Needle Free Injections With Microjets 282
IZ Reloaded writes "Do you hate needles? In the near future, the fear of needles would be a thing of a past. Bioengineering students at the University of California, Berkeley have developed the MicroJet. It uses an electronic actuator that could one day propel vaccinations, insulin or other drugs through the skin of the patient - without the device even touching the skin - with far less pain than a hypodermic needle."
Insulin jet injectors are NOT NEW (Score:5, Informative)
http://diabetic-supplies.medical-supplies-equipme
Medi-Jector Vision(tm)Needle-Free Insulin Injection System
Accurate delivery of insulin injections from 2-50 units in 1 unit increments. Injector reusable for 3000 injections. No maintenance or cleaning required. Smaller, lighter weight and easier to use than previous models. Contains: injector, carrying case, training video, instruction manual, 2 Needle-Free Syringes (for easy and medium skin penetration) and 1 vial adaptor. Replacement Needle-Free Syringe kits sold separately.
what's amazing here?
Gee! thanks for letting me look at your blog (Score:5, Informative)
Read the press release, its better
mh1500 (Score:1, Informative)
http://medevoice.co.uk/themedicalho
been around for a while (Score:2, Informative)
Needle-free Injection Technology Info (Score:5, Informative)
This is nothing new ... (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_injector
Re:yeah, but will it hit my vein? (Score:5, Informative)
Its not the needle (Score:5, Informative)
-Dracken
Pain free injections? Get bloodwork a few times. (Score:2, Informative)
Then, at the age of 23, I found a lump. It was cancer. While I didn't need chemo, I did get a lot of CT scans requiring an IV with a radiopaque substance (6 in my first year post-surgery) and bloodwork (12 in that same year).
After that, my GP strongly recommended I get a flu shot, as is suggested to anyone who's had cancer. I was a bit nervous (it had been years since I'd had one, partly because I was generally healthy, partly because I didn't like getting jabbed), but I got it anyway. And it didn't hurt. Let me tell you - after a few IVs and bloodwork needles, I can barely feel those flu shot needles anymore! I can't believe I used to be nervous about those damn things.
This year, I got a flu shot as well. And it didn't hurt.
Injections for Multiple Sclerosis (Score:5, Informative)
In fact, up until about a century ago, sharp objects piercing into your body has generally been a detrimental event. It meant that you were being bitten (with poison or germs getting injected past your outer layer defenses) or you were getting punctured by something that would result in an infection. So everything about your physical makeup and your psychology is evolved to consider injections to be a bad thing. In a twist of events, now it turns out that shard objects getting jabbed into your body is mostly a beneficial thing. But it will take a long time for evolution to change our aversion to injections. And with new technologies, it may not even be necessary for that adaptation to occur. I certainly hope this becomes the case in the *very* near future.
The nerves on the surface of your skin tend to cluster. So, the amount of pain related to the actual puncture of the skin varies greatly, depending on whether or not you happen to hit one of those nerve clusters. Sometimes the penetration of the skin would result in a strong pinching sensation; other times, I would not feel anything at all. For the intramuscular injections, it is also possible that you will hit another nerve on your way into the muscle tissue. That usually just results in a reflex reaction (you jump or twitch). The act of the actual injection is painless, since the solution is injected far below the surface pain receptors. But then you tend to get long-term dull pain similar to a charly horse; it's like a blunt end of a stick whacked you in the thigh and you have a nice bruise in your muscle. And $deity help you if you happen to hit your bone with the tip of the needle.
About a year ago, I switched therapies to Rebif, which is given subcutaneously three times a week. The needle is a smaller gauge and is signifianctly shorter (~1.5cm). It is unintuitive, but the subcutaneous injections, even though the needle is shorter and thinner, are much more painful than the IM injections, because the solution is injected just below the surface of the skin, where you have a lot more pain receptors. So it's not the needle really that I worry about. I hardly even feel that any more; it's the stinging sensation from the liquid getting pushed into the subcutaneous tissue just below the skin.
I use a spring-loaded injection contraption that hides the needle from my view entirely; I just hold the casing to my skin and push a button. The spring-loaded plunger pushes the needle in and presses the plunger of the syringe down to inject the medicine. I don't even worry about the needle any more; I worry about the sting with the liquid getting pushed under my skin and the subsequent itchy and burning red blotch that stays in that area for weeks afterward. So in my case, at least, the needle is a non-issue; this needle-less technology is neat, but it will not help with the pain associated with liquid getting pushed under my skin, and it will not help with the site reaction.
Wake me up when they figure out how to effectively administrate interferon-beta with a pill.
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
but will it leave a scar? (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately, I see nothing in the article that even mentions the issue of scarring, which imho should be a pretty big deal.
Re:I'm a type 1 diabetic (Score:3, Informative)
Here is a company [cercomed.com] that is working on a similar procedure that will not require the use of immune suppressing drugs. Much closer to a true cure. Though they have not yet perfected their technology, it looks very promising.
Injections - no big deal (Score:5, Informative)
You probably already know this but many other
Bloodsugar tests are a different story. My fingers are slightly callused from all the pinpricks - There are no real painless and definately no viable noninvasive bloodsugar monitoring techniques. Noninvasive bloodsugar monitoring is probably the second biggest Holy Grail in diabetes research (the biggest being an actual cure). The "alternative site testing" advertised by many modern meter manufacturers is highly overrated. If you read the manual of such meters you'll find that alternative site testing is inaccurate and gives a delayed reading and should not be used in many situations. (Of the 5-6 tests per day I run, only one is in conditions where AST is fine. And for that one test it's not worth changing lancet device heads.)
The thing I want most as a diabetic right now though is not painless/easier insulin injections (my NovoPen Junior with B-D Ultra-Fine III needles is both painless and convenient), or noninvasive testing (fingersticks are annoying but I'm used to it), it's CHEAP diabetes supplies. Bloodsugar meter test strips run on the order of $0.50-$1 per test. Insulin prices are skyrocketing. You're basically screwed unless you have a high-end medical insurance plan, which is TOUGH when you're a grad student.
But eventually, an actual cure would be damned nice.
Re:Injections - no big deal (Score:2, Informative)
I re-use my syringes (because I'm miserly, and don't like carrying around a whole lot of them).
I had a Medi-Ject back in the day, and only used it for a few weeks. It caused a lot of bruising, which wasn't that big a deal, and also occasionally lost some of the dose against my skin, which was a big deal.
AST testing tends to only lag in situations where your blood sugar is dropping fast (yes, I know this is the most critical situation). However, you can improve the accuracy of the results by rubbing and chafing the testing area ahead of time to increase capillary flow (IANAD).
Tried it (Score:2, Informative)
It's definitely NOT painless, but for around 5-10 units of insulin, it's rather "comfortable", but anything above that can be downright painful (more of a blunt pain than a sharp needle stick pain), and has also caused me welts. It's definitely not for injections where there's a lot of fat (stomach)... only for areas like the arms and legs.
Re:No needle at all, and it already exists (Score:2, Informative)
Re:pneumatic injectors are painful (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Insulin jet injectors are NOT NEW (Score:5, Informative)