Asked if you wanted oral or rectal

I went to the pediatrician until the age of 16. The only way a temperature was taken was rectally. I didn‘t realize back than that there are other possibilities to do it. That doesn‘t mean that I didn‘t hate it though.

Rectal temps never taken in the UK.

Well if they do not do Rectal temps in the UK maybe a few of us can go over there and show them how it is done and discuss why they should do them more often.

I think Maxine707 can head up the search for those to help explain the benefits of Rectal temps.

If I remember correctly, mine was taken rectally up to close to the age of six. That last year could go either oral or rectal depending upon the nurse or clinic. Having it taken rectally again after previously having it orally was a real hit to my ego about being grownup, so it was even more degrading.

It all depended upon whether I was told to “take a seat up on the table,” or whether I heard “let’s get those pants unfastened.”

I was never ever given a choice.

I don't think I was given a choice, my temperature was always taken rectally.

I didn't mind it one bit and actually asked mom to take it at times when I was feeling well.

I don't think I ever was given the choice at the pediatrician. I still remember rolling over and lowering my underwear to have the nurse take my temperature when I was around 12-13. It didn't phase the nurse one bit as she had been the main one inserting the thermometer in my butt since we started going to that Doctor.

Always rectal for me no choice at home or at the paediatrics. Pants off diaper taken off knees placed above my chest and the standard glass pear shaped bulb rectal thermometer or Welch Allyn 692 Plus Thermometer inserted into my rectum for the required amount of time. Followed by a diaper change afterwords.

There was no choice, it was always rectal. The only thing is that after some age I was asked to insert the thermometer into my bottom myself.

I was never given a choice. My mom or the nurse always decided where the thermometer was going.

There was one time I wished that I would have asked. I must have been around 13 and was in the “teen wing” that was next to the “regular” pediatrics wing when I developed a fever prior to a surgery, as measured on the disposable plastic tempdot oral thermometers.

My nurse had gotten a new, unused, rectal glass thermometer from the “regular” pediatrics section. The packaging was clearly labeled RECTAL. She said that she was going to use it to recheck my temperature because it was more accurate than the tempdot thermometers. Now just a year or two earlier, I had been in the “regular” pediatrics section and had gotten a surprise rectal temperature out of the blue with a thermometer just like the one she was holding. I was afraid that she was going to tell me to roll over.

Alas, she just used it to take my temperature orally. I wish that I had at least said “Isn’t that the kind that goes in your butt?” Maybe that would gotten me a rectal temp. But I was too timid to and was eventually sent home for a rescheduled surgery.

I wasn't given a choice. When I was a kid, my mother always took it rectally. And when I started seeing other men beginning when I was 18, I also didn't give them a choice. I only took their temperatures rectally.

I have no recollection of temperature taken rectally, hence if it happened, it had to be before I turned 4. It was always either armpit or oral.

No one ever gave me any choice ether.

I am with the majority of folks who have never been given a choice. It was and has remained the domain of the medical provider to determine the method of my temp taking. Growing up, it was largely taken rectally. There was no choice unless you consider how much of a protest I provided.

I wasn't exactly given a choice as I don't remember my parents ordinarily taking my temperature rectally since I was old enough to remember. It was oral or sometimes axillary. But I do remember being little enough that my mom threatened to take it rectally if I wouldn't cooperate, and I remember later (since I was so curious about what it would have felt like) wishing I'd said "Go ahead."

When I was six years old I got sick, my grandpa would watch me and asked me if mom took my temperature orally or rectally.

My mother, a pediatric nurse, always insisted on rectal temps for us. We got them until we left home, in our twenties.

I was never given the choice. Rectal temperature at my doctor’s was until you got out of high school. Home was the same. The only time I got the oral thermometer was at school. I once asked the nurse when I was 16 if could get the thermometer that goes in your mouth. She smiled and said I still needed my temperature taken ‘the other way.’ I never asked again, but every time it was more humiliating. Add to the fact that doors were always completely or partially open made it much worse.

@Fontana That sounds just like what I went through too. My doctors office didn't have doors on any of the exam rooms too.

In hospital for tonsillectomy as a very young child, nurse did rectal temperatures several times. Finally I told her I knew how to do it orally. It was orally from then on.

Odd most peds wards usually only did rectal no exceptions.