Project 'Comfortably Numb' May Have Made Injections Painless
There are a lot of people who loath visiting doctors because of the shot administered there. Whether we're talking about a needle phobia or just uneasiness when it comes to injections, the problem is pretty real. The good news is that a team of students from the Rice University in Texas has come up with a simple yet effective solution for this issue. Comfortably Numb is a 3D-printed prototype designed to take the patients' pain away when they are getting injected.
Since the team who came up with this gadget is composed of three freshmen from the University, the solution itself had to be incredibly simple. Basically, the single-use prototype is a 3D-printed cylinder with a metal plate placed at one of its ends. Inside the case there are two bags which contain water and ammonium nitrate which, when mixed together (through a twist of the cylinder), instantly cool the metal plate. It's the same principle as for those little instant ice bags which you crush in your hand. The cooled metal will numb the respective area of your body, thus preventing you from feeling any pain when the needle goes through the skin.
According to the studies, the numbing happens in somewhere around 60 seconds which is considerably less than it would take for you to achieve the same effect using creams or sprays. Furthermore, once it is ready, the cylinder will also embed a needle, thus allowing the doctor or nurse to numb and inject you with one swift motion.
At the moment I can't give you an official launch date for this device, but being totally honest I'm more curios about the price of this product. In order for it to catch on it will have to be cheap enough to stop people from simply applying a bag of ice and then inserting the needle, but I'm not entirely sure that the production costs could go quite that low.
