As far as I know they have only been using it for two years.  Well here they have anyway.  By the time that they started to offer it to us, Ashley had become used to the blood tests.  The last test he had, we went to another blood lab and the lady taking the blood was not used to drawing from kids so she was more bothered that Ash.  She talked to him about Harry Potter and asked him what the first book was called as she had bought one for her grandson.  Ash was so eager to educate here about the title of the first book (she had bought the third one---so she was a little miffed ) that he did not even bother about the draw at all.  She was absolutely amazed that he just didn't bother about the needle and kept talking to her and even laughing at her blunder buying the third Harry Potter book in the series not the first one first!  I could see the relief on her face as she did the tests that he was not upset by it.  I think half the time it is mind over matter and once kids understand this, they feel unbothered by the whole thing.  It is a lot different when they start to draw from the inner arm as opposed to the backs of the hand---less painful.  I think that the EMLA is good really as it sort of helps to dissasociate the pain--and therefore is less likely to result in the child wriggling around.  Often they tense and it makes things much much worse.  They do ask us every time if we would like EMLA, and we did try it once.  However, as Ashley as learnt to cope with the blood draws it seemed silly to start using something that we can do without.  I wish we had had the EMLA when he was a baby and toddler though.  It would have made things much less dramatic.  Half the time when he is asked now, he just says he doesn't need it.  He always chooses which arm they can take the blood from and he never watches.  They have a game boy and puzzles for the kids to play with before during and after they do the blood draw.  Half the time he is so absorbed in those distractions that it is over in less than a minute.  Also as he has a sweet tooth, the promise of a lollipop after the blood draw and tattoo bandages are usually enough to help him now.