professionals use the term and that it doesn't appear in the standard reference works dealing with phobias. The "correct" term is one not used by practitioners and other experts in the field?

Psychlist (talk) 16:21, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Apparently Highfields (talk, contribs) 17:43, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

For a long time, the Wikipedia article on Phobia has stated, "The name of a phobia generally contains a Greek word for what the patient fears plus the suffix -phobia. Creating these terms is something of a word game. Few of these terms are found in medical literature."   I have studied needle phobia for many years, and as far as I can determine, the word "trypanophobia" originated in Wikipedia.  Therefore the name of this article violates the NO ORIGINAL RESEARCH mandate for Wikipedia.  I am not knowledgeable in Greek, so the name may very well be a logical derivation of that language.  According to medical dictionaries, though, the only similar word is trypanosome, which is a kind of protozoa of the type that causes sleeping sickness and Chagas Disease.  To the best of my understanding, trypanophobia would be the fear of this family of protozoa. X5dna (talk) 05:48, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Trippaning is the folkmedicine/witchdoctor practice of drilling hole into a person's skull to release pressure/demons or to increase oxygen in the brain. It has, like using leeches, returned to use in some medical circles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.167.240.175 (talk) 06:52, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

List of sufferers

I have had a go at separating out real sufferers from a rash of fictional characters. I am personally interested to discover people in the public eye that also suffer from this irrational, annoying and sometimes dangerous phobia. I am NOT quite so interested in TV show episodes and in-game scenarios that supposedly feature a fear of needles. I have not removed them of course, as it is just about worthwhile keeping. Just a question of relative notability. This section is still in dire need of references, if anyone has them. Careful With That Axe, Eugene ^Hello... 20:11, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Eh?

In list of sufferers it says "Jackie Chan, the martial art action movie star who performs all his own stunts, cannot be insured due to the almost certain guarantee of injury during filming as he is terrified of needles." For the life of me, I cannot make sense of this? 78.33.116.240 (talk) 13:42, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Requested move 2

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move to fear of needles. Cúchullain ^t/c 16:07, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

---

Trypanophobia → Needle phobia – Needle phobia currently redirects to this page. The article was moved from Needle phobia in 2005 following a move request by user Tmbg37. There were only two votes on the 2005 move request, and the second appears to be a sock puppet of Tmbg37. The leading section of this article is devoted to a defense (as other comments on this talk page have noted) of the use of the title/term "trypanophobia" over "needle phobia" in spite of the fact that only the latter term is found in a leading medical database. The most frequently cited reference in the article is titled "Needle Phobia - A Neglected Diagnosis". None of the cited references use the term "trypanophobia" in the title. The DSM-IV (also cited in the article) is perhaps the most authoritative source for an article title here, but as far as I can tell the only term used there is the broader Blood/injection/injury type phobia. Google Scholar results strongly support needle phobia as the most common term: "needle phobia" 2520, trypanophobia 72, aichmophobia 131, enetophobia 15, belonephobia 59. General Google results: "needle phobia" 119k, trypanophobia 81k, aichmophobia 101k, enetophobia 804k, belonephobia 48k. Enetophobia is the most common term on Google, but scholarly sources overwhelmingly support "needle phobia".

Aichmophobia as defined at that article (sharp objects) appears to me to be a separate subject, albeit rarer than needle (injection) phobia, or at least the subject of less scholarly research. Enetophobia (fear of pins) redirects to this article but perhaps would be better redirected to aichmophobia, in spite of it's wide use in Google. Belonephobia (fear of sharply pointed objects) also redirects here, but doesn't seem to be injection specific. The "official" DSM-defined Blood-injection-injury type phobia article might be a better redirect target for some of the other -phobia redirects mentioned above --Relisted Cúchullain ^t/c 15:37, 10 August 2012 (UTC) Plantdrew (talk) 05:06, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

• Might Fear of needles be a better option? It beats needle phobia for general Google results (276k) and only slightly lags behind in Scholar results (2440). Looking over Category:Phobias and the subcategory Category:Zoophobias, "Fear of foo" is more prevalent than "Foo phobia." I'm sympathetic to the argument that trypanophobia is esoteric, but I think "Fear of needles" is going to be more readily comprehensible than "Needle phobia." --BDD (talk) 17:07, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
• I agree that the current name is pretty pedantic. I am not sure on which "fear" or "phobia" is a better choice, as "phobia" is a readily recognized name for "fear of".--Education does not equal common sense. 我不在乎 20:13, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
• I also agree that the current name is not optimal at all. I think "fear of needles" would be a slightly better name for consistency with other phobia articles, but the title "needle phobia" would be fine as well. Graham87 01:38, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Just some general information to aid in making a decision about the requested move:  Since this is supposed to be an encyclopedia, the large databases that catalog millions of medical journal articles should have some significant influence. One of the largest and most comprehensive of these databases is the PubMed database from the United States National Library of Medicine.

As of this date, a search for the phrase "needle phobia" returns 83 results. The phrase "fear of needles" returns 48 results.

Just this month, as the move to a more logical title is being considered, the term "trypanophobia" finally occurred for the first time in the National Library of Medicine database. "Trypanophobia" was mentioned in the abstract of a July 2012 medical journal article entitled, "Managing patient stress in pediatric radiology."

This demonstrates the power of Wikipedia, where the term "trypanophobia" was first either made up or raised from obscurity. "Trypanophobia" (as a term relating to needle procedures) was virtually unknown until December of 2005, when the term was first used for this Wikipedia article. X5dna (talk) 11:37, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Against.
Comment: Yes, Wikipedia 'is' an encyclopedia so why resort to common vernacular when we can use the correct medical term? Incidentally, if anything is lacking in the article, then is should be pointed out that it means a phobia about anything that bores into to the skin -not just stainless steel needles. So no. Don't rename and take a step backwards.... Ask.com is the place for that sort of thing. --Aspro (talk) 20:28, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

For.
Comment: An examination of any major medical database will reveal that the correct medical term is "Needle Phobia." Trypanophobia is a neologism that was popularized by this Wikipedia article. Wikipedia is not supposed to be in the business of inventing or popularizing new terms.

The naming of a Wikipedia article Trypanophobia causes unnecessary confusion and violates more than one Wikipedia policy.  (Some of the policies are obviously overlapping.)

 (1) It violates the no original research policy.

 (2) It violates the Wikipedia_is_not_a_word usage guide policy.

 (3) It violates the Wikipedia policy against neologisms. A neologism is a new word that is usually made up by combining logical parts of other words.

 (4) It violates the Wikipedia policy on article naming conventions.  This policy advocates the use of common names for articles rather than any kind of article naming system that would be unfamiliar to the average reader.

The term trypanophobia can cause additional confusion because it has also been used in recent years to refer to a fear of a certain type of disease-causing protozoa.  Those protozoa are known as trypanosomes or trypanosomatids.  The disease-causing protozoa of this type cause illnesses such as sleeping sickness or Chagas disease.  They have nothing to do with the medical use of needles.

Prior to the re-naming of this article in December 2005, I can find only one instance of the suggestion of the use of the name "trypanophobia" for needle phobia. That instance occurred on a web site about needle phobia written by a person who suffers from this condition. Advocates of the continued use of the neologism, "trypanophobia" should show that this word was actually in either common usage or medical usage prior to the renaming of this article in December 2005. X5dna (talk) 04:03, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Now I can see where your coming from, I'll can answer your points when get time in just a day or two. --Aspro (talk) 18:04, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

• Support a move. However, "Needle phobia" sounds archaic or perhaps made-up. Better to move to "Fear of needles". Hill Crest's WikiLaser (Boom.) (talk) 04:10, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

If the consensus becomes to rename the article "Fear of needles" rather than "Needle phobia," I would suggest that "Fear of needle procedures" might be a more appropriate alternative. Fear of a needle as a static object that is not going to be stuck into anyone is a rather rare phobia (and it barely mentioned in the article).  Fear of needle procedures, however, affects at least 10 to 20 percent of the population to some significant degree. If a user begins typing "Fear of needles" into the search box, "Fear of needle procedures" would quickly come up as an article title. X5dna (talk) 10:23, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Relisting comment We have clear consensus that the article should be moved away from "Trypanophobia". However we need to determine the best alternative title: so far needle phobia and fear of needles appear to have the most support.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:37, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support "fear of needles", per my comments above. I'd prefer it over "fear of needle procedures", as the latter title is not a common name – it only gets 1,260 Google hits. Graham87 02:57, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't matter to me whether the article is renamed Needle Phobia or Fear of Needles. I have, however, added a notice about this discussion to the main article page because I believe that we need to get more input on this from people who read the main article but do not ordinarily come to the Talk page. X5dna (talk) 03:04, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Needles outside of medical contexts

I don't have any references (yet), so I suppose I can't just toss this into the article proper yet. But in my experience, I have a pretty severe but specific fear of needles (I can get cut/sliced any which way and shrug it off no problem, but start just thinking about poking myself with a needle, and hoo boy, I need to go put my head between my legs for a bit), and some of the worst instances of it occurred in getting my ears pierced. And since then, I've pretty much ruled out the idea of ever, ever getting a tattoo at all. I'd like to see these things (and other needle-like triggers that might come up) considered in this article, in addition to the clinical use of hypodermic needles and such. -- J. Randall Owens (talk) 11:11, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Derivation?

Nearly 5 years, still no derivation (or “Etymology”)(in this article). Who coined it? The wiki article creator? No derivation in wiktionary either. 120.16.11.145 (talk) 04:44, 31 May 2018 (UTC)MBG

Your question has not been answered because you make no reference to what word you are asking about. I can only guess that you may be referring to a word used as the title for this article between December of 2005 and August of 2012. That word was made up by an unknown Wikipedia editor. It has sometimes been used in popular media since 2006, but it still cannot be found in most dictionaries. Words being made up by Wikipedia editors, as in that case, can cause an enormous amount of confusion. This is precisely why neologisms are prohibited by Wikipedia policy. Sometimes serious violations of Wikipedia policy can take a very long time to correct. X5dna (talk) 16:31, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Clarification on use of a neologism created in this article in 2005

An anonymous editor added a clarification tag to the current second sentence of the second paragraph. ("It has also been referred to as trypanophobia, although the origin and proper usage of that term is highly controversial.")

Unfortunately, the only way to clarify this statement would be to link back to this very Talk page, which other editors have, in the past, agreed should not be done.

This is a textbook case of exactly why creating neologisms in Wikipedia articles is prohibited by Wikipedia policy.

The term trypanophobia (as it was applied to this subject) originated in this article, and its origins and the controversy surrounding its use are explained above on this Talk page. Medical dictionaries still generally don't use the term. I would rather have all references to this self-created neologism removed from this article. This term is still causing confusion 14 years after its original creation in this very article.

There is a strong case that can be made that a Wikipedia article should not be using Wikipedia-created neologisms at all. This is especially the case when the term was created in direct violation of an explicit Wikipedia policy. Wikipedia is meant to explain information, not to create additional confusion. X5dna (talk) 04:29, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 3

Move Fear of needles → Needle phobia. The 2012 move from Trypanophobia was intended to be to Needle phobia. The resulting discussion agreed to a move but was rather thin on the specific choice of Fear of needles. The article does describe a phobia – a general fear as not the same thing at all. — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 11:41, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Infobox/Image dispute

I'm making this talk section ahead of time to show that I will be trying to compromise a consensus with an ongoing edit dispute with User:Graham87 stemming from a original revert by User:GhostInTheMachine. They're accumulating a anti-infobox argument that the article and I quote "no, it really doesn't add anything; articles are not required to have infoboxes." and "Infobox does not add anything". These arguments are demonstrably flawed as Wikipedia is for the readers and learners, Needing an infobox on a psychological disorder that the reader quite might not understand fully, is in order to simplify the phobia for readers that may not acute on subjects like this as most non who come to wikipedia are looking to be informed and cultivated by the information on a topic unkeen to them. The infobox provides quick accessible information such as treatments, other names for conditions, onset, duration and risk factors which may seem tedious to read the main article blurb for. This is supported by the wikipedia essay WP:DCBU, which states "Disinfoboxes" are infoboxes that some editors are against using, on the grounds that disinfoboxes contain what they see as unnecessary repetitions of facts already presented in an article's lead or oversimplified dissemination of information that is devoid of necessary context and nuance....."Disinfoboxes usually provide an easily readable, accessible summary of the article in hand. They make it easy to find out about the key facts in an article without having to locate them within its main body. While there is repetition, these "disinfoboxes" make it easy for readers to find the key information." That's just one rebutting argument but another is that many wikipedia policies and essay that can be applied here, but the one that really is significant is Wikipedia signpost from October 2013, where Worm that turned glosses over the same edit dispute currently under way of how if the adding of infobox to this page is mateninence or a content creation would refute the claim of not use of the infobox "The use of an infobox in an article is a content decision, not a maintenance decision. They should be added as part of content creation; they should not be added systematically to articles....."Content creation would include addition and removal of text, images, tables, references and so on—and infoboxes—and should be done by an editor who has some knowledge of the subject." This supports that the addition of the infobox is not maintenance but a creative content decision for benefit of the article's accessibility. The use of "systematically" by Worm indicate that the use of infoboxes to articles is not done out of habit and routine of all wikipedia but out of the concept of article summary. This is some of the reasons we must keep the infobox I placed on this page. P.S The image use also falls under WP:ADDIMAGES WP:IMAGERELEVANCE as the image depicts an item associated with phobia and improves the aesthetic of the article ₛₒₘₑBₒdyₐₙyBₒdy₀₅ (talk) 14:22, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Essays, especially remarkably low-impact ones, and Signpost articles generally hold little to no weight in Wikipedia disputes; as far as I am concerned this is not an exception. Graham87 14:54, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Inappropriate image

The image in the infobox is inappropriate for an article such as this. Users will be looking for information which relates to a phobia. To present them with the subject of their phobia is insensitive at best.
However, to be an encyclopedic article, it is quite appropriate to link to another article that discusses the medical device concerned. This is the case with nearly all of the other phobia articles. See, for example Hodophobia and Arachnophobia which use a cartoon image rather than a realistic photograph.
I have removed the image and would hope that anyone disagreeing with this will discuss the way forward here. — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 23:53, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Trypanophobia - Citation Needed - Yet Again

It seems that this article cannot get rid of the word trypanophobia or the citation needed tag that is so often attached to it. Of course, the word originated on this very Talk Page, but we cannot use a self-referring citation. There is one citation that can be used. I wrote it in 2011, and it has been on the web continuously at the same location in the ten years since then. Since I wrote it, I cannot add it myself. If anyone else wants to add it in order to explain the issue and to get rid of this persistent problem, it is at: https://www.futurescience.com/needles/trypanophobia.html X5dna (talk) 04:10, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, but I think it's better to try to remove it again, which I've just done. Graham87 14:51, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure what happened with this edit ... I was obviously intending to undo it because it was marked as a visited link but for some reason never actually saved it here. Thanks X5dna for removing the term again. Graham87 05:45, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Origin aside, I've noticed inconsistency with the phobia titles on Wikipedia. Some will use a clinical, sometimes complicated, name. Others will go with "Fear of [...]." Why is that? Acidsetback (talk) 03:57, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Los Angeles Times link

Re this edit summary by Aoidh: it turns out that the link mess-up was my fault ... a very bad cut-and-paste on my part! (In any event I agree that the link probably doesn't need to be here). This is the second time today a mistake of mine from some time ago has come back to bite me. Graham87 15:28, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Childhood 0r Adulthood?

Is development of needle phobia more common in childhood or adulthood? Does it present similarly? Are treatment plans similar for different age groups? -- Atopperkroog (talk) 18:47, 30 March 2024 (UTC)