“O.K. Just a little pin prick. There’ll be no more aaaaaah!” Surely, this line from the famous 1979 track ‘Comfortably Numb’, by Pink Floyd, could not have been more prescient. Nearly four decades later, little pin prick or big pin prick – 3D printing is here to help make injections painless – literally!
A team of three enterprising freshmen at Rice University have come up with a device that non-invasively takes the fear and loathing out of getting poked by a syringe. And, honestly, who wouldn’t need that; from children to the elderly, from those with needle phobia to those extra-sensitive to the slightest prick – everyone can breathe easier knowing that taking a flu shot or getting inoculated… is now nearly innocuous. So, what’s the device called? Comfortably Numb – of course.
What the device does is that it rapidly numbs the skin by cooling it to 4.5 degrees Celsius (40 degrees Farenheit), doing what an ice-pack does but in a faster and more focused way. The device is a tiny canister that attaches to any hypodermic needle. The canister contains a bit of water and ammonium nitrate that are separated initially by a seal. Just before the injection, the canister is twisted, to break the seal and allow the two substances to mix, and this mixing cools a metal plate, which, in turn, numbs the skin, all in 60 seconds.
‘Comfortably Numb’ has other advantages, too. It’s disposable and, since it is non-invasive with no substances coming in direct contact with skin, it has far fewer hurdles to jump when it comes to getting approval from the FDA. Also, the rate at which it numbs the specific area of skin makes is far greater when compared to other solutions that could take almost an hour to create a similar effect. Then, the fact that you can attach it to existing hypodermic needles means that injecting and numbing are done in one quick swoop.
It’s a terrific, yet simple, idea that Andy Zhang, Mike Hua and Greg Allison have come up with. As part of a course that required them to solve real-world problems, Comfortably Numb was created in response to a problem posed by Dr. Mehdi Razadi – a cardiothoracic surgeon at the Texas Heart Institute, namely to design something to numb the skin before an injection, especially when those injections are to the face or groin. The students prototyped the device using Stratasys and Formlabs 3D printers and tested it on a comparative pain scale (that hospitals are familiar with).
The device is pretty straightforward in its make and working, and, as they say, “The materials that we use are relatively inexpensive and found in abundance: plastic, rubber and metal. The materials for one of these cost about a quarter, and then we just had to do estimates based on how much manufacturing would cost. We compared our device to similar things already in production, and we’ve estimated the cost at about $2.”
The $2 cost could be a problem, given that the average needle and syringe are available for about 35 cents. It isn’t reusable either, but the students believe that the benefits could justify the cost, particularly for those doctors who have to administer injections frequently. Currently, an application for a provisional patent is in process and the students are considering exploring the device’s potential to the fullest. You can find out more here.
For instance, its applications could also include numbing prior to tattooing or piercing. They’re also looking to make the device even smaller and are considering bringing the product to a broader commercial market. “At the end of the day, what we’re creating is a self-contained device with a very cold contact surface, and there are many applications for that.”
So, the next time you go to get an injection, don’t sweat or let the anxiety get to you. It’s not going to be like before – it’s going to be cool and casual. It’ll probably be painless. And if it leaves you feeling comfortably numb – you now know why.
