Buzzy bee review

To be precise, we got the Buzzy Ladybug (LadyBuzz), but other than the paint, the premise is the same; put a cute vibrating toy insect with ice pack 'wings' on the arm above the injection or blood draw site, and you won't notice the pain so much.  We have been putting off our biannual blood draws since coming to Germany (for 18 months!  Ouch! Bad parents! But we weren't getting along with our pediatrician, who was refusing to send us to a geneticist or lipidologist, so we were feeling very unmotivated...) and so today was our first time to try it out!  Monica did really well with it.  For the first time in years she wasn't screaming and kicking at me, struggling to get away, which is nice!  I often think these blood draws are harder on me and Dad than they are on the girls.  She did well with watching the ipad instead of watching the needle going in, and I don't think she hardly noticed pain. She still gets a little traumatized by the bandage itself - they always seem to do the gauze pad and coban rather than just a band aid, probably to decrease bruising - but I can also see that it looks like more of a 'serious' bandage, showing that something seriously bad happened to her. Perception affects reality!  She even stuck around watching from the hall to see Teresa get her blood drawn, which was significantly more traumatizing for everyone involved (three pokes and still not enough blood!)

I tried to make the Buzzy Ladybug more approachable and familiar by letting Teresa play with it a week before the day of the blood draw.  She apparently whacked it a little too much in her enthusiastic investigation, however, because now you have to whack it again to turn it on.  Actually, trying to turn it on again right now, it's not working at all... this gadget may have been single use for us!  For $40, yikes...  So maybe let them examine it before the day of the blood draw, but not walk off with it.  It's a good concept and, for parents looking for literally anything to make these blood draws less traumatizing, it seems a good investment.  Even if it's 'just' a distraction and doesn't actually take the pain away, what's the difference?  When no end of toys, movies, video games, singing, or conversation can distract your child during a blood draw, but a fancy ice pack and a buzzing gadget actually DOES work at keeping their attention?

Invaluable.