Relief of injection pain in adults. EMLA cream for 5 minutes before venepuncture. The effectiveness of skin anaesthesia after 5 minutes' topical application of a lignocaine-prilocaine cream was evaluated. One hundred and twenty patients estimated the pain of antecubital venepuncture both on a linear scale and verbally after use of the cream for either 5 or 60 minutes, a placebo cream or no treatment. Reported pain was significantly less after only 5 minutes of the lignocaine-prilocaine cream (p = 0.002). The cream can be used to relieve the pain of all routine injections. 