Numbing cream

Today Aiden had to have blood work to check his clotting factors prior to his surgery on Monday (we had some concerns). In the hospital, we never do ANY needle sticks on kids without numbing cream, unless it's an emergency. I demanded the numbing cream for Aiden, which I put on 45 mins before his draw (I, personally, used LMX cream). My ped was GREAT about it (he fully believes in it) but said it's sad that it's not standard practice. Even the lab commented that they hadn't seen the numbing cream in a while. I held Aiden on my lap with the lab guy on the side with his arm. There was another lab guy tickling Aiden's feet & playing with him with a stuffed animal. They stuck the needle in & Aiden was GIGGLING at the lab guy with the toy! All of them were SHOCKED that he didn't flinch, not even as they wiggled that darn needle around in search of the vein. The numbing cream worked like a CHARM! He never made a peep. However, they couldn't get blood & had to go to another spot I hadn't anticipated or put the cream on . That time he melted down the second the needle hit his skin & was unconsolable when they were wiggling it around to find the vein. He was a slobbery sobbing mess at the end of that arm...a total different kid than the first poke.

Moral of the story, if your kid EVER requires lab draws, DEMAND numbing cream. It works SUPERBLY! I've seen it work with kids in the hospital, but now we all saw it first hand today. The lab people said they wished all parents would demand the cream so that lab would go as smoothly as it initially did for us.

Just wanted to share in case any of you had to experience this in the future.

Thanks for reading!

 

This is a great invention for routine procedures!!! I totally agree to request this for your child if you are going in for any kind of routine procedure.

However, we had the discussion about whether or not to use this in our ER. It was decided against the use of it as it takes too long to work in the emergency settings. There is also the risk of waiting so long for it to work only (like with your child) to then be forced to use another site anyway.

 

I agree!!! We have a tube at home for emergencies (dh could sew them up).

 

Wow - thank you for this post. I had no idea there were numbing creams out there that could be used on kids. This is really good to know!

 

I wish I had known this on Saturday! The boys both had blood drawn for the allergist. It was over quickly, but there was quite a bit of yelling

Michelle

 

Today when I talked to our Ped (he called with the lab results), he was glad to hear the numbing med went so well. He's one that's lobbying for making it standard practice (in non emergent settings, obviously) & wants me to write a letter stating why I feel the numbing cream should be mandatory. I'm not quite sure how to word it, but I told him I surely would. Being that I have a BUNCH left over, I intend to use it for future vaccinations as well (which our Ped is also trying to make mandatory so that the cream is applied before shots too)! I think it's sad how many parents don't know about it....

 

Wow, thanks for the tip! My poor little Danielle has to have her blood drawn every 2 months, sometimes more for hypothyroidism. It's torture for all parties involved. I'm going to ask the pedi about this.

 

There's one called Emla Cream. We used to give it to all the little kiddos that would come through our Pedi Endocrine office before blood draws and before the big IM shots. It usually takes 30-45 minutes to get full effect, you just dollop it on, then cover it with the plastic covering (think non-sticky big bandaid). Even if your doctor's office can't provide it for you, they can write a Rx for it and the pharmacy can provide it for you.

(and it works great on ear piercings or other piercings too)

 

my kids have never had blood drawn but I'll keep this in mind...

oh and I actually put orajel on my DD's ears before I had them pierced - don't know if it did any good because they swabbed her ears with alcohol but she only screamed for a minute when they did them!

 

We use the numbing cream any time my girls need a blood draw for allergy testing. We put it on an hour before we plan for the draw. They told us to put it on like frosting and then wrap saran wrap around it. The lab workers were so impressed that the girls didn't flinch or cry. We have to go again next week. I was telling the girls (2 1/2 years old) that we had to go again. They got so excited because they get to put their "special" bandaid on (the saran wrap). We put it on both arms just incase they can't get blood out of the one they pick first. Just make sure you take them off at the same time and clean off the cream because for one of them we cleaned off only one arm, drew the blood and then she wanted to keep the other special bandaid on and cried because I insisted we take it off and wipe off her arm.