Redheads Need More Anesthesia than Others 484
Natural redheads need 20% more anesthesia than other people report scientists. "Redheads are likely to experience more pain from a given stimulus and therefore require more anesthesia to alleviate that pain." said Dr. Edwin Liem of the University of Louisville in Kentucky. Anesthesiology is still very much a mystery to scientists, and picking the right dosage that keeps someone out without killing them is still very much an art. Studies like this will help them determine how anesthesics work and why.
The real reason. (Score:4, Funny)
They're just more pissy, thats all. Blondes go under real fast because theres not as much brain to put asleep.
Cheers,
Abe.
Re:Brainy Blondes do exist! (Score:3, Funny)
http://www.brainyblonde.com?
Error 404: File Not Found
Cheers,
Re:Brainy Blondes do exist! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Brainy Blondes do exist! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Brainy Blondes do exist! (Score:3, Insightful)
I see your domain name is owned by Vibe Media of Beverly Hills, with an Admin Contact of "Kari, Alix" AKA Entertainment Marketing of L.A. So you'll pardon my initial skepticism that this is your homepage and your post here is just to get on everyone's bookmarks for when the logic puzzles and chemistry experiments go up on the site.
Re:Brainy Blondes do exist! (Score:3, Funny)
I'm going to the Dentist this week. (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks Slashdot!
Re:I'm going to the Dentist this week. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I'm going to the Dentist this week. (Score:2)
Up there and down there are different places (Score:3)
Re:I'm going to the Dentist this week. (Score:2, Flamebait)
What about... sex? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What about... sex? (Score:5, Interesting)
Another interesting thing... one orgasm is 'it' for her. After she has finished, she is so sensitive that she cannot tolerate being touched sexually. Perhaps that is somehow related to this research... (nerve sensitivity?)
Re:What about... sex? (Score:4, Funny)
Sounds like someone isn't getting the job done...
Re:What about... sex? (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like someone isn't getting the job done...
You know it's really for himself...
Re:What about... sex? (Score:3, Funny)
Oh yeah, like YOU can vibrate and rotate at independently variable speeds...
Re:What about... sex? (Score:2, Informative)
Sybiant [google.com]
thanks google
Re:What about... sex? (Score:5, Funny)
I haven't tried that line before. "It's not for me, you understand. This is for Science!" Hmm, it just might work.
Or in role-playing: Today I'll be the mad scientist and you be the sweet young innocent trapped in his experiments to measure pleasure thresholds. Now where's that lab coat?
Re:What about... food? (Score:4, Interesting)
Nerve Toxin & Virgin Tongues (Score:3, Informative)
Capsaicin (Score:4, Informative)
However, pain receptors are completely different from taste receptors. In fact, Capsaicin fakes out the pain receptors as it simulates real damage. This tricks the brain into producing endorphins, which promote a pleasant sense of well-being or even an alterted state of consciousness. The endorphin high can make spicy foods mildly addictive (and for some, such as myself, a complete obsession).
Re:What about... food? (Score:3, Interesting)
at last, an answer! (Score:5, Funny)
About red hair (Score:5, Interesting)
Blazing red hair is a very recessive trait created entirely by past inbreeding in Europe -- and past inbreeding is a common heritage for Europe, as well, since most Europeans can trace their ancestors back to a very small group of perhaps a dozen Ice Age survivors. It requires not only a 3rd-level hair gene (0-3 for red), it also requires a very low lightness gene (0 for platinum blond, down thru 12 to pitch black), which is extremely recessive as well.
Since the trait is so recessive, the extinction of redheads is predicted to be sometime in the late 21st or early 22nd century, due to population implosion of the native populations of northern Europe and the traits being lost due to interbreeding with those with dominant dark-haired traits.
It's no surprise that redheads have other strange recessive genes that we are only now discovering -- this could prove to be very interesting, and could help a lot in future gene therapy.
Re:About red hair (Score:3, Interesting)
heh, this revelation probably isn't so insightful for those geneticists out there, but it makes me more and more relieved that my mother's brown hair genes won the battle of my head.
-John
Re:About red hair (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, certain persons of american indian descent have an enzyme deficiency that results in certain paralytic drugs having a greatly prolonged duration of action. Naturally, this is not always something you want in a normally rapid-on/rapid-off neuromuscular blocking agent...
There are also racial tendencies with regard to what classes of blood pressure medications work best with certain racial groups.
This kind of variation (along with anatomic variants) can make the practice of medicine very challenging. Don't go into medicine if you don't like surprises!
Re:About red hair (Score:5, Interesting)
Luckily, when my brother was having his appendix out, it was by the chief surgeon of Toronto General, who just happened to be a friend of Dr. Britt, who at the time was one of the foremost researchers into MHS. He knew exactly what to do. (Ice bath, keep the heart going...)
I almost certainly have the gene too, but the 100% test involves sampling a chunk of muscle tissue from a leg. I'll pass!
Re:About red hair (Score:3, Informative)
At the risk of being off-topic, I also wanted to say that people like you can be safely anesthetized without triggering an MH episode. I just had a patient like you last week with a similar family history. At our hospital, we have a special vapor-free anesthesia machine, which supplies only oxygen and Nitrous Oxide (N2O), which are both safe. We use muscle relaxants that are known to be safe (succinlycholine is NOT safe) and in my case last week I ran infusions of propofol and alfentanil for the six-hour lumbar spinal fusion (patient in prone position). The young man (37 y/o) did fine and woke up with no memory of the surgery and relatively little post-op pain. The patient had an epidural catheter for post-op pain control, using morphine by continuous drip.
Marcus
Re:About red hair (Score:4, Interesting)
Dr. Britt has since retired back to Britain or Ireland. Do you know of any current experts in the Toronto area? It's mainly for dental work -- all the current pain-killers are supposed to be safe, but some dentists freak when you tell them and want some expert to pass the blame to. (One dental surgeon's assistant backed up and said "Is it ongoing?" [Subtext: Can I catch it?] Yeah, ongoing all my life lady, come closer and I'll give you some MHS luvin' and cooties!)
My father has his teeth done at a hospital clinic but that's expensive. Email me or post if you know: androidcat99@hotmail.com.
There might be some bonus to the MHS genes -- Like how the genes for Sickle Cell give you resistance to Malaria if you don't get the full dose. It's hard for me to judge how other people's bodies work, but adrenaline does hit me like a pile-driver, so perhaps some ancestors made fine berserks? (As always, the pay-back is a bitch afterwards.) Bonus: I don't have to drink as much coffee to get completely jazzed!
The large calves might be due to the equivalent of a constant electro-stim "workout". Again, hard for me to judge, but another possible bonus is that during certain acts when muscles clench, they most certainly do, oh yeah!
disease? disorder? Condition, allergy? There is a blood test that can find 100% negative, but if you fail that, you only might have it. Sorry to hear about your girlfriend's family loss. As I said, we were damned lucky when my brother found out the hard way.
Re:About red hair (Score:5, Interesting)
"Bad" genes is funny things. If they had no benefit and only harm, they'd remove themselves from the pool eventually. (Like Queen Victoria's genetic time-bomb to her in-bred descendants.)
Some, like Sickle Cell as I said above, have a benefit if you don't get the double reenforcement. (Trivia: There's a different gene from Africa that also gives resistance to malaria, and has the same problem when reenforced.) The games theory math for these genes must be very tricky -- on the one hand, they provide a benefit in half-dose and so tend to spread. On the other hand, if they spread too much, they reenforce and tend to kill the host. (Perhaps there are no bad genes, just genes that are misunderstood?)
Mother Nature is the ultimate kludge-artist: "Okay, if I hack this gene, it'll increase blood-flow. It'll cause problems later, but that's tommorow's problem, sucks to be you." I mean, she wired the eye receptor cells with the I/O coming out of the front of the cell! Hopefully all that "unused" genetic information will turn out to be code comments (as well as version control).
Re:About red hair (Score:5, Funny)
You wrote: "since most Europeans can trace their ancestors back to a very small group of perhaps a dozen Ice Age survivors."
I know this is the case for my family (german/danish). We've traced our family line on both sides to a brother and sister who barely avoided a slow cold death by crossing the Alps into the area around Cannes.
Re:About red hair (Score:4, Funny)
Re:About red hair (Score:5, Interesting)
> areas of Northern Europe, mostly in Scotland,
> Ireland, and Scandinavia -- even there, it is not
> entirely common.
Nope. I know from friends and relatives that red hair is also found among North Indians (especially among Kashmiris), though it is certainly in the minority. My own hair is dark brown with red highlights. But then again, Indians seem to have a wide range of phenotypes in everything from eye, skin, and hair color to the shape of eyes and faces.
Indians in many ways appear often to be more a collection of thousands of micro-ethnicities than a single ethnic group. Though these micro-ethnicities shade into each other at the boundaries, there is a lot of variation between them. It would be interesting to see if the results presented in this study (conducted on people with European ancestry) could be replicated with Indians that have red hair. After all, it could be that this has nothing to do with red-hair in general, but only with a particular way of getting red hair.
Re:About red hair (Score:3, Informative)
The 'Aryan' people who moved into India and provide the genetic background for a lot of Northern Indians were from Persia, not Europe. And while some of these Persians did continue to migrate into Europe later on, I don't think they made it as far as Scandinavia, where the red-headed gene has its genesis (red-heads in Ireland and other parts of Europe are largely a product of intermixing with Vikings). There aren't many red-headed Iranians that I know of, so it seems unlikely that Indian red-heads come from Persian stock.
On the other hand, there were a lot of European genes that moved through Asia Minor, India, and into Central Asia and China along the Silk Road. They've found ethnically Caucasian mummies in China that are a result of this migration and mixing. Unless the Kashmiri red-heads are a product of a local mutation that was concentrated in the population, it seems more likely that these genes were brought from Northern Europe much later than the Aryan immigration from Persia. The Vikings got around, so it seems reasonable that they might have sent some genetic material into the near-east and the subcontinent one way or another.
Re:About red hair (Score:5, Interesting)
It could also help archaeologists understand the predecessors of Homo Sapiens better, if the research saying the "redhead gene" might come from neanderthals is true.
I mean, if redheads are slightly more sensitive to pain somehow, I think it is very likely that neanderthals were as well. And this is things we would never know from "common", material studies alone.
Besides, isn't it thought that blondes are making room for brunettes as well, for reasons similar to what you mention?
the extinction of redheads (Score:3, Funny)
(No redheads were harmed in the making of this post.)
Re:About red hair (Score:5, Informative)
Your understanding of heredity is a little bit off. The examples you give are perfectly consistent with red hair being recessive, black hair dominant. Here's a simplification of how it works: imagine we have a gene with two alleles [academicpress.com], let's call one 'R' for red, the other 'B' for black. Each person has two copies, so the redheaded parent has RR, the black-haired parent has BR. If you look at all the combinations the children could have, 1/2 would be BR (and have black hair), and 1/2 would be RR (and have red hair). For more information, draw a Punnett square [athro.com], which should spell it out more clearly.
Note, however, that in real life, things are not quite that simple. Hair color is determined by the interaction of a number of genes. Thus, people don't have either pure black, pure blond, or pure red hair. There are many subtle variations.
Also, the other poster, troll or not, was completely wrong about redhead genes fading out because they are recessive. Genes do not change frequency within a population because they are recessive or dominant. If you read up on Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium [woodrow.org] why this is true should be clear. Note that in very small populations (under say, 10,000), genetic drift and other random changes in the gene pool could wipe out some variants, but redheads number in the millions worldwide; their genes are not in danger of vanishing any time soon.
Re:About red hair (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:About red hair (Score:3, Interesting)
It means the parent with black hair has a dominant black-gene and a recessive red-gene, and the red-headed parent has two red-genes. Each child has a 50-50 chance of red or black hair. Three of a kind is not particularly unusual.
Red being a recessive gene means that redheads only have red-genes, a pair of redheads can only have redheaded children. People with black hair could have a hidden red-gene, and a pair of people with black hair could have a red-headed child.
-
I know these guys! (Score:2, Funny)
Could it be because.... (Score:2, Interesting)
At about 40,000 BP homo sapiens invaded Europe and killed most of the Neanderthals and interbred with the remainder. A few were chased into Scotland, and people of pure redhaired Scottish descent are the closest we still have to neanderthals (I'm not kidding).
Re:Could it be because.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Another quote:
"Oxford researchers believe that ALL redheads inherited the gene from European Neanderthals. Based on rate of gene mutation, Oxford says the redhead gene appears to be much older than Cro-Magnon man in Europe. The accepted explanation is that the Celtic tribes had a strong remnant of Neanderthal blood caused by Cro-Magnon/Neanderthal interbreeding"
Re:Could it be because.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Alas for this theory, the study of mitochondrial DNA shows that there are no traces of Neanderthal DNA in modern human populations, anywhere. Nor is there any evidence that homo sapiens sapiens waged war of any kind on Neanderthals.
It was probably much simpler: modern humans disturbed the Neanderthal ecosystem so much that the old races retreated to mountains and swamps, giving us the myth of Giants. If modern humans mated with Neanderthals (and this is quite possible), their offspring were sterile.
Modern human variation (including the two extremes of red/blonde and dark brown) all developed recently, about 25,000 to 50,000 years ago.
Finally, it is quite possible, likely even, that variations in human coloring are not caused by interbreeding but by sexual selection. Fashion, if you will. Gentlemen still prefer blondes.
Very True (Score:5, Informative)
This is a very, very good point. If you're ever going to have an operation which requires a general anesthetic, make sure you find out who the anesthetist is going to be, and whether they're any good.
Recovery rates can hinge hugely on how appropriately anesthetised you are - too little and your body can go into shock, too much and you'll find yourself out of action for up to a week!
Re:Very True (Score:3, Informative)
I work in the office of a maxillofacial surgeon (jaw and to some extent tooth surgeon). All of our patients are given an anesthesia guide during their initial consultation, which tells them to eat a full meal 24 hours before surgery, and not to eat or drink anything 12 hours prior to the event. I can't tell you how many times I've heard patients wake up in the middle of surgery - in extreme, loud pain - because they decided that a "little snack" or a can of Dr. Pepper 2 hours before the procedure was no big deal. Folks, it is a big deal. Anesthesia is administered based upon your body weight and the estimated duration of the procedure (among other factors). In all cases but emergencies, it's also administered on the assumption that you've got an empty stomach.
Anesthesia is not a joke. If not administered properly, it can swing to both extremes; either leaving you wide awake and screaming during surgery, or leaving you comatose or perhaps dead. I realize this is straying off-topic, but it needs to be said. Pay attention to your doctor or anesthesiologist and _do_what_they_say_ before surgery involving anesthesia. No matter what color your hair is.
Re:Very True (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't know about the exact type of the anesthesia used in maxillofacial surgery, but doesn't that suggest a somewhat poor anesthesiologist. As far as I know, the depth of the anesthesia can and is monitored during the operation and can be increased if necessary. Increased heart rate, blood pressure, sweating, muscle tonus and frowning are all indications of insufficient anesthesia. Since the operation apparently does not involve muscle relaxants (they were able to scream) it should be even easier to detect these signs.
I've been under the knife several times (knee, eye, shoulder and wrist) and have never had any problems with anesthesia except in the case of the shoulder operation which was at first attempted in local anesthesia as the massive amount of lidocaine caused an allergic reaction.
Re:Very True (Score:3, Informative)
There is no reliable way to monitor the depth of anaesthesia as yet. Several companies sell equipment that purports to do so, but none of them are certainties and the companies often do not reveal the algorithms that separate awake from asleep.
The incidence of awareness during anaesthesia is about 1:2000 anaesthetics, although most of them aren't the severe "in agony but cant move" type of awareness. Most are some form of recollection (not necessarily painful) of some period during the operation.
Still the incidence is too high to be acceptable.
Michael
Re:Very True (Score:3, Informative)
The anaesthetic is a muscle relaxant, and as such, also relaxes the muscles that prevent the contents of your stomach going back out the way they came.
Thus, if eat beforehand, you effectively vomit out the contents of your stomach.. This is not good.
I'm not an anaesthatist, but my GF is.. Perhaps I can get her to post later and give the more detailed skinny on this.
Malk
Re:Very True (Score:4, Informative)
Aspiration can happen after the procedure, when you're waking up and the endotracheal tube is still in place. Once the anesthesia wears off, the gag reflex kicks back in, and you start to vomit. If there's something in your stomach, there's a good chance it'll get into your lungs, and then you have a 30% chance of dying.
While less likely than aspiration, food can affect the half life of anesthesia. If you've eaten something that either induces liver enzymes or acts as a competitive inhibitor of liver enzymes, it will be harder for the anesthesiologist to predict when it will wear off and harder to tell if they are giving you too much.
And it doesn't matter if you're not actually screaming in pain. If the anesthesia is too light, it can adversely affect the outcome. While you might not remember the event because your hippocampus is soundly asleep, pain receptors and reflex arcs are some of the first systems that come back online, so to speak, and if you happen to jerk around while they're cutting you because the anesthesia is too light, you might just lose some anatomical structure that you might have wanted to keep.
Mod Parent down!!! (Score:4, Informative)
Anesthesia has nothing to do with your stomach contents being full or empty. People can vomit during induction of anesthesia and thats why we want empty stomachs (aspiration pneumonia=bad!)
I don't know what the maxillofacial office worker is talking about - unless they're giving their anesthesia solely as an oral sedative. In that case it might take a little longer to work.
Re:Very True (Score:4, Funny)
I remember getting my tonsils out.. they told me "Ok, you're going to feel a little light headed in about a minute.." Minute. Yeah, right. About 0.543534 seconds later I remember feeling this really wicked feeling. I tried to fight it.
I failed.
I tried to say something, but all that came out was a horrible squawk.
Oh, MAN that felt good.. heh.
Boyfriends of Redheads need even MORE (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Boyfriends of Redheads need even MORE (Score:2)
by d_redguy
I see you're proud of it too. Could it be another effect of the redhead gene?
Not enough info (Score:5, Insightful)
insert irish drinking joke here
Re:Not enough info (Score:2, Flamebait)
Mmm.. Redheads (Score:2)
Must be why they tend towards BDSM (Score:3, Funny)
You know who you are. *mwa*
the redhead curse... (Score:5, Funny)
Especially if the stimulus involves a hot sunny day at the beach.
redheaded arrogance :-) (Score:5, Insightful)
I also don't feel like I have a lower tolerance for pain than my less-fortunately-hair-colored friends. I burn myself on a semi-regular basis (soldering), and that's not too bad.
Now, I'm curious:
If the world is 20% more painful for me, is it also 20% more pleasureful?
Re:redheaded arrogance :-) (Score:3, Funny)
That had to have been one spicy meatball.
Re:redheaded arrogance :-) (Score:3, Interesting)
A few years ago I had a wisdom tooth pulled and part way through the procedure, I started squirming because it hurt. The dental assistant was quite surprised and told me that I shouldn't be feeling it.
Personal thery: I bet the actual cause is not the hair genese but some other genes that come out of the same genetic background. This would explain why some redhead's don't have this trait (they've either not had that gene passed on or else came from a differing redhead group). Personally, I have a lot of Danish and a bit of Irish heritage, so I'm guessing that one or both of those groups would have that trait.
I Doubt It (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a reason to why one says "lies, damn lies and statistics. Correlation has been used to "prove" many things such as racist ideas (superiority due to colour), intelligence from weight etc. A good correlation between two parameters does *not* prove that they are connected!
Re:I Doubt It (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a dark blonde with no redheads in my family for roughly three generations back (No jokes about inbreeding here, please.
My tolerance for novocaine, diazepam (valium) and a host of other anesthetics is about 12x normal (tripple the dosage, 1/4th of the duration) and has puzzled more than one specialist. The result of careful analysis has shown that my body eliminates most anesthetics at a much higher rate than normal.
My pain level is no higher or lower than average though my sensitivity to stimuli is much higher than average (I can read a photocopy with my fingertips, sometimes even writing in ink).
Based on that point of data, I'd say that equating sensitivity to stimuli to sensitivity to pain, as it has happened in many posts is probably not a good (i.e. valid) idea. I should be screaming of pain most the time if this were true.
Only empirical evidence with a very limited set of data, I know, but as e8johan stated: "but this does not say anything about any single individual".
The next question is whether sensitivity to pain has any relevance to the effect of an anesthetic.
If I remember correctly, local anesthetics work vastly different from general anesthesia by targeting different areas in the body.
[1] [capanes.com] states that Novocaine et al. supress the transmission of stimuli through the nerve while general anesthetics act in the brain ([2] [sciencenews.org] has something about some anesthetics triggering the sleep cycle, for others, I don't know).
Desflurane now is a geneal anesthetic, acting in the brain. So, any reference to "I can do this, I can do that" that does not duplicate the function of a geneal anesthetic is useless...
This means that my impressive tolerance for Novocaine et al. does not have any significance for the research performed as it targets a different type of anesthetic. The same goes for many other comments along the same lines, including alcohol.
Alcohol acts as an inhibitor ([3] [chemcases.com] states: "Alcohol acts primarily at the GABAa receptor to facilitate its action, thus in essence creating enhanced inhibition.") but does not have a sufficiently strong effect that the person affected could consciously compare it to a geneal anesthetic...
As for the use of alcohol as geneal anesthetic, which would be the next logical argument... it's not been very effective prior to complete unconsciousness and the level and speed of alcohol absorption plays a huge role. That also rules out any comment along the lines of "I can drink more than an ox".
I won't ask for people to check what they're writing for relevance... after all, I enjoy many of the comments I read here, but it is considered bad style to criticize the work of others without enough commonalities between the work and the critical remarks.
Re:I Doubt It (Score:3, Informative)
It prooves they are correlated.
I'd consider that a connection. I assume you meant to say it doesn't prove causation.
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Re:I Doubt It (Score:3, Informative)
But it does show that redheads need more anethetic on average, that's what correlation is.
This article is a big steaming pile (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This article is a big steaming pile (Score:2, Funny)
Redneck Redhead Study? (Score:4, Funny)
Then again, these were scientists from the University of Kentucky. Who better to study redheads, than rednecks?
On a serious note, this doesn't surprise me too much. Redheads are well known for having extremely sensitive skin. Ever see a redhead with a tan? If you have, it was a rarity, most redheads go straight from pasty-white to fire-engine red; freckles (another sensitivity based reaction to the sun) are more common among redheads than folks with locks of other colors. So it seems logical that this would extrapolate to other areas of pain and sensitivity.
Bart Wilkins
I can see it (Score:5, Funny)
Chrisd: I know.
Taco: well, do soemethiung abouttit man!!1!
Chrisd: Some poor schmuck submitted a storie a few minutes ago about the effect of anesthesis on readhe...
Taco: yeah, post that. Do it!!1!!
Chrisd: Are you sure???
Taco: Do it, dammit!!!1!1!
Chrisd: OK...
Re:I can see it (Score:2)
Join the newest gameshow on /. Who can find the previous incarnation of a story that Timothy just posted? Winner gets 50 karma.
Blondes vs. redheads (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Blondes vs. redheads (Score:3, Informative)
Then again, he could have just been trying to make me feel better when I wimped out on hard lenses (I could only open my eyes in darkened rooms when I had them in, even after two weeks of "getting used to them"). I'm fine with soft lenses, though!
Obligitory Kids In The Hall Reference (Score:5, Funny)
[Setting: A Tree-Filled Field in the Woods.]
[The It's A Fact Girl jumps in front of the camera and into a close up.]
It's A Fact Girl: It's A Fact.
[The It's A Fact Girl runs back into the woods, in sped up motion. When she stops, Scott as The Queen of England leans over in front of the camera and smiles as she addresses it.]
Scott: Hello. When I was a little girl, if a child was born with red hair, she was considered irreparably evil and drowned as a witch. It's a fact!
New Department? (Score:5, Funny)
What section is this, ChrisD's lurve tips?
I don't buy their conclusion. (Score:3)
What I've noticed is that when it comes to alcohol, caffiene, and other intoxicants/stimulants, I need a much higher dosage to feel the effects. I have a higher alcohol tolerance than antyone I know, matched only by a binge drinker who weighs 60 lbs more than I do.
I don't think that I'm more susceptible to pain either. Friends frequently refer to me as the guy with the 'asbestos hands'. If anything, I have a higher pain tolerance than most.
Drugs, just like pain and other nerve stimulus (I have very strong willpower over being tickled even though I am quite ticklish) seem to require stronger amounts to affect me to the level as the average populace.
I guess I can attribute this to my redhair or Dutch genes, being one and the same.
I'm with you (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think that I'm more susceptible to pain either. Friends frequently refer to me as the guy with the 'asbestos hands'. If anything, I have a higher pain tolerance than most
I don't buy it either. I'm pretty blond-ish (I've got reds in my beard and mixed in with a bunch of light colors in my hair) and I'm rather light-skinned. I'd describe myself almost exactly as you describe yourself. I even have a friend like yours with a higher tolerance than myself (although he's recently stopped drinking). I hardly feel pain and when I do it's usually too late.
I've broken all of my fingers (most twice), most of my toes, a few ribs, both ankles and both wrists. I have a 10" long "depression" in my skull from when I cracked it playing football in the house at age 6 (dove for a "pass", hit the little metal striker plate on the door jamb). I had a double hernia at 18 months old. When I was growing up, I'd say I had a cast/splint on something for about 3 months out of every year. For the longest time, everyone thought I was really fragile. Turns out I just didn't feel it when something broke, and so never had that "Don't dive into a tackle with your fingers sticking out" negative reinforcement. I'd break something and not notice until I couldn't bend a joint or it hurt later on when I moved it in some way.
I've even broken fingers and not known it. I once went in to the emergency room for a sprain or whatever and they discovered an old break I didn't remember. That was when I did go into the emergency room. After a while, I stopped because it was too expensive (and I had a full set of splints anyway). That's why to this day I can't touch type; I took typing class three times but could never complete it (twice for fingers, once for wrist).
I don't get cold very easily. I mean, wiping ice off a windshield is no big deal. Hot isn't terribly bothersome, either. Reaching into a campfire to move a log around or into water to get corn (or whatever) isn't something I normally think about not doing. It takes a couple more beers than most people to get a head of steam going, and I never ever throw up from drinking. I'm not ticklish. When I get a splinter, I just take it out with a scalpel and a small incision because it's easier and quicker than digging around. A healthy splash of rubbing alcohol afterward isn't bad at all. I've had a tooth (accidentally) removed without anesthesia. That hurt a lot. It takes a couple Vicodins to do any good. Curisouly, aspirin works very well for most stuff. When I get a headache, it's migraine-quality.
Long story short, I don't buy the relationship between hair color/skin tone and nerve responsiveness. I know I'm only a sample of one (and a highly biased researcher :-) but the theory just doesn't hold water. I am not more susceptible to pain than most people.
BTW, I haven't broken anything in four years. If the lack of negative physical feedback didn't teach me to be careful, the feedback of "no type, no money" sure did. I still do stuff like play paintball, it's just that I tend to think a little more carefully about what I need to do before I do it.
Oh yeah, I'm not Dutch. Scotch-Irish/English, with a teensy bit of Polish.
-B
Re:I'm with you (Score:3, Funny)
I think we've found the reason for your apparent lack of pain receptors!
Re:I don't buy their conclusion. (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't this a bit of a generalization? (Score:4, Insightful)
The article states that, in general, redheads felt more pain. But what if i don't? What if i feel less pain than average? Directly linking hair-color to pain reception is tenuous at best, and it seems like doctors messing with my anestheisa beacuase of my hair color could be bad, with the threat of coma.
I've never heard of hair color affecting ANYTHING before. Sure race affects some things, like reactions to certain drugs, and diseases. Sex and age as well will determine the best treatment. But hair color? What about eye color, does that factor in?
It seems like this is a broad generaliztion, and i don't think this can be the deciding criteria for pain reception. I don't buy it this first time round, if only based on personal experience.
Would you volunteer (Score:2)
We are looking for women aged between 19-40 to take part in our research aiming to help us understand fundamental questions such as which systems in the brain produce unconsciousness and which modulate pain perception. The research is conducted using empirical studies. Basicly, we will stick you with nails and see how you react. Please send your applications to...
I would believe the test group contains a bit more than average of masochist individuals. :)
Their conclusion is flawed (Score:5, Interesting)
They claim their findings indicate redheads are more susceptable to pain.
Based on what is presented in their article, an equaly valid point can be made:
anesthesia is less effective on redheads.
Both are legit conclusions from the presented evidence. Either redheads could feel more pain, or their bodies may not absorb/be affected by intoxicants as much.
Explains why the redheaded cultures are known for impressive drinking skills.
Re:Their conclusion is flawed (Score:5, Interesting)
When I had to have a major op as a kid, they had to give me a whole bunch of anesthetic to put me out. The normal "count down from 10" act didn't work. I had to have three attempts that I remember. When I had my lower wisdom teeth out, the normal 5 injections in the jaw went up to 40 injections before I lost enough feeling to start, and they had to keep topping me up, and it still hurt.
I'm also extremely resistant to ibuprofen, paracetamol, codeine, morphine, and a whole bunch of other pharms. Aspirin's the only one that works, and I need about twice the dose of someone else my age/height/build. My alcohol tolerance has always been extremely high. Marijuana has no effect on me whatsoever. I'm allergic or resistant to most medicines I've ever had.
More importantly, my mom has have _woken up_ during a major operation. Luckily they noticed quickly and put her under again. She also has similar resistance to pharmaceutical drugs.
I'd have to go with "anesthesia is less effective on redheads". I'd also flag it (Score: -1, Well Duh). More research from the Institute of the Blindingly Obvious.
Posting anonymously, because I've already moderated some of the more bigoted posts in this article. Some people don't realise the reason redheads tend to have short tempers is the amount of shit they get from bigots while growing up -- something the bigots obviously don't do.
Anecdotal experience (Score:5, Interesting)
If you hate those 1-800-CALL-ATT ads (Score:5, Funny)
Angie Everhardt in surgery (Score:4, Funny)
Doctor: Well, Miss Everhart [askmen.com] I need to verify that you're a 'real redhead' before we proceed with the operation to ensure proper dosage
Treating heads (Score:2)
Eggheads can be knock down only with a hammer...
Shaking melonheads as a new form of anesthesy...
Lemonheads give always a twisted smile after receiving the approporiate dose of anesthesic...
hemorrhage (Score:2, Informative)
FYI she worked at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.
Women only studied so far.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I vaguely recall reading somewhere that male and female responses to pain are somewhat different (beyond the obvious differential responses to anaesthetics caused by different body weight). Any of the anaesthetists who've posted care to comment?
Anesthesia? Surely not! (Score:3, Funny)
Huh? I can't think of anything more likely to *induce* pain than listening to that man-faced, pop-singing gasbag, Anesthesia.
Si
I'm a natural redhead... (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe this sensitivity has a correlation to the stereotypical "redhead temper." I know I'm a bit prone to fits of rage myself. (Yeah, okay, I've got a horrible temper and no one should ever be a passenger in a car that I'm driving because a sweet little redheaded girl turns into a demonic monster from hell behind the wheel screeching all kinds of obscenities especially when I'm in New Jersey but that's another stereotype for another day. I digress.) I'm such a wuss about pain, so I might have just started reacting more to negative things. Hence the temper.
I don't know, just my two cents..
what about black people? (Score:4, Informative)
I just recall in my days of competitive running that I was taught at the OTC that people with genes from one side of Africa have certain body makeups and are mostly fast twitch fibers, and people from the other side are mostly slow twitch.
What does that have to do with any of this? The odd thing that they also noted was that natural red heads had nearly identical makeups to the fast twitch section of people that they studied in Africa.
This meant that if you were at a track race and were looking at the top runners winning a sprinting race - the odds were going to indicate it more likely that the people of African decent (aren't we all if we go back far enough?) would most likely be genetically from the same area, and the white people would most likely have red hair.
And once I started looking for it, I was impressed that it actually rang true - lots of fast Irish guys.
I've never seen much mention of anything pointing out red heads since that study until now - usually hair color isn't thought to mean much in the grand scheme of things (aside from my preferring blondes).
Me at the dentist (Score:3, Interesting)
Pheromones (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmmm I wonder... (Score:3, Funny)
20 % more chloroform (Score:3, Funny)
Yesssss my precioussss
Re:Hmmmm.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I've noticed that (Score:2)
what the hell is wrong with _you_ ? do your teeth look like the back of a hammer or something ?
Re:alleviate the pain? (Score:3, Interesting)
Thus, the modern anesthesia is designed to 1) make you unconscious (halotane), 2) kill the pain (morphine and its derivatives) and 3) relax your muscles (Alcuronium/Alloferin and curare derivatives). Whether all three of these are desirable depends on the surgery. In brain surgeries, for instance, the patient is often awake and just sedated, although the scalp is obviously locally anesthesized and blood thickener is injected to prevent bleeding.
I just can't win... (Score:4, Funny)
Five bucks says it feels like your mouth is on fire wherever they apply it. I find it useless, too. Can't they find a better way to inject than to go an inch into the joint in my gums? I can't imagine there's anywhere else it could hurt more... And they make sure your muscles are as as stretched as possible for maximum pain (ok, they don't do it on purpose, and I could always lay off the candy).
"Don't worry, it just feels like a mosquito bite". Yeah, like a mosquito bite on my crotch, maybe.
Carbocaine sounds great, but with previous experiences with other prescription pain killers, I'm wary to try it.
Last major dental surgery was having wisdom teeth removed. After waking up, I puked lots of blood (I'm told I was a real winner for the amount -- and the first in the last while) and was given Toradol for the pain.
After two Toradols [healthsquare.com] I sat in a seat for a while trying to catch my breath while my heart was racing (probably a stupid thing to do -- next time I'll get my ass to the hospital instead). So again, I lived with the pain, and used that super-duper tylenol they prescribe you instead.
Maybe I'm just an over-sensitive, over-complaining loser, though. Or it could be the fact I haven't been in hospital for anything serious for a couple of decades. No, the first one sounds more realistic.
Thanks for the suggestion anyways. I'll ask about it...
Re:Warning: Bad Irish Joke (Score:3, Informative)