Rectal temperature embarassment (or humiliation) ?

Especially after 11 years old they were all embarrassing. For every doctor visit growing up I hoped that it would be the day to get my temperature taken orally, but unfortunately that day just never came. Even though I got used to it, did not lessen my feeling of humiliation.

😢 I wish I'd have been able to go through it with you so you would'nt have felt so embarrassed.

I had a heart attack scare about 16 years ago. It later turned out to be a heart valve defect I wound up needing surgery to correct. But the night I went to the emergency room with chest pains, they admitted me and started doing all kinds of tests. If any of you have ever had a blood gas test done, you know it can really hurt. A phlebotomist and another nurse came to my room.

She shoved a 20ga needle into my wrist, and it went deep. It felt like the hardest pinch I'd ever experienced in my entire life. Like she hit a nerve, and I jumped a little. The blood comes out extra dark from a vein like that. She applied some compression to my wrist for a couple minutes and put a bandage on it.

When she was done, the girl standing there beside her told me she needed to take my temperature……rectally. I looked at her in disbelief and shook my head like NO WAY, but she said it was important to get my core temperature right at or very shortly after a blood gas draw. The route used for measuring core temperatures then was up the butt. It was embarrassing even being asked to submit to it, but she kept telling me I really needed it done. She told me she'd be quick and it wouldn't hurt. My face must've been cherry red when I reluctantly turned onto my left side in the fetal position.

I was near a state of panic when she asked me to pull my underwear down. The back of my gown was already open, my naked butt felt like it was covered in goosebumps from the coldness of the air in the room. I heard the audible splat of lubricant being squirted from a tube of K-Y. I heard the snap of a cover being snapped on a temperature probe. The thermometer beeped and I felt her hand raise my right buttock. A quick poke of tingly coldness slid into my butthole a little way. Invasive but not painful. Very much like the way it felt when I was a little child.

Just about that time, the girl that had just done my blood gas test walked in. I know she must've saw that probe stuck up my ass. I jumped and the nurse quickly took it back out. She turned around and shouted “COULD YOU PLEASE KNOCK!!!” The phlebotomist said “SO SORRY”. The girl with the thermometer was highly annoyed, and I was now extremely humiliated. She told me “honey, I'm so sorry that happened, but I need to do it over. It didn't register quick enough. I'm sorry.” By now I was totally numb and just wanted to get it over with. The second time it went in my butt a little easier because I was already lubed up back there from the first insertion. She left it in for about 10 seconds until it beeped……"99.7, that's normal for a rectal reading" she said. She could tell I was still unsettled, but made light of it by joking….."well dear, we nurses deal with buttholes every single day in more ways than one" grinning on her way out the door.

I always found it extremely humilating and embarassing both. Even when real young, I protested and more esp from age 10 and up when it was still done rectal half the time. I matured early and had pubic hair and body hair by age 12 -13 and was athletic, and very fit and obviously not a little kid anymore but they always had a reason and got mad if I prostested. Was always thinking of ways to get out of it and what I could say or do to avoid RT.