Rectal temperatures | Rectal temperature and shots …

Views: 12619 Created: 2008.08.08

First post

When I was young, I suffered from terrible ear and throat infections, which in those days were always treated with a big shot of penicillin. The visit to the doctor's office always began with having my pants pulled down for a rectal temperature check, and then -- since I was already in position and properly dressed for it -- a massive injection in the butt. The two experiences are inseparably linked in my mind. I think the rectal temperature was a way to quiet me down and distract me while the hypodermic syringe was being loaded and prepared, but the removal of the glass thermometer was almost always followed by the command to "relax and hold still" for the shot.

I know the doctor always checked my ears and throat -- but as I recall, he did that first, when I came into the office, and then the rectal temperature, and then the shot. If I wasn't sobbing from the sore throat and earache when I came in, I certainly was from the rectal temperature and the shot when I left!

Does anybody else remember a similar linkage in childhood experience?

JJM

The last time that I can remember getting a shot in the butt was around age 4 or 5, in the U.S.., and later at age 21 while visiting Spain. Rectal temps. and butt shots were never combined, as far as I know.

Temp

At the drs I’d get a shot after a rectal temp

Steve B

I had both at the same time once that I can remember. I was five and associated the sting of the needle with the thermometer. It was so traumatizing I cried the whole time the thermometer was registering.

sundaybrunch

Always a rectal temp, and almost always a shot in the butt at the pediatrician's.

Pistolpete

I can only remember this happening once when I was growing up. I was about 4-5 and had rectal temp taken and then the nurse had that big dose of penicillian for me. And left me with a very sore bottom.

biene

Rectal temperature were quite common at my pediatrican.

But I never had a shot afterwards.

RTneo

I can only vaguely remember getting a rectal temp at the doctor and that's when I was probably barely two years old. Never an RT and a shot though. The only shot that I ever remember getting in my backside was when I was 8 or 9, it was a penicillin shot because I had a high fever (which was measured orally).