Despite every trick we could think of: warming to room temperature before injecting, using a lemon for the gate method, using the buzzy bee device, lidocaine, nothing made a difference in the horror we experienced last night. My little girl get IV’s and blood work and doesn’t flinch. She smiles and chats through her procedures with all of the joy and light and positivity she projects in to the world daily. Needles do not phase her. The needles were no different in this case. The jabs with the syringe itself weren’t the issue, it was completely the medication. The citrate. Nothing would change that. I have seen my child scream in pain before. I have seen her violently react and try to physically fight away during medical procedures years ago. I have never seen her react to medication administration as I saw it last night. Her loading dose as prescribed by two GI’s in two states was 120mg. As opposed to sending 40mg doses so she would have three pokes, they sent 20mg...thus resulting in SIX pokes. As I said, if the med didn’t hurt this wouldn’t have been an issue. But the building of anxiety and fear and anticipation between each injection resulted in her loading taking two hours of trauma and sobbing. My child kicked, screamed, yelled to stop touching her and that nobody was ever going to touch her again but mommy, screaming at me to help her, sobbing while begging why her and why can’t she be normal and why can’t she have a normal life, pleading with me to stop this and not to hurt her, grieving the loss of remicade infusions because those didn’t hurt, physically trying to flee and fighting against the nurse. It was so unbelievably heartbreaking. The first three injections were more horrific than I can really put words to at the moment. The next three I had personally calmed down enough and was able to normalize to the point that she was still screaming, crying, and begging for it to stop but the trying to flee subsided. The only thing that saved me was tiny Hatchimal eggs. I would break the little eggs open during the awful and the second the med was in I would take the top off the egg and ask her what was inside. Each time she was excited to discover the surprise inside. By the end she had calmed enough to ask the nurse for two hugs goodbye. We cuddled and she slept in my arms and we laughed like mad before bed. She is fine today. She really is. However, after she went to sleep I cried all night and felt ill. The memory of what just happened will stick in my mind forever. I didn’t sleep. I feel horrible still. This is senseless. The new formulation has been confirmed FDA approved. We were given a timeline of six months. I cannot mentally find the words for how much I don’t want this to take six months. I am BEGGING you, AbbVie...we know it’s ready. Release this to pediatric patients now. Please end their suffering. Our IBD warriors in the UK have seen a night and day difference and their parents grieve for us in the US. Please do the right thing. I implore you to expedite the release of the citrate free version for pediatric patients. I have already left a voicemail for Tracey Hoss, my contact at AbbVie. I would like her to speak directly with my little girl, who can articulate beautifully how this impacted her last night. My daughter described it as one million lightening bolts hitting her legs. She sobbed that this is the worst medical procedure of her life and then listed: “worse than any IV, worse than my PICC line getting ripped out, worse than the feeding tube, worst than throwing up my feeding tube and having it shoved back in. It’s the worst thing ever.” As a parent how the heck do you look your child in the eyes when they are hurting so badly physically and clearly in their heart and convince them this is the right thing to do?! AbbVie...you can do better, sooner. Please. Please do better... I’m exhausted and this will subsequently be my least eloquent post...but I needed to tell you all how it went because my daughter’s story matters. All of our children’s stories need to be shared.