Anesthetic Gel Eases Injection Pain for Kids

I was FINE with needles as a little kid - I can recall my sister and I as tiny tots being consciously very brave as we entered the caravans then set up for mass innoculations against things like polio and all the other things - and being shocked at the screams and wail of the other tiny tots - and waving our arms around vigorously, because we had been told to practice this distraction, with solemn assurances that it would take the pain away.

Also, as an asthmatic kid, I habituated to the then only treatment of having adrenaline injections stuck into the vein at your inner elbow crease, and kept there for half an hour or more, with the adrenaline slowly bleeding in - sometimes both arms were necessary.

And was extremely brave about the one, tiny little filling I had before adulthood!

No - it took me to sixteen to develop my current needle phobia! I had terrible, terrible, 'flu - with attendant secondary bacterial infections and was sick as a dog. It was midwinter, freezing and raining. My father reluctantly agreed to go and feed my horse for me - and returned screaming and raving because said horse had escaped.

My father was terrified of and hated animals generally, but was utterly terrified of the horse, but wouldn't admit it - hence the hysterical rage. With his constant ravings in my ear, I had to walk up, catch the horse, fix the fence. When I got back home, still being hysterically screamed at and abused, I had an awful asthma attack, so the usual injecting had to occur - then the doctor tried to insist that I go to hospital, because I was so sick - the thought of which appalled me - and then I had to have a huge antibiotic injection.

This hurt hugely!!! Probably because I was so tense and distressed, and THAT - largely because of the contamination of the whole horrible afternoon, made me needle phobic!

And I still am.

Give ME the damned anaesthetic gel - if there's any left, give it to the babies.

But seriously, I think it very good to avoid traumatising little kids - and for many families injections are an awful trauma - involving holding little ones down and unpleasant interactions with annoyed medical staff, and general snowballing of distress.

Gel 'em.