painless injection?

[IHeartPeds87]

College freshmen have invented a way to make injections less painful. Pretty cool.

Take a look at the link....looks pretty sweet :)

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

As a person who took more shots than probably 95+% of general population, I can honestly say that it is 1) nothing new, and 2) won't work.

In high profile sports (where I'd been for a while) local freeze with freones was used from the time immemorial to do local anesthetic blocks for injuries which has to be treated then and there. To begin with, the cold shot itself is so hard, in it pretty unpleasant by itself. Then you do not feel the needle piersing the skin but the "bee sting" (fine, like 100 or so of bees doing it at once) of anesthetic is still there.

I tried local freeze for exceedingly painful Epipen shots and antihistamines with auto-injectors. Still hurts like h***.

Local anesthetic creams and patches freeze skin pretty good, so one doesn't feel needle going through it, but if the procedure involves anything being injected, or any degree of "digging" and moving the needle under the skin... well, it still will hurt, maybe a little bit less.

Only one way that works is the ol' good of layered local anesthesia (local cream or patch to anesthetize the skin, then intradermal injection, then going deeper and deeper till all tissues you are going to work with reach therapeutic concentration). It is still taught and practiced in either less developed countries or organizations like "Doctors Without Borders" as it is suitable even for things like amputations if no general anesthesia is available. This method has significant risks like overdose of local anesthetic, takes a lot of time to perform and requires knowledge of anatomy and manual skills well above of one of average US physician, let alone nurse.

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

Katie just saved me some typing :)

Not new, not breakthrough, not time-efficient and not likely to get used outside of Rice.

I've found a great way to make shots less painful, though: get a nurse who is skilled at doing them!

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

Hospitals are never going to pay for something that costs $2 more per shot. Especially when the same effect can be achieved cheaply- with ice. Books geared for diabetics recommend keeping a spoon in the freezer and applying that to the site before the shot.