What Can I Do to Reduce Pain from Injectable Drugs for Psoriasis?
Patients who use injectable medications to treat psoriasis my feel a sting from the needle or minor discomfort from the medicine itself. Watch as dermatologist Melissa Levin, MD, shares tips to reduce pain and anxiety from the injectable treatment.
Transcript
Injectable medications for psoriasis
come in various forms, depending on what medication it is. The needle is actually very, very small. So it actually feels like a little mosquito
bite or a pinch. So the needle itself is not that painful, but sometimes certain medications can have a stinging or burning quality.
This, oftentimes, only lasts for less than 10 seconds. So I try to teach my patients different techniques in order to minimize anxiety, pain, discomfort,
or the stinging sensation when they're on injectable medication. So some of my patients will ice the area
so that it's little bit numb before they do the injection. They can actually take the medicine outside of the refrigerator, so when you do inject the medicine,
it's not so cold. It's more room temperature, which minimizes the stinging quality of the medication.
And, lastly, actually pinching up the skin down to the fat where you're injecting can be very helpful.
Obviously you want to find kind of a fleshy area on your body, such as your abdomen, outside of your thighs, or even your buttocks, that you can do the injection so it's
not so uncomfortable. For some of my patients, they actually have a phobia of needles, just like myself. The good news about some of these injectable medications
is that they come in a pen, so you don't even need to see the needle.
psoriasis
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