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Research finds four keys to piercing skin without hurting
Researchers at The Ohio State University believe we can learn from nature's design of the mosquito to create a painless microneedle for medical purposes.
"Mosquitoes must be doing something right if they can pierce our skin and draw blood without causing pain," said Bharat Bhushan, Ohio Eminent Scholar and Howard D. Winbigler Professor of mechanical engineering at Ohio State.
"We can use what we have learned from mosquitoes as a starting point to create a better microneedle."
In a recently published paper, Bhushan and his colleagues reported on their detailed analysis of the mosquito's proboscis -- the part that feeds on us. They identified four keys to how the insects pierce us without pain: use of a numbing agent; a serrated design to the "needle"; vibration during the piercing; and a combination of soft and hard parts on the proboscis.
Lessons from mosquitoes' painless piercing (DOI: 10.1016/j.jmbbm.2018.05.025) (DX)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday June 29 2018, @05:55AM (3 children)
I am a notoriously "tough stick". My Happy Pills might destroy my liver someday so I need regular CBC counts. That I'm a dirty old man now makes me a candidate for diabetes, heart attack and stroke. I have such great psychogenic pokydipsia that my very first symptom of hyponatremia may very well be sudden death. Last but not least I have a chronic vitamin D deficiency that even prescription Ergocalciferol won't give me strong teeth and bones.
What gets me down is not the initial stick but the way my nurses move their needles in and out and side to side as they vainly attemp to corner my vein.
In the ER one night my nurse was so stymied by my small wiggly veins that she wheeled out the heavy artillery:
A phenomenally expensive device that projected my veins onto my arm with a diode laser. It's was so powerful that as I moved my arm around it updated its image in real time.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29 2018, @07:26AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday June 29 2018, @01:11PM
Strontium and phosphorus for bones too.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday June 29 2018, @03:01PM
Interesting. I am a tough stick also, often. My record in one setting was 11 sticks to get a good vein. A couple of times it has been 7. On my record they used an ultrasound to spot the vein.
It's lucky that I'm so used to that by now it usually doesn't matter - the staff are far more apoogetic to me than they need be because I know it is my veins and not their skill that is the issue at hand.
This sig for rent.