Fussing

When I was a kid, growing up in France, suppositories were quite a common method for giving drugs. Many drugs were available in suppository form in addition to tablets, and for some reason suppositories were especially found to be appropriate for children (perhaps because they cannot swallow them wrong or spit them out?). As a consequence, it was not uncommon for me to get drugs that way.

I recall making a face when seeing our physician and hearing "suppositories" in the prescription and fussing a bit... and I recall the physician, a lady, smiling benignly at me. Not that my fussing changed anything, I probably got bent over the toilet for my first suppository of the prescription after coming back from the physician and pharmacy.

I disliked medical suppositories because mom would first have me go potty and pester me if I had not had a bowel movement (she did not want me to have one with the suppository inserted, so she insisted in having one first), I would feel mom's finger and fingernail up my anus, and then... she would put a panty liner in my briefs under my anus so as to limit the stains. Back in those days, suppositories were I think made of cocoa butter and once they melted one could barely avoid soiling one's underwear. Getting a suppository in the morning before school meant having greasy buttocks until one could go to the toilet to wipe.

I especially disliked Eucalyptus suppositories for throat ache. Think of mint candies, but up the rear end - quite an intense feeling in the rectum. And my mom believed in them, meaning that if I had a throat ache I got one in the morning, one at bed time and, if at home at lunch, another one after lunch. I protested a bit but I was told "it's for your own good".

I have bittersweet memories of glycerin suppositories. On the one hand, they relieved me when I was "plugged up", on the other hand they were fairly humiliating (not to mention having to show the results to mom).

Also, as I grew up, I got increasingly embarrassed about getting suppositories from mom. I don't know when exactly she stopped and started asking me to insert them myself. Perhaps 10.

So, how about you: did you fuss when getting suppositories?

When in the US growing up, I don't think I ever heard much about suppositories. I can't remember anything in any case. But, when we were in Belgium, on vacation in the summer, whenever there was a need to give one, the job was usually given to an aunt or my grandmother.

I never put up a fuss about them, since I was raised to be the polite little gentleman, a regular Little Lord Fauntleroy I despised to be, but at the same time I found them to be somewhat humiliating. Which is why I guess my mother gave the job to someone else. It was never a bad experience, though I would have a sort of sinking feeling in my stomach, much like when told about an upcoming doctor's appointment.

But making a fuss, talking back or arguing with a grown-up? That just wasn't in my character make-up back then.

Agracier: I was also a bit like that. I would make a face or say "but I don't like them" but not more. No arguing, no kicking, I would submit to my fate,

Obviously I always fussed. Any kind of anal penetration was unwanted and painful (even after what happened when I was 8 - see other board). Oddly (in light of that message at the start of the thread) I don't remember fingernails as a particular unpleasant sensation - just that my mother's finger never stopped feeling like a painful violation and dilation, whatever it happened to be pushing in.

Kid made the remark that she was given enemas in the nude probably because her own mother had received them that way. This gave me food for thought.

I had suppositories inserted by mom until, I think, 10 (or maybe 9 or 11) an age when I was old enough to insert them myself, I think... and yet I was expected to take my own rectal temperature, both at home and at the hospital. Now that seems incoherent, if I can insert a thermometer I can surely insert a suppository.

I attributed that to my mother wanting her procedure for medicated suppositories respected: first go potty, then suppository, then a panty liner or napkin in the briefs under the anus. But this did not make sense with respect to glycerin suppositories. Or maybe she did not trust me to wash my hands afterwards? But then, why would I be trusted to wash after going potty?

Now I think I understand. Mom complained that she had been given soap sticks, as a kid. She most surely had fussed about it. I never got soap sticks, but glycerin and medicated suppositories, but probably mom applied the same procedure that granny had applied, which ensured she indeed got the soap stick in.

When I was a child, I fussed.

While suppositories were pretty common, almost everyone assumed kids hated them, and as a result people used to tease kids on that topic. As a child, I hated when an adult mentionned the word "suppository" because I was afraid it would end up with someone teasing me or - even worse - with one of my parents telling everyone how much I hated them. Geez...how embarassing it could be!

And at the same time, kids were aware adults also used them.

I remember that I once entered my grandparent's kitchen and there were my uncle and his wife visiting. It was summer, I got closer to the window and I noticed a box lying on the window's sill. I grabbed it and before I could even realize what it was, my aunt took it from me and said "Don't touch it, honey, those are suppositories for your uncle and by the way, I better put them away before they melt…". My uncle did not look embarassed but did not say a word either. I've always wondered why he had to use them.

Another time, we visited other relatives. He was my mother's distant cousin and might have been 45 y.o at that time, he was pretty ill and had been staying in his bed for almost a week. We just said hello to him, my parents enquired whether he still had a fever, and he quietly replied that he had been using three times a day suppositories that were really efficient to bring down the fever. I was 6 or 7 years old and was horrified, especially when my father said with a mischievous smile "see, 3 suppositories a day and no complaints!". The cousin laughed...and I was mortified.

I always fussed but to no avail. Mom would always say that it was necessary to get better, so just turn over and relax it won't hurt. I'lI put some vaseline on it so it goes in easy, so would turn over on my belly and she would pull down my PJ's spread my butt cheeks tell me to relax and just let it go in.

A lot of fuss, until I was 5 years old I guess.

My mom always tried to explain why she had to give me a suppository, but its useless to a toddler. So I would always complain and cry.

When I got older, I wouldnt fuss, it would make me nervous though, and embarrassed.