what & when was your first visit to Doctors that you remember ?

My first memory is being taken for a routine check up when I was about 3 or 4. I refused to let the doctor near me when I felt how cold his stethoscope was and my notes had the single comment "Screamed, and refused to be examined" My mother was furious because she thought that a decent doctor should have been able to cope with a small child, but the comment followed me round for years.

I don't remember ever going to the doctor, he always seemed to come to me so I suppose it must have been for measles and such. What I do remember is the embarrassment of standing in line at school, stripped down to vest and knickers to be measured and have vaccinations. And then there was the nit nurse. She was rough.

When I was 3 I had whooping cough and the doctor came to the house to give me injections. My dad had to come home from work to hold me down as mother couldn't do it. This was pre National Health Service and had to be paid for. I do remember the injections and Dad was always in a rush because he had to get back to work.
We used to have cod liver oil and malt. I loved it. It was the nearest thing to toffee.

In 1950 we were about to go to Egypt as my father was in the RAF. I was three and I'll never forget having all the necessary jabs. Boy, did my arm hurt.

I was about 4 or 5 & I remember that because I was prone to nose bleeds I had blood vessels in my nose cauterised: OUCH!!!

Gally I can remember Minadex, I loved it, I remember it was green and in a tall bottle. You can still buy it I think, or at least you could when my kids were little.

Minadex was lovely, and the bottles of orange juice we used to get from the clinic. I used to love chewing up the cod liver oil capsules we were given - what an odd child!

NO Deedaa the cod liver oil capsules were vile! In fact I don't think we had capsules. Didn't the stuff just come in a rectangular bottle with a metal screw cap? You drank it from a teaspoon. Surely no capsules in them days. "You were lucky. We lived in a crack in the road and ate lard ......"

The orange juice was very welcome. Great stuff. But a strange bright orange colour (can't have been its natural colour) and eye-wateringly sweet. I'm amazed it did anyone any good but it much have done!

I've mentioned it before though. Virol, that was what we really loved!

It wasn't my first visit. My early years were riven with unending tonsillitis until i had the darn things out. And chilblains!

But when I was about 8 or 9 I fell in the garden and got a big nasty splinter of wood under the veins in my wrist. Where is started to go very nasty, inflamed, pus-filled etc.

I was at my Nan's (which is odd as I had the fall in my home garden 140 miles away. So in the middle of this I must have gone on a family holiday trip to my Nan's). I was taken to the local Cottage Hospital (Leatherhead, Surrey or maybe Epsom) where the Nurse squirted ether on my wrist and attacked inexpertly with a scalpel.

The sharp blade grated on my wrist bone. I can still feel the sensation, plus the smell of the ether. Aaaaagh.

I think the ether was to numb the wrist with cold. Pretty darn crude. I still am near-phobic of injections, needles, having blood taken. I always fear the metal needle will grate on my bone again!

My first actual visit to (as opposed to visit from) the doctor was when I found a large lump on my breast at the age of 17. Then it was a consultant the very next day and the op the day after. Non-malignant, thank goodness, and I managed to miss our house move while I was in hospital.

annodomini that sounds horribly traumatic (large breast lump at 17 etc) but sometimes our NHS does work brilliantly well doesn't it? After all you're still with us! Assuming this was NHS.

First visit I remember I was about 3/4. I was running away from my Mother (I had done something naughty) and fell and cut my head. I remember it because the Doctor sent my Mum out of the room and questioned me about what had happened. Apparently he was checking if she had hit me (this was 60 years ago so I think that would have been unusual for the time).

I also remember being taken for an injection (can't remember which one), my Mother had me on her lap and I was crying and struggling, Mum held me down whilst a nurse tried to keep my arm still while the Doctor actually gave the injection. To this day I still don't like needles!!

isthis, I was a bit confused about whether or not it was NHS. My dad was willing to pay, and the consultant saw me in the consulting room in his own home but the op was in NHS Glasgow Royal Infirmary (with a fine view of the Necropolis) and dad never got a bill. Those were the days.