10 realest painful memories we have about BCG when we were all P6

Last Updated on 2016-09-25 , 10:24 am

No matter what sort of different experiences we had in primary school, everyone who graduated before 2001 shared one common memory: the dreaded BCG jab. Standing for Bacillus Calmette–Guérin, it is a common vaccine used against tuberculosis. Let’s relive some of the most painful memories from it…

Rumours about the size of the needle
As you proceeded on to Primary 6, you would have heard at least once of how big the needle size was. Also, there were always nasty tales of how devilish the doctors and nurses were.

Horror stories about the pain
You would hear from those who had already taken it about how painful it was. It was only after you took the jab that you realised they were all exaggerated.

Waiting outside the room for the jab
The feeling was like queueing to be tortured and waiting for death row. Occasionally, you would hear people crying from inside.

Seeing others who did not have to take the jab gave us a glimmer of hope
In some rare cases, there were people who did not have to take the jab after the nurses did the checkup. It cheered us up a bit knowing we might have a slight chance of not having to take it too.

Drop of bitter medicine
When it was your turn, the nurse would check your health booklet and put a drop of bitter medicine into your mouth. They would then do some tests to determine whether or not you would have to take the jab.

Getting the jab
The experience varies from person to person depending on your threshold for pain. For some, it was almost painless while for others, it was so excruciating that they bawled their eyes out.

Walking out of the room
Some of the more haolian ones would roll up their sleeves to show off the “battle scar” to their friends.

Feeling sore in the injected arm
For some, there was muscle soreness and aches, akin to those the day after a vigorous workout.

Scarring
No matter how carefully you took care of the injected area, scarring was almost a definite the second the needle punctured your skin.

Knocking the injected arm
Everyone knew that if you hit or knocked the injected arm, it was going to leave a huge ugly scar for life and hurt for days. Some of the mischievous kids would purposely punch you at the injected area just so it would hurt you and leave a bigger scar.

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