Denver Kids' Hospital Offers Pain-Free Injections

DENVER (CBS4) - Spending time sick in the hospital is hard enough for children, but all the needle pokes can be painful. Now a hospital in Denver is offering a pain-free way to insert those needles.

When adults show up at the emergency room and have to get an IV, they know the needle prick hurts. Scared children sometimes have to be restrained. But a syringe at the Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center is a pain free solution.

DaShawn McKinney has been in the Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children most of the past two months. He's on his fourth round of chemotherapy. He gets most medications through a catheter, but DaShawn has also had dozens of needle sticks.

"It feels like someone just stabbing you," DaShawn said.

They hurt his mom almost as much.

"Oh they're painful, I couldn't even imagine," she said.

But a needle poke without the pain is now possible. Sam Sauer, 11, agreed to show CBS4's Kathy Walsh in the emergency department. When Sam was 4-years-old he had to have an IV.

"It was horrible. He had to be restrained at the time," his mother said.

Now the older, braver Sam is using what's called the J-Tip. It's a syringe with a small canister of pressurized carbon dioxide. It pushes Lidocaine, a numbing medication, into the skin. It works in about 30 to 60 seconds.

Then when the IV needle is put in, Sam seemed shocked. When he compared the stick to a bee sting -- he said the J-Tip was much better.