Fear and anxiety at the pediatrician

I did until I was about 15-16

My sister did. Well, not so much the pediatrician but the emergency room at her office. I was the tomboy and she was miss prissy priss. But she was always the one getting injured. Weird how that worked. But she would panic walking by that room. She would keep her back to the wall and walk by that room like a monster was going to jump out. Once she was past the room she was alright.

Yes very much. Anxiety, nervous, but also a weird excitement which I later understood to be a kind of sexual excitement. Mainly I was worried about what the doctor would to to my bottom. But though I dreaded my underwear coming down or off, I also couldn't wait to be exposed, examined, probed, violated, or whatever it was the nurse or doctor was going to do to me.

These feelings fuels my Play Doctor role play as an adult, as patient and doctor both.

Yes very much. Anxiety, nervous, but also a weird excitement which I later understood to be a kind of sexual excitement. Mainly I was worried about what the doctor would to to my bottom. But though I dreaded my underwear coming down or off, I also couldn't wait to be exposed, examined, probed, violated, or whatever it was the nurse or doctor was going to do to me.

I got excited also. Once I'd been asked to strip down to my briefs for the first time at the docs when I was five, I never knew when I went to the docs whether it would be a full exam again or just taking my top off. But there was excitement hoping that they would do a full exam, being exposed, being measured, having reflex checks done, being listened and felt to all over etc, and also the doc letting me listen to myself.

Yes, I can relate. The end of summer always meant a trip to the pediatrician for a physical prior to starting to school. The day would be circle on the calendar in the kitchen s that only added to the anxiety. The night before my visit I would have to provide an urine sample. My mom would give me an used small glass jar and I would pee in to the jar. The next morning somethings with my brother or sister sometimes not my mom would drive me to the pediatrician's office. My pediatrician worked out of his converted house. After signing in at the makeshift desk you were told to take a seat and wait for your name to be called. A short time later your name would be called and with my mom in tow taken down the short hallway to the exam room. Once inside, the nurse would tell my mom to make I was completely undressed and the doctor would be in shortly. I would get undressed and hand my mom my clothes. She folded them and placed them on chair across from the exam table. I would take seat on the exam table and wait for what seemed like an eternity before there was a knock at the door.

Absolutely. I think I have posted before that, while I know other people have specific favorite parts of a physical exam like temp taking or rectal exams, the aspect of them that really stands out for me is the memory of the anxiety and apprehension I had at the beginning of each visit. Really starting with the trip to the doctor's office, but definitely seeing the exam room for the first time, the instructions to undress, seeing the tools laid out, and preliminary things like having my vitals taken.

Mine was more a fairly well-known children's hospital rather than a primary care paediatrician, but yes. Anxiety, every time.

I remember the walk from the station, the foot crossing under one of the roads, then turning right down a small alleyway, through the square, and on the left. All this time feeling like I really needed to urinate (though I didn't), waiting surrounded by babies and their parents, waiting for my name to be called.

Up until 8 or so it wasn't so bad, on my next visit age 11 being told to undress down to my underpants and vest by the nurse as if it was a completely everyday activity to strip on command. Great tact for dealing with adolescents there - babies and younger kids were probably much more accepting.

Then in to see the doctor, looking at me over his glasses perched on the end of his nose, asking my mother if I knew when I wanted to go the toilet (aged 11 and continent), talking about me as if I wasn't there, before making me lie down and him pulling up my shirt and opening my trousers as if I was incapable, then pulling back the waist of my underwear at each visit to look at a healed scar from years before.

There were only two high points in all my visits there; once when the other parents and kids waiting all left to watch a VIP arrive, meaning I was seen and out of there much faster, and the last appointment twenty years ago when I knew I would never have to return.

I certainly had anxiety, and a bit of fear, when going to the doctor when I was young. But, not for the reasons the original poster mentioned. For me, it was about getting shots. I just knew those had hurt, in the past. There must have been a period of a year or more when all my shots were up to date, and I didn’t get any. I just remember when I was probably 9 or 10, they said I needed a shot, and I got quite nervous, but when the doctor gave it to me, it wasn’t bad at all. So, I think what had hurt when I was younger, now wasn’t much anymore.

However, it was around this time when I started feeling anxiety around something different with the exams. I was more self-conscious about needing to undress. For all the years I could remember before, I just had always been undressed as soon as I came into the room, either by my mother, or later I did it myself. I just expected that’s what I’d do when I first came in, because it’d always been that way. But, probably around when I was that age, I’d be told I could leave my briefs on. This coincided with when I also had already become more self-conscious, partly because of the school physicals I’d had. At those physicals, it was the first time I’d needed to undress in front of strangers, and I also was more aware of my classmates being just outside the exam room. So, I lost the innocence of my younger days, but this was also when I developed my medfet. So, I certainly had butterflies, before and after, doctor’s visits.

I was not afraid of visits to the pediatrician. She was a very nice woman, friendly and professional. But I'd be lying that I didn't feel some emotions. I had some anxiety before my appointment. My mother was always present during the examination. She also always "reminds" the doctor to examine my genitals. I felt ashamed that I was treated like a small child being examined in the presence of my mother. I was not ashamed of my mother - during this period (up to the age of 15) she often saw me undressed. I wasn't ashamed of the doctor either, but of the situation.

I remember how I felt in the waiting room. I really didn't like it when my mother told other mothers about my medical examination and my health. Especially when she was talking about my constipation and her enemas.

All ways, fear kicked into over drive even in the waiting room. There was the feeling of getting stripped down then the little gears in my head going a million miles an hour...."would they give me a shot". If you have read some of my other post you should know by now, me and shots don't get along at all. But yeah being nude and having shots were my cryptonite. Aka fears and anxieties.

Oh yeah. Fear and anxiety totally sums up what was going through my mind when I was a child going to the pediatrician. And that fear had to do with worry about whether I would get a shot or not. Being naked for the weight and height check plus the vital signs was definitely overshadowed by the fear that the nurse or doctor would pull out a syringe.

Oh yeah. Fear and anxiety totally sums up what was going through my mind when I was a child going to the pediatrician. And that fear had to do with worry about whether I would get a shot or not. Being naked for the weight and height check plus the vital signs was definitely overshadowed by the fear that the nurse or doctor would pull out a syringe.

Same here....😭😭

I hated seeing our GP when I was sick. Having to undress was no big deal. It seemed that no matter why I saw the doc I got a shot. Never in my arm, always in my butt! I always got anxious and scared.

I didn't have fear, but I always had anxiety. I had a bowel disease, a polyp. When my mother or sister took me to the doctor, I was always worried. Sometimes the case ended only with questions and entries in my medical record. Worse when I was told to undress, sometimes from the top to the waist, more often to the shorts. I was examined and felt in a standing and lying position. Very often at the end she lowered my panties.One of those whom I especially feared was a young woman. Most likely it was not a pediatrician, but a gastroenterologist. Her inspection ended with me laid on the couch on my stomach, legs dangling, and panties pulled downShe parted my buttocks and looked at something there, without touching anything, but she always said that the surgeon needed to look. The presence of her mother or sister, or even strangers, did not bother her at all. Outsiders, including children, sometimes sat on a couch near the door. They couldn't see my intimate details in detail. But they saw me in my underpants and, of course, they could see the doctor lowering my underpants.

Oh yes.

I was always looking at different instruments on the counter, wondering what was in the drawers and cabinets. I never had a temperature in my bottom, that I recall, but my anxiety about that and other things burned in my tummy before, during, and even after the appointment.

Ok, I’m technically an old fart now, 70 circuits around the sun. When I was about 2 or 3 my mom brought me to the pediatrician for a routine check up. I could barely speak compete sentences. My mom would listen to the radio during the day and Dragnet with Jack Web was one of her favorites. Anyway when the nurse told my mom she could take me back to the exam room, as if on cue, I let out with “Dum-Da-Dum-Dum” mimicking the theme music from the Dragnet show. Apparently everyone in the waiting room broke up laughing. So I guess you could say I had some anxiety about seeing the pediatrician!

My childhood asthma was improperly treated by abusive and incompetent medical professionals in the foster care system. A doctor's exam room was a very terrifying place for me. On more than one occasion I was stripped naked, aggressively examined and given a tranquilizer shot by some random stranger or two.

At age 11 my foster parents took me to a pediatrician for a complete physical exam. I had an asthmatic attack right in the exam room out of fear I would be stripped naked and given a rectal temperature. This kindly woman doctor held my hand as opposed to having me held down. I honestly knew of no other way to have my temperature taken. Because of this new level of compassionate care going to the doctor slowly became less traumatic.

Yes, I would just always get scared and anxious at the pediatrician. Actually one of my earliest memories is how scared I was and how hard my heart was pounding while I was staying in front of the doctor.

I didn't really have fear. Id be little embarrassed and giggly when younger but I don't recall fear over it. Knew I was well looked after even though modesty didn't seem to exist.

I always had fear and anxiety going to my pediatrician, i had my foreskin retracted every time because i had phimosis when i was young and occasional constipation so he examined my rectum with a finger which was painful and di not enjoy that.

I always had fear and anxiety going to my pediatrician, i had my foreskin retracted every time because i had phimosis when i was young and occasional constipation so he examined my rectum with a finger which was painful and di not enjoy that.

Bits i didn't like for sure but feared it? Scared of a finger softly in your butt for a few seconds?

Oh yes.

I was always looking at different instruments on the counter, wondering what was in the drawers and cabinets. I never had a temperature in my bottom, that I recall, but my anxiety about that and other things burned in my tummy before, during, and even after the appointment.

I didn't mind all the "different instruments" I saw around the exam room. Except for anything that had a needle attached to it. If I saw a needle I went into panic mode.