I am quite nervous about the blood test. I've never had one before. Are they ok? Horrible? Bearable? Noticeable?
It's a needle getting stuck into your body, so if you ever had a needle going places it shouldn't be while sewing, or got stung by a rather large-ish insect, that's the amount of actual
pain you'll have to expect. Some very experienced doctors and nurses manage to actually avoid "hitting a nerve" altogether on most tries.
Depending on the kind and amount of blood they need to draw and how easily they can locate your veins, you might have a tourniquet applied to your arm, or be asked to work your arm muscles (usually by kneading a rubber ball with the hand below). Those might cause some additional discomfort - I wouldn't call it pain.
No blood test that I'm aware of draws such an amount of blood that you might feel nauseated or weak afterwards as a
direct effect on your circulatory system. Those are
psychophysiological effects, notably the vasovagal reflex. That's not to say that such effects could happily be ignored
if they happen, but chances are that they simply won't, and your best bet IMHO is to assume that latter until proven otherwise.
Tell the doc it's a first for you, though, he'll likely have you lay down for the procedure as a precaution.
In particular in cases where the needle was aimed poorly, blood may subsequently seep into the tissue, leading to a bruise. The risk of infection, with proper countermeasures being taken (disinfectant swab before, band-aid after, freshly unpackaged or properly sterilized equipment in-between), should be effectively zero.
Oh, and there are no pain receptors in your blood, much less ones that can "call you back" from whatever lab it got brought to, so the actual
testing is guaranteed painless.
